Let him go

During our walk yesterday, Joe invited me to come back to his place afterwards to watch the third of the three 60^th anniversary Doctor Who specials. (I watched the first two with him a couple of weeks ago. He has Disney+ and I don’t.)

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen them yet and think you would like to do so, do not read any further.

Okay. David Tennant. Hands down, best Doctor ever. And I say this as someone who during the first, Christopher Eccleston, series of the reboot still thought Tom Baker would hold that title forever.

They have messed around with him in the past, At the end of series four they  created a half human version of him who was then left with Rose in a parallel universe. Handy, I thought, if they ever wanted to bring him back after Matt Smith took over. When I heard that The Day of the Doctor, the 50^th anniversary special, was going to involve both Smith and Tennant, I figured that was what they were going to do, but, no, Russell T. Davies came up with some sort of time/space continuum challenge that allowed the previously impossible: not just two Doctors crossing paths, but a third thrown in the mix. (John Hurt as the original Doctor.) By the end of the special said challenge (whatever the hell it was) had been resolved and it was once again impossible for two (or more) doctors to co-exist.

Moving right along through the rest of Smith, then the Peter Capaldi Doctor, then the Jodie Whittaker Doctor, bringing us to her final appearance in The Power of the Doctor, at the end of which she was mortally wounded and regenerated. When it was over I found myself repeating the last three words spoken: “What? What?!? WHAT?!?!?!” Because there was David Tennant again. What the hell?

Okay, I get it. I’m far from the only person who thinks he was the best Doctor ever. Although it was seemingly impossible on multiple levels, I could understand the desire to bring him back for three anniversary specials.

What? Donna’s back as well? How’s that supposed to work with the whole Human/Time Lord splicing thing that necessitated the Doctor wiping her memory and stating that she would die if she ever remembered him? Okay, full marks Russell for working out a way around that.

So I was doing fine with the first two specials. And then yesterday I watched the third. Earlier than I was expecting in the show, the Doctor gets blasted and starts to regenerate. I’ve been here before many times. I know how this works. And then this happened.

What the actual fuck, Russell? Bi-generation? Seriously? And then, as if this wasn’t enough of a mind fuck, the “new” doctor managed to replicate the TARDIS. Two doctors? Both with a TARDIS? WHAT?!?!?!

I wasn’t the only one.

Joe had never seen a single episode of Doctor Who before we sat down at his place to watch the first two specials. I’d given him a run down on the end of series four and who Donna Noble was. His main comment, as a sci-fi fan, after watching the first two was flagging how tongue-in-cheek British sci-fi is (think Hitchhiker’s Guide) compared with how seriously US sci-fi tends to take itself.

Yesterday he got it immediately. This was a step too far.

I knew the next Doctor was going to be the first Black Doctor and that the actor playing him is Ncuti Gatwa. The name didn’t mean anything to me. It wasn’t until I saw him that I recognised him from the role he’d played in Sex Education. Oh, him. I like him. I could enjoy his turn as the Doctor. But how am I supposed to fully engage with him when Tennant is lurking in the background, hanging out in suburban London with the Noble family? That is so unfair.

Not surprisingly, much has been written in fan world about bi-generation. By the time I’d got home from Joe’s place he’d already sent me four links, including this one in which the writer says: “Having two Doctors exist at the same time does mean that Ncuti Gatwa and David Tennant could meet up again in Doctor Who’s future. In just a handful of scenes, their chemistry is electric, and fans will already be eagerly anticipating their next team-up.”

Actually, I’m not. I frigging love David Tennant as the Doctor, but, jeez, it is time to let him go.