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flavwaddingham · 4 months ago

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Behind the Scenes of The 60th Anniversary Specials - Part Four

From Benjamin Cook's interview with Catherine Tate in DWM #597

In a dark, secluded corner of a Cardiff television studio, Catherine Tate and David Tennant are in tears. “I haven’t even talked to you about my portable milk frother,” Catherine is saying, crying with laughter. “No, you haven’t,” says David. “For all the coffee you don’t drink?” “Ha! For all the coffee I don’t drink.” Catherine is cachinnating her way through a list of the gadgets (“Some high-tech, some low-tech”) that she buys online (“And then doesn’t use,” splutters David). It’s causing a bit of a commotion here in the shadows, on Stage 4, at Bad Wolf Studios. “I’m absolutely a compulsive shopper,” she explains. “I absolutely get… is it the dopamine hit? Like a gambler gets. I mean, 100% I’ve got a problem.” “Do you have clear-outs, though?” asks David. An intake of breath. “I do, I do.” “Or do you just buy another house and live in that?” “No, well, ha! No, I recently…” She can barely get the words out. “I recently got rid of my Malibu pilates table.” “How troubled had it been by actual pilates?” enquires David. “It was still in its box,” she confesses, propelling them both into another fit of the giggles. Two kindred spirits, rocking back and forth on their canvas chairs, corpsing helplessly. It’s not even 10AM. If you’re wondering why Catherine and David are in such a giddy mood, it’s because it’s Monday, 9 May 2022, and this is their first day back together on the set of Doctor Who in 13 years. So this… let’s call it an interview – yeah, no, let’s – might be a little chaotic.

The 60th Anniversary Specials each have their own tag, but the #whoBts60th tag is for general photos and behind the scenes information that span multiple episodes. The full episode list is [ here ]

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flavwaddingham · 4 months ago

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She could stop him right from the first day they met.

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flavwaddingham · 4 months ago

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It’s just like the old days. Just me and the Doctor. Together…

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flavwaddingham · 5 months ago

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CATHERINE TATE and DAVID TENNANT at the BAFTA TV AWARDS

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flavwaddingham · 5 months ago

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The Doctor & Donna Noble + Hugs

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flavwaddingham · 5 months ago

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Why is the Doctor making Donna a cup of coffee so significant?

Well, he is trying to impress her, to get her to travel with him again – like he tried to do by using the TARDIS to make it snow at Christmas the first time he asked her to travel with him.

But he got that attempt wrong. Donna doesn't like Christmas, and the Doctor having the power to make it snow "scared her to death."

A cup of coffee, just how she likes it, is (on the surface of it) a smaller gesture to show that he remembered the little details about her. A cup of coffee is what brought them together all those years ago.

But it's what Donna told the Doctor about what Lance making her that cup of coffee meant to her that the Doctor really listened to and remembered.

"I was temping. I mean, it was all a bit posh, really. I'd spent the last two years at a double glazing firm. Well, I thought, I'm never going to fit in here. And then he made me a cup of coffee. I mean, that just doesn't happen. Nobody gets the secretaries a coffee. "And Lance, he's the Head of HR, he didn't need to bother with me. But he was nice, he was funny. And it turns out he thought everyone else was really snotty too. So, that's how it started, me and him. One cup of coffee, and that was it."

Donna fell in love with Lance because he made her a cup of coffee. So used to being unnoticed and uncared for, something as simple as an 'important' man taking the time to make her a cup of coffee meant everything to Donna.

She thought it was a sign that he was kind, that he was nice. She thought it was a sign he noticed and cared for her.

And the Doctor sees how it devastates her to learn the real reason why he was making her coffee was to drug her for his own ends. Despite their differences, he's gentle when he breaks it to her. And it connects her to him in a shared grief.

So when the Doctor makes her a cup of coffee after she regains her memories, he's not just telling her that he remembers the little details about her like how she likes her coffee, but the big things too.

He's showing that he sees her, that he cares about her thoughts and feelings, that he wants to care for her after all these years when he couldn't. That he knows how important this is to her.

But that's not all.

In the alternative timeline, Donna never meets Lance. And yet, when she is upset, and afraid, she asks Rose Tyler for a cup of coffee. Steam rises from her mug as they stand around the console inside the dying TARDIS, and have the most honest conversation they've had yet about the Doctor and their feelings towards him.

In the proper timeline, the person we see Donna drinking coffee with is Wilf. In moments of joy and moments of upset they bond over coffee. Before she finds the Doctor again, Donna brings Wilf a thermos to escape Sylvia's criticisms.

Wilf is the only person in Donna's life who she can be herself around, who has unconditionally cared for her, and who she takes joy in caring for back.

Even in the alternative timeline, Wilf has held onto not only the telescope but the exact same thermos Donna brings him coffee in when he's up on the hill.

For the Doctor to remember how she takes her coffee, we know they must have had moments together like this off-screen too.

So when the Doctor makes her a cup of coffee, just how she likes it, he is communicating he remembers not just the small details of her but that he remembers all these things that she associates with making someone a cup of coffee – kindness, acceptance, being noticed, caring for someone and being cared for, home, and family.

It's possible, for the Doctor, there's an apology in that cup of coffee too.

But wait, there's still more.

Did Donna spill the cup of coffee on the console on purpose?

The slight of hand was rather obvious. And it came at a time when Donna was trying to convince him not to leave her, to come back home to her, if only just for a visit.

He'd not said no, but she'd easily seen through him the first time he lied about coming inside to have dinner with her family that first Christmas, and likely saw through him again – the avoidance of eye contact, fiddling with the TARDIS, the wane "yeah, maybe."

She also rather clearly wanted to go on another trip with him (she never wanted to stop in the first place), and was only saying no because of her obligations to her family. It's possible she was buying time by spilling the cup of coffee – just one more than one last trip, without it being her "fault."

She had, after all, just dropped a cup of coffee on a computer and lost a job she'd probably hated, knowing Donna. And before things had gone really wrong, she'd definitely been enjoying herself.

It's also possible she's still quite angry with the Doctor, but unable to fully verbalise this yet.

He connects the cup of coffee to remembering every detail of her. She has not been able to remember any detail of her life with him. The last time they were standing around the console together, he took her memories against her will. He says it killed him; but she – or that version of herself, the one she actually liked – was arguably the one who was killed.

And she might be remembering Lance, another man she truly loved and trusted, and how a cup of coffee seemed like a kindness but was in fact a lie, a violation.

The Doctor quite possibly also suspects something like this is what might have happened, given his level of anger at her.

Despite the fact that this Doctor is more able to admit his feelings, we don't see what happened between them when he took her memories ever properly resolved in words.

Instead, there are a series of proxy arguments that stand in for it – Donna's anger that she gave away all her money because of him, that he sees taking the slow path, living a life day after day as such agony when he made her do it, his anger at her faith that he will know how to defeat the Toy Maker.

And their most emotional proxy argument of all – who is at fault for stranding them at the edge of the universe? Is it Donna, who spilt the cup of coffee, or the Doctor, who she couldn't stop from wandering off?

Thematically, however, there is some resolution. The Doctor lets Donna decide to regain her memories, even if it means she'll die. The Doctor knows Donna enough to save her from being left to die alone, even if it is at the very last moment. The Doctor admits he used to think he knew everything, but now he knows he doesn't.

Donna gets to tell him it's not all about him saving her, gets him to stop, finally gets him to come home with her.

And in their last scene, it's the Doctor who is having the cup of coffee.