Doctor Who - The Runaway Bride, on BBC One (UK) / Sci Fi (USA)
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This is the second Christmas special of the revived Doctor Who series. It first aired in the UK on Christmas 2006, but I first saw it on Sci-Fi Channel in July 2007. (As with the first special, I don't remember not seeing it at Christmas, but I trust the internet more than I trust my memory.) I didn't write a review until August 2015, when I watched it on DVD. So... series two of "Doctor Who" ended with a woman in a wedding dress appearing in the tardis. This special starts slightly before that. We see the woman, Donna Noble, walking down the aisle at her wedding, where she's about to marry a man named Lance Bennett. Then she starts glowing and screaming, and mysteriously gets transported from the church out into space, and appears in the tardis.

Donna is furious, assuming the Doctor had kidnapped her. But he shows her that they're in space, and then he takes her back down to Earth (where it's Christmas Eve). But he doesn't get quite where he meant to go, so Donna has to catch a cab. But the Doctor notices that there are Santa musicians nearby, just like the ones from last Christmas. And one of them is driving the cab Donna gets in, so... the Doctor gives chase. In the tardis. (This is the thing I remember best from the first time I saw the special... the tardis in a car chase. Gotta love it. OMG, how you've gotta love it.) After rescuing Donna, the Doctor continues trying to figure out how she'd been transported into the tardis in the first place, and now also has to figure out why the robotic Santas are after her. Meanwhile, he takes her to her wedding reception, which was going on without her. Once again, the Santas attack, and once again, the Doctor rescues her. He learns that her workplace is (or was) owned by Torchwood, so the two of them, along with Lance, go there to investigate.

They discover that the building is now being used by an alien, the empress of the Racnoss, whose race had supposedly been wiped out billions of years ago. (They also learn how Donna figured into her plans, but I'm not going to spoil that.) And now she's been drilling to the center of the Earth. So the Doctor takes Donna billions of years into the past, to witness the formation of the Earth, to try and ascertain what it is the Empress is looking for in the present. (Pretty cool visual effects, but I won't spoil what they discover.) Then they return to the present, and proceed to foil the Empress's plans. And then the military also plays a small part in defeating the Empress. (Which was a nice touch, I thought, particularly because it didn't seem to be anything like Torchwood... but it may have been UNIT, I'm not really sure.) Anyway, after the world is once again saved, the Doctor takes Donna home, but invites her to join him in his travels, since... certain things had changed in her life (which I won't spoil), and she now has no definite plans for the future. But she refuses, because as amazing as the things the Doctor has shown her are, it's also terrifying. So the Doctor departs, alone.

And... I might be forgetting things I wanted to say. Or not. In any event, it was a fun special, and a good introduction to Donna, who actually will become a Companion in series four. She has rather an abrasive personality, which I find kind of a fun change of pace from most of the Companions the Doctor's ever had (in either the current or the old series). She's often thoroughly annoyed and indignant, which is usually justified, under the circumstances (especially in this special, when the Doctor is a complete stranger to her). Her reactions to the madness that surrounds the Doctor (and to the madness of the Doctor himself) tend to make more sense than the reactions of his more... companionable Companions, but it can be easy to forget that, watching the show from the safety and comfort of one's own home. Still, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Donna also has a softer side. And even when being abrasive (or just sarcastic), she's always quite funny, which is understandable considering she's played by a comedian (Catherine Tate, who had her own sketch show before this, and has done various other acting, though I don't think I've actually seen any of her work other than "Doctor Who"). And I guess that's all I can think to say.