The Doctor Who 60th anniversary specials brought back David Tennant and Catherine Tate, but they also gave us a dangerous new precedent that has fans divided.
“The Giggle” provided Doctor Who with a new idea: bi-generation. The concept is simple in that the Doctor, when provided with the means necessary, could regenerate and separate into two wholes. It is how we now have Ncuti Gatwa and David Tennant as the Doctor. This comes with a myriad of problems when you think about it for too long, but frankly, I don’t mind the idea of letting Tennant’s Doctor have this happiness. Let me explain.
Doctor Who, as many of us know it, came to be because of the era of the show when Tennant took over as the tenth Doctor after Christopher Eccleston regenerated at the end of season one of the series. He helped bring the show worldwide recognition and, for many of us, the regeneration of David Tennant into Matt Smith, as both Tennant and show runner Russell T. Davies left the series, ruined that era of the show. Giving him a second chance at both happiness and his run at the Doctor helped provide closure for fans.
What I loved about this bi-generation is that it gave us a fresh start with the Doctor. We are in a new era, a fresh one, and all the old ways of the Doctor are still there, but he’s new and fun. It still comes with a pain for the past though that is going to be hard to unpack when we think about it for too long, especially with characters that we know suffered.
I feel bad for Rose Tyler even though she’s fine now
Tennant’s Doctor getting his happy ending with Donna Noble and her family is beautiful to me but it also hurts that Rose Tyler—thought she does actually have her own version of the Doctor with the Meta-Crisis clone—isn’t even a thought in his mind in this instance. Or at least not one that we’re seeing now that he gets to just live forever as the Doctor with his own little TARDIS in his own little world.
When you think about all the people who would have loved to spend time and space with the Doctor, Rose Tyler is one of the first people to come to mind. Maybe the idea that she went on to live with the Meta-Crisis clone was enough for Davies to think she was happy, but it does make me wonder how the Doctor feels about being romantically alone, in a sense.
Fixing a botched regeneration
Part of me thinks that this is the way of giving us a second chance at loving the Doctor’s regeneration, because for someone like me who loved Tennant’s run at the Doctor, his regeneration ruined him for me. I was devastated at the time when it was announced that Tennant was leaving the show with Davies. I wanted him to stay for as long as possible and I was determined to not like Matt Smith.
Yet, my favorite Doctor remains Matt Smith. Why? Because I hate what happened during David Tennant’s regeneration. The “I don’t want to go” of it all just tarnished the legacy that this Doctor had.
This new life he was given in the 60th specials? It made me appreciate that love again. It reminded me of how much this era of Doctor Who meant to me without that anger of the regeneration. Seeing the new regeneration come to life, even if it meant the future of the show and what a “regeneration” means could be thrown to the wind, held a special kind of weight for me.
It didn’t change who is my favorite because the Matt Smith era means a lot to me, and who I am as a person, but it did change the anger I held for that “I don’t want to go” line.
A happy ending is good sometimes
If anyone deserves to have a happy ending, it is Ten. After everything he has been through and the time that he spent as the Doctor, it makes sense to give Tennant this moment. More than that, I think this was Russell T. Davies saying sorry to us all for that first regeneration. Yes, it sets a dangerous precedent for the future. Sure, I would have loved for this to happen with my favorite Doctor (Matt Smith), but that doesn’t mean that Tennant’s run as the Doctor doesn’t deserve this.
Look at it this way: Without this new era of Doctor Who and, more specifically, Tennant’s seasons as the Doctor, the show wouldn’t necessarily have gotten as big as it ended up getting. Or maybe it would have some other way, but we can quantifiably attribute the show’s success to what Tennant did as the Doctor. Letting him have a happy ending where he has his TARDIS, can relax, and hang out with his best friend at the end of the day is fine by me.
As a fan of the show, sure, I don’t love what the bi-generation means for future justification of saying goodbye to Doctors that we know and love, but for now, I think this is a fine farewell to someone who helped make this show what it currently is. Plus, it gives us a chance to return to the Doctor and Donna whenever we want. Right? Right?
(featured image: BBC)
