Regular readers here know that I’m a long time Doctor Who fan. That’s why it’s with some sadness that I await the approach of the two-episode finale for David Tennant’s tenure as the Tenth Doctor. Over his three full seasons and multiple specials in 2009, Tennant redefined the role and even began to rival Tom Baker for my favorite Doctor. This time, fortunately, BBC America will be showing these episodes one day after they air in the U.K.; so I don’t have to choose between waiting several months to see them or getting them by BitTorrent. In any case, there are some tantalizing clues about what might happen and how the Doctor might be forced to regenerate in these trailers:
Oddly enough, apparently there has never been a Doctor Who story entitled “The End of Time” before. In any case, it is fitting that it should be in battle with The Master that the Tenth Doctor meets his end. After all, that was how the Fourth Doctor met his end.
33 replies on “Just can’t wait for “The End of Time””
Hmmm, that comment was meant to contain self-effacing html tags acknowledging that I was being a pedantic geek, but they seem to have disappeared.
Holy monkey socks that looks good! Makes me really wish I had BBC America.
I’m going to miss David Tennant, he was my first Doctor.
Time to “delurk”:
I started watching Doctor Who with the episodes by Tennant then I saw the ones with Eccleston. I’ve never seen any others but I definitely prefer Tennant. I must say, it took some dedication to figure out what was going on but I think I have it down.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to these episodes, though with some sadness. I still haven’t watched Waters of Mars (it’s on my DVR but I haven’t had time yet) but plan to see it before I see the “End of Time” episodes, too bad there’s a week between them.
I love the Ood! I’m so glad they’ve become a recurring, erm, hivemind.
Unfortunately I found Tennant’s Doctor painfully irritating after a while and had to stop watching. Hopefully the new kid will bring me back.
Ahem, one does not rival Tom Baker. He is the standard against which all later Doctors are compared.
Thanks for this posting–it really helped relieve the horrible burning stupid I was suffering over at HuffPo because I was stupid enough to click on a Mark Hyman article. Arghhhhh, put them all in the sack–and get a very big stick!
Long ago and far away, in what now seems like another universe, and before I killed my television, I used to watch Dr. Who (Tom Baker) with my children. I had discovered the doctor when I did my archaeological field work in England around 1980. Many happy memories. I must catch up!
OK, rub it in that we don’t get BBC America. I guess we’ll be watching The End of Time sometime next year. If only my TARDIS hadn’t been stolen.
I would echo Romeo Vitelli’s comment, only I would extend it to include previous Doctors, as well.
My two and a half year old is obssessed with the Doctor. I should add that I don’t actually let her watch it (the Gasmask monsters could scar her for life, let ALONE the Weeping Angels). I’m going to so enjoy two or three years time when I can sit her down on my knee, whack in Season 1 (or 27, if you prefer) and watch her scurry behind the couch for 65 episodes straight. 😉
@9 I don’t know, Three has always been my favourite 😛 and Three combined with Sarah-Jane and the Brigadier is brilliant. That said, Four and Ten are a very, very close second 🙂
I hated Dr. Who until the telemovie. I don’t get why the older show is so revered. But, Eccleston and Tennant made it something I don’t miss. And for me, Tennant is THE Doctor. I don’t know if I’ll bother watching it when he leaves. He just radiates the joy of learning, exploring, discovering. I will definitely miss his work.
Sigh, we do not have BBC America. But being a gardener, I know the value of being patient. I can wait for the DVD.
I consider “End of Time” to be a Christmas gift from the BBC, and heartily look forward to it!
@10 — Oh, dear GOD, the “gas-mask monsters” were PREMIUM Nightmare Fuel! *shudders* I still have nightmares about them.
Ravenred, the Weeping Angels were major freaky. I watched it with my teenage son when it came out on the SciFi channel. Teenage boys are supposed to immune to that kind of stuff, but I heard more than one “eeek” come out of him during that hour. You need to wait until she is at least in major double digits years before you do that marathon!
I’m 27 and the Weeping Angels still gave me chills (although the opening at the house when she’s ripping off the wallpaper was hilarious.
Daleks gave me nightmares for ages. Memories.. watching Doctor Who from behind the sofa on a Saturday afternoon. Tom Baker is the Doc I grew up with. But David Tennant mmmm
For me, the Doctors who stick in my mind are Four, Seven, and Nine. Tom Baker because he was there for so long and did so much (and because of the Australian ABC repeats, I saw all of it at least three times, probably more); Sylvester McCoy because those seasons gave the Doctor a lot more depth (I think it was the first time they had a multi-storyline plot arc which surrounded the one character); and Christopher Eccleston because he gave the Doctor a lot more rage and dynamism than he’s ever had before, and was a fitting new beginning for an old favourite.
Can’t you watch the episodes from the BBC website? Or is is zone locked?
I’m still trying to get into the new Doctors. Only recently have I started Seasons 1 & 2(the new ones). Its a great change from the Fourth Doctor which I could watch endlessly. The old ones were more boring, more talking but the dialogue and delivery by Baker was so witty that I consider these perfect. Plus, I’m a bit nostalgic for 70s SciFi special effects. The newer ones seem to be a lot more action and drama based, plus a bit England-centric, rather than traveling around the universe in their story lines (at least up to Season 2, netflix doesn’t have latter than that). But still, I could easily turn on the new Doctors and watch for hours.
What about alternate Nine through Thirteen? 🙂 Rowan Atkison and Hugh Grant have also played the Docter. And the Curse of Fatal Death episode with them was also written by Steven Moffat! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZktNoK4wDo
I’ve abandoned television for Netflix, so I guess I’ll just have to wait for the DVD.
My 25 year old daughter and I are such Dr. Who geeks that she had to write “beware the weeping angels” on the wall of our renovated kitchen before the cabinets went up. Long live the Doctor!
In Classic Who, Four is my gold standard and Three is a close second, with Seven close on his heels (“Remembrance of the Daleks” remains my favourite adventure ever). Nine is very dark, but understandably so, whereas Ten… I have trouble liking him, possibly because he comes across as hypocritical (killing the Sycorax leader in single combat while deploring Harriet Jones for having their ship shot down as a warning to others), judgemental (it all comes spilling out in the most nail-biting parts of “42”) and dripping with hubris. Pride goeth before a fall, and “Waters of Mars” was his greatest display of hubris yet. The only way to go from there is down.
Hopefully Eleven will go back to being more balanced – perhaps, like Seven, accepting the necessity of having to do terrible things without angsting over them or assuming the divine right of Ki… er, Time Lords. After that, there’s only one more regeneration left before he’s heavily implied in Classic continuity to turn nasty (the Valeyard). That being said, a kickarse Who without any scruples would be awesome, because this is the only way for him to finish off the Daleks, the Cybermen AND the Master (thus writing finis on all his classic enemies) before the whole thing is either wrapped up or somehow extended by finding a way around the thirteen-life limit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeyard
Over this year, my wife and I completed the entire Doc Who series starting with William Hartnell in “An Unearthly Child” and ending (NOT!!!) with “The Waters of Mars”. Yeah I’m ready for Xmas!
The general consensus lately seems to be that Tennant has replaced Baker I, as the favorite Doctor, but regardless of which is your favorite, Matt Smith as a stunning legacy to live up to.
I’m glad I’m not the only one switching from Team Baker to Team Tennant.
Waters of Mars was GREAT. I made my husband jerry-rig the VCR to the DVR so I can make copies for my friends without cable.
I got you all beat – my youngest daughter is named “Romana.”
I have to disagree with you, Orac – I don’t like David Tennant as a Doctor. He is way too emotional for a Time Lord. The cool thing about Baker was that he was detached and quirky enough to resemble a time-spanning alien, but when he meant business… well, he meant business. I like David Tennant himself, don’t get me wrong, but I think Christopher Eccleston did a better job at portraying an alien.
Sorry, Tennant isn’t even in Baker’s ballpark. But I am glad they have finally gotten off Earth as of late! (the past seasons have been more about time travel & less about space travel.)
Top tier: Tom Baker, David Tennant, & Patrick Troughton. (It’s a shame we don’t have more Troughton episodes on video.) Peter Davidson gets an honorable mention in the first tier due to the fact that he was the first one I saw from beginning to end- I started with Tom Baker in the Key to Time series.
I liked them all (except maybe McGann), even the OTT & bombastic Colin Baker, who tried to develop his Doctor as a initially despised but eventually loved Mr. Darcy type.
I liked McCoy’s portrayal of the Doctor, but looking back, don’t really care for the Cartmel Master Plan much.
I wish the BBC would release the episodes to DVD faster than the few a year trickle they do now.
“You may be a doctor but I’m THE Doctor, the definite article you might say.”
âThe Fourth Doctor to Harry Sullivan
I would put Tennant — to my surprise — at the top of the list, and am tempted to pull out your — absolutely accurate — e-mail comments to me predicting this. I have never been as much of a Tom Baker fan as most of you, preferring the 3rd, 5th, and 7th to him — and possibly Troughton – I haven’t, of course, seen much of him, but I have quite a few of the novelizations of the original scripts. (Btw, I was pleased and surprised to watch THE MOUSE THAT ROARED and seen an ‘old friend,’ William Hartnell in a major role — I’d never thought of him as being particlarly tall, but then I’d seen so few of his appearances.)
I am worried about the 11th Doctor, the last time they went for a ‘young appeal’ type we got stuck with Colin Baker *shudder*.
The 8th, btw, was weak on the one tv show, but became a very interesting character in the books.
For best villains of the early show, I always listed the Autons first, for some reason they really scared me as no other one did. The Delgado Master, of course, though the others never really worked for me. The Daleks were fun, but got tiresome fast, and I’ve never understood the appeal of the Cybermen. And I still think of the ones on the 7th Doctor, the Great Engineer and — the name slips, but I can’t hear the words “ambient temperature” without thinking of the first Ace story and the “Mr. Freeze” type.
Oh, and I would still cry today if the final Adric story was on and I watched it for the fifth time or so.
Been a fan since 1971 so Jon Pertwee was my first Doctor (actually, not strictly true: I saw the Peter Cushing movies first) but Tom Baker has been my favourite for most of my life. Still, Tennant has owned the role and I’ll be shedding manly tears at his departure.
‘The End of Time’ starts in 15 mins here.
By the way, right that the title hasn’t been used before but there was a ‘Destruction of Time’ – part of the epic ‘Daleks’ Masterplan’ in the 60’s
Seen it now: I won’t give away any spoliers but you are in for a treat!