Just finished watching The War Games and am struck by the different take on the departures of Jamie and Zoe in comparison to Donna many years later.

Whilst in my mind the departures are very similar the attitude towards them from commentators and some of the characters in the programme are quite different.

In the former, the departure whilst sad for The Doctor is treated as a good solution. The Time Lords are being benevolent by wiping Jamie and Zoe's memories. These characters are considered lucky to be able to live out the rest of there lives without their memories of The Doctor spoiling things.

In Donna's case it's treated as the greatest tragedy of them all. Her experiences have changed her so it's treated almost as our Donna has died.

Am I wrong in my take of this, if not what are your thoughts on this?
Are they happy or sad endings for these companions?
and... Why are they thought of so differently, or have we now revised how we should feel about Jamie & Zoe's departure.

The departure of Jamie and Zoe, as well as the circumstances behind it, makes it one of my favorite companion exits, mostly because of how it affects the Doctor.

When Jamie and Zoe ask to see the Doctor, he's just sitting on the floor, playing cards, clearly having given up. However, after being reunited with them, he decides to give it one last run, despite the very high chances of them being caught. Then there was the line "they'll forget me, won't they?" I think he knew that they were going to wipe their memories, and I don't think he wanted their last memories of him being an old man who has simply given up. One last run before the end...

I also like to think that was what put a bit of the fire back into him in his final scene. The Time Lords were about to take away his freedom, change his face, judged him for only doing what he thought was right, and stolen away his two best friends along with everything they knew about him. He lost in the end, but I love how he was not going to make it easy for them.

Donna however, I really hate how she went. Not her losing her memories, but some of the things behind it.

I don't like that the whole metacrisis thing came out of nowhere, happening only when the story needed to start wrapping up, and is never given a proper explanation honestly makes it feel all so cheap.

However, the thing I dislike most about it never felt like "goodbye Donna Noble", but rather "Ten is now more miserable than before". I've seen complaints about the memory loss, saying how it destroyed her as a character, but I honestly would have been fine with her losing her memories, so long as her exit would have been about her, not another reason to make Ten cry.

With Jamie and Zoe, it felt natural, a sad goodbye to them, and an affect on the Doctor was appropriate given the circumstances.

With Donna, it felt like a cheap rip at the heart to continue an angst-filled trend that I had grown tired of by half-way through Series 3.

But surely the different ways that 2 and 10 reacted to losingt their friends just emphaised the difference in the two incarnations. 10 was a far more feeling and emotional man than 2 was, at least outwardly. He wore his heart on his sleeve, whilst 2 tended to keep his personal feelings bottled up. tru he showed anger at what he considered the wrongs he encountered but 10 wasn't afraid to let his emotions show. Perhaps that was a bit of a weakness in him ?

I always think there's a difference with the Jamie/Zoe and Donna memory wipes.

I think with Jamie and Zoe it feels less personal as a) they weren't suffering from any kind of mental breakdown and b) The War Games was made at a time when The Doctor wasn't supposed to blubber and the show was a lot less emotive.

That doesn't mean the final scenes of Jamie and Zoe saying goodbye to The Doctor has any less impact, though. Clearly it has to be viewed in the context of the time it was shown. Jamie had been with the show nearly the whole of the Troughton Era over three years. That's an incredible amount of time even by today's standard's. Zoe had also been with the show for just over a year so there was time for her to have been accepted by the fans as well. I would say that last scene was just as sad but you didn't have the incidental music there either to give extra impetus. It was just the times when it was made in where maybe that old British upper Lip syndrome was very much more appropriate. Today Zoe would probably have given him a huge snog and burst out crying. Jamie too probably!

Donna's memory wipe was very symptomatic of today's show where both The Doctor and the situation were more emotive. Plus you had the music to back it up. Donna may have only been in one Series but it was still long enough for fans who liked her to build her popularity. Plus off course her character had more impact on the stories themselves than Jamie and Zoe.

Just to add something to the discussion, I was also thinking about The Doctor's memory wipe at the end of The Invasion Of Time. As far as Leela's departure goes, you can see things in one of two ways. One, that would he really trust a man he didn't know or remember with Leela or on the other hand did the fact he can't remember if Leela's sudden romantic gesture with Andred make it easier to accept for him as he can't remember what had happened before and he may have assumed they'd maybe had something going before he lost his memory!

My feeling was that Donna's memory wipe was completely unnecessary that the whole metacrisis should never have happened and it was a massive story let down. Where as with Jamie and Zoe the story was right, it just felt like a natural way to end it for them under the circumstances. I don't think many were against the concept of a mind wipe I think it was more the way it was done, how it was portrayed and just the naff let down of the story.

I think there's three aspects that push Donna's wipe over the cliff that Jamie and Zoe's didn't: firstly, that Donna was effectively told that she had brain damage that was going to kill her. She was so excited and buzzing about the new possibilities that had been granted her, and it turned out to be a death sentence. And the scene was played that way.
Secondly, she had progressed so much, discovered new talents, made the most of the ones she's had, discovered a motherly streak, and that was all ripped from her. We didn't even get to see a spark of the 'changed' Donna come through, there was no sign that she had retained what made her a stronger person, even despite the mind wipe. Which is frustrating for the viewer. While I'm sure Zoe and Jamie's experiences were important to them, they were already fairly rounded characters to start with.
Thirdly, the Doctor had to face her, and see her without remembering him. It wasn't just that a villain did something bad to Donna - he had to do it himself, and face the consequences of it.