Doctor Who - 2008 - 2009 Specials - David Tennant

This post is about the last episodes of David Tennant as the Doctor. As from Spring 2010, we will have a new Doctor, but more about this later.

Firstly, we have the Christmas 2008 episode, "The Next Doctor", set at Christmas Time in London of 1851. Guest starring David Morrissey as a second Doctor! But is Morrissey one of the next regenerations of our beloved timelord, or is there a different explanation for this second Doctor? The answer lies with a fob watch, like the one every timelord has in their possession, like the one the Doctor has in Human Nature/Family of Blood and the Master has in Utopia.

This is a good episode, nothing special though as far as the story is concerned. Here we start to see the influence the events in The Stolen Earth/Journey's End had on the Doctor. This is an episode based on the performances of Tennant and Morrissey, and on this end we are rewarded. They make a good team, especially for the first part, when Morrissey thinks he is the Doctor. The initial scene with the rope was hilarious!

Planet of the Dead and a new companion maybe for the Doctor? I wish! Lady Christina De Souza is an interesting character, and I would gladly have her as the Doctor's companion for another season with David Tennant. The two had good chemistry, maybe Lady Christina has a lot in common with the Doctor, but also a lot of differences. However, this is where Davros' hard words find their aim: the Doctor does not want a companion, he is afraid that those words were true.



The next special, Waters of Mars is maybe the best of the specials. It's neither the story nor the enemies of the Doctor, that are the central theme here. This special is a character study of the Doctor himself, of his feelings, of who he is, and what he is doing. The events of Waters of Mars are fixed in time, and cannot change without dire consequences for the future. Is there a solution? Can the Doctor do something, even a little thing?

But why does he do it? Is it because he really wants to help, or is it because of his pain? Maybe because of his own ego? The last few minutes, from the moment he talks and brags to Adelaide, until the end of the episode, those are some of the series' finest moments.

 

And here we are at the end of Tennant's Doctor, with the End of Time Parts I and II. I was expecting much much more from a special that marks the end of one of the most loved Doctors, where we have the Master, and the return of the timelords... The first part was such a disappointment, story wise! If it weren't for John Simm and David Tennant's performances, it probably would have been totally unwatchable. Honorable mention to Bernard Cribbins, he is wonderful as Wilfred Mott... I liked his character very much, all through the 4th season.

In the second part, things get a little better, especially in the second half of the episode, where we have Timothy Dalton portraying Lord President Rassillon! Really wonderful to see so many good actors on the screen together.

I didn't like the reason for the Doctor's regeneration at all. I thought it was quite lame, and it was like the writers just put that scene there so that we can have a regeneration. I don't know what or how I wanted it to be, but certainly something a lot better. Anyway, the Doctor has a bit of time before his regeneration, so he goes to say goodbye to all the people he traveled with in the last 3 seasons. He even finds Rose, before the events with the plastic consciousness, before she ever met the Doctor...

I don't want to go, the last words of the timelord before his regeneration. Neither did we Mr. Tennant!

I don't know how Matt Smith's portrayal of the Doctor will be. I am certainly going to give Matt Smith a chance to convince me that he has that special quality to make at least a good Doctor. And frankly, I want Matt Smith to be good in the role, I want to be watching and enjoying Doctor Who for years to come.

Doctor Who - Voyage of the Damned & Season 4 - David Tennant

And we come to the last of Tennant's seasons as The Doctor. The Christmas Special is the episode named "Voyage of the Damned", with Kylie Minogue guest starring, and surprisingly, she was good in her role! It's not one of the best episodes of Doctor Who, and could be a lot better. However, there is one very important reason to see this episode: David Tennant's portrayal of The Doctor. You can have a bad script, a bad director or all of those put together, and still Tennant's performance will make a difference. In this Christmas episode, he finds someone named Alonso, so he finally gets to say "Allons-y Alonso!"

Fourth season and Catherine Tate returns to the role of Donna Noble. We had seen her in the previous Christmas Special, the Runaway Bride, and I am really glad she joined the cast this season. There is good chemistry between Tennant and Tate; from the first moment they are together, you know it's going to be good. They are opposite characters or is Donna just hiding more than she shows? Maybe something she isn't even aware of?

Throughout the season, Tate's performance is one of the best of the series. She has strength, she is impetuous, and her character ties very well with Tennant's Doctor. Donna has a very human side, and one of the scenes where this is evident, is in the second episode, when she asks the Doctor, maybe more like a demand, to save just one person from the destruction of Pompeii.

Martha Jones phones the Doctor, because UNIT has an alien problem. Something's not quite right in the ATMOS factories, and the Doctor goes to Earth once more to help. The Sontarans, old enemies of the Doctor, are behind everything, and it is up to the Doctor and some unexpected help to save the day. I liked Martha Jones in this double episode much more than in Season 3.

Two of the best episodes of the season are Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. Guest starring Alex Kingston as Professor River Song, who is an old companion of the Doctor from... his future! And maybe the only person we've seen so far that knows his real name...

I really liked the character of River Song; she is a strong character, someone who related well to The Doctor, and who had a dynamic relationship with him, I would say. A big part of this double episode, was based on the relationship between the two, and yet again, the performances by the actors were what made it work. The script was also good, but I have seen good scripts being ruined by incompetent actors... But here we have strong performances and a good, solid script.

This is the best episode of the season: Turn Left. What would have happened if Donna did not have a job at HC Clemens? What would have happened if The Doctor had died before being able to regenerate in the events that took place in the Runaway Bride, exactly because Donna was not there?

Rose Tyler returns to help Donna, and through Donna sends The Doctor a very important message: Bad Wolf.

In the last double episode of the season, we have the return of almost all the characters that at one time or another have been companions to the Doctor, and a few more surprises: Rose Tyler comes back, along with her mother Jackie, and Mickey; we have the return of Captain Jack Harkness, and Martha Jones; Sarah Jane Smith, and an enemy from the past: Davros. This episode though has left me with tears and bitterness at the end.

Due to a metastatic crisis, Donna becomes a human/timelord hybrid, and acquires all the knowledge of a timelord. The Doctor:s hand, due to the same metastatic crisis, regenerates into a human Doctor, with all the knowledge and memories of The Doctor. The Donna-Doctor hybrid, along with the human Doctor, are the ones who will get the rest of the gang out of trouble.

However, it is the Human Doctor, that will give a permanent solution; a solution which our beloved Timelord does not like. But is this the reason he leaves Rose and the Human Doctor together in the parallel world? Or is he really thinking of Rose's feelings and happiness, because the Human Doctor has one heart, will grow old with Rose and will not regenerate? And he harbors the same feelings towards Rose as the Timelord?

In the final scene, he has to wipe out Donna's memory, otherwise the knowledge of a Timelord, will kill her. If she ever remembers him again, Donna will die. He has to say goodbye to her, forever. The rest of the gang proceeds with their own lives, leaving the Doctor alone once more.The hard words spoken by Davros have left a deep scar, a mark on the Doctor, and this will influence his behaviour in the specials, that mark the last appearance of David Tennant as the Doctor.

Doctor Who - The Runaway Bride & Season 3 - David Tennant

 The third season starts with a Christmas Special episode, "The Runaway Bride" starring David Tennant as the Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble or the Bride! Suddenly, a bride named Donna Noble materializes on board the TARDIS, chaos ensues, and the Doctor returns to Earth and tries to get Donna on time for her wedding. What the episode has is excellent performances from both David Tennant and Catherine Tate. Catherine was wonderful, and she had a very good chemistry with Tennant. I was sorry she did not continue for the rest of the season.

I am going to say it again and again: I love David Tennant! I think that he is the best Doctor up to now, and I have watched episodes from all his predecessors. I have even the movie with Paul McGann, the 8th Doctor. But Tennant portrays a very different Doctor; he may seem hard at times, but this a humanist Doctor, a Doctor that hates guns and weapons, a Doctor that prefers to use his head and find a solution, he wants to give everyone a second chance, he smiles, he laughs, but he knows when to be serious and when to use humour.

In this third season, we have a new companion for the Doctor, Martha Jones, who is a doctor. Freema Agyeman, who portrays Martha, and the character of Martha are fine, but there was no chemistry between Agyeman and Tennant. It would have been much better if Catherine Tate stayed with the third season. 

Maybe this third season had to do more with the Doctor and his emotions, with what it meant for the Doctor to lose Rose, although they are not the centerpiece of the season. However, they did play their role in the Doctor's behaviour, and choices.

The loss of Rose Tyler is obvious since the events in runaway Bride, and throughout the third season, you can see how it has affected the Doctor. It plays a role especially in my favorite episodes, Human Nature/The Family of Blood, where the Doctor, using the Chameleon Arch, to become fully human, to escape some aliens. Even though he is human, and his consciousness and all that a timelord is, is locked within a pocket watch, in his dreams, there is adventure, there is the TARDIS, and there is Rose! The Doctor falls in love with someone else who is very similar to Rose... This double episode is one of the best moments of the series, and one of the best performances by David Tennant. I was moved and cried with these episodes.

However, the best episode of the season, is Blink. I don't want to make any spoilers for this episode, so I am not going to say much more. I consider it one of the top 5 episodes of any Doctor Who up to now. I cannot talk about this episode without giving something away, but please, while watching it, don't blink!

The last three episodes are memorable, because we have the return of the Master and Captain Jack Harkness. John Simm gives an excellent performance as the Master, and coupled with Tennant's performance, we get a good season ending. It wasn't the best season finale; I consider the second season ending to be the most emotional and strong still.

Season ending, and Martha Jones leaves the Doctor to find a new companion. I did not mind her leaving the series at this point, and wish that Billie Piper had stayed with the show. Captain Jack has to go back to Torchwood [good series, just started it], and we get a little hint about the Face of Boe. We have seen the Face of Boe at least three times up to now, and, at the start of this season, told the Doctor "You are not alone..."

Doctor Who - Christmas Special 2006 & Season 2 - David Tennant

In the previous article about the new Doctor Who series, I wrote that I had liked Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor, and that I had just started watching David Tennant's Doctor. To be honest, I think that David Tennant is brilliant in the role! I definitely think that he is the best Doctor up to now.

David Tennant starts as the Doctor in the last episode of Season 1, when the Doctor regenerates. The first Tennant episode is the Christmas Special of 2006. Initially, I was a bit unsure about Tennant's style, after the dark and grim Eccleston, but at the end of the Christmas Special, I knew that he was going to be a very good Doctor.


The Doctor has changed towards the better: he is more open, more humorous, he is more certain of  himself and his companions. In contrast with his predecessor, the new Doctor always gives a second chance to everyone, because he really believes in second chances. If they refuse, then tough luck for them: they will experience the wrath of a Timelord...

I loved the way David Tennant and Billie Piper related to each other in their roles. At first, it seemed like there was an awkwardness, like they did not know where the relationship was going. However, from the 3rd episode of the Season, "School Reunion" their relationship started to actually show, it showed its strength; it was a strong one but more discreet, I would say. The last scene of the season, definitely shows the strength and power of that relationship, and I was sorry to see Billie Piper go.

 


I thought that it was a big mistake to add the character of Mickey Smith into the team, and I was right. I don't think that the character of Mickey really worked; he was supposed to be a comic relief character, but this does not work for every show. Instead, he was an obstacle into the relationship between the Doctor and Rose. Mickey really showed his capabilities in the episode The Age of Steel, and I was glad to see him go. When he returns in the double episode for the finale, he is a much different Mickey Smith, not a comic relief character anymore, but someone who can really help. And that Mickey Smith I really liked, although I would not have him disrupt the Tennant-Piper duo under any circumstances. 

 

As far as the episodes go, I liked School reunion, and the reappearance of Sarah Jane Smith. I loved the dynamic between Sarah Jane and Rose, I thought they worked very well together. I almost choked from laughter when I saw Tennant as a teacher in the school in that episode [Wish my teachers had been as goodlooking and sexy as Tennant... I think many girls would definitely pay much more attention in class!] In this episode, Anthony Stewart Head is the main bad guy, who portrays the leader of some huge vampire bat-like creatures! If anyone remembers, Anthony Stewart Head was playing the character of Rupert Giles, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who was responsible for helping Buffy fight vampires and other creatures of the underworld.

The reappearance of the Cybermen was a good and strong double episode, but I must say that my favorite of the season, has to go to The Impossible Planet/The Satan's Pit. In this episode, we see the power of both characters, and how strong Rose Tyler is, how much more she could have given the series had she stayed.

The worst episode has to be Love & Monsters. It was supposed to be the comic relief episode of the season, but, I don't think it worked as well as expected. Add the fact that the main characters of the show, appear for a couple of minutes before the end...

The finale of the season is a double episode, featuring the Cybermen vs. the Dalek vs. everyone else. A sample dialogue between Cybermen and Dalek:

Dalek Sek: We would destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek. You are superior in only one respect.
Cyber-Leader 1: What is that?
Dalek Sek: You are better at dying.

The dialogues between the Cybermen and the Daleks were wonderful! Very cleverly written, and despite the humour in them, you can see that this is the way that a dialogue between such creatures would probably be.

The last scene of the season, where the Doctor says goodbye to Rose Tyler, is one of the most beautiful, strong and emotional scenes of both seasons. I cried at that scene, really cried, and every time I think about it, I still get tears in my eyes.

I love David Tennant as the Doctor! Truth to be told, he is tall, handsome and sexy. What's not to love?