Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, Preview, TV | Tagged: bbc, david tennant, disney plus, doctor who, Ncuti Gatwa, peter davison

Doctor Who: Peter Davison Still Has Some "Bi-Generation" Questions

Fifth Doctor Peter Davison has some questions about Doctor Who Showrunner Russell T. Davies's "bi-generation" and what it actually means.

Showrunner Russell T. Davies's Doctor Who 60th-anniversary episode "The Giggle" definitely lived up to its game-changing hype. As we saw in the David Tennant & Catherine Tate-starrer, the Fourteenth Doctor (Tennant) was faced with no other choice but to take a shot straight to the chest from UNIT's galvanic beam – courtesy of Neil Patrick Harris' Toymaker. But instead of regenerating, the Doctor "bigenerated," with Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor joining his fourteenth counterpart in defeating the Toymaker and banishing him from our universe. While the Fifteenth Doctor took off for new adventures (beginning on December 25th), the Fourteenth Doctor was shown joining Donna & her family – finally getting a sense of calm & peace. Since that time, RTD has gone on the record offering more details on what the "bi-generation" concept means for the franchise's past, present, and future (more on that in a minute). One person who sounds like he could use a bit more clarity on all of it is Fifth Doctor Peter Davison. – who admits that he's "quite a few seasons behind" on the long-running series.

"Well, the bi-generation is an interesting concept. I don't quite know why they did that. Speaking as an actor, it might be because Russell T Davies had said that he wanted to create a kind of 'Whoniverse,'" Davison shared with RadioTimes.com while promoting his appearance in Beyond Paradise. "And the thing I don't really quite understand – I'm a huge fan of 'Doctor Who,' but I'm not as mad a fan as, say, David Tennant – and the bi-generation basically apparently means that my Doctor still exists." The actor continued, "So I can be brought back at any point, even as my older self, to do a Doctor Who story. I think that was the intention. He [RTD] caught the ire of a few of the fans because of this very fact – that it suddenly meant no Doctor ever actually regenerated. There was always just another one [that] grew out of them."

During the official Doctor Who podcast, Davies dropped a ten-ton hint that fans should check out the BBC iPlayer in-vision commentary for "The Giggle," teasing that some big things were on the way impacting "the entire lore of 'Doctor Who'" in ways that are "much bigger than you think and I hope could lead to all sorts of things." Well, it looks like Davie wasn't exaggerating, revealing that at the moment of the Fourteenth/Fifteenth bigeneration, "a whole timeline bigenerated." And that impact is proving to have implications across the show's 60 years, with each previous regeneration seeing its Doctor now living on in a splinter timeline. "Sylvester McCoy woke up in a drawer, in a morgue, in San Francisco… and Jon Pertwee woke up on the floor of the laboratory," Davies further explained. Producer Phil Collinson added, "Colin Baker got up and sorted the Rani out," before Daves followed up with, "They all did." So, remember how Davies offered us the heads-up that Tales of the TARDIS would be very important after the anniversary specials? Well, this was what he was talking about.

In Doctor Who Unleashed, Davies dug deeper into the concept – noting that both the Fourteen & Fifteenth Doctors are very much real. "Bigeneration, we discover, is an ancient myth of the Time Lords where instead of a new body taking over from the old body, the new body separates from the old boy, and both are left alive," Davies explained. With that many Doctors and that many timelines now in play, Davies teased that it could "lead to all sorts of things" heading into the franchise's future.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!