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Donna Noble (later Donna Temple-Noble) was a companion of the Tenth Doctor. Despite her commonplace origins, she was noted by Rose Tyler and then by the Tenth Doctor as being the most important woman in all of creation. Donna saved the whole of reality from the Daleks and Davros, though to survive the stress caused by her transformation into the DoctorDonna, her memories of her time with the Doctor were forcibly erased and she was returned to Earth. She later married Shaun Temple.
Biography
Early life
Donna Noble was the only daughter of Geoff and Sylvia Noble and the granddaughter of Wilfred and Eileen Mott, born in the late 1970s. On her first day at school, she was sent home for biting (DW: The Runaway Bride).
When she was six, her mother refused to take her on holiday that year; undaunted, Donna got on a bus and went on her own to Strathclyde. Her grandfather would later remind her of this incident to buck her up (DW: Partners in Crime). She was a lifelong supporter of West Ham United (DW: Planet of the Ood).
Donna missed the Christmas Day Sycorax invasion of Earth due to a hangover, and also the Cybermen invasion because she was on holiday in Spain, scuba diving (DW: The Runaway Bride). Consequently, she was unprepared for the existence of alien life when she first encountered it herself. While Donna may have been involved or even killed in the Toclafane invasion, a global event, she retained no memory of the existence of aliens due to the reversal of that invasion by the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones.
Her career consisted mainly of temp jobs. She worked in a library for a while, and at some point before June 2007 for two years at a double-glazing firm (DW: The Runaway Bride, The Doctor's Daughter). In June 2007, Donna had the choice of working as a full-time secretary for Jival Chowdry or as a temporary secretary at H.C. Clements, a security firm. Although she considered the former at her mother's insistence, an accident blocked the traffic to the right. As a result she turned left and went to work for Clements (DW: Turn Left).
- Unknown to Donna, the accident was caused by a future version of herself from an alternate timeline.
At Clements, she fell in love with Lance Bennett, whom she pressured into marriage. While she planned the wedding, she was unaware that Lance was dosing her coffee with Huon particles by order of the Empress of the Racnoss, whom he secretly served (DW: The Runaway Bride).
Meeting the Doctor
At her wedding (Christmas Eve 2007), while walking down the aisle with her father, Huon particles reracted with her elevated emotional state and teleported Donna into the Doctor's TARDIS. After Robot Santas prevented the Doctor returning her in time for her actual wedding, he got her there for the reception. When a Robotic Christmas Tree fired explosives at the guests, They investigated H.C. Clements. The trail led them to a secret base under the Thames where Lance and the Empress of the Racnoss revealed their plans. Donna helped the Doctor defeat the Empress and pulled him away from the Empress' death, saving his life. She turned down his offer to travel with him. (DW: The Runaway Bride, Turn Left)
Joining the Doctor
Donna could not resume her old, complacent life. Her eyes were opened to the universe. After the encounter with the Racnoss, Donna's father died. Meanwhile, Donna tried to live without the Doctor, going to Egypt for two weeks to bring some excitement into her life. When this failed, she set to work investigating unexplained happenings, trying to meeting him again, knowing the Doctor always ran into trouble. She caught up with him while looking into Adipose Industries.
Donna witnessed the March of the Adipose and went on to travel with the Doctor in the TARDIS. Unlike most companions of the Doctor, Donna came well prepared for the trip—most, if not all, of her predecessors joined the Doctor with little more than the clothes on their backs. Not Donna! The Doctor was surprised when he noted she had included a hat box. At this time it was established that the Doctor and Donna's relationship would be entirely platonic.
Just before she left, whilst trying to find a suitable place to leave her car keys, she approached a blond woman standing at a police line. She was Rose Tyler. (DW: Partners in Crime)
Travels with the Doctor
After leaving home, Donna and the Doctor traveled back to ancient Pompeii on the day that Mt Vesuvius erupted. She tried to convince him to stop the eruption but he said this was impossible. She fought the Pyrovile and convinced the Doctor to save one family from the devastation. (DW: The Fires of Pompeii) They next traveled to the Ood Sphere and discovered the dark secret behind the Ood's servitude. They ended the mutilation and freed the Ood once and for all. (DW: Planet of the Ood) They returned to Earth to deal with a Sontaran invasion. Donna met the Doctor's former companion Martha Jones, who now worked for UNIT. She went home to see her family and was terrified when her grandfather almost died at the hand of the Sontarans. She knocked a Sontaran unconscious by hitting it on the probic vent with a hammer. (DW: The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky)
Donna learnt the Doctor had been a father. (DW: The Doctor's Daughter)
She met Agatha Christie in 1926 and killed a Vespiform by throwing the Firestone into a lake to save Agathas life. During this adventure, she inadvertently influenced the creation of Miss Marple and Murder on the Orient Express by mentioning them to Christie years before they were created; although Christie's memories of the incident were wiped, some unconscious memories remained. (DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp)
During a visit to a planet known as The Library, Donna befriended Miss Evangelista and was able to briefly communicate with her consciousness after the girl had been killed by the Vashta Nerada. Soon after, Donna's consciousness was "saved" to the planet-core-sized hard drive by CAL when the Doctor transported her to the TARDIS. A replica of her face subsequently appeared as one of the Library's information Nodes. Unaware of what had happened, Donna disjointedly experienced several years of an idyllic married life and had two children; she retained these memories after being restored to her real self. (DW: Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead)
On a visit to the planet Shan Shen, Donna was distracted by a fortune teller while a Time Beetle leapt on her back and changed her history. She had never taken the action which led her to meet The Doctor (see Donna's World). In the alternate world Donna again met Rose Tyler, whose identity she never learned. Rose gave her a message for the Doctor. In the alternate timeline, Donna died restoring reality. Her "normal timeline" version barely remembered the message from Rose, and Donna gave the Doctor her message: "Bad Wolf" (DW: Turn Left)
Against the Daleks
Donna and the Doctor rushed to Earth, only to discover it was gone, and then to the Shadow Proclamation for help (DW: The Stolen Earth) Donna was separated from the Doctor when, for reasons unknown, the TARDIS refused to let her leave when the others surrendered to the Daleks.
Soon after, regeneration energy stored in the Doctor's hand created a being who looked like the Doctor, but who was also half human and had aspects of Donna's personality. The Biological Meta-Crisis was a two way process and Donna herself had also been given "The best part of the Doctor, his mind," rendering her the "DoctorDonna" of the Ood's prophecy.
She used her newfound intellect to deactivate the reality bomb and defeat Davros and the Dalek Empire. the Doctor used the TARDIS to successfully restore Earth to its proper place in the solar system. After assisting the Doctor in exiling the Meta-Crisis Doctor to Pete's World and saying farewell to Rose, Donna's mind overloaded, a consequence of the unbearable Time Lord-human meta-crisis. To save her life, the Doctor wiped her memories of all her adventures with him. (DW: Journey's End)
Back to Earth
The Doctor returned Donna home, with strict instructions to her mother and grandfather never to tell her about the Doctor or the TARDIS. The Donna who had saved the universe was dead, fulfilling Dalek Caan's prophecy. After a final meeting in which he introduced himself as John Smith, the Doctor left Donna to her "normal" life. Wilfred, her grandfather, promised to keep thinking of the Doctor on her behalf, and never to mention the Doctor to her as that might trigger her memory of events to return and cause her mind to "burn up", killing her. (DW: Journey's End)
By Christmas 2009, Donna had gotten her life back on track, becoming engaged to Shaun Temple. She nearly bumped into the Doctor twice. For Christmas, she gave Wilf a book by Joshua Naismith, but did not know exactly why she got it for him, stating that she simply "felt" like he should have it. The Doctor believed that it was her Time Lord subconscious directing Wilf since he was so important.
On Christmas Day, the Master turned every human into versions of himself. Donna's half-Time Lord mind meant she was unaffected but her mother and Shaun were not. The shock of seeing them transformed into duplicates of the Master reawakened some of the memories of her travels with the Doctor, with visions of several aliens she had met appearing in her mind. She called Wilf and was told to run for her life.
While the planet of Gallifrey appeared in the sky hurtling towards Earth, Shaun shown found her unconscious and brought her home. The Doctor had also implanted a self-defence device that sent her to sleep and saved her from the Master clones, but did not harm her. She came to when the TARDIS appeared in the street and complained that she has, once again, missed something important.
Donna's memories of the Doctor apparently never returned. In Spring 2010, Donna and Shaun were married and left the church with family and friends cheering them on. Donna asked specifically for a photograph for her and her friends, allowing her mother and grandfather Wilfred to speak with the Doctor for one last time. They returned and gave Donna a brown envelope, a gift from her now-deceased father and the Doctor, a lottery ticket. She remembered that the lottery had a triple roll-over prize before stuffing it in her dress. (DW: The End of Time)
The Doctor still felt guilty over what travelling with him had done to Donna, feeling that he had "screwed up" her life, These feelings persisted into his next incarnation. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler)
Alternate timeline
- See Donna's World for more information.
In an alternate timeline, Donna chose to work for Jival Chowdry. She was promoted to personal assistant to Chowdry, but her life and career collapsed, beginning with Chowdry laying her off, and a number of national and worldwide cataclysms that followed the death of a man called The Doctor. During the next couple of years, Donna and her family wound up to living as refugees as British society collapsed.
She has several encounters with a mysterious blonde woman who claimed that Donna's life was not meant to turn out this way. When the Judoon transported the Royal Hope Hospital to the Moon, the Doctor wasn't there for the Plasmavore to take his blood and be caught by the Judoon. Everyone in the hospital died, including Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, Maria, Luke and Clyde. The next Christmas the Titanic crashed into Buckingham Palace, destroying southern England; the blonde woman had convinced Donna to take ger family on a vacation in the country with the prize of a raffle ticket Donna had. Later, because the Doctor wasn't around, Adipose Industries was set up in America, making the population turn into Adipose babies. The A.T.M.O.S device was set off, but was stopped by Torchwood. Ianto and Gwen were killed, and Captain Jack was stranded on Sontar.
Donna agreed to be sent back to June 2007 in a jury-rigged time machine; her task was to prevent her younger self from "turning right" and taking the fatal job with Chowdry. Unable to get there in time, the alternate Donna Noble threw herself in front of a lorry to cause a traffic jam that would physically prevent her younger self from making that decision. Just before her death, the blonde woman appeared to Donna and passed a message for her to give to the Doctor. When the timeline was restored, Donna Noble retained dreamlike memories of the alternate timeline, including the blonde woman and her message to the Doctor: "Bad Wolf". (DW: Turn Left)
Family
Known family/offspring of Donna Noble:
- Wilfred Mott - grandfather
- Eileen Mott - grandmother, deceased
- Geoff Noble - father, deceased
- Sylvia Noble - mother
- Shaun Temple - husband
- Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor - partial offspring (DW: Journey's End)
CAL's world
- Lee McAvoy - husband
- Ella McAvoy - daughter
- Joshua McAvoy - son
Career
Donna worked as a temping secretary in several places, including H.C. Clements and a double glazing firm. (DW: The Runaway Bride, The Sontaran Stratagem) She worked for health and safety for a week but kept the ID card. (DW: Partners in Crime) At some point she also had been working at Hounslow Library for six months, where she learned Dewey Decimal System in two days flat (DW: The Doctor's Daughter)
In an alternate timeline, she worked as a secretary for Jival Chowdry's local photocopying business instead of H.C. Clements, but she was soon replaced and fired. (DW: Turn Left)
Personality
Donna's first encounter with the Doctor was bewildering for both: the Doctor was shocked into speechlessness by her sudden appearance in his TARDIS; Donna was furious with the Doctor for "kidnapping" her. Though Donna's sharp tongue and hair-trigger temper kept the Doctor at arm's length for most of their first adventure, quieter moments showed a more level-headed and perceptive woman. Although she sometimes appeared unintelligent, and persistently referred to the fact that she was 'only a temp', she was actually quite smart: she mastered the Dewey Decimal System in two days while working at a library. When she joined the Doctor in his journeys, her quick, and sometimes dry, wit often came out, coinciding with his own.
Though most companions were, to some degree, the Doctor's conscience, Donna adopted this role more openly and forcefully than her predecessors. She pleaded with the Doctor to save the inhabitants of Pompeii - if not all of Pompeii, then a single family. Most importantly, Donna insisted that the Doctor acknowledge Jenny as his daughter, no matter how she was created or what job she was bred to do.
Donna's fiery temper hid a deep well of compassion, as she showed when she reached out to Agatha Christie, intending to share her own story of failed marriage.
When the Doctor's companion Martha Jones recalled the Doctor to Earth, she and Donna became fast friends; neither was jealous and both were willing to share experiences. The Doctor found this disconcerting. (DW: The Sontaran Stratagem) Her relationship with Rose Tyler was initially abrasive in the alternate timeline (DW: Turn Left) but friendly in the real universe. (DW: Journey's End) She also enjoyed a brief attraction to Captain Jack Harkness, which at one point involved her pushing Sarah Jane Smith out of the way to get a hug from him. (DW: Journey's End)
Unlike Rose and Martha, Donna seemed intent on maintaining a platonic relationship with the Doctor, reacting with disgust when she misinterpreted his comment "I just want a mate" (friend) as "I want to mate" (breed) (DW: Partners in Crime). She kissed him, but only in order to shock him. (DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp) She was very supportive of the Doctor; at one poin forcing him to admit that despite the potential collapse of universes, her coming back was a good thing (DW: The Stolen Earth). She also supported the Doctor when the time came to leave the Meta-Crisis Doctor and Rose behind on Pete's World. Just before her memories were wiped, however, she tearfully echoed Rose's earlier desire to travel with the Doctor "forever". (DW: Journey's End) The Doctor reciprocated Donna's referring to her as his best friend. (DW: The End of Time)
The Meta-Crisis Doctor, working from his original template's memories, recognised Donna's brash attitude arose because she truly believed that she was unimportant; she was "Shouting at the universe, because she thinks no one is listening." The original Doctor attributed this to her mother never telling Donna she was important to her. (DW: Journey's End)
Behind the scenes
- The name Donna Noble was not revealed to the public until promotional material began to circulate for The Runaway Bride. In the closing credits of Doomsday, the character is only identified as "The Bride".
- In the Eleventh Doctor episode Let's Kill Hitler, Donna briefly appears (after Rose Tyler and Martha Jones) as a possible voice-print interface for the Doctor in the TARDIS. He rejects them all, claiming they all give him guilt, eventually setting on a younger Amelia Pond. This shows that the Doctor still feels guilt for what happened to Donna.
- A deleted scene from Journey's End included in the Series 4 DVD boxset showed Donna, after her mind-wipe, reacting with recognition to the sound of the departing TARDIS, but dismissing it.
- Doctor Noble was an alias of the Third Doctor.
- If her appearance in Doomsday is counted as the end of Series 2, and her appearance in The Runaway Bride is counted as the beginning of Series 3, she has in fact appeared in three series. Four, if one includes the 2009 specials separately from Series 4. This makes her the only companion to appear in all series of the Tenth Doctor.
- Donna is the focus of both of the main trailers released prior to the debut of Series 4. The first trailer also shown in cinemas incorporated dialogue scenes from Partners in Crime featured Donna talking to her grandfather about the Doctor. The second trailer, however, used a specially shot scene of Donna sitting by a bonfire talking to either an unseen individual or the audience about the Doctor "coming back to save us" and "I'll be ready" interspersed with images of Sontarans, Ood and Daleks. There is no scene like this in any of the episodes; the meaning of "he'll come back to save us" is unknown as there is no circumstance within Series 4 in which Donna would be in such a position to make such a remark. Some fans pointed out how the trailer was similar in format to one for a 1990s movie called The Usual Suspects in which a main character is not what he seems; much of the speculation over the true nature of Donna's character, including speculation that she might have been Davros or The Master in disguise, stemmed from this trailer.
- Due to timing and her short tenure on the series, Donna appears in only two comic strip stories published in Doctor Who Magazine, and (Autopia and Cold-Blooded War) Doctor Who comics by IDW Publishing.
- Russell T. Davies has stated that he sees Donna as how the First Doctor companion Barbara Wright would be presented today. (The Writer's Tale)
- In the commentary for The End of Time, Russel T. Davies stated that Donna's wedding to Shaun Temple takes place in Spring 2010.
- To date (excluding Amy Pond) Donna is the only noteworthy companion of the revival not to end up working for some kind of Earth-based anti-alien intelligence force after parting company with the Doctor. (Jack = Torchwood Three, Rose = Parallel Torchwood One, Mickey = Parallel Torchwood One, then later freelance, Martha = UNIT, Torchwood, and later freelance). Donna commented with disdain on meeting Martha, asking the Doctor if he turned all his companions into soldiers like her.
- In a very crude translation, the name "Donna Temple-Noble" means "Lady Time-Lord" (Donna is Italian for Lady, one meaning of the word Temple finds origin in the Latin Tempus, and Noble means "of noble birth, such as a Lord or a royal.")