Series 3 (2007)
Episode title: The Runaway BrideFeaturing: Tenth Doctor
Companions: Donna Noble
First shown: 25th December 2006
Related articles: The Racnoss
Guide: Donna Noble, bride-to-be, walks down the aisle of the church where her husband-to-be, Lance Bennett, waits at the altar in her Christmas Eve wedding. But before they can tie the knot, Donna is surrounded in a golden glow and dissolves into a cloud of energy, flying through the ceiling and disappearing. Meanwhile, in outer space, orbiting a supernova, the Doctor looks grimly on, having just finished his goodbyes to his previous companion, Rose Tyler, and if surprised to turn round and find Donna standing by the doors, demanding to know where she is. Donna herself is no amused at having been kidnapped from her wedding and blames the Doctor before storming to the doors and walking out. As she does so, she finds herself in outer space, which brings her back to her senses and realises that the Doctor is an alien. Donna demands that the Doctor return her to the church for her wedding, while the Doctor cannot figure out how she gained entry to the TARDIS. Spotting Rose's jacket, Donna accuses the Doctor of abducting other women but the Doctor just gloomily admits that she's gone. The Doctor returns the TARDIS to Earth, trying to land it in Chiswick but accidently lands near Oxford Street instead. Donna storms out of the TARDIS and tries to contact her family without much success before trying to get a taxi, but the taxi drivers believe her to be a drunk in fancy dress and refuse to pick her up. After being rejected, Donna realises that she doesn't have any money for a taxi anyway so the Doctor goes to a cashpoint to organise some while Donna pleads with a passer-by who eventually lends her the money and a taxi finally picks her up.
While working on the cashpoint, the Doctor notices masked Santa's from The Christmas Invasion (2005 Christmas Special) hanging around, pointing their weapons disguised as musical instruments at him. He distracts the Santa's by using his Sonic Screwdriver to cause another cashpoint to malfunction and shoot money out, causing a flurry of shoppers to rush forward to collect the money while the Doctor escapes in search of Donna. As he finds her, he sees the driver is another masked Santa and sets the TARDIS to pursue the vehicle. Realising that the cab isn't taking her to the church, Donna sees the TARDIS in pursuit along the dual carriageway, where it pulls up alongside the taxi to rescue her. Using the Sonic Screwdriver to unlock the taxi doors, the Doctor levels the TARDIS next to the taxi and tells Donna to jump in, which she does before the TARDIS flies off to land. However, the strain on the TARDIS caused by such an endeavour results in the Doctor being unable to use the TARDIS for some time, so he joins her in going back to Chiswick. The Doctor gives Donna a bio-damper ring to prevent the Santa's from being able to track her and tries to learn more about her. Donna reveals that she's marrying Lance, whom she met while working as a temp at H.C. Clements. The Doctor and Donna go to her reception, where she sees her husband-to-be dancing with another woman, though her arrival is met with relief by her family and friends. The Doctor borrows a phone to find that H.C. Clements was owned by the Torchwood Institute and watches the video footage from the wedding recorder to discover that Donna is infused with Huon particles, a source of energy that hasn't existed since the dark times at the beginning of the universe, but does exist in the heart of the TARDIS. The Doctor also realises that a bio-damper won't mask the Huon energy and rushes to the windows to find the reception hall surrounded by the masked Santa's. The Santa's use remote control to control the baubles attached to a Christmas tree, which are actually bombs, exploding into the crowd. The Santa's invade the reception hall, but the Doctor uses the sound system and his Sonic Screwdriver to shake the Santa's apart and traces their signal to a star-shaped spaceship in orbit around Earth, but he loses the signal before he can get to it.
The Doctor, Lance and Donna travel to H.C. Clements building where the Doctor learns that someone else took over the company following Torchwood's dissolution after the Battle of Canary Wharf in Doomsday (Series 2 : Episode 13), though Donna has no recollection of the event claiming that she was in Spain at the time. At the building, the Doctor discovers a basement level not mentioned on the floor plans of the building, and the trio travel down to it. There, they find a tunnel leading to the Thames Flood Barrier where Torchwood had a lab where they managed to manufacture Huon particles and store them in liquid form, which the Doctor explains that Donna was saturated in them and the stress of her wedding day caused the particles to catalyse and activate, pulling her into the TARDIS. At one end of the lab lies a large hole, which the Doctor guesses was dug out by the Torchwood laser technology and extends to the centre of the Earth. Meanwhile, a half-humanoid, half-spider teleports into a web built above the hole in the lab, which the Doctor recognises to be a member of the Racnoss race, a race thought extinct after the Fledgling Empires wiped them out during the Dark Times of the universe. The Racnoss calls itself the Empress and crawls around its web where the body of H.C. Clements still hangs. While the Doctor talks to the Racnoss, distracting it, Lance sneaks around with an axe and prepares to strike, before ultimately revealing that he's been working in conjunction with the Empress, also revealing that he had deliberately spiked Donna's coffee with Huon particles during her work as a temp. More Santa's appear, but the Doctor pulls the TARDIS to them using the Huon particles in Donna in a reverse of how she got pulled into the TARDIS, with the TARDIS materialising around them as the Santa's open fire.
The Empress instead pulls Lance into her web and feeds him with Huon particles intending to pull Donna back in the same way, while the Doctor takes the TARDIS to the beginning of the universe to find out why the Racnoss needs the Huon energy in the first place. At the creation of the Earth, the Doctor discovers that a Racnoss ship ended up becoming the centre of the Earth with the rest of the planet forming around it, and the Empress intends to use the Huon energy to reawaken the Racnoss on the ship. As they discover this, the Empress uses the Huon energy in Lance to pull the TARDIS back, though as it lands the Doctor uses the Tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator (seen in Boom Town (Series 1 : Episode 11) to shunt it into the tunnel outside, though as the duo leave the TARDIS, Donna is almost immediately recaptured, while the Doctor is held at gunpoint. The Empress activates the Huon particles and, knowing that her children will be hungry, severs the web holding Lance up, causing him to fall into the pit. Meanwhile, the Empress' ship descends over the city of London, at first mistaken for a Christmas star before it begins firing at everyone, while the Doctor sneaks back into the lab dressed as a Santa, though the Empress sees through his disguise. The Doctor identifies himself as a Time Lord from Gallifrey, causing the Empress to become angry as the Time Lords had previously defeated the Racnoss. The Doctor offers the Empress a chance to live on another planet with her children where they can't threaten anyone, but the Empress refuses, so the Doctor reveals that he had some of the baubles from the Christmas tree and a remote control for them, which he uses to break the walls of the tunnel, allowing the Thames to flood in. The water pours in and down the hole in the floor, drowning the Racnoss children in the process. Donna pleads with the Doctor to stop, as he's caught up in his act and doesn't move until she begs with him and the pair escape back to the TARDIS and out into the open air while the Empress teleports back to her star-shaped spaceship, which is then blown out of the sky by tanks under the orders of Mr. Saxon.
On the Thames Flood Barrier, the Doctor finds that his actions have caused the Thames to be drained completely, beaching boats on the river bed, before taking Donna back to her home. Donna is upset at having both her job and her fiancé in the same evening, so the Doctor uses a burst of energy from the TARDIS to alter the atmosphere and cause it to snow, before inviting Donna to join him on his travels in the TARDIS, which she declines, though she encourages him to find someone. The Doctor briefly tells her about Rose, before agreeing to join her for Christmas dinner, though he says he has to do one more thing in the TARDIS first. Donna goes into her house and the Doctor enters the TARDIS and disappears.