Season 4 gets underway in earnest with the time vortex floating Catherine Tate and an the episode title penned by series re-creator Russell T Davies.  Insider game for this episode:  Spot the previously used locations!

Cue Donna, walking down a similar street to where Martha first appeared.  Quick shot of the exterior of Adipose Industries building.  Location Alert:  It’s the same building Jack got pushed off of by Captain John in the Torchwood episode Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.  Also of note is that adipose is actually the medical term for fat tissue.

Unbeknownst that the other one is present, Donna and the Doctor each scam their way into the Adipose building as health inspectors.  Donna walks in the front door, and the Doctor sonics his way in via a side corridor that Location Alert! is the same corridor where they rode Segway scooters during Runaway Bride.  I believe that Rose and Nine also used that corridor during S1’s Dalek as well.  

Now we’re at a presentation from a blonde schoolmarm dominatrix PR woman called Miss Foster, about Adipose’s weight loss miracle cure.  “The fat just walks away!”  There is a skeptical reporter in the crowd that looks a bit like Tish Jones, but it isn’t her.  Back to the Doctor and Donna, each conducting their own investigation into Adipose, but they comically seem to miss seeing each other at every turn.  There’s a flirty call center girl stalling the Doctor, a printer malfunction and cubicle near misses. It’s actually kind of cute.  Each gets presented with some customer information and a bonus gift necklace.  I wonder if that gift will prove to be important later on?  

Donna’s off at the house of an Adipose client, Stacy, whilst the Doctor calls on customer Roger.  Each has lost a bunch of weight.  Roger lost 14 kilo in 2 weeks, which meant very little to this American until I found an online conversion tool that alerted me to the fact that 14 kilos = 30 lbs.  Wow, that’s a lot of weight!  Strange, though, is that Roger seems to be having issues with his home alarm going off at 1:10 AM every day.  Stacy is so thrilled with her weight loss that she is dumping her boyfriend.  The Doctor ponders Roger’s cat flap, reassuring Roger that he’s met cat people before and that Roger is nothing like them.  I miss the cat nuns.   The key thing about cat flaps is that they let things out as well as in. “The fat just walks away!”

This reminds me of a funny George Carlin comedy routine where he talks about lost items going to a “pile” somewhere.  When you find them, they come back from the “pile.”  He goes on to discuss how is mother used to taunt him as a child about lost items with that snarky retort, “It couldn’t have just walked away, now could it!” And then, says George, he lost the cat.  It just got up and walked away.

Back to Donna, where fiddling with her new necklace pendant alerts Stacy’s fat, Miss Foster and the Doctor’s scanner thingy to her presence.  Here’s where I get completely grossed out and fall in love in the same instant.  Stacy’s fat proceeds to CGI itself out of Stacy in an Aliens sort of way into her bathroom sink.  That’s the gross part.  But the fat has now become this unbearably adorable little blob creature thing that is so frakkin’ cute, I can’t stand it.  Miss Foster knows the jig is up since Stacy has now seen the baby Adipose and calls for a full fat loss procedure, which does not bode well for our Stacy.  More and more blobs of fat dump into the sink creating more Adipose until she is completely gone.  The Adipose sneak out the window, but not before Donna breaks in, catching a glimpse of one on the way out the window.

Donna gives chase, as she and the Doctor just miss the Adipose company van (and each other, again) collecting the babies and taking off in a van. At corporate HQ, Miss Foster detects the saboteur in her midst, promising something will be done about her.  Donna returns home to mom who nags on and on while Donna bemoans her life.  She goes to see her granddad who is actually the very same not so random newspaper selling man from Voyage of the Damned!  She tells him to be on the lookout for a blue box in the sky.  A side sad note: This was actually supposed to be Donna’s dad, but the actor who played him in Runaway Bride, Howard Attfield, was very ill and couldn’t finish his scenes.  He has since passed away.

Next morning, Donna and the Doctor go back to Adipose corporate (separately) and decide to wait it out until closing time to snoop around some more.  Donna’s in the loo when Foster and her goon security guys head in there to scare up her saboteur.  Donna’s mom calls quite inconveniently, alerting the guards.  But, fakeout!  It’s actually the skeptical reporter that Foster is looking for.  Donna is safe for now.  On the roof, the Doctor takes the window washing bucket down the outside of the building, because we all know that’s the best and safest way to observe evil corporate goings on.  

So, the Doctor is outside the window listening in via stethoscope (how low tech!) while Miss Foster grills skeptical reporter and does the “villain revealing the evil plot to the victim right before killing them that never works” thing we saw last week.  Donna is peeking in, and finally about half way into the episode, Donna and the Doctor meet face to face.  Well, face to door window to office to window to window washing bucket to face.  For those that cannot read lips, the mimed conversation went as follows:

Doctor: Donna?
Donna: Doctor!?!
Doctor: What are you...?
Donna: OH. MY. GOD!
Doctor: How?
Donna: It's me!
Doctor: I see that.
Donna: Oh, this is brilliant!
Doctor: What the hell are you doing there?
Donna: I was looking for you!
Doctor: What for?
Donna: I read it on the Internet (Donna’s hand gesture here to represent the internet is hilarious).

Then it cuts back and forth to the Doctor looking confused as Donna tries to explain more.  We cut intermittently back to Donna.

Donna: ...it was odd…it crept along...heard them talking... *demonstrates peeking up at the window*... and then you!

Whereupon Miss Foster and her goons see the miming in progress and the chase begins.  It involves heading up to the roof, guns, and patent Doctor Who running down corridors and stairwells and such.  One stairwell features the more up close reunion between the Doctor and Donna.  Both observe that neither of them has changed, but Donna wonders if he has any other suits besides the one.  Donna explains that she’s been hunting for the Doctor by hanging around weird goings on in the hopes of running into him.  We learn that the bees are disappearing (odd but based in reality) and that Donna doesn’t believe that the Titanic almost crashed into the Palace last Christmas.  At least we know the truth about that one!

Oh no!  Miss Foster seems to have a sonic pen.  Who looks at a pen and says “Ooh, this could be a little more sonic?”  More chase, down the window washing basket and cable cutting resulting in hanging by wires and climbing through the window.  More chasing, ignoring inquisitive skeptical reporter.  She is told by the Doctor to just “make it up.” Caught by the “outer space Super Nanny” the Doctor reminds her that seeding a Level 5 planet is against intergalactic law.  He then causes a distraction by combing the energies of the sonic screwdriver and pen.  

Back in the overused corridor, the Doctor and Donna scramble to prevent Miss Foster from turning all million people on the Adipose pills from turning into the cute fat babies.  She seems to be well aware of the previously referenced Shadow Proclamation and has to hurry before she gets caught.  The Doctor goes into fixit mode (you can tell because he puts his glasses on). They discuss Martha, Rose and Donna’s desire to travel with the Doctor again.  Life on earth is boring for Donna after that one brief encounter with the Doctor.  

People all over on the drug start popping out baby Adipose.  Still gross and still super cute!  I must find a stuffed animal version of them to buy.  It’s the little tooth that gets me, really.  The Doctor needs a second one of those gift pendants to save the day, and it sure is lucky that Donna has one too!  All is well, but Miss Foster makes for a quick getaway with the babies birthed so far.  She goes all Eva Peron with a speech to her babies on the front steps as the flying saucer nursery swoops in overhead.  The babies float up to nursery heaven.  A million of them are even cuter than a few of them!

Donna expects the Doctor to blow up the ship, like he killed the Rachnos babies last time around, but I guess Martha was a good influence on him and the fat babies are free to go.  “I’m waving at fat!” Knowing of the Shadow Proclamation, the Doctor tries to warn Miss Foster that the Adipose elders will try to cover their tracks, but to no avail.  She falls to her death.  It’s not too sad, as she WAS the bad guy, but as villains go, she wasn’t that evil in the grand scheme of things.  

Off to the TARDIS!  Which is conveniently parked right near Donna’s car.  She’s been packed and ready for this for a while now, including a hat box.  The Doctor looks completely shell shocked standing there holding her bags.  He gives her one last shot to back out of it, and tries to gently let her know that there will be no romantic pretense between them.  He’s had enough of that.  Donna isn’t having any of it either, thank goodness.  I might be in the minority here, but I am thankful to have a companion without any possibility of romantic tension.  Might be a bit refreshing, and it hearkens back to the old series a bit!

Before they take off, Donna’s got to drop her keys off for her mom.  She dumps them into a bin around the corner and calls her to tell her where to pick up the keys.  She sees some people by a police barrier and she approaches a woman to tell her to show her mom where the bin is.  She’s blonde.  Hmmm.   Donna walks off and the woman turns around. 

HOLY HELL!  IT’S ROSE!  Stuck in an alternate universe thought we’d never see her again Rose!  Now casting spoilers made me aware that she was coming back this season, but not so early!  And not like this.  Kudos to the production team for keeping that one under wraps. Rose turns away, walks a few feet and disappears over her Doomsday music theme.  I wonder…

Back in the TARDIS, Donna makes herself at home.  She’s been there before so she doesn’t need the tour.  She has the Doctor fly the TARDIS over grandpa’s hill, which is very sweet.  And they’re off!  Overall this was not the best episode for sure, but it served as a nice reintroduction to Donna.  The plot was thin and fluffy, but shows that Catherine Tate & David Tennant have great chemistry.

Up next:  It’s Volcano Day!