| “ | I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the Constellation of Kasterborous. I'm 903 years old and I'm the man who is gonna save your lives and all 6 billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that? | „ |
| ~ The Tenth Doctor to Rickston Slade in "Voyage of the Damned". |
The Tenth Doctor is the tenth incarnation of the Doctor. He serves as the titular protagonist of the 2005 Christmas Special, Series 2-4 and the 2008-2010 Specials of the revived series of Doctor Who. He returns as one of the three main protagonist of the 2013 50th Anniversary Special The Day of the Doctor, a minor character in Series 8 of Doctor Who and Series 3 of the spin-off series, The Sarah Jane Adventures and the overarching protagonist of the 2023 60th Anniversary Specials.
He regenerated from the Ninth Doctor at the end of Series 1.
He is portrayed by David Tennant, who also voiced Scrooge McDuck in DuckTales (2017), portrays Crowley in Good Omens and Phileas Fogg in 2021's Around the World in 80 Days. Tennant would later return in 2022-23 to portray the Fourteenth Doctor.
Biography[]
The Christmas Invasion[]
The Tenth Doctor regenerated from the Ninth Doctor after he absorbed the energy of the Time Vortex to save Rose Tyler. After regenerating, he was able to convince Rose he was the same man she knew, and took her back home for Christmas. However, his post regenerative trauma kicked in, leading to him falling unconscious after crashing into the Powell Estate. He managed to come out of his coma to save the Tylers from the Roboforms, but due to having awoken too early, he only had time to warn Rose, Mickey and Jackie that they heralded a greater threat. The Doctor finally reawoke after being taken on board a Sycorax spaceship thanks to some tea that seeped into a component of the TARDIS. While musing on whom he had become, the Doctor quickly broke the Sycorax's blood control of humanity and challenged their leader to a duel over the fate of Earth. in the ensuing sword fight, the Sycorax leader chopped off the Doctor's hand. However, because he was still within the first fifteen hours of his regeneration cycle, he grew a new hand and went on to win the duel. When the Sycorax leader attempted to backstab him, the Doctor sent him plummeting from the ship to his death, proclaiming that he was a "no second chances" sort of man. As the Sycorax fled, Harriet Jones ordered their ship destroyed, and the enraged Doctor vowed to bring her down with six words, whispering "Don't you think she looks tired?", to her aide, which led to her political career's downfall. After selecting his new outfit in the TARDIS, the Doctor enjoyed Christmas with the Tylers.
Series 2[]
After Christmas, the Doctor resumed his adventures with Rose Tyler. In Tooth and Claw, the Doctor and Rose encountered Queen Victoria in 1879 Scotland, and the two placed a bet of whether they could get her to say her catchphrase. At Torchwood House, the Doctor and Rose protected her from the Bretheren, a cult who worshipped a werewolf. He managed to work out that the house contained a trap for the werewolf, and used the Koh-I-Noor and the house's telescope to reflect moon light, killing the wolf and letting it's host pass away. The Doctor and Rose were knighted, but were subsequently banished, as Victoria disliked their blase response to danger.
During School Reunion, the Tenth Doctor reunited with Sarah Jane Smith, and would take on Mickey as a companion. While investigating why a spaceship in the far future was linked to pre-revolutionary Versailles, the Doctor experienced a brief romance with Madame du Pompadour. Shortly after, the Doctor, Rose and Mickey wound up in an alternate universe where Rose's father Pete was still alive, and where they encountered alternate versions of the Cybermen manufactured by Cybus Industries. After thwarting them, Mickey chose to stay behind in the other universe. During his travels with Rose, they grew closer together, battling many threats, such as the Wire, the Abzorbaloff, and the Beast of Krop-Tor.
Army of Ghosts[]
Eventually however, investigating the "Ghost-shift" on modern day Earth led to the Doctor encountering Torchwood, and discovered the was being caused by the Cybermen crossing over into the main universe by following a Void Ship and attempt to take over the mainline Earth and convert its inhabitants into Cybermen. At the same time, the Void Ship was revealed to contain the Dalek quartet known as the "Cult of Skaro", who released the Daleks sealed in the Genesis Ark to make war on the Cybermen and Earth. The Doctor and Rose were able to save the day by causing the Daleks (though, the Cult of Skaro escaped via emergency temporal shift) and Cybermen to be sucked into the Void, but as a side effect of the plan, Rose became stuck in the alternate universe with her still-alive father.
Series 3[]
The Tenth Doctor later met Martha Jones during an incident at a hospital involving the Judoon and the Plasmavore, and after Martha helped him to save everyone the Tenth Doctor took her on as his new companion soon after. Initially giving a brief round trip, where they encountered Shakespeare, had his final meeting with the Face of Boe, and reencountered the Cult of Skaro, briefly trying and failing to redeem the Daleks; though, partially succeeding due to Dalek Sec absorbing a human collaborator, Diagoras. The now humanoid Sec appeared to retain his psychopathy, but eventually, assisted by the Doctor, the human factor in the hybrid Sec drove him to merely want the survival of his species, rather than supremacy; however, the other three members of the Cult betrayed him, leading to the deaths of Sec, Dalek Thay, Dalek Jast, and their experiments; Dalek Caan, however, was able to escape. Afterwards the Doctor and Martha agreed to make her travels with him full time, although he was completely oblivious to her feelings toward him. They travelled together for some time; they saved a ship from a sentient sun, were trapped in 1969 by the Weeping Angels, and went on many more adventures. Most notably, the Doctor chose to use a Chameleon Arch to become human to hide from the Family of Blood, although his human identity had to sacrifice himself to defeat the family.
The Sound of Drums[]
While refuelling in Cardiff, the Doctor saw Captain Jack Harkness and attempted to immediately leave, but Jack forcibly held into the TARDIS, which took them 100 trillion years in the future, near the end of the universe. The Doctor admitted he had attempted to flee Jack due to him having been rendered immortal, and thus an impossible being. The Doctor, Martha and Jack encountered the last vestiges of humanity working on a project to escape to a planet called "Utopia" where they hoped to survive the universe's end. There the Doctor met Professor Yana, the inventor who made the rocket humanity was using and quickly became friends with him, helping him to complete the rocket and render it operable. The Doctor also managed to make peace with Jack. However, Yana turned out to be the Master, having used a Chameleon Arch to escape the Time War and assume a human identity. After Yana regained his memories, he attempted to kill the Doctor and Martha. Left mortally wounded, the Master stole the Doctor's TARDIS and regenerated, with the Doctor attempting to explain that they were the last of their kind. As he escaped, the Doctor was able to lock the TARDIS so the Master could only travel between the future and the last time period that the Doctor and Martha had left from.
Using Jack's Vortex Manipulator, the Doctor and Martha were able to travel with him back to the present, where they discovered the Master had assumed a new identity as British Prime Minister candidate "Harold Saxon" and was working on a new plan. After being inducted into office, the Master put his plan into motion by summoning the Toclafane from the future to take over Earth for him. In the process, the Doctor was captured by the Master and had his body aged into an old man by him for his amusement. However, the Doctor quickly devised a plan to stop the Master by ensuring Martha escaped, allowing her to travel the world telling people of the Doctor. On the day the Master had planned to launch his rockets and make war with the entire universe, everyone followed Martha's instructions to think the Doctor's name as the countdown for the rockets went down, giving the Doctor the power to escape his confinement and stop the Master. The Doctor planned to hold the Master captive in his TARDIS, only for Lucy Saxon to shoot the Master and the Master to refuse to regenerate out of spite, so that with his death the Doctor would become the last of the Time Lords. After Martha Jones chose to stay on Earth with her family rather than continue her adventures with the Doctor, he had a brief encounter with his fifth self, and managed to prevent a black hole opening.
Series 4[]
The Doctor received a new companion in the form of Donna Noble, whom he had met once before. The Doctor happily took her on as a companion, with the two insisting on a platonic relationship. Together, the Doctor and Donna began travelling together, with her fierce yet compassionate personality acting as a guide, such urging the Doctor to save one family from the destruction of Pompeii, and freeing the Ood from slavery. While working with Martha and UNIT against the Sontarans, the Doctor properly met Donna's grandfather Wilf, and the three found themselves being brought to an Earth colony, where the Doctor created a clone "daughter" called Jenny. The Doctor and Donna went on many adventures, such as solving a mystery with Agatha Christie, notably encountering River Song for the first time, an archeologist from his future, and having a harrowing experience on the planet Midnight.
The Stolen Earth/Journey's End[]
During one adventure, the Doctor discovered that the entirety of planet Earth had been taken from its orbit, but was able to trace it to the Medusa Cascade where he discovered the Daleks were responsible, which were created by Davros, who was saved from the supposedly impenetrable Time War by Dalek Caan. The Daleks were following a plan devised by Davros to construct a Reality Bomb capable of wiping out everything else in the universe besides the Daleks. Returning to Earth, the Doctor was attacked by Daleks and wounded, but when he started to regenerate the Doctor instead only healed his wounds and channelled the rest of his energy into the severed hand he had lost in his encounter with the Sycorax. The Doctor also reunited with Rose, who was able to cross into his universe again thanks to the dimensional boundary weakening as a side effect of the Daleks' plan. The Doctor and Rose were later captured by the Daleks, and escorted to the immense Dalek vessel known as the Crucible; while Donna was trapped inside the TARDIS and dropped into the Crucible's core, which was made of Z neutrino energy (destructive to TARDISes), on order of the Supreme Dalek, seemingly perishing. In fact, Donna was saved by touching the Doctor's hand, which regenerated into the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor and moved the TARDIS away just in time. With the Time Lord knowledge she had absorbed from the Doctor, which was inadvertently triggered by Davros' electrical strike, Donna was able to hack into the Daleks' mainframe and stop the activation of the Reality Bomb. It is revealed that Dalek Caan, driven both insane and granted universal perspective, had been secretly aiding the Doctor and his allies (including manipulating events to cause the Doctor and Donna to reunite), because Caan came to the conclusion that the Daleks were evil and a blight on existence. Dalek Caan's condemnation of the Daleks and urging to stop them permanently convinces the Meta-Crisis Doctor to use the Crucible system to destroy every Dalek; the Doctor and companions had to flee because the reversal of charge was eventually destroying the space station itself. However, deeming what the Meta-Crisis Doctor did as a "genocide", the Tenth Doctor banished him to Rose's universe right before the dimensional wall went back up; yet, his judgement to the Meta-Crisis Doctor was also himself finding a way to reciprocate Rose's feelings, as the part-human replica held all of their memories, and therefore affection, as well as having a human life span, thus wouldn't be condemned to an eternity alone when Rose does pass. The Doctor then discovered that Donna's mind was being overrun by the wealth of Time Lord knowledge she had absorbed, and so reluctantly suppressed all of her memories of him in order to save her.
The Doctor attempted to travel alone for the latter part of his life, but still found himself taking on both temporary companions, and in expanded media, more long term ones, (whether willingly or otherwise). The Doctor began to become increasingly aware of his own approaching death, beginning with his encounter with the supposed Next Doctor, Jackson Lake, reinforcing for the Tenth Doctor the idea that he would regenerate some day, which was exacerbated by the prophecy that "He will knock four times".
The Waters of Mars/Time Lord Victorious[]
When he encountered Adelaide Brooke on Mars, the Doctor did not want to get involved in the circumstances that led to her and her team's demise, but found that a Martian water virus would infiltrate their base, and Adelaide would have to sacrifice herself and her team. After telling Adelaide her fate, the Doctor left her, and after musing on what it truly meant to be the last Time Lord, he changed his mind. However, this decision was fuelled by arrogance and hubris, with the Doctor desperate to prove that he could fight time itself. Fleeing from the consequences to the Dark Times, the Doctor embraced the Time Lord Victorious title, however the intervention of his previous selves convinced him to make amends.
The End of Time[]
The Doctor eventually headed to the Ood Sphere, where he discovered the Ood were sensing some vast darkness over creation and that the Master was being resurrected. Trailing him, the Doctor reunited with Wilf. He and Wilf discussed how Donna was doing after her memory wipe and the Doctor admitted his fears of his upcoming death, and his guilt over his recent actions. That night, the Doctor tracked down the Master once again, and was shocked to discover that the drumming was real, and not a symptom of the Master's madness, before the Master was captured. The Doctor and Wilf tracked him down to Naismith Manor, where they also discovered a pair of Vinvocci had infiltrated his "Immortality Gate" project. The Doctor discovered that it was a planet wide medical tool, but was unable to stop the Master using it to replace humanity with himself. After being captured, the Doctor tried to get through to his old friend, before being rescued by the Vincocci. On their ship on orbit, the Doctor and Wilf debated over whether he should kill the Master.
The Doctor then discovered that the Time Lords were using these events to escape the Time War; upon arrival, Rassilon uses a powerful gauntlet to reverse humanity back to normal, unintentionally aiding the Doctor. However, the ruling council of the Time Lords had a selfish plan to ascend into energy forms, at the expense of destroying the universe, so the Doctor fought an intense battle to defeat Rassilon and the Time Lords. In a rare act of heroism - perhaps spurned by rejection and resentment for them causing his madness - the Master delayed Rassilon with his electrical beams long enough for the Time War to pull back into itself Gallifrey and Rassilon's collaborators; this prevented Rassilon from striking down the Doctor, but also dragged the Master into the time locked era, ironically awarding his one act of selflessness with imprisonment (for the time being). In the end, the Doctor, finding a semblance of closure with his oldest friend/enemy and content Rassilon's malice was stopped, faced his fate from the Immortality Gate's radiation in order to save Wilf, and was completely heartbroken before accepting his destiny.
The Doctor was able to stave off the inevitable regeneration to undertake a journey that he described to Wilf as his "reward." In a version of "Time Lord Victorious," but with humility, rather than arrogance, he takes stops throughout recent time and space to save his former companions and their loved ones; he saves Martha Jones and Mickey Smith from a Sontaran; he helps a bereaved Jack Harkness find a potential new love with Alonso (co-pilot of the doomed Titanic spaceship); and he saves Luke, the son of Sarah Jane Smith, from a car, afterwards sharing a meaningful, silent exchange with her, rich with sorrow yet appreciation, with her understanding that the Tenth Doctor's end was imminent. Ultimately, his regeneration was initiated, which caused significant damage to the console room of the TARDIS; the regeneration was perhaps more violent than usual because of how he averted a previous one through channeling regeneration energy into his dissected, spare hand, thus possibly had lingering energy still within combining with the new surge.
Legacy[]
Many years later, during the Thirteenth Doctor's regeneration, her next incarnation was a reprisal of this form, with a similar personality, albeit with the experience of the interim incarnations.
Personality[]
The Tenth Doctor was an outwardly affable, easygoing, charismatic and charming figure, but this demeanour masked his inner, terrifying fury, wistful melancholy and latant trauma suffered as the War Doctor during the Time War. He possessed a manic energy, often speaking rapidly, peppering his speech with pop culture references and foreign words ("Allons-y" and "Molto bene"), and going off on rambling tangents.
Quotes[]
| “ | Did you miss me? | „ |
| ~ The Doctor, The Christmas Invasion. |
| “ | I'm the Doctor. And if you don't like it, if you want to take it to a higher authority, then there isn't one. It stops with me. | „ |
| ~ The Doctor shows an early indication of his arrogance, New Earth. |
| “ | I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the Constellation of Kasterborous. I'm 903 years old and I'm the man who is gonna save your lives and all 6 billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that? | „ |
| “ | I don't want to go. | „ |
| ~ The Tenth Doctor's last words before his regeneration in "The End of Time, Part 2". |
Trivia[]
- Had David Tennant stayed on for Series 5, his Doctor would have crashed his TARDIS for an unknown reason in Amy Pond's yard. He wouldn't invite her to be a companion, but thank her for the kindness in helping him recover. They would meet in 2010 with him forgetting due to his longer timeline.
- His successor states Ten had vanity issues and didn't want to regenerate. However, Ten was in the middle of Dalek empire threatening reality, so he and the excuse of not needing a scrambled brain from the recovery period.
- Other media would reveal Ten didn't get to live more than 8 years in his existence; which explains why he didn't want to change.
- His rage and sorrow at regeneration to save Wilf is due to the fact he has expended all but one; so he no longer had a safety net, meaning one fatal thing that can kill Time Lords would be all it took after he completed his last regeneration.
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The Doctor The Doctor's companions UNIT Torchwood Institute Bannerman Road Gang Investigators of Infernal Incidents Paternoster Gang Coal Hill defenders Other Allies | ||
