Doctor Who (30 page)

In fact, RTD had intended Jenny to die, but writer Steven Moffat suggested she live so she could make another appearance later. “The Doctor's Daughter” ended with an energy effect similar to regeneration appearing around Jenny's body, healing her wounds. With a grin, Jenny grabs a space ship and flies off to find adventure.

Sadly, despite fan interest, Jenny has yet to return to
Doctor Who
since her appearance in 2008. Behind the scenes, Georgia Moffett and David Tennant began a relationship. The two had a child and later married, after which Tennant also adopted Georgia's older son Ty.

Concerning Tennant becoming his son-in-law, Peter Davison joked: “I'm apparently starting a
Doctor Who
dynasty! Their son could be the nineteenth Doctor one day.”

Curtain Call

As the fourth season was nearing its end, David Tennant was more interested in taking on new theatrical roles. Rather than do a full season in 2009, the actor agreed only to a few specials. But when Russell T. Davies, Julie Gardner, and producer Phil Collinson all decided to leave at the end of those specials, Tennant decided to follow suit. Four and a half years was longer than many of them had stayed on other shows. Davies had said before the new program had even begun airing that he imagined he should leave after four years because otherwise he'd be overstaying and possibly viewing it as work rather than fun.

With this in mind, the fourth season ended with a reunion. The walls of reality are breaking and the universe itself is now at risk. Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, Mickey Smith, Rose Tyler, and even her mom Jackie Tyler all return to help the Doctor in this epic battle. Rose's return was advertised before the season had even begun, which invited criticism from some who felt it would have been more effective to be surprised by her appearance. After the battle of the season finale “Journey's End,” some thought that
the Doctor and Rose would reunite. Instead, he sends her back to the parallel Earth, where her family lives and she has carved out a new life as a defender of that world. She also now has a new task.

During “Journey's End,” a clone is created from a mix of the Doctor's and Donna's DNA (which technically made this the fourth episode of that season to involve cloning). This Meta-Crisis Doctor (known to some as Doctor 2.0) is partly human, with a single heart and a human's aging rate. His mind mixes Donna's and the Doctor's, resulting in a new persona, one that is violent and reckless as the Ninth Doctor had been before a shop girl taught him to cool his anger. The Tenth Doctor asks Rose to be a positive influence for this Meta-Crisis Doctor, just as she was before. Donna points out that 2.0 is also a gift to Rose, a version of the Doctor who can grow old with her and won't hesitate to express his love.

This particular story element caused controversy among fans. Davies wanted to give Rose a happy ending at last rather than leaving her heartbroken. A relationship with the real Doctor was impossible, so he saw this as the next best thing. Tennant understood the mixed reactions, remarking to
Doctor Who Magazine,
“It's the same character, but it's not. It's a tricky one because with Rose, at the end, you want to feel she's left with the person she loves, but also that she isn't. It's quite a subtle, ambiguous ending for Rose.”

Donna's fate was less happy. Her brain had been enhanced to Time Lord levels by the same event that created the Meta-Crisis Doctor. But a human brain can't contain such power. The Doctor shut down the lethal energies, blocking her memories in the process, as had been done to Jamie and Zoe so long ago. Donna reverted to her younger self, before she'd ever met the Doctor. The hero she'd become was dead.

Full Circle

Tennant's next few adventures mixed tragedy and comedy, the Tenth Doctor now refusing to take on new companions. BBC Books followed the same themes, the Doctor's loneliness and regretful contemplation often emphasized. In the 2009 special “The Waters of Mars,” the Doctor decides he is no longer bound by the Laws of Time and non-interference. But almost
immediately, he realizes his folly, and this stumble from grace isn't mentioned again. For such an intense character moment, it seemed odd to drop it immediately. Some viewers were disappointed, hoping to see the Doctor follow a path similar to the Master, then realizing he'd gone too far and rededicating himself to the harder life of a hero.

The Tenth Doctor next appeared in two episodes of
The Sarah Jane Adventures.
Afterward, his final adventure was “The End of Time,” the first part of which aired on Christmas Day 2009, the second part broadcast on New Year's Day 2010. It marked a new beginning in many ways.

Since the beginning of the new program, the Doctor had been haunted by the Last Great Time War and the knowledge that he had chosen to end it by wiping out not only the Daleks but his own people. “The End of Time” has him confront that fate again as he discovers that the Time Lords possibly found a way to prevent their own destruction. With the yet-again-resurrected Master at his side, the Doctor explains that the Time Lords had gone too far in the final days of the war, unleashing incredible horrors such as the Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Couldhavebeen King with his army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres. The Time Lords had prepared to end time itself so that all other life would end, while they ascended to become creatures of pure thought. The Doctor had ended the war as much to stop them as to stop the Daleks. Neither side could win.

“The End of Time” reveals that during the last days of the war the Time Lords were again led by their founder, Rassilon. It wasn't said whether he had indeed achieved a form of immortality, as legends claimed, or if he'd been resurrected out of desperation as the Master had been. Timothy Dalton played Rassilon and certainly gave the part gravitas, portraying the character as an unforgiving force with technology his own people feared. With the Master and the Doctor standing against him, “The End of Time” comes down to a battle between the first Time Lord and the last Time Lords. Sadly, because Rassilon had never been mentioned in the modern day program before, the significance of the confrontation was lost on newer viewers unfamiliar with the classic series mythos.

Decades before, Roger Delgado was supposed to star in the Master's final story, the character dying while (intentionally or not) saving the Doctor's life. Davies at last delivered that ending, as the Master forces Rassilon
and the Time Lords back into the last days of the war, apparently joining them in death. The Tenth Doctor's life then ends not in an epic battle but rather afterward, in a quiet moment, his body absorbing lethal amounts of radiation as he saves one ordinary man rather than a world. Tennant thought it a fitting ending.

Concerning his final story (though he actually filmed his appearance in
The Sarah Jane Adventures
later), Tennant told
Doctor Who Magazine
#417, “The Doctor's saying some things that you don't expect the Doctor to say. He's being quite selfish, in a way that we rarely see, and yet it seems very true, and right, that in the moment he should rage against the dying of the light.” At the same time, there seems to be acceptance. RTD and Tennant both commented that the Tenth Doctor was holding back the final phase of his regeneration as long as he could. But after he says he doesn't want to go, the Tenth Doctor's body glows with energy, and he realizes it's now or never. He takes a few deep breaths and gives in to the change, ready to see what happens next.

David Tennant recalled, “I did my last bit on the TARDIS set, throwing back my head, then Matt came on, and we did a couple of photographs. As I walked off, I heard [director Euros Lyn] turn to Matt and go, ‘Anyway, what we do now is . . .' I thought,
Wow, so that's how it works?
And of course, it does. One knows that's what will happen. Suddenly, what becomes important is getting the scene done, and I'm not in the next scene. That's it. Cheerio. . . . But then you go home, and you look at your lines for the next day. You get on with it because that's all you can do.”

Some critics thought Tennant and Davies left at the proper time, that their vision of the Doctor would become predictable if they remained. Some were sad to see the team go and had hoped that Tennant would reconsider and stay longer under Steven Moffat's direction. During an interview with
Doctor Who Magazine
in July 2009, Tom Baker weighed in, appreciating the Tenth Doctor as “very brittle, at very high speed,” and saying Tennant had made the biggest impact. “Of course, the real renaissance [of
Doctor Who
] is the young one . . . David. We all owe David Tennant a great debt because, with his style and brio, he has revitalized the whole thing!”

Unlike his predecessors, Tennant made sure to keep at least one of his costumes, just in case he was ever asked to come back for a multi-Doctor team-up.

The New Age of Spin-offs

The classic series had toyed with the idea of a spin-off a couple of times. The characters Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot were introduced in the Fourth Doctor story “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” and were an instantly entertaining duo. But a TV spin-off featuring the two Victorian investigators never materialized. Then there was
K-9 and Company,
which at least got a pilot but still failed to produce a series.

Realtime Pictures, which filmed many
Doctor Who
documentaries, produced direct to video movie spin-offs starting in 1987. Some dealt with monsters from the show. Some featured familiar
Doctor Who
actors in new, though similar roles.
Wartime
starred Sgt. Benton of UNIT, while
Downtime
teamed-up the Brigadier, Sarah Jane Smith, and Victoria Waterfield.

After the classic program was canceled, Whovian Bill Baggs created the production company BBV. In 1991, he released the first of several direct to video adventures starring a nameless hero referred to as the Stranger. The lead role was played by Colin Baker and his character was evidently an alien who was living in self-imposed exile on Earth. He was assisted by a woman named “Miss Brown,” played by Nicola Bryant. It was basically the Sixth Doctor and Peri, with adventures that could take place in between Baker's two seasons. Eventually, the Stranger developed into his own character with his own past. In 1993, BBV's
The Airzone Solution?
was a straightforward drama starring Jon Pertwee, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Nicola Bryant, and Sophie Aldred as human characters. BBV also produced a series of videos called
P.R.O.B.E.,
written by Mark Gatiss, that featured Caroline John reprising her role as Dr. Liz Shaw, though like the Stranger this couldn't make direct reference to the show due to a lack of licensing. Other videos included some stand-alone adventures featuring
Doctor Who
characters and a trilogy of Auton stories written by Nicholas Briggs.

With the modern
Doctor Who
a huge success, RTD was asked to look towards a spin-off series that could exist independently. During the first season, he had arranged several film shoots using the alias “Torchwood,”
an anagram of the show's title, in order to keep fans and media from investigating. In the twelfth episode of the first season, he even inserted a reference to this alias in the dialogue, with a character mentioning the “Torchwood Institute.”

Before heading
Doctor Who,
he had conceived a science fiction/crime drama called
Excalibur.
Now asked to produce a spin-off, RTD brushed off
Excalibur
and renamed it
Torchwood,
adding former Time Agent Jack Harkness as the leader.
Torchwood
premiered on BBC Three in the fall of 2006, following the end of
Doctor Who
's second season and taking place just months afterward. Unlike
Doctor Who,
this wouldn't be a program for children and would involve a more cynical, pragmatic atmosphere. Violence, sex, death, and angst would each play a significant role in the story.

Critics had mixed reactions to the first season, but the program clearly had fans and would continue, though on BBC Two. The second season had a warmer reception with higher ratings and better reviews. After this, over a year passed before
Torchwood
returned to screens (not counting two crossover episodes in
Doctor Who
), this time in a five-part miniseries rather than a full season.
Torchwood: Children of Earth
aired a new episode every day for a week to high acclaim.

In between season two and
Children of Earth,
BBC radio transmitted Torchwood audio plays featuring the cast of the TV program. The first,
Lost Souls,
aired on September 10, 2008, just before the Large Hadron Collider was activated and featured a plot surrounding the famous machine. A trilogy of audio plays followed the next year, broadcast just before
Children of Earth,
effectively giving fans an extra mini-season of adventures.

The BBC also asked Davies to consider creating another spin-off geared toward young children, more simplistic and less scary than the Doctor's adventures. It was suggested that the show could feature the Doctor himself as a young boy living on Gallifrey, but RTD didn't think the premise worked properly with the character. Instead, he suggested a new program featuring Sarah Jane Smith with Elisabeth Sladen reprising the role, based on the success of her appearance in “School Reunion.”

The Sarah Jane Adventures
pilot aired on New Year's Day in 2007. The journalist briefly explains her previous life with the Doctor and that
she now investigates alien occurrences on her own, helped by K-9 and a living alien computer that she lovingly calls Mr. Smith. Soon she finds herself the guardian of a genetically engineered child and has a young adolescent girl acting as her assistant.

After the pilot's success,
The Sarah Jane Adventures
began in full in September 2007. Along with Sarah Jane were her assistant, Maria Jackson (Yasmin Paige); her adopted son, Luke (Tommy Knight); and his friend from school Clyde Langer (Daniel Anthony). In the second season, Maria moves away, her character replaced by Rani Chandra (Anjli Mohindra). Unlike
Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures
made many references to
Doctor Who
and its long history. Sarah Jane even made an archenemy of the Trickster, one of the Eternals, a race of powerful beings the Fifth Doctor encountered, able to control matter and read minds. The Trickster's agents appeared or were mentioned in
Doctor Who
and
Torchwood.

The show's success led to a mini spin-off entitled
Sarah Jane's Alien Files.
The second season ended with Nicholas Courtney reprising his role of Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. The third season featured a crossover with David Tennant and was the last story he filmed in which he played the Tenth Doctor. In season four, Russell T. Davies wrote an adventure in which Matt Smith's Doctor reunited with Sarah Jane and Jo Grant. Sladen died months later on April 19, 2011, having lost her secret battle with cancer. The production team decided to air the episodes already in the can for the next season, ending on the note that Sarah Jane and her friends continued to defend the Earth for years to come.

Though K-9 was in Sarah Jane's care all along, he couldn't appear often in
The Sarah Jane Adventures
due to a rights issue. The character's co-creator Bob Baker had licensed the robot dog to an Australian science fiction series for children. The program, simply titled
K-9,
premiered on Halloween night 2009 on Disney XD in the UK and Ireland. Legal issues meant the program couldn't reference
Doctor Who
or
The Sarah Jane Adventures.

The opening episode, “Regeneration,” takes place in London in the late twenty-first century. Experiments in time manipulation wind up transporting dangerous creatures into a scientist's lab, followed by K-9.
The robot protects the humans from their attackers but is destroyed in the process. However, an internal “regeneration unit” quickly builds him a new, more advanced body. With no memory of its previous life, K-9 remains to act as a helper for the humans he's met.

Despite being unable to reference
Doctor Who
directly, the show still nodded to the dog's origins. The regeneration unit was decorated by “∂³∑x²,” referencing the name Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke had proposed for the Doctor. Also, as K-9 is regenerating, his programming indicates that he is evolving from a Mark I mode to Mark II. Bob Baker later confirmed that this time-lost K-9 was the same Mark I model left in Leela's care.

K-9
has been nominated for and won several awards. Meanwhile,
Torchwood
made its way to America when the program moved to the premium cable Starz network, with Jane Tranter, Kelly A. Manners, Jane Espenson, and Vlad Wolynetz joining Davies and Gardner in producing the series. The year 2012 saw the release of
Torchwood: Miracle Day,
a ten-episode adventure featuring a worldwide event that brings the old team members out of retirement and unites them with a couple of American federal agents. The story ends on a cliffhanger of sorts, prompting many fans to hope that they will see more adventures with Jack Harkness and his team very soon.