4x01 Partners in Crime - Doctor Who (UK) Episode Guide

Doctor Who (UK)

- Episode 04x01

Episode: 04x01
Title: Partners in Crime
Type: Regular Episode
Production Code: N/A
First Aired: Apr. 05, 2008

Season 4 » Episode #01 - Partners in Crime

Doctor Who (UK) - 04x01 Partners in Crime

Summary: When an alien invasion threatens Earth, the Doctor is the planet's only hope. But can Donna find him in time...

Who appeared in this episode?

Guest Stars:

Donna Noble	played by Catherine Tate (II)
Miss Foster	played by Sarah Lancashire
Wilfred Mott	played by Bernard Cribbins
Sylvia Noble	played by Jacqueline King
Penny Carter	played by Verona Joseph
Stacey Harris	played by Jessica Gunning
Roger Davey	played by Martin Ball
Craig Staniland	played by Rachid Sabitri
Clare Pope	played by Chandra Ruegg

Season 4 / Episode 1: - Partners in Crime

Wilfred Mott: [looking at the night sky]... one day; 100 years time we'll be striding out amongst the stars. Dueling about with all them aliens. Just you wait.
Donna Noble: [smiling] You really believe in all that stuff, don't you?
Wilfred Mott: [chuckles] All over the place these days. If I wait here long enough...
Donna Noble: I don't suppose you've seen a little blue box?
Wilfred Mott: Is that slang for something?
Donna Noble: [laughs] No. I mean it. If you ever see a little blue box fly up there in the sky, you shout for me Gramps. Oh you just shout.

Season 4 / Episode 1: - Partners in Crime

Sylvia Noble: [Donna just walked in; from the other room] And what time's this?
Donna Noble: [rolls her eyes] How old am I?
Sylvia Noble: [pokes her head around the corner] Not old enough to use a phone.

[More Quotes]

MISTAKES/GOOFS

CONT: When Miss Foster uses her sonic device on the window-washer's crane, she points it at the right-side cable, but it's the left-side cable that breaks.
CONT: Donna's car license plate near the start of the episode was "YD56 VHG". At the end of the episode, the license plate becomes "LN54 VKR".
FAKE: The security guards shoot away the lock on the door, which they then kick down with no real effort. But the door would still be held in place by the hinges - they don't kick it with enough force to rip the hinges out, and even if they had, we can see that there's no damage on the hinge side of the door anyway to demonstrate their forcible removal.
CONT: At the end of the episode, Donna piles suitcases in the Doctor's arms in preparation to leave with him in the TARDIS, and places a striped hat box on top. The bags stay that way for a while as the camera cuts back and forth between them, and you can see the stack of luggage as the camera films the Doctor from behind. Then, as soon as the camera cuts back to the Doctor's face when Donna leaves to give her mother the car keys, suddenly he has one bag under his arm and another in his hand, and the rest of the bags are on the ground with the hat box stacked neatly on top.

TRIVIA

SPOILER: The scene in which Rose Tyler appears was not included in the version of the episode previewed for critics, and while it had become common knowledge that Rose would appear in a later episode of Season 4, her presence in this episode was a successfully guarded secret until its first broadcast on the BBC. This music heard during her appearance derives from her previous appearance in the episode "Doomsday".
Howard Attfield did film some scenes as Donna's father, but became too unwell to continue and died during Season four filming. This episode was dedicated to him. Bernard Cribbins, who starred in the previous episode as Wilfred Mott, was brought back to re-film Attfield's scenes, now establishing Wilfred as Donna's grandfather.
Phil Collinson directed some scenes.
In the close-up views of Miss Foster, while she is giving her promotional talk on the Adipose diet pill, only the letters D-U-S-T from the word "industries" are visible on the screen behind her, the rest of the word is outside the frame. This may be a deliberate reference to "Little Britain" (2003), in which Matt Lucas portrays (amongst other characters) Marjorie Dawes: a 'Fat Fighters' group leader who has the word "dust" as one of her catchphrases.
When the taxi stops outside the wine bar a atmos sticker is on the windshield, harking back to am episode of "The Sarah Jane Adventures" (2007).