Oh, Donna Noble. Doctor Who couldn't get rid of her quick enough when she was first introduced as a fiesty and brash bride to be in the 2006 Christmas Special, The Runaway Bride, but Catherine Tate was reinstated as the show's full time TARDIS co-resident in 2008 when she firmly established herself as one of the most formidable female heroines the TV landscape has ever had to offer. And then she had it all taken away from her in what can only be described as one of the most traumatising companion departures in Doctor Who history. Like, seriously. Not that you'll need reminding (if you're anything like us, you're still in therapy!), but the Tenth Doctor had to wipe her memories of their time together after she was the victim of a Time Lord/human metacrisis which would've frazzled her brain completely had our beloved hero not intervened and saved her life... at the cost of everything she had learned and experienced during her extra terrestrial escapades. Still, she went out in flames of glory in Series 4's aptly titled Journey's End finale as the most important human being in the whole of creation, which isn't too shabby for a woman who had written herself off as a worthless temp from Chiswick. Worthless? Donna, human, no!
Dan Butler is the Doctor Who Editor at WhatCulture.com. When he isn't writing his own articles or editing other people's, he can be found trawling the internet for gifs of Steven Moffat laughing. Contact him via dan.butler@whatculture.co.uk.
