Broadcast and Reception
This was the first Doctor Who story to be broadcast with in-vision British Sign Language interpretation, in a UK repeat on 30 December 2006. The final official ratings for "The Runaway Bride" gave it an audience of 9.35 million viewers, making it the tenth most-watched programme on British television during Christmas week.
"The Runaway Bride" was released as an individual episode, along with the Doctor Who Confidential special episode "Music and Monsters", on 2 April 2007 as a basic DVD with no additional special features. Although "The Runaway Bride" was not filmed in HD the BBC aired it on BBC One HD Tuesday 28 December 2010. They up-scaled the program to HD and it also included Dolby Surround sound. This is the first Doctor Who episode that has been up-scaled in the United Kingdom.
Steve O'Brien of SFX gave "The Runaway Bride" four out of five stars, noting that it was different from anything Doctor Who had done, but the "siller" tone worked for Christmas Day. He also praised Tennant and Tate. IGN's Travis Fickett gave the episode a score of 7.2 out of 10, feeling that Donna had improved from her short appearance at the end of "Doomsday". Fickett was also positive to the way Rose was not ignored. Dek Hogan of Digital Spy wrote that the episode "lacked the energy and excitement of last year's effort", particularly criticising the Empress. In 2012, SFX listed "The Runaway Bride" as a bad example of a sci-fi Christmas episode, noting that it was "a decent episode in many respects" but had the disadvantage of being filmed in the summer.
Read more about this topic: The Runaway Bride (Doctor Who)
Famous quotes containing the words broadcast and/or reception:
“Im a lumberjack
And Im OK,
I sleep all night
And I work all day.”
—Monty Pythons Flying Circus. broadcast Dec. 1969. Monty Pythons Flying Circus (TV series)
“Hes leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropfs and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)