Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: bbc, david tennant, doctor who, jodie whittaker, Ncuti Gatwa

Doctor Who Regeneration: David Tennant? Ncuti Gatwa? Me? (SPOILERS)

Heading into today's final special for current Doctor Jodie Whittaker and showrunner Chris Chibnall, fans of the BBC's long-running Doctor Who were well prepared for the regeneration to come. Now, since we already know that Russell T. Davies is returning as showrunner with the new Doctor Ncuti Gatwa for Series 14, we would expect a Whittaker-to-Gatwa move. But this regeneration is a bit more complicated one, with "The Power of The Doctor" being the next step towards the show's upcoming 60th-anniversary events. Why does that matter? Because the anniversary sees the return of David Tennant and Catherine Tate (along with Yasmin Finney as "Rose," Neil Patrick Harris, and more. And when that news hit, the rumblings began that Whittaker's regeneration might leave us with Tennant instead (making for one helluva cliffhanger to lead into the anniversary event). So who was right? Was it Gatwa? Tennant? Me? We're throwing on the "MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!" sign and throwing down an image spoiler buffer before the reveal… you have been warned.

So by the time the smoke settled on Doctor Who: "The Power of The Doctor," we learned that things are about to get a whole lot more interesting because it was neither… at first. You could nearly hear the internet tear ever so slightly when Sacha Dhawan was revealed to be the new Doctor (we'll leave it to our review that's on the way for specific spoilers). And if you wanted to be treated to the return of past Doctors such as Paul McGann and Peter Davidson, then you were definitely in luck. Along with that comes some serious punches to the "feels" before we get to the very end, where the regeneration goes… Tennant?!?

Speaking with the BBC in support of his return to live theater in CP Taylor's play Good, Tennant offered some insight into how his & Tate's returns came about ("It all slightly happened a little bit by accident") and how the global COVID-19 pandemic played a major role. Remember those "Doctor Who: Lockdown!" social media "watch-alongs" of old episodes that took place while everyone was locked down at home? "That's where this all started," Tennant explained. "At a certain time and day, everyone would press play on a certain episode, and some of the people who had been involved in those episodes were tweeting along," he continued, adding, "I don't tweet, but my wife helped me."

From there, he, Tate, and Davies "were just having a text exchange, and Catherine said, 'wouldn't it be fun to do it again?' Russell said, 'We could do a one-off, maybe they'd let us.'" But as much as the trio liked the idea, nothing much would come from the exchange… at least for a little while. But when Davies was announced as returning to the long-running franchise, Tennant and Tate got the call. "Suddenly, Russell let us know that he was taking over the show again, and he would be back fully in charge, and would we come and play a little bit for him?" said Tennant. "So I don't know if we gave him the idea to take 'Doctor Who' back but certainly we thought if he's doing it, we can't let these young people have all the fun."

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