The Stolen Earth Punditry

30 Jun 2008

This is for those who watched (and care about!) Dr Who episode 12 The Stolen Earth, so be warned - there are spoilers!

This email landed this morning:

I’m surprised to not see a Dr Who post on your blog. Are we going to get one? Will David Tennant be staying? Did you feel a pang of sadness at the thought of losing our current doctor?

Ah, go on then.

I don’t think this is when David Tennant leaves, and I base that solely on the fact that he’s been seen filming the Christmas Episode! However, some points against that though:

It’s possible that the production team kept his leaving secret - after all they had planned that Rose would be coming back, and managed to keep it secret for a couple of years.

Catherine Tate did put her foot in it by saying this was his last season, after which there was an air of ‘she let the cat out of the bag’

The scenes for the Christmas episode may be flashbacks, or some other ‘Time-Crash’ style plot device. Or even a complete Red Herring.

Ood Sigma telling him that his “song may soon end” (although I take this to refer to Professor River Song - too literal?)

Still, my feeling is that next year’s special episodes will be his last. 3-4 years is the usual reign for a Doctor, and I’m sure that he would want to move on soon. He’s a great actor after all, and wouldn’t want to be typecast no matter how much of a fan he is. I hope he doesn’t go though - he makes even a bad script magic to watch.

So if this isn’t his last story, as I’m reckoning, then that leaves some issues. Will they back out and do some cringey plot device about how he regenerated but ‘came back the same’? Hopefully not, but here’s my theory: There was a brief mention to Donna that she ‘had something on her back’ - referencing the previous episode (Apparently Dextrus says this to Donna in ‘Fires of Pompeii’, but I missed that reference). There is still a Time Beetle™ on her back, and once some other choice is reversed, it will undo all these events. Anyway, we’ll see come Saturday!