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This past weekend, BBC America aired the start of David Tennant’s last hurrah as Doctor Who. The holiday special is called Doctor Who: The End of Time and they are giving the old boy quite a send off.
Knowing is time is growing short, the Doctor is tasked with tracking down the Master (John Simm) who has risen from the grave in time for another Christmas. He’s even more wild-eyed and wicked than ever as he uses a piece of alien technology to turn everyone on Earth, except for Wilf and Donna (Bernard Cribbins, Catherine Tate) into copies of himself. But that’s not the only battle to be fought here. According to the Ood, there’s an even greater danger approaching — a dark shadow that could bring about the end of time. (Thus the name of the episode.)
Doctor Who: The End of Time is loaded down with bits of this and bits of that and I found the story a little hard to follow at times. I did enjoy seeing Wilf and his pals forming a Gray-Team in order to help save the world. It’s good to see Catherine Tate again, though so far her participation has been superfluous. But what bothered me about the episode was exactly what was supposed to bother me – the Doctor himself. Usually joyous and comedic even in the face of danger, this Doctor is carrying the weight of the universe on his shoulders and it shows. He knows he’ll be regenerating soon but that still means death to the Doctor. It means giving up the man he is now, his friends, his mannerisms, the details that make him the tenth Doctor.
I’ll be sad to see him go. David Tennant was the perfect Doctor Who. He found that sweet spot between humor and angst. He had a childlike curiosity combined with the wisdom of a centuries old man. His shoes will be hard to fill and I don’t envy the actor that has to follow that act.
But before we get there, the Doctor has work to do. In part two of The End of Time, he’ll need to find a way to stop an army of Master clones while fighting an even greater enemy that will likely be the end of him. Before that happens, more old friends are scheduled to appear and I’m both looking forward to, and dreading one appearance in particular. I think I better start stocking up on Kleenex.
Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part Two premieres Saturday, January 2, 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on BBC America.
Photos: BBC America
