Tenth Doctor

The Doctor
The Tenth Doctor
Portrayed by	David Tennant
Tenure	18 June 2005–1 January 2010[1][2]
First appearance	"The Parting of the Ways"
Last appearance	The End of Time (regular) "The Day of the Doctor" (guest)
Number of series	3 + Specials (2008–10)
Appearances	36 stories (47 episodes)
Companions	Rose Tyler Mickey Smith Donna Noble Martha Jones Jack Harkness Astrid Peth[3][4][5] Sarah Jane Smith[6] Jackson Lake[7] Rosita Farisi[8][9] Christina de Souza[10] Adelaide Brooke[11][12] Wilfred Mott[13]
Chronology
Preceded by	Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston)
Succeeded by	Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith)
Series	Series 2 (2006) Series 3 (2007) Series 4 (2008) Specials (2008–10)[14]

The Tenth Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television programme Doctor Who. He is played by Scottish actor David Tennant in three series as well as nine specials. As with previous incarnations of the Doctor, the character has also appeared in other Doctor Who multimedia.

In the programme's narrative, the Doctor is a centuries-old Time Lord alien from the planet Gallifrey who travels in time in his TARDIS, frequently with companions. When the Doctor is critically injured, he can regenerate his body; in doing so, his physical appearance and personality change, and a new actor assumes the role. This incarnation's companions include working class shop assistant Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), medical student Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), and fiery temp worker Donna Noble (Catherine Tate). He eventually parts ways with them all by the end of the 2008 series finale, "Journey's End", after which he attempted to travel alone for the duration of the 2008–10 specials.

In November 2013, as part of Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary celebrations, Tennant's Doctor was voted "The UK's favourite Doctor" in a survey held by the Radio Times magazine.

Overview

Executive producer Russell T Davies revived Doctor Who after a 16-year absence with the successful premiere of "Rose" in 2005. Following the BBC's announcement of a second series being commissioned, the story broke that Christopher Eccleston, who played the titular Ninth Doctor, would not be returning for the second series. On 16 April 2005, the BBC announced that David Tennant had been selected for the role of the Tenth Doctor.^[15] His first appearance in the series was for 20 seconds following the Ninth Doctor's regeneration at the end of "The Parting of the Ways". His first full episode as the Doctor, barring an appearance in a "mini-episode" during the 2005 Children in Need show, was the 2005 Christmas Special, "The Christmas Invasion". He then appeared in the 2006 series, the second Christmas Special, the 2007 series, the third Christmas Special, and the 2008 series. Rather than a traditional series run, 2009 features a series of five specials and a series of animated shorts, all starring Tennant as the Tenth Doctor; he also guest-starred in a two-episode serial of The Sarah Jane Adventures spin-off in that year. Tennant also appears in two animated serials; The Infinite Quest is counted with the third series, and Dreamland is counted amongst the 2008–10 specials. In 2013, Tennant reprised his role as the Doctor for the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor", in which it is revealed that due to an uncounted past incarnation, the Tenth Doctor is in fact the Doctor's eleventh incarnation.

Personality

The Tenth Doctor generally displays a light-hearted, talkative, easy-going, witty, and cheeky manner, but nurses profound anger, regret, and vulnerability beneath his more glib exterior. In "School Reunion", he acknowledges that he is less merciful than he used to be and has stuck to his "one warning" code, always giving quarter punishing his enemies if they persist in their hostilities. He is quick to anger at the perception of injustice. When Prime Minister Harriet Jones destroys the retreating Sycorax ship against his wishes, he ruins her political career in retribution. In "The Waters of Mars", he goes so far as to declare himself above the laws of time, although there are catastrophic consequences as a result.

In his more level-headed moments, though, the Doctor feels profound regret for the many deaths he's had a hand in. (The Moment even describes him as "the man who regrets" in "The Day of the Doctor.") In "Journey's End", he has a flashback of those who have died instead of/for him, including Astrid Peth, Jenny, Luke Rattigan, Lynda Moss, and the hostess from "Midnight". He often shows mercy even to his most irredeemable foes, offering Davros the chance to escape the destruction of the Dalek mothership and insisting on giving a Sontaran general the chance to escape with his life even though he knows a Sontaran would never retreat. The Tenth Doctor declaration that he is "so sorry" for what he must do is a leitmotif throughout the series. In "The Doctor's Daughter" he explains to his daughter Jenny how "killing...infects [you] and once it does you'll never get rid of it."

Loneliness is the Tenth Doctor's most persistent personal demon: His relationship with various companions is always short-lived and often ends in tragedy. The survival guilt characteristic of his previous incarnation now takes the form of extreme isolation and a sense of melancholy at being the last of his kind. Even the apparent death of his arch-enemy The Master engenders grief, and in fact the Master elects to die rather than save his own life by regenerating simply to spite the Doctor. In "School Reunion", he says that the long lifespan of the Time Lords is a curse, because while his human companions someday leave him and eventually die, he continues to live. While they may spend the rest of their lives with him, he is unable to do so in turn. In "The End of Time", he ultimately ends up regenerating in the TARDIS alone, despite visits to his past companions in his dying hours.

The Tenth Doctor has a tendency to babble, mixing apparent nonsense with vital information, sometimes acting erratically to put his enemies off-guard. In "The Christmas Invasion" and "Tooth and Claw", he is surprised at his own unintentional rudeness when making disparaging remarks, and Jack Harkness, after reuniting with the Doctor, notes that his "new regeneration (is) kinda cheeky".^[16] He has a tendency to use technobabble to describe scientific concepts before substituting it with a simpler, analogous explanation, such as his description of non-linear temporal physics as "a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff".^[17] He changes moods often, from mania to anger to nonchalance, and uses this as a form of reverse psychology.

The Tenth Doctor is openly fond of mankind and in awe of their tenacity and curiosity, a trait previously exhibited by his fourth incarnation. In "The Impossible Planet", he hugs the leader of an Earth expedition for daring to explore a planet orbiting a black hole merely "because it was there". In "The Age of Steel", he describes human beings as both brilliant and stupid in the same sentence while arguing the necessity of emotions with the Cyber-Controller. Conversely, this makes his expectations rather high and his anger when he feels humanity has let him down quite severe. Indeed, his confidence in the human race becomes far less pronounced in later series, and at the end of "Midnight" he is left speechless after witnessing the steps humans can become willing to take when placed in a threatening situation, as he is almost killed by a panicky group of people who turn on him. The Tenth Doctor stands out for his love of human popular culture, including television, Harry Potter, and the film "The Lion King."

More than any previous incarnation, the Tenth Doctor serves as a romantic leading man. His relationship with Rose becomes one of obviously mutual but unacknowledged love, and he has several flagrant, whirlwind romances with historical figures like Madame de Pompadour and Queen Elizabeth I (the latter of whom he actually marries, albeit somewhat unintentionally). In "School Reunion", Sarah Jane Smith all but confesses that she had been in love with him all along. Martha Jones runs off with the Doctor in Series 3 largely because of an obvious attraction to him, but her feelings remain unrequited due to his lingering preoccupation with Rose. On the other hand, he expressly singles out Donna as a new travelling companion precisely because they have no romantic chemistry. When he is poisoned in "The Unicorn and the Wasp" and asks Donna to give him a shock of some kind, kissing him proves to be so out-of-character for her that it is sufficient to trigger the detox process. Despite his constant heartache, the Tenth Doctor's qualities as a romantic lead remain one of his defining characteristics as a consistently well-dressed, traditionally handsome performer, engaging in such pageantry as sword fighting villains and riding to the rescue on a white horse in classic swashbuckling fashion.

The Tenth Doctor speaks with an Estuary English accent, rather than the Greater Manchester accent (Christopher Eccleston's own accent) that the Ninth Doctor used, the Received Pronunciation of most earlier Doctors, or Tennant's natural Scottish English. David Tennant told SFX magazine in 2006 that Russell T Davies had asked him to drop his natural Scottish accent, because he felt "we'd like to not go for another obvious regional accent, because I suppose they'd done that".^[18] In a 23 December interview on BBC Radio 1, Tennant explained that a line had been scripted for the Christmas special explaining that the newly regenerated Doctor had imprinted on Rose Tyler's accent, "like a chick hatching from an egg", but the line was cut from the final episode. The Tenth Doctor uses an American Appalachian accent in "The Christmas Invasion", and a Highland Scottish accent in "Tooth and Claw."

Much as the Ninth Doctor frequently declared things "Fantastic!", this Doctor has also favoured certain phrases on various occasions, such as "Brilliant!", "oh yes!" (used in an exuberant fashion, often when he has successfully done something), "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry", and the French command "Allons-y" ("Let's go"). He often clarifies his own mistakes by beginning with an elongated "Well..."

Both Tennant and his character express particular affection for Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor character and imitated much of Davison's style. The pair co-starred In the 2007 Children in Need special, "Time Crash" where their respective incarnations reflect on the commonalities of their mode and adventures. The Tenth admits to the Fifth that he was the Tenth's favourite past incarnation.

Appearance

The Doctor complains that his tenth incarnation is not "ginger". He wears his own brown hair in various ways throughout the series: unstyled in "The Christmas Invasion", a 1950s-style quiff in "The Idiot's Lantern", and flattened forwards in "The Runaway Bride". He has dark brown eyes and is perceived by most, including companions and other characters as "slim and a little bit foxy".^[19]

He generally wears either a dark brown (with blue pinstripes) or a blue (with rust red pinstripes) four-buttoned suit, a shirt and a tie, a light brown faux-suede overcoat (which he claims was given to him by Janis Joplin), and different coloured pairs of trainers, depending on his suit. According to an interview on Parkinson, David Tennant and Russell T Davies got the idea for the Tenth Doctor's costume from an outfit Jamie Oliver had worn on Parkinson just after Tennant had taken the role.^[20] David Tennant has commented that he would vary the combination of the buttons he fastened on his jacket in different episodes.

The Doctor dons a pair of dark tortoise-shell rectangular frame glasses, an affectation (along with his signature footwear) borrowed from the Fifth Doctor. He also occasionally sports a pair of Red-Cyan 3D glasses, both as a joke and for practical reasons. The Tenth Doctor's costume became so popular that it has spawned numerous recreations (including a BBC-licensed replica of the Tenth Doctor's overcoat by AbbyShot Clothiers^[21] and a white/red version worn by Tennant when he co-hosted Comic Relief), and has been cited by costume designer Louise Page as the costume she is most proud of from her time on Doctor Who.^[22]

Appearances

Television

The Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) regenerates into the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) at the climax of the 2005 series finale, "The Parting of the Ways"; he re-introduces himself to his companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) in an untitled Children in Need mini-episode. In the Christmas special, he is in a comatose state for most of the episode, following his regeneration. After eventually waking up, he defeats the alien Sycorax and saves Earth; in the process, he loses a hand, which regrows owing to his recent regeneration. Amongst other 2006 series adventures, the Doctor and Rose save Queen Victoria (Pauline Collins) from a werewolf, resulting in the creation of the anti-alien Torchwood Institute. The Doctor shares an adventure with two former companions, journalist Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) and robot dog K-9 (John Leeson), before taking on Rose's boyfriend Mickey (Noel Clarke) as a second companion. The series finale takes place in contemporary London, where modern-day Torchwood is the scene for war between the evil alien Daleks and parallel-universe cyborgs the Cybermen; saving the Earth costs the Doctor Rose, who is stranded in a parallel universe, along with Mickey and her mother, in "Doomsday".

In the closing scene of "Doomsday", a mysterious bride (Catherine Tate) inexplicably appears in his TARDIS. The 2006 Christmas special sees the Doctor and bride-to-be Donna Noble save the Earth; Donna saves the Doctor from going too far in his revenge against the alien Racnoss and declines his offer of companionship. In the 2007 series, the Doctor takes on Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) as his new companion. Together, they witness the mysterious Face of Boe (Struan Rodger) prophesy to the Doctor that "you are not alone." They are rejoined by former companion Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) in a three-episode adventure where presumed-deceased archenemy and fellow Time Lord the Master (John Simm) becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and enslaves the Doctor for one year. Martha's plan sees the Doctor infused with the world's psychic energies, and he easily defeats the Master, who seemingly refuses to regenerate and dies in the Doctor's arms. Following this adventure, in the dénouement of series finale "Last of the Time Lords", Jack and Martha both depart the TARDIS, and the Doctor is shocked to see what appears to be the RMS Titanic crash into it. Set moments prior, another Children in Need mini-episode, "Time Crash", features a brief encounter between Tennant's Tenth Doctor and the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison), containing meta-humour surrounding Davison's Doctor having been a young David Tennant's favourite. In parallel with the third series, Tennant lends his voice to the animated serial The Infinite Quest.

The 2007 Christmas special sees the Doctor and a waitress, Astrid (Kylie Minogue), save the Earth from the impending crash of the starship Titanic; Astrid dies heroically, and the Doctor encounters Wilfred Mott (Bernard Cribbins) for the first time. In the 2008 series première episode, the Doctor is reunited with Donna Noble, Mott's granddaughter, who becomes his regular companion. In "Planet of the Ood", the alien Ood prophesy the Tenth Doctor's demise. Martha accompanies them for three episodes; in two, the Doctor battles the alien Sontarans, and last of which sees him become a father of sorts to Jenny (Georgia Moffett), in "The Doctor's Daughter". He meets archaeologist and future companion River Song (Alex Kingston) for the first time from his perspective in the two-parter "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead"; she dies, but he stores her consciousness to a hard drive to live on forever, after accepting that one day she will come to mean a lot to him. After Donna encounters Rose in an alternate timeline in "Turn Left", the Doctor realises that it must herald the end of the world. In finale episodes "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End" (which cross over with spin-offs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures), the Doctor and Donna reunite with former companions Rose, Sarah Jane, Martha, Jack, and Mickey to save the universe from Davros (Julian Bleach), the creator of the Daleks. A half-human Doctor is created from the Doctor's previously severed hand, and Donna is given the mind of a Time Lord; the Human Doctor enjoys a happy ending with Rose in the parallel universe, though the Doctor is forced to erase Donna's memories to save her life, leaving him alone. A Doctor Who Prom mini-episode, "Music of the Spheres", features a lone Doctor composing his musical Ode to the Universe before being interrupted by the small alien Graske (Jimmy Vee).

In lieu of a 2009 series, Tennant appears as the Tenth Doctor, without a regular companion, in several special episodes over the course of 2008 and 2009, the last of which aired on New Year's Day, 2010. In the Christmas special "The Next Doctor", the Doctor mistakenly believes he has met a later incarnation of himself in an amnesiac Londoner (David Morrissey), with whom he saves Victorian-era London. "Planet of the Dead" (Easter 2009) features jewel thief Lady Christina de Souza (Michelle Ryan) as the Doctor's one-off companion, and the Doctor is presented with a prophecy of his imminent death. Tennant makes a crossover appearance in a The Sarah Jane Adventures two-parter, The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, in which a powerful being known as the Trickster (Paul Marc Davis) also alludes to the Tenth Doctor's impending demise. In "The Waters of Mars", the Doctor tries to alter history and avert the death of one-off companion Adelaide Brooke (Lindsay Duncan); when she commits suicide, he begins to feel his mortality weigh down upon him. In the animated serial Dreamland, the Doctor is joined by two one-off companions in 1950s Roswell, New Mexico. In the two-part send-off The End of Time, the Doctor confronts the Ood about their original prophecy and is led to contemporary Earth where, in the second part, the again-resurrected Master (Simm) restores Gallifrey and the Time Lords to existence, although he redeems himself by assisting the Doctor to defeat Time Lord President Rassilon (Timothy Dalton) before disappearing alongside the other Time Lords. The Doctor sacrifices his life to save Wilfred Mott, exposing himself to 500,000 rads of deadly radiation and triggering his regeneration. He holds it back and is shown visiting several companions.^[a] He gives Donna a winning lottery ticket on her wedding day, buying it with money he borrowed from her late father in the past, saves Martha and Mickey from a Sontaran sniper, saves Sarah Jane's son Luke (Tommy Knight) from a car, introduces Jack to a romantic interest (Russell Tovey), and finally, just before regenerating into the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith), he informs Rose in 2005 that she is about to have a "great year". As he begins regenerating once in the TARDIS, his last words are "I don't want to go".

Tennant reprised the role for the show's 50th anniversary in "The Day of the Doctor" (2013), appearing alongside the Eleventh Doctor (Smith) and a forgotten past incarnation, the War Doctor, played by John Hurt. In the special, in which we view scenes from the Tenth Doctor's time taking place between "The Waters of Mars" and The End of Time, the Doctor unintentionally marries Queen Elizabeth I (Joanna Page) while luring out a Zygon. He helps the other Doctors in saving Gallifrey at the Time War's conclusion, but will not retain memories of the event. His final words are, once again "I don't want to go" after being told that he will die on Trenzalore.

Spoofs

David Tennant has also made numerous cameo appearances as the Doctor outside of Doctor Who, frequently in spoof appearances. Singer and actress Charlotte Church spoofs Doctor Who alongside an actor playing the Tenth Doctor in her own The Charlotte Church Show (2006). In an appearance on The Friday Night Project in 2007, Tennant plays a female companion to the Tenth Doctor (Justin Lee Collins) on the Pink Planet, where they are confronted by the alien Gay Lord (Alan Carr). When the show became The Sunday Night Project, Catherine Tate appeared in a skit playing the Tenth Doctor. Tennant starred opposite Catherine Tate in her own The Catherine Tate Show special (2007) as Lauren Cooper's (Tate) teacher Mr. Logan, who Cooper teases for his resemblance to the Doctor; eventually, he reveals himself to be the Tenth Doctor and shrinks Cooper into a 5" Rose Tyler action figure. In the final episode of Extras (December 2007), a brief scene shows the Doctor and an unidentified Wren companion attacked by Schlong, a slug-like alien played by Andy Millman (Ricky Gervais). The Tenth Doctor is also featured in political satire; in a 2007 episode of Dead Ringers, when faced by the question of Gordon Brown's succession, Tony Blair (impressionist Jon Culshaw) regenerates into David Tennant after promising "New Labour is all about renewal", later vowing 100 more years of power. Tennant modifies his first line in "The Parting of the Ways" ("New teeth, that's weird"), to "New Labour, that's weird" and proceeds to address the public in a Tony Blair impression resembling Culshaw's.

Literature

As the face of the Doctor Who franchise for 2005–10, the Tenth Doctor appears extensively in Doctor Who spin-off media; in the majority of these series, the character simply takes after the place of the Ninth Doctor, and in turn is replaced by the Eleventh following the debut of the 2010 series. Novels featuring the Tenth Doctor are all published by BBC Books. The character appears in New Series Adventures novels spanning from The Stone Rose (April 2006) to The Krillitane Storm (September 2009). A number Decide Your Destiny novels were published between July 2007 and March 2008, as well as five books published as a part of Quick Reads Initiative, a government-sponsored adult literacy project. BBC Children's Books released their own 10-part series, The Darksmith Legacy, supported by an interactive tie-in website. Additionally, short stories are frequently published in Doctor Who Magazine, The Doctor Who Storybook series (2007–10 editions), the BBC website, and annuals and suchlike; one example being the story "The Lodger" by Gareth Roberts, later adapted into an Eleventh Doctor television episode of the same name. National newspapers The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times have each published one Christmas-themed Tenth Doctor short story. Additionally, the Tenth Doctor appears in a novelisation of his The Sarah Jane Adventures crossover appearance. The Tenth Doctor also appears extensively in comic books, replacing the Ninth Doctor in those published in Doctor Who Magazine, and the younger-audience Doctor Who Adventures and Doctor Who: Battles in Time. American comic book publisher initially published a 2008 Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones miniseries between January and June 2006. This was later followed by a truly ongoing Tenth Doctor series in July 2009, set during the 2008–10 specials and lasting sixteen issues before relaunching with the Eleventh Doctor. In stories set after "Journey's End", the Doctor is accompanied by numerous one-off and recurring companions who do not feature in the television series.

Outside of Doctor Who literature, penciller Georges Jeanty includes a cameo of the Tenth Doctor and Rose in a panel of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight story arc "No Future for You". The Tenth Doctor was utilised in the American satirical political cartoon strip, This Modern World. Arriving in 2003, the Doctor hints to Sparky the Wonder Penguin (the strip's main character) that in five years' time, the next President could be a black man, with the middle name Hussein, whose father was a Muslim, referring to the popularity of Senator Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential election.^[23] The character also appeared in a story arc of the webcomic PvP, in which character Brent Sienna hallucinates materialising in the TARDIS.^[24]

Audio drama

As is the case with the BBC Books novels, the Tenth Doctor replaced the Ninth as the face of the Doctor Who audiobook series, beginning with Pest Control in May 2008 and ending with Dead Air in March 2010. The majority are read by David Tennant, save one read by Michelle Ryan and two by Catherine Tate. A number of Tenth Doctor novels were also abridged to become audiobooks, again featuring David Tennant's voice alongside other cast members such as Freema Agyeman and television series guest stars such as Georgia Moffett, Reggie Yates and Anthony Head; the last of these scheduled is Judgement of the Judoon, for December 2010.

Reception

The Tenth Doctor has been very popular amongst the Doctor Who fandom and has received critical acclaim. In 2006, readers of Doctor Who Magazine voted Tennant's Doctor "Best Doctor" over perennial favourite Tom Baker.^[25] He also won the National Television Awards award for Most Popular Actor in 2006 and 2007, and the award for Outstanding Drama Performance in 2008 and 2010. In a poll conducted by Radio Times in March 2007, Tennant's Doctor was named the "coolest character on television".^[26][27] IGN ranked the Tenth Doctor the best Doctor in 2011.^[28] In 2013, IGN again ranked Tennant as the best Doctor,^[29] along with the Daily Mail^[30] and Radio Times, with Billie Piper also being voted as best companion.^[31] Users of PlusNet also voted David Tennant as the best Doctor in 2013.^[32] Users of DoctorWhoTV also voted Tennant as 'Ultimate Doctor' in 2013.^[33] Voters on DigitalSpy also rated Tennant as the greatest Doctor in 2013 with 50.05% of the votes.^[34]

References

Notes

1. ^{^} A serial of The Sarah Jane Adventures starring the Eleventh Doctor called Death of the Doctor clarifies that the Doctor, in fact, made visits to every former companion.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tenth Doctor.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Tenth Doctor

• Tenth Doctor on TARDIS Data Core, an external wiki
• "The Tenth Doctor", Doctor Who, UK: The BBC .
• Doctor Who series two (press launch report and audio interviews), Wiltshire: BBC .