Originally Posted By: Son of Mxy
I just marathoned the shit out of the newWho's 4th season, and damn I love Donna. I even like her more than Amy Pond (except when we're talking about wanking material)

Of the female companions she's been set up as the most useless (at least, that was what she believed). But I think she's the one who's been most useful to tenth. Of course, in a fight or anything that requires athletic ability, Rose and Martha may be more useful, and academically speaking, martha is hands down the most intelligent (she's a damn doctor!). But the doctor can already handle those two parts. There's nothing Martha and Rose would have done or thought of that the doctor couldn't have by himself.

Donna, on the other hand, catches things that the doctor misses. She's not bookish, but she's smart. And she's able to convince tenth to do things that he wasn't planning on doing. The other two companions were treated as assistants/pets, Donna was treated as an equal.

Also, I think the roles were reversed for her. whereas Rose and Martha were always trying to get the doctor's approval, tenth was actually trying to please Donna most of the time.




I think my big problem with Donna comes from how I viewed the shows. I got into Who in late 2007 and watched back to back episodes from the first three series over the course of a couple weeks. I loved them.
With Series 4 I had to wait several months and then while I would enjoy the episode I found Tennant's performance to feel almost tired by comparison to years past. It was announced early on that series 5 was being delayed due to Hamlet which really said that the show had slipped from being his top priority. Then after each episode I would watch the Confidential where rtd would gush about how amazing and special Donna was. And while I liked her questioning nature and keen observations I felt there was too much pressure to love her and it really annoyed me and that feeling was linked to her character. They just tried too damn hard. I also had issues with a lot of the episodes and the ending finale felt really cheesy with too many "fuck yous" to the audience.
All this combined to link Donna in my mind with a bad era of Who.

Bow ties are coool.