“The Christmas Doctor can’t be bogged down in angst ‘cos that’d hardly make for an interesting adventure on Christmas Day. Well, maybe on BBC4, but not One. That’s why Donna arrived as she did, at the end of Doomsday, suddenly, so the Doctor doesn’t even have time to mourn. You’d think I planned it!”
Doctor Who: The Runaway Bride
Russell explains: "The Runaway Bride is not exactly rom-com, 'cos that'd suggest an awful lot of rom, when we've got the Doctor recovering from Rose's departure literally seconds beforehand. It'd be heartless to give him a romance now. The story does have the speed and energy of that classic format - two people chained together, resentfully getting to like each other - but there must be a snappier name for it. That's an old, classic shape. It describes The 39 Steps and that's never described as a rom-com! More than anything it's a quest, a proper old quest, racing against the clock, right across time and space."















