So far, the announcement that Jodie Whittaker will play Doctor Who’s Thirteenth (and only female) incarnation of time-travelling hero The Doctor seems to have pleased the majority of former Doctor Who stars, with figures from Colin Baker and Billie Piper to John Barrowman all praising the casting.


And now former Tenth Doctor David Tennant, who was actually attending the Wimbledon final at the same time as Whittaker’s unveiling during the match (much to fans’ amusement), has also responded positively to his latest successor in the Tardis while speaking at a surprise San Diego Comic-con panel appearance about his new role in video game Call of Duty: WWII Zombie Mode.

While talking about female representation in such video games, Tennant quipped – “Doctor Who – another show with a strong female lead!” – and while he didn’t go into more detail about his feelings about the new Doctor, fans couldn’t help but love his classy response.

David Tennant described Doctor Who as "another story with a strong femake lead" so that's one thing ? — Sara Mortensen (@saramrts) July 20, 2017

What a gem that man is — Janae Phillips (@janaeisms) July 20, 2017

Tennant, who co-starred with Whittaker in ITV series Broadchurch, also went on to describe his Call of Duty videogame character Drostan Hynd – “He swears a lot. Full of bad language. I’m terribly shocked,” he told the crowd – and discussed the differences between voice and screen acting.

“You can’t always know what you’re doing but every session ends with screaming your lungs out!” he said of his new zombie-hunting role, adding that it was also significantly different to his recent voice-acting parts in series like Ducktales and Thunderbirds Are Go.

“The latter progress in a linear way, while in video games you just read chunks of lines randomly,” he said.

Tennant will return to San Diego Comic-con tomorrow for a Ducktales panel, where many fans will be hoping to get more out of him about Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor – but for now, she can rest easy that another of her predecessors has given his seal of approval. Doctor Phew!


Doctor Who returns to BBC1 this Christmas