Tenth Doctor

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The Doctor
The Tenth Doctor
Doctor Who character
David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor
First regular appearance"The Christmas Invasion" (2005)
Last regular appearance"The End of Time" (2009–2010)
Introduced byRussell T Davies
Portrayed byDavid Tennant
Preceded byChristopher Eccleston (Ninth Doctor)
Succeeded byMatt Smith (Eleventh Doctor)
Information
Tenure25 December 2005 – 1 January 2010
No of series3
Appearances36 stories (47 episodes)
Companions
Chronology

The Tenth Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. He is played by David Tennant in three series as well as nine specials. The character has also appeared in other Doctor Who spin-offs.

Within the series' narrative, the Doctor is a centuries-old

alien Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey who travels in time and space in the TARDIS, frequently with companions. At the end of life, the Doctor regenerates; as a result, the physical appearance and personality of the Doctor changes. Tennant's portrayal of the Tenth Doctor is of an outwardly charismatic and charming adventurer whose likable and easygoing attitude can quickly turn to righteous fury when provoked. Preceded in regeneration by the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), he is followed by the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith
).

This incarnation's companions include some who travelled with

2008–2010 specials before being accompanied by Donna's grandfather Wilfred Mott (Bernard Cribbins) on his final adventure in "The End of Time
".

Tennant also played the Fourteenth Doctor, who bears the same form as the Tenth.

Overview

Executive producer

60th anniversary specials.[14][15]

Personality

The Tenth Doctor speaks with an Estuary English accent, rather than the Lancashire dialect (Christopher Eccleston's own dialect) 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".[16] 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.

In the audiobook The Last Voyage, the Tenth Doctor states that he is not neurotypical.[17] The depictions of the personalities of the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors shared certain similarities[18][19] e.g. both being youthful, energetic, friendly, childlike, "good boyfriend Doctors", as Steven Moffat described them[20] and, according to Mark Gatiss "very human Doctors" when compared to other incarnations.[21][22]

Appearance

The Doctor complains that his tenth incarnation is not "

ginger". However, this incarnation was happy to have sideburns and to have more hair than his previous incarnation. 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" and "The Day of the Doctor") but mainly styled it in a spiked-up fashion throughout most of the series, with this style being described by friend and later one-time companion Wilfred Mott as being a "modern style sort of hair. All sticky-uppy". He has dark brown eyes and is perceived by most, including companions and other characters such as his future incarnation as "slim and a little bit foxy".[23]

His costume was unveiled on 27 July 2005.

geek chic.[24][26]

The Doctor dons a pair of dark tortoise-shell rectangular frame glasses, an affectation (along with his signature footwear) borrowed from the Fifth Doctor. On one occasion, he wears a pair of Red-Cyan 3D glasses, both as a joke and for practical reasons. Despite appearing in only one story, the glasses became an accessory commonly associated with Tennant's incarnation of the character. 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[27] 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.[28]

Appearances

Television

The Ninth Doctor (

Cybermen in the episode, "Rise of the Cybermen". After saving parallel Earth, Mickey decides to stay and help stop the Cybermen around the world despite The Doctor telling him he can never return in "The Age of Steel". He and Rose become stranded on a planet orbiting around a black hole in "The Impossible Planet", where the Beast is waiting, with a Torchwood team. While there, in "The Satan Pit", the Beast taunts the Doctor and Rose about Rose's death. During the 2012 Olympic Games in "Fear Her", The Doctor picks up the Olympic flame and carries it to the end, starting the Games. 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 called

meta-humour surrounding the fact David Tennant had watched and loved Davison's Doctor as a child. In parallel with the third series, Tennant lends his voice to the animated serial The Infinite Quest
.

The 2007 Christmas special, "

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 "

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
), 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 "

2008–2010 specials "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.

At the conclusion of the 2022 specials, the Thirteenth Doctor regenerates into the Fourteenth Doctor, who bears the same form as the Tenth.[29]

Spoofs

David Tennant has also made numerous cameo appearances as The Doctor outside of Doctor Who, frequently in

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. Tennant also guest-voiced his incarnation of The Doctor in an episode of Family Guy (2016). He later played the role in full costume for a sketch with The Muppets in a live performance at The O2 Arena
in 2018.

Literature

As the face of the Doctor Who franchise for 2005–2010, 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

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 2008–2010 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

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.[30] The character also appeared in a story arc of the webcomic PvP, in which character Brent Sienna hallucinates materialising in the TARDIS.[31]

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 Tennant, Reggie Yates and Anthony Head; the last of these scheduled is Judgement of the Judoon, for December 2010.

On 26 October 2015, it was announced Tennant would reprise his role for

Sylvia Noble and Bernard Cribbins as Wilfred Mott), One Mile Down and The Creeping Death.[34]

Outside of

The Diary of River Song
as the Doctor.

In 2021, as well as starring in the nine-part

Captain Jack Harkness and Gareth David-Lloyd as Ianto Jones, for Absent Friends.[35] However, while this story was recorded, its release was cancelled in May 2021.[36]

The

Weeping Angels. In the same month, Tennant appeared as the Doctor in the seventh series of The War Master opposite Derek Jacobi as The Master. In September 2022, Big Finish released the Tenth Doctor, Classic Companions special, which reunites the Doctor with K9, Ace, Leela and Nyssa; he retrieves K9 from a temporal anomaly, helps an alternate version of Leela save a village, rescues Nyssa from a criminal using Time Lord technology as part of a scam, and subsequently leaves K9 with Ace after they stop Axos ("The Claws of Axos
") from escaping its time loop prison.

Marking Doctor Who's 60th anniversary, Big Finish released the Once and Future series, in which an unspecified incarnation of the Doctor (later revealed to be the

60th anniversary specials.[37]

The Tenth Doctor has made other Big Finish appearances that did not involve Tennant, using other actors to voice the Doctor. In April 2018,

Lady Christina de Souza respectively.[38] The Churchill Years featured stories of the show's portrayal of Winston Churchill – played by Ian McNeice narrating in-character – meeting various incarnations of the Doctor, including the Tenth Doctor in the episodes Hounded and Churchill Victorious. Likewise, the Tenth Doctor appears in three episodes of Tales from New Earth voiced by Kieran Hodgson
.

In the Short Trips range, the Tenth Doctor appeared in the two-part story The Jago and Litefoot Revival alongside the Eleventh Doctor, narrated by Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter. Camille Coduri reprised her role as Jackie Tyler to narrate a pair of stories featuring the Tenth Doctor's meta-crisis clone in The Siege of Big Ben and Flight into Hull set on the parallel Earth.

Video games

The Tenth Doctor appears alongside his fellow incarnations as a playable character in the 2015

LEGO Dimensions. He is shown wearing his duster coat and brown pinstripe suit. The character uses voice lines taken from the BBC archives. His TARDIS interior is a location that players can explore.[39]

He, as well as the

Series 12.[40]

Reception

Tennant's tenure as the Tenth Doctor is highly regarded among fans of the show and his character received critical acclaim for his complexity and humanity and is generally considered one of the greatest incarnations of the Doctor, often ranked alongside Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor.[41][42][43] The BBC went as far as to consider ending the show in 2010, thinking it would fail without Tennant.[44] In 2006, readers of Doctor Who Magazine voted Tennant's Doctor "Best Doctor" over perennial favourite Tom Baker.[45] 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".[46][47] IGN ranked the Tenth Doctor the best Doctor in 2011.[48] In 2013, IGN again ranked Tennant as the best Doctor,[49] along with the Daily Mirror[50] and Radio Times, with Billie Piper also being voted as best companion.[51] Users of Plusnet also voted David Tennant as the best Doctor in 2013.[52] Users of DoctorWhoTV also voted Tennant as 'Ultimate Doctor' in 2013.[53] Voters on Digital Spy also rated Tennant as the greatest Doctor in 2013 with 50.05% of the votes,[42] and again in 2015.[54] Readers of The Telegraph voted Tennant as the greatest actor to play the Doctor in 2014.[55]

Jenna Coleman, who played Clara Oswald and appeared with Tennant in "The Day of the Doctor", said that he was her favourite Doctor, along with Tom Baker.[56] Writer Terry Pratchett considered Tennant's portrayal to be the greatest Doctor.[57]

In 2016, Digital Spy readers voted the Tenth Doctor the best TV character of the 21st century.[58]

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.

References

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