Totally agree with you on this one. I was completely taken aback when this happened to Donna, and was more than a little peeved. I had hoped that she'd remember everything during End of Time and not have her brain melt. She was pretty much the best companion (at least until Amy came along). I like to think that I'd be a bit like Donna if I was traveling with the Doctor.
I think that's the worst part: Donna was so awesome! To have that awesomeness taken away was such a cheat. (I am sure she has awesomeness potential, but that's not the same, is it?)
SUCH awesomeness potential! Remember Turn Left? Heck, even while semi-brainwashed, she managed to be amazing.
That's one of the things about the RTD era that just rubbed me the wrong way. It was like they candy coated rape and murder and put it in a kid's show.
*wants to go to RTD's door and kick him in the shins a LOT for making me remember how upset this all made me when it first aired*
I have the same problem with Donna and S4 now. And even though RTD seems to think he gave her a happy ending in EoT, I don't really see it as such. Old!Donna is happy just marrying someone and living happily ever after, but New & Improved!Donna would never have wanted to do it and she's had that choice taken away from her. Plus Wilf and Sylvia spent so much time telling the Doctor that Donna was "settling" for Shaun (Sean? Shawn?) in Part 1 that it doesn't make sense that everyone is so happy in Part 2. I think I could've dealt with it better if part of Donna's awesomeness had leeched through anyway so that when we saw her again in EoT, she was working and doing something positive and even though she couldn't remember her time with the Doctor, she was more than just stuck-in-a-rut-shallow-Super-Temp.
"Journey's End" makes me cry and I'll never forgive Russell for screwing Donna over so badly.
Exactly-- her ending is in no way happy. Sure, she gets married, but that's what Old Donna wanted. Old Donna didn't have much ambition beyond matrimony, really. New Donna had had her eyes opened to a whole new world. And then they were slammed firmly shut again.
I get annoyed just reading the discussion in The Writer's Tale about Donna's fate -- RTD is so focused on doing the saddest thing possible for its own sake, and then he gets all Must Be True To The Story when contemplating what to do with her in TEOT. If the mindwipe, as presented, were in any way a logical consequence of something Donna did voluntarily in JE, I could buy it, but it's really not. She got DoctorDonnaed by being in the right place at the right time, without any say in the matter, her brain fries because RTD technobabbles it into existence, and she gets mindwiped while pleading with the Doctor not to do it. Ugh.
One of the main reasons I haven't read The Writer's Tale is because I think it would fill me with so much rage. I got so angry with Rusty wasting stories. He does it again and again. He turned the Doctor into Gollum and then Tinkerbell Jebus in Last of the Time Lords, he destroyed Donna, the Specials got worse and worse, and then he robbed David Tennant of a proper swan song in The End of Time. All because he wanted Big! and Epic! and didn't think that maybe that's not the best way to tell a story.
DT was always singing RTD's praises, and I have to admit that it tarnished my respect for him just a little. Because I am sure if he had said, "Hey, Rusty, this doesn't work for the character," he had enough pull to change it. Instead, he went along with everything, no matter how ridiculous.
It was his pulling stunts like this that make me so, so glad that Ten is gone now. It's to the point that if I saw the TARDIS, and the Tenth Doctor came out and was like, "Want to come along?" I'd walk up to him, kick him once in the shins, and then say, "No."
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That's one of the things about the RTD era that just rubbed me the wrong way. It was like they candy coated rape and murder and put it in a kid's show.
*wants to go to RTD's door and kick him in the shins a LOT for making me remember how upset this all made me when it first aired*
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"Journey's End" makes me cry and I'll never forgive Russell for screwing Donna over so badly.
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DT was always singing RTD's praises, and I have to admit that it tarnished my respect for him just a little. Because I am sure if he had said, "Hey, Rusty, this doesn't work for the character," he had enough pull to change it. Instead, he went along with everything, no matter how ridiculous.
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