Partners in crime

Originally aired: Saturday April 5, 2008 on BBC-1

Writer: Russell T. Davies
Director: James Strong
Show Stars: Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), David Tennant (The Tenth Doctor)
Recurring Role: Bernard Cribbins (Wilfred Mott), Jacqueline King (Sylvia Noble)
Guest Stars: Sarah Lancashire (Miss Foster) , Verona Joseph (Penny Carter) , Rachid Sabitri (Craig Staniland) , Martin Ball (Roger Davey) , Chandra Ruegg (Clare Pope) , Jonathan Stratt (Taxi Driver) , Sue Kelvin (Suzette Chambers) , Jessica Gunning (Stacey Harris)

The adventure begins with a red-headed women walking confidently down the road: Donna, from The Runaway Bride. The Doctor is making his way to the same street as Donna. They both arrive at APIDOSE Industries and they both enter. Posing as safety inspectors, both the Doctor and Donna search the building with the Doctor using the lower tunnels to get in using his psychic paper. Meanwhile, Miss Foster, a businesswoman in black and with the glasses to match, is giving a presentation.

Talking about a pill, the miracle pill, Miss Foster explains that this pill can help you lose at least 1 kg a day and you can eat whatever you want. The Doctor sees this interview from the shadows while Donna sits at the front. A screen lights up showing what the pill does or at least what it's supposed to do. A reporter, Penny, starts to question Miss Foster due to the pills' unlikely development, asking if its fake and pointless and then the sheer number of customers comes out, there are currently one million customers all losing weight. The motto of ADIPOSE industries is "the fat just walks away."

The Doctor and Donna go to the sales department to get a list of names. While talking to their separate helpers Donna and the Doctor both receive a gold necklace with a capsule on it and then ask for a the names of the customers. While looking for the printer, the Doctor and Donna always miss each other by a second. While the Doctor gets pulled down and flirted with by the sales rep, Donna inadvertently grabs both sets and Doctor must return to get another print.

We then go to two strangers who are on the pill. One of them is Stacey Kendel, who is about to go out and dump her boyfriend as she can now do better when Donna comes knocking about her using the pill. The Doctor is also seeing a man who say he always seems to lose weight at 1.10 am when his burglar alarm goes off and he can't figure it out. The Doctor wonders about how the fat can just walk away, noting the man has a cat flap. Donna is alone downstairs in Stacey Kendel's house while she is upstairs getting ready, Donna then takes out her gold necklace and twists the pill-shaped pendant and Stacey grabs her stomach. An alarm sounds at ADIPOSE Industries with Miss Foster saying it's an unscheduled bio- genesis and ordering a team to go and get them.

We then see Miss Foster put Stacey in to full genesis and Stacey talking to two small white blobby-looking things who have arms and legs. Donna hears her and goes to investigate; Stacey is still grabbing her stomach while the Doctor gets an alert on his handheld tracker. He tells the guy to lay off the pills then follows the signal to Stacey's house, Stacey starts to scream as more and more blob things come out of her until she completely dissolves into blob creatures. When Donna bursts into save Stacey she is already gone and she just spots a blob thing waving and then jumping out the window. Running to investigate the Doctor and Donna keep missing each other as the collection team picks up the blob creatures and gets away.

Donna returns home to her mother Sylvia, who is moaning at her about her being jobless, Donna then asks where her grandfather Wilfred is and makes her way up the hill to her astrology-loving granddad. She tells him about a little blue box and how she is ready to give up looking for The Doctor. Wilfred gives her hope and tells her about how when she was young she wasn't allowed on holiday, but she hopped on a bus and made her way to the seaside. She then tell him if he ever sees a blue flying box he's just got to shout her and she'll be there.

The next day both the Doctor and Donna return to ADIPOSE Industries where Miss Foster is reviewing the previous day's tapes of the office and spots a saboteur. Donna makes her way to the ladies cubicle while The Doctor hides in a janitor's closet. After about seven hours and the office have been cleared out and the Doctor comes out and explores. Donna is in the ladies room when Miss Foster bursts in and says she knows that she's in there and she can come out. Donna puts her feet up as Miss Foster and her bodyguards kick the doors open. They finally open the door and find… Penny the reporter. They take her away. The Doctor climbs the stairs to the roof where he finds a window cleaner lift and lowers himself using his sonic screwdriver.

Miss Foster and her bodyguards are tying up the reporter as Donna peeks through a glass window in the door. The Doctor appears at the window outside looking at Miss Foster, oblivious to Donna and vice versa. They watch Miss Foster explain to the reporter that she chose her name very well while travelling to find obesity on the scale Britain is: she chose her name after "foster mother." She brings out a Adipose, the small blob- thing. The Doctor and Donna turn and suddenly see each other. Shouting at each other but each other can't be heard Donna uses a difficult interpretation of mimes about how she's been tracking him using the Internet and learnt about what ADIPOSE was up to and decided to come.

Miss Foster sees the Doctor and Donna and sends her guards to get them, The Doctor tells Donna to run and locks the door out of the room Miss Foster is in, giving Donna time to run. The Doctor zooms up on the lift and runs down the stairs Donna is running up. They meet each other and laugh and hug but don't have much time as the guards shoot the locked door open. Running to the roof, Donna tells the Doctor that she's found almost every alien thing possible when she looked on the Internet, they then jump off onto the window lift and Donna says if they go down she'll just bring them up again but the Doctor says that he controls it with a sonic screwdriver and it's very unlikely she has one.

Miss Foster takes out her sonic screwdriver disguised as a black pen and bursts the door open. Looking down at the Doctor and Donna on their way to escape, Miss Foster points at the control mechanism and puts the descent speed to maximum. With a quick jolt both the Doctor and Donna are quickly dropping to the ground until the Doctor stops it with his sonic screwdriver. The Doctor then tries to open a window into the building but Miss Foster deadlocks the building, Miss Foster points at one of the two support cables and it starts to burn on Donna's side of the lift. It snaps and Donna goes flying off the side but manages to grab hold of the cable and screams she should of stayed at home where it was safe, Miss Foster then points to the Doctor's cable and it starts to burn but the Doctors not having that and points at Miss Foster's screwdriver and cause it to sparks violently out of her hand. The Doctor leans back and catches the sonic screwdriver and climbs the rope to open a window using both screwdrivers.

The Doctor then climbs into the building and sees the reporter on his way to grab Donna from outside, Running to intercept Miss Foster and her guards, the Doctor frees the reporter and rescues Donna, then runs into Miss Foster. He demands to know under the Shadow Proclamation what her true name is, and she already knows he is an off-worlder due to his technology. Miss Foster explains she was hired as a galactic nanny for the Adipose First Family after their breeding planet was lost. Miss Foster tells her guards to shoot them but the Doctor puts the two sonic devices together, creating a huge sound rendering Miss Foster and her guards out of action. Miss Foster then declares they're going into premature labour and runs to her office where penny gets recaptured after trying to grab some evidence to back up her story. The Doctor then runs to the cupboard he hid in earlier and finds an inducer machine that Miss Foster is also at above and has activated only to get one million max.

Meanwhile, Sylvia is having a drink with a friend who is also on the pill. The Adipose children come out of the stomach of her friend and other overweight individuals throughout England. The Doctor tries to stop Foster by using one of the pendants to override the system but Miss Foster doubles the power and people are on the verge of falling apart just like Stacey Kendel. The Doctor starts to panic as a million people are about to die and Donna asks what he needs and he says another pendant. The Doctor pulls out her pendant and the Doctor overrides the system. He sees coded Adipose instructions and runs to the roof while Miss Foster is gathering all the Adipose. A huge ship appears out of the sky to collect the Adipose children. The Doctor shouts to Miss Foster saying that the Adipose parents in the ship know that using a level 5 planet for surrogacy is illegal under the Shadow Proclamation and they would want to get rid of their accomplice. She doesn't believe him until the Adiposians turn off levitation beam and she plummets to a terrible death. The spaceship flies away and Donna says can she take the Doctor up on his offer.

They make their way to the TARDIS where the Doctor inadvertently parked it next to Donna's car. The Doctor says his last two assistants had feelings for him and he doesn't want it to happen again and Donna points out that he was never her type: he's a big bag of skinny and that's not her type. Realising that she still has her mother's car keys, she phones Sylvia and puts them in a bin. She tells a blonde woman to tell Sylvia where the keys are when she arrives. The blonde woman turns round: it is Rose Tyler, who then walks away and fades.

The Doctor asks where Donna would like to go and she says two miles away. Two miles away Wilfred looks up at the sky and sees the box and as he is shouting to Donna he looks in his telescope and sees Donna and the Doctor waving and then the TARDIS dematerializes.