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| The Doctor | |
|---|---|
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| The Tenth Doctor | |
| Portrayed by | David Tennant |
| Tenure | 2005–2010[1] |
| First appearance | "The Parting of the Ways" |
| Last appearance | The End of Time[2] |
| Number of series | 3 |
| Appearances | 36 stories (47 episodes) |
| Companions | Rose Tyler Mickey Smith Donna Noble Martha Jones Jack Harkness |
| Chronology | |
| Preceding | Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) |
| Succeeding | Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) |
| Series | Series 2 (2006) Series 3 (2007) Series 4 (2008) Specials (2009–2010)[3] |
The Tenth Doctor is the tenth incarnation of the fictional character known as the Doctor seen on screen in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He is played by David Tennant, who replaced Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor in the 2005 series finale, "The Parting of the Ways". Tennant appears in three series, as well as eight specials. As with previous incarnations of the Doctor, the character has also appeared in other Doctor Who multimedia.
In the series' 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. Tennant portrays the tenth such incarnation. His companions include Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), who was already travelling with his predecessor; Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) and Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), but he eventually parts ways with them all by the end of the 2008 series finale, "Journey's End". Wilfred Mott (Bernard Cribbins) briefly serves as his companion during the events of the 2009 two-part special "The End of Time".
During an acceptance speech of a 2008 National Television Award for his role as the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant announced that he would not be returning as the intrepid Time Lord for the fifth series, scheduled to be broadcast in 2010. He made his final appearance as the Doctor in The End of Time.[1]
In 2009, Doctor Who Magazine readers voted the Tenth Doctor as Number One in Issue 414's Favorite Doctor poll, winning 25.64% of the vote, beating the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) who came in at number 2 with 24.73% of recorded votes.
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After the successful premiere of "Rose" and announcement of a second series being commissioned by the BBC, the story broke that Christopher Eccleston, who played the 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.[4] 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 seasonal episode, 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.
In 2006, readers of Doctor Who Magazine voted Tennant's Doctor "Best Doctor" over perennial favourite Tom Baker.[5]
A thirteen-part animated adventure, The Infinite Quest, featuring the Tenth Doctor and companion Martha Jones (voiced by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman) premiered on Totally Doctor Who on 2 April 2007; the last segment of The Infinite Quest was shown with all previous episodes as an entire Doctor Who episode on 30 June 2007. The Tenth Doctor also appeared in a second animated serial, Dreamland, aired on CBBC in Autumn 2009.[6]
While the previous Doctor was never explicitly referred to as the Ninth on-screen, the exact number of incarnations thus far was confirmed in-series by sketches of the ten Doctors to date in the sketchbook A Journal of Impossible Things that appeared in 2007's "Human Nature" (although only five incarnations are visible on-screen, the other five also appear on a two-page scan seen on the BBC's tie-in website). In "School Reunion", the Tenth Doctor commented to Sarah Jane Smith that he had regenerated half a dozen times since they had last met; Sarah last saw the Doctor at the end of the Fourth Doctor serial The Hand of Fear (in the anniversary special "The Five Doctors" (1983), she is paired up with the Third Doctor, and also meets the Fifth Doctor, Second Doctor, and First Doctor). Off-screen, on the DVD commentary for "The Parting of the Ways", Julie Gardner states after the regeneration sequence, "Tennant is Ten!". For the soundtrack of "The Christmas Invasion", a specially commissioned piece played during the sequence in which the Doctor chooses his new outfit was titled "Song for Ten". The BBC's official website refers to Tennant's Doctor as the "Tenth Doctor", as do all promotional materials for the show, such as trading cards and action figures.
The Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) regenerates into the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) due to cellular damage caused by absorbing the energies of the time vortex at the climax of "The Parting of the Ways". In the untitled Children in Need mini-episode, the Doctor initially exhibits stable behaviour as he introduces his new form to Rose Tyler, showing particular interest in his appearance, but soon begins acting erratically and says that his regeneration has "gone wrong". He remains in a delirious or comatose state through most of the events of "The Christmas Invasion" until his regeneration is settled through absorbing the free radicals and tannin from some hot tea that had dripped onto a power source inside the TARDIS. He then saves the Earth from invasion by killing the leader of the alien Sycorax using a satsuma when he refuses to leave peacefully ("No second chances; I'm that sort of a man", he remarks). The Doctor's right hand is severed in the fight, although he regenerates a new one since his regeneration cycle was not fully completed.
The Tenth Doctor and Rose go on to meet Queen Victoria, saving her from a werewolf which resulted in not only the Doctor's knighting as "Sir Doctor of TARDIS" and banishment from the British Empire, but also resulted in the creation of the Torchwood Institute, an Earth organization dedicated to policing supernatural and alien affairs. After being reunited with his previous incarnation's companion, Sarah Jane Smith, the Doctor, Rose, and Mickey Smith end up in an alternate universe where the Cybermen originate on Earth. After stopping them, the Doctor leaves Mickey behind at his request. During the 2-part event of "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit", the Doctor encounters the Torchwood Archive as they unknowingly awakened the Beast, who spoke of Rose's death to her shock as the Doctor assures her that it was only words. But the Beast's prophecy comes true when the Doctor eventually returns to present-day Earth, his TARDIS is stolen by the Torchwood Institute, who are manipulated by the Cybermen into creating a link to their universe through the Void, which inadvertently frees the Dalek Empire from the Time War as well. The Torchwood Institute forms a truce with the Cybermen until the Daleks are returned to the Void, at the cost of Torchwood's main base, the scattering of the Cybermen through time and space, and Rose, believed dead to the general public, ending up at the alternate universe with her mother and Mickey.
Immediately after the loss of Rose, who was in love with him, the Doctor meets Donna Noble, a bride drawn to the TARDIS during her wedding by a poisonous energy administered to her by the Racnoss, a race of spider aliens that had been hibernating in the Earth's core and needed to use Donna as a key to release themselves. The Doctor cures Donna and murders the Racnoss Queen and her brood, planning to die with them until Donna saves him. The Doctor offers Donna companionship, which she refuses but she suggests the Doctor finds someone who can "stop [him] sometimes". The Doctor later saves Martha Jones from an alien vampire pursued by the Judoon, and brings her on his various adventures, one of which has him meet the Face of Boe before his death and hearing his final worlds, "You Are Not Alone". In the far, far future, near the Heat death of the universe, after the TARDIS attempted to shake off Captain Jack Harkness, the Doctor learns the meaning behind the Face of Boe's final worlds when he and Martha inadvertently free the Master from a Chameleon Arch. The Master immediately steals the TARDIS and regenerates, returning to Earth in 2006 and becoming Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. When the Doctor and Martha return, hitching a ride on Jack's Vortex Manipulator, the Master captures the Doctor and Jack, using them to enslave the human race. Martha escapes capture and attempts to undermine the Master. With Martha's help, the Doctor eventually defeats the Master and reverses the year during which he nearly destroyed the universe. After the universe is safe, the Master is shot and dies in the Doctor's arms.
After Martha and Jack's departure in the aftermath of the Master's death, the Doctor finds himself on a replica of the Titanic and keeps it from crashing onto London on Christmas Day. Soon after, the Doctor once more crosses paths with Donna, who accepts his offer and becomes his companion. Throughout their journey to places like Pompeii and the Planet of the Ood, the Doctor and Donna receive cryptic mentions of their future as well as equally mysterious appearances of Rose. After helping Martha and UNIT against the Sontarans, the TARDIS takes the Doctor, Donna, and a confused Martha to the planet Messaline in an unknown time period where the armed human colonists' forceful extrapolation of the Doctor's DNA results in the birth of Jenny, whom the Doctor eventually accepts as his 'daughter,' only to be separated from her by the end of the episode after he believes her to have died, not knowing that she later returned to life once he left.
In the aftermath of "Turn Left" and as The Stolen Earth begins, the Doctor is warned by Rose through Donna that the world is endangered. Finding the Earth gone, the Doctor contacts the Shadow Proclamation, learning that Earth is the latest of a series of planets that vanished. With the aid of the Doctor's former companions Captain Jack, Martha and Sarah Jane Smith, the Doctor pinpoints their location and learns that Davros is the cause of the planets' disappearance. The Doctor arrives on Earth where Rose is waiting for him, however before they are reunited, the Doctor is mortally shot by a Dalek, evoking his regeneration which he manages to redirect towards his previously severed hand that is connected to the TARDIS, keeping the Doctor in the same form. That action led to Donna inadvertently causing a "human biological metacrisis" by touching the severed hand, causing her to manifest into a Time Lord/human hybrid version of the Tenth Doctor to be created as well as Donna's eventual transformation into the predicted Doctor Donna that led to the Daleks' defeat and the worlds returned to their rightful places. After saying goodbye to his former companions, the Doctor is forced to erase Donna's memories when the Time Lord energy within her starts to consume her and leaves her behind as he departs in the TARDIS by himself. In the following special episode, "Music of the Spheres", his musical talent is revealed, when he has taken his mind off his loneliness by composing an "Ode to the Universe".
In "Planet of the Dead", after returning stranded humans from San Helios, the Doctor is told of a premonition: "Your song is ending, soon. It is returning, it is returning from the dark. And then Doctor... oh, but then...he will knock four times", an event which will precede his death. It starts to become a reality during "The End of Time", when the Master is resurrected and rewrites humanity's genetic makeup in his own image, as an unwitting part of a plan designed to enable the Time Lords to escape their fate at the end of the Time War. After the Master and the Time Lords are stopped and the planet is safe, the Doctor finds his companion, Wilfred Mott, locked in a containment chamber in danger of imminent fatal contamination. Wilf knocks four times to alert the Doctor to his situation. Though raging against the universe for his fate, the Doctor nevertheless enters the cubicle to save Wilf, causing himself to suffer a lethal dose of radiation poisoning. The Doctor spends the remainder of his life paying final visits to his past companions, his last being Rose Tyler in a time before she met his previous incarnation. Dying a slow death, the Doctor sets a new course in the TARDIS before he begins to regenerate, his last words being "I don't want to go". With a massive release of energy that cripples his ship, he regenerates into the Eleventh Doctor.
The Tenth Doctor gained Rose Tyler (played by Billie Piper) as his companion, who left in "Doomsday", the final episode of the 2006 series, seemingly stranded forever on a parallel world. At the end of the same episode, a bride named Donna Noble, played by Catherine Tate, appeared in the TARDIS as a result of her Huon particle intake, and appeared in the 2006 Christmas special, "The Runaway Bride". In the episode's dénouement, she refused his offer of full-time companionship, instead suggesting he find someone else. She did, however, return as the full time companion for Series 4.[7] Rose also returns for the three final episodes in Series 4, after making three foreshadowing appearances throughout the series, none of which were witnessed by the Doctor.[8] After a hectic reunion in the series finale "Journey's End", Rose's story appears to end when she is left to live on her parallel world with a partially-human tenth Doctor, a man with all his memories and his personality who will age and live and die as a normal human unable to regenerate. Donna's time with the Doctor also ends in this episode because as a Human-Time Lord hybrid, she is imbued with Time Lord knowledge her human brain cannot safely contain. To save her, the Doctor wipes all memories of their adventures together from her mind and returns her to her mother and grandfather.
Rose's boyfriend, Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke), a recurring character from the previous season, joined the TARDIS as a regular companion in "School Reunion". Mickey departed the TARDIS in "The Age of Steel", replacing his deceased counterpart Ricky on a parallel Earth. He returned and departed for good in the 2006 two-part series finale, "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday", and again for the 2008 finale "Journey's End", where having broken up with Rose and seen his parallel grandmother die on a parallel Earth, is content to return to his homeworld and parts ways with the Doctor, this time alongside Martha and Jack. "The End of Time" shows him now married to Martha.
Rose's mother, Jackie Tyler (Camille Coduri), was also a recurring character in the first two series, and played a major role in several episodes, notably "The Parting of the Ways", "The Christmas Invasion" and "Love & Monsters", finally traveling in the TARDIS by accident in "Army of Ghosts". Though she traveled in the TARDIS with the Doctor, she is not necessarily considered a companion. She does however appear alongside Mickey in "Journey's End", and is brought before Davros as one of the Doctor's "children of time", although she is not treated as a companion by the Doctor in the episode. She returns to the parallel world with Rose and the Doctor clone in the dénouement.
In series three the Doctor was joined by a new companion called Martha Jones, played by Freema Agyeman.[9] Agyeman previously played Adeola in "Army of Ghosts", a character who died during the course of the episode, later revealed to be Martha's cousin.[10] Martha joins the Doctor after they save each other's lives during a Plasmavore attack, and the Doctor offers her a single trip in the TARDIS by way of thanks. She continues as his companion following a trip to the Globe Theatre, and was made an "official" companion—by receiving a key to the TARDIS—in "42". Martha returns to Earth to finish her medical training in "Last of the Time Lords", but leaves her superphone with the Doctor so she can call him if she wants to come back, which she did in two episodes of the fourth series; requiring the Doctor's help on Earth. Martha, The Doctor and Donna proceeded to battle classic series monsters, the Sontarans. She was accidentally brought to Messaline along with the Doctor and Donna in the episode, "The Doctor's Daughter", when the TARDIS piloted itself. Martha returned for the two-part series finale ("The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End"), where, after the story's events, she stayed on Earth with Jack and Mickey Smith. An "in-between" guest stint in the Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood revealed that Martha had qualified as a doctor and now works for the Doctor's former employers, UNIT. She has since apparently left UNIT and is now married to Mickey.
Previous companion 'Captain' Jack Harkness was originally to have rejoined the TARDIS crew in the 2006 series. However, this plan was abandoned, in part because of Harkness' role in Torchwood It was initially announced that there would be no crossovers between the two series,[11] but Harkness returned to Doctor Who in "Utopia" for the final three episodes of the 2007 series. In "Last of the Time Lords", the Doctor re-offers Jack full-time companionship but the events of the episode cause Jack to realise that his friends in Cardiff need him, declining the offer he had pined for.
The Doctor was also reunited with previous companions Sarah Jane Smith and K-9 (Mark III) in "School Reunion", with Sarah Jane returning with full companion status in the final two episodes of series four.[12] The K-9 model given to Sarah Jane at the conclusion of "School Reunion" becomes a close ally of Sarah Jane's, and assists her and the Doctor in "Journey's End" from a distance.
Although she is not considered an official companion, the character of Sally Sparrow in the 2007 episode "Blink" fulfills many of the functions of a companion in this episode, in which she is "recruited" by the Doctor to rescue him from 1969; the episode focuses on her as she follows clues left for her by the Doctor and several allies throughout time, before she actually meets the Doctor at the story's conclusion. The episode "The Girl in the Fireplace" has the Doctor offering Madame de Pompadour the chance to become a companion (if briefly), but circumstances render this impossible and she dies before being able to take him up on the offer. After Martha's departure, pop star Kylie Minogue appeared in the 2007 Christmas special, "Voyage of the Damned", playing a character named Astrid Peth, a "one-off companion" for the episode.[13] Both she, and later, Jenny, the Doctor's "daughter" by cloning, accept offers of companionship from him, only for circumstances to conspire to prevent them from doing so.
In the 2008 series episodes "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead", the Doctor encounters Professor River Song, a 51st-century archaeologist he will apparently meet in the future and become dear to him. It is never explicitly stated that she was a companion, but she states that they traveled together often and she gained his complete trust, to the point that she would eventually know the Doctor's true name.
The Tenth Doctor is the first since the Second Doctor to actually say "goodbye" to a companion (specifically, Sarah Jane) rather than simply leaving, or giving some platitude when a companion leaves of their own accord. He has made many mentions of Rose Tyler since her departure to Martha Jones and Donna Noble (and has had references of her made to him), although in past incarnations, he has also made the occasional repeated reference to the likes of his granddaughter Susan and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. At one point, he used "Doctor James McCrimmon" as an alias, another reference to a previous companion. The finale episode "The End of Time" sees the Doctor bidding farewell to all six companions who assisted him in his life time —Jack, Martha, Mickey, Sarah Jane, Rose and Donna, as well as Jackie and his part-human clone. The Doctor claims another round of goodbyes as "[his] reward" after taking a lethal dose of radiation to save Wilf's life in The End of Time.
The Tenth Doctor generally displays a light-hearted, talkative, easy-going, witty and cheeky manner, but combines this with a somewhat egocentric sense of unstoppability when facing his enemies. He is perhaps as ruthless and dangerous as his seventh incarnation ever was, although much less inclined to complex schemes and set goals. This emerged early on when he sent the Sycorax leader (who was attacking him from behind) falling to his death while commenting that, with him, there were "no second chances".[14] In "School Reunion", he acknowledges that he is less merciful than he used to be and has stuck to his "one warning" code, punishing his enemies if they persist in their hostilities. This was most explicitly demonstrated in "The Runaway Bride" when he drowned the Empress of Racnoss' children, and in "The Family of Blood" where he gave each Family member an individual and eternal punishment. In "Forest of the Dead", the Doctor supports his immense self-belief in his abilities and authority in a different way by causing the Vashta Nerada to acquiesce to his ultimatum simply by stating they were in the universe's biggest library and should "Look him up". However, in "Partners in Crime", after giving his adversary Miss Foster an explicit warning, he tried to save her life at the end of the episode and did not punish her Adipose foster children "because they're children". Donna notes that Martha had been a positive influence on him, citing his infanticide of the Racnoss in their previous encounter. Like his past selves, he is critical of weapons, going as far as to describe people with guns as "the enemy" in "The Sontaran Stratagem". His strong personal sense of justice makes him quick to anger when he feels it is violated, as in "New Earth" when he learned of the plague farm run by the Sisters of Plenitude, and after Prime Minister Harriet Jones had given the order to destroy the retreating Sycorax ship, the Doctor warned her that he could "bring down" her government with six words ("Don't you think she looks tired?"), whispered to Jones' aide, Alex, which resulted in rumors that led to scandals and investigations, resulting in the end of Harriet Jones' political career.
Like the Seventh and Ninth Doctor, the Tenth sometimes uses a cheerful, energetic façade to mask inner emotions. He has a tendency to babble, mixing apparent nonsense with vital information, sometimes acting erratically to put his enemies off guard like some of his earlier incarnations. He can also be rude on occasion, and is not always aware of it, being prone to making comments that to outsiders seem obtuse or rude, sometimes to his own embarrassment. 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".[15] He has a tendency to use technobabble to describe scientific concepts before substituting it with a simpler, analogous explanation. Further to this, he tends to infantilise names and concepts — his description of non-linear temporal physics as "a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff" is perhaps the most well known example.[16] He is also able to rapidly switch between moods, from mania to anger to nonchalance and uses this as a form of reverse psychology on several occasions ("Fear Her", "Love & Monsters" and "Army of Ghosts"). In the latter, by switching gears suddenly after failing to dissuade Yvonne Hartman from her current activities, he is able to make her uncertain enough to get his way. Unlike the Ninth Doctor, who showed off his vengeful, rage-filled dark side when up against the Daleks, the Tenth Doctor displayed a more confident, self-assured side when around them, but did not hesitate to taunt them. The Doctor's actions in "The Waters of Mars" perhaps indicate that he is particularly prone to hubris, relative to other Doctors; his desperation not to die in "The End of Time", summed up by his final words ('I don't want to go'), is reflective of this.
It has been made clear that the Doctor is, despite constant interaction with others, a lonely person deep down. In "School Reunion", he describes the ability of Time Lords to live so long as a curse, because while his human companions all someday leave him and eventually die, he continues to live. Other characters have also commented on the Tenth Doctor's loneliness. During a conversation with his nemesis, the Master, he admits that since the end of the Time War and the loss of the other Time Lords, he has been "alone ever since", viewing the Master's return as the end of this loneliness. Indeed, when the Master subsequently dies, the Doctor openly weeps over his body, and at the climax of The End of Time, he regenerates in the TARDIS alone. While the Ninth Doctor was somewhat standoffish in certain situations, particularly "domestics", the Tenth is more extroverted and gregarious, having quickly established a firmer rapport with Rose Tyler's friends and family than he ever did in his previous incarnation, though his talkativeness sometimes irritates others not used to him. The Tenth Doctor is openly fond of mankind and is apparently 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 "because it's 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. The Doctor even goes so far as to exclaim he's willing to battle the Master across the cosmos as long as he leaves Earth alone in "The Sound of Drums". However, he is also quick to criticise mankind when he feels it is necessary.[17] 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; almost being killed by a panicky group of people who turn on him.
The Doctor also feels regret of the deaths of both his friends and enemies. 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 stewardess from Midnight. He also offers Davros the chance to escape the destruction of the Dalek mothership, but Davros spits the chance back at him, calling him the Destroyer of Worlds in his seemingly final moments.
The Tenth Doctor and Rose often faced their adventures with a cheerful, almost blasé attitude, even when terror and death happened around them, contrasting his previous selves, who displayed more serious attitudes when in trouble. Queen Victoria commented on this in "Tooth and Claw" when she banished them (as did Agatha Christie to the Doctor alone in "The Unicorn and the Wasp"), and producer Russell T Davies hinted that there would be consequences to this carefree attitude later in the 2006 series. In "Doomsday", the two were separated seemingly forever when Rose was left in a parallel universe as a consequence of foiling a Dalek and Cyberman invasion of Earth.
The 2006 series continued the exploration of the Doctor's romantic aspects, with the Tenth Doctor sharing kisses with Rose (albeit while she was possessed by Lady Cassandra) and Madame de Pompadour. In "School Reunion", Sarah Jane Smith all but confesses that she had been in love with him. In "Doomsday", during their farewell, Rose tells the Doctor she loves him; he begins to reply but only manages to say her name before the transmission is cut off, leaving him alone in the TARDIS with tears on his cheeks. After this, whenever he is reminded of Rose he sometimes becomes depressed or pensive. In the audio commentary for "Doomsday" the executive producer Julie Gardner claimed that she will confirm to the nation the Doctor was going to "say it back". In 2007 episodes, the Doctor gradually learnt that Martha harboured feelings for him before she left his company — which he inadvertently inspired by kissing her as a distraction[18] — and also exchanged kisses with Astrid in honour of "an old tradition" from her home planet. Following the complications with Martha (for which he blames himself), the Doctor seems reluctant to embark on any other potentially romantic companionship, and makes sure that before allowing her to join him, Donna understands that all he wants is a friend. In keeping with this, 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.
The Tenth Doctor sometimes dons a pair of spectacles, like the Fifth Doctor, whose youthful appearance he shares. In the 2007 Children In Need special, "Time Crash", the Tenth Doctor notes other inherited/inspired tendencies when meeting the Fifth Doctor aside from "the brainy specs" (which he observes were worn by the Fifth simply to look clever rather than out of necessity, therefore implying that his are used for the same reason despite the Fifth Doctor stating twice in series that he was actually near sighted in his left eye "Castrovalva" and actually needed a corrective lens for that eye) such as wearing plimsolls/trainers and both of their voices becoming high-pitched when shouting. He also exhibits a remarkable sense of taste, again similar to the Fifth Doctor, (Planet of Fire), able to identify the blood type of a blood sample ("The Christmas Invasion") or the presence of mistletoe oil ("Tooth and Claw") just by licking. He also shares the Fifth Doctor's skill with a cricket ball, as demonstrated in "Human Nature". The Tenth also admitted to the Fifth that he was his favourite past incarnation.
The Tenth Doctor speaks with an Estuary English accent, rather than the Salford, Greater Manchester (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".[19] In a December 23 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 programme. The Tenth Doctor also briefly affected a generic American Appalachian accent in "The Christmas Invasion", and a Scottish accent (David Tennant's own) in "Tooth and Claw".
The Doctor seemed disappointed that his tenth incarnation was not "ginger", but has worn his own dark brown hair in various ways throughout the series: unstyled in "The Christmas Invasion", a fifties-style quiff in "The Idiot's Lantern", and flattened forwards in "The Runaway Bride". He is also perceived by most, including companions and other characters as "just a little bit foxy".[20] Many of his companions, mainly Donna, have referred to him as skinny.
He wears either a dark brown (with blue pinstripes) or a blue (with rust red pinstripes) four-buttoned suit, a shirt and a tie (otherwise, open-shirted with a light grey/black t-shirt/vest ("Tooth and Claw", "Planet of the Ood"), a red-hued t-shirt ("42") or a black t-shirt ("Midnight"), a light brown suede overcoat (which he claims was given to him by Janis Joplin), and different coloured pairs of trainers, the doctor has been seen wearing cream, burgundy and black pairs, a costume which Tennant described as "geek chic".[21] The blue suit debuted in Series 3 episode 1, "Smith and Jones", and both suits were worn from his adventures with Martha Jones onwards. David Tennant has commented that he would vary the combination of the buttons he fastened on his jacket in different episodes. 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 David had taken the role. Another part of the Doctor's costume is a pair of dark tortoise-shell rectangular frame glasses; since "The Christmas Invasion" he has worn them in numerous episodes. As noted above, the Tenth Doctor credited the Fifth Doctor with inspiring his footwear and glasses.In addition to his suit The Doctor often will often switch between wearing polished black dress shoes,and red Chuck Taylor sneakers.
Like his predecessor, the Tenth Doctor shows a fondness for human popular culture—a characteristic not all of his previous incarnations seemed to share—but even more so, to the point where he finds himself unknowingly quoting the song "Circle of Life" from Disney's The Lion King during a confrontation with the Sycorax leader. In "School Reunion" he responded to a student with 'correctamundo', an exclamation often made by The Fonz on the TV show Happy Days, though he vowed that it would be the only time he uttered the word. In "The Girl in the Fireplace", he sings "I Could Have Danced All Night" from the musical My Fair Lady. He also appears to be a fan of pop music, quoting Kylie Minogue (in "The Idiot's Lantern") and Status Quo, and has made quips about Balamory (in "Tooth and Claw"), EastEnders (in "The Impossible Planet"), and Ghostbusters (in "Army of Ghosts"). He also has a fondness for pop/rock music, attempting to take Rose to an Ian Dury and the Blockheads concert in 1979, and Elvis Presley's appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in New York City in the 1950s (he fails to reach his destination both times). Also, in "42" he refers to the Beatles song Here Comes the Sun. He mentions having read the seventh Harry Potter novel (which made him cry) in "The Shakespeare Code" (which aired before Deathly Hallows was published), and, at Martha's suggestion, shouts out "Expelliarmus" as a magic word for Shakespeare to use, as well as referring to Back to the Future when explaining the mechanics of "the infinite temporal flux" to Martha.
In "The Christmas Invasion" he compares himself to Arthur Dent, a character from Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, referring to Dent as a "nice man". Whether the Doctor actually met Dent or if he was just teasing Rose is unclear, given that the Fourth Doctor was shown reading and discussing a book written by a character from the Hitchhiker's series in Destiny of the Daleks (a reference inserted by Adams himself, at the time a script editor and writer for the show), while the Seventh Doctor once referred to one of Adams's lines in Ghost Light. In "The Fires of Pompeii", the Doctor excuses Donna Noble's behaviour by claiming "she's from...Barcelona", a statement that was used often in comedy series Fawlty Towers by Basil Fawlty to apologise for the mistakes of Spanish waiter Manuel; in the same episode, both Donna and the Doctor state "I'm Spartacus!" in reference to the film Spartacus. In "Planet of the Ood", the Doctor references The Beatles again, specifically their Magical Mystery Tour (though he only uses the last two words).
His references are not all restricted to modern pop-culture. In "Tooth and Claw", his description of Rose as a "tim'rous beastie" is an allusion to the poem "To a Mouse" by Robert Burns, an 18th century Scottish poet. In "The Shakespeare Code" he quotes from the poem "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas and displays an expansive knowledge of the works of William Shakespeare, both directly and indirectly suggesting famous lines to the man himself, unsurprising considering the Fourth Doctor claimed he transcribed the first folio of Hamlet on (an older) Shakespeare's behalf.[22] Shakespeare himself seems to recognise the Doctor as having knowledge of his work both past and future, asking for permission before borrowing things the Doctor has said, and unquestioningly accepting it when told he can't use one line because the doctor says it is "someone else's". He has also quoted from the T. S. Eliot poem "The Hollow Men", quoting from both the "Falls the Shadow" and "This is the way the world ends" passages. He also refers to having been present at the original Christmas (Voyage of the Damned) and the original Easter (Planet of the Dead).
A scene filmed for the episode "Human Nature" but cut from the final broadcast (and included in the Deleted Scenes feature in the Season 3 DVD set) reveals that the Tenth Doctor has a strong dislike for pears, to the point of ordering Martha to prevent the Doctor, during his period disguised as John Smith, from eating any. The scene was adapted from the original "Human Nature" novel by the same writer, Paul Cornell, where the Seventh Doctor orders Bernice Summerfield to do the same for him when he becomes John Smith. The canonicity of the scene, as it was cut from the final broadcast and originated in spin-off fiction, is unclear. The deleted scene, along with a scene in "Voyage of the Damned" also illustrates that the Doctor sometimes has trouble with ordinal lists, starting with one numbering system (1, 2, 3, etc.) and unintentionally switching to a different one (a, b, c, etc.) and back again. He corrects himself when he notices that he has done this, but also appears quite annoyed at himself for doing it in the first place.
Like the Ninth Doctor, the Tenth Doctor used his sonic screwdriver quite often. This Doctor relied heavily on the device, and chided his fifth incarnation for going "hands free" in "Time Crash", a reference to the Fifth Doctor's loss of the device in "The Visitation". This reliance came to a head when the screwdriver was burned out in "Smith and Jones", having been pushed past its limits in order to boost the radiation output of an x-ray machine. He obtains another screwdriver by the end of the episode.
Much as the Ninth Doctor frequently declared things "Fantastic!", this Doctor has also favoured certain phrases on various occasions such as "What!?" (when referring to something unexpected happening, an exclamation also favoured by the Fourth Doctor), "Brilliant!", "That's impossible!", "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry", "That's just cheating!", the Italian expression 'Molto Bene' ('Very good'), "They have a little shop!" (referring to gift shops), and the French expression "Allons-y" ("Let's go"). The latter was first used in "Army of Ghosts", where the Doctor stated that he should say it more often and that he would love to meet someone named Alonso so he could say "Allons-y, Alonso!", eventually achieving this aim in "Voyage of the Damned" with midshipman Alonso Frame. In the same episode he also uses the phrase "Take me to your leader" when talking to the host robots, before saying "I've always wanted to say that". In addition, he often clarifies his own mistakes by beginning with an elongated "Well.."., for example when he illustrates how only one of Agatha Christie's novels managed to fool him in "The Unicorn and the Wasp". He also enjoys making abstruse English puns (eg. lava/"lather" in "The Fires of Pompeii" and intruder/"in tru da" in "The Sontaran Stratagem", incidentally repeating another character's "in tru da window" pun from the 2005 episode "Dalek").
The Tenth Doctor is first seen at the end of the Ninth Doctor episode "The Parting of the Ways" broadcast on 18 June 2005, and has appeared in every subsequent episode to date. His final appearance was in "The End of Time, Part Two", broadcast on 1 January 2010.
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The Tenth Doctor appears in archive footage (from "School Reunion" and "Journey's End") in Secrets of the Stars, a second series serial of spin-off show The Sarah Jane Adventures. He also appears in the serial The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith from the third series.
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| Companions of the Tenth Doctor | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Series | Specials | Series 2 | Special | Series 3 | Special | |||||
| Episodes | CIN | 167 | 168 – 169 | 170 – 172B | 173 – 177B | 178 | 179 – 186 | 187A – 187C | 188 | |
| Companions | ← Rose | Donna | Martha | Astrid | ||||||
| Mickey | (←) Jack | |||||||||
| Series | Series 4 | Specials | ||||||||
| Episodes | 189 – 191 | 192A – 193 | 194 – 196 | 197 | 198A | 198B | 199 | 200 | 201 | 202 |
| Companions | Donna | Jackson | Christina | Adelaide | Wilfred | |||||
| Martha | Rose | Rosita | ||||||||
| Martha | ||||||||||
| Jack | ||||||||||
| (←) Sarah Jane | ||||||||||
| Mickey | ||||||||||
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This page is a collection of quotations from the era of the tenth official incarnation of the Doctor from the BBC science fiction television programme Doctor Who, during which the role of the Tenth Doctor was played by David Tennant, who played the role from 2005 to 2009. As Doctor Who stories in other media (such as books, audio plays, etc) are the subject of intense debate as regarding their place in the series' overall canon, these quotations are taken entirely from episodes broadcast on television.
[The Master stares at the Doctor in pain for a moment and closes his eyes. The Doctor holds him tighter and sways with the Master in his arms on the floor, crying and lets out an scream.]
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