David Tennant’s Final Doctor Who Line Was Perfect
When Doctor Who celebrated its 50th anniversary, fans were eager to see how the show would mark the occasion. Many of us even wondered if current Doctor Matt Smith would catch us all off guard with a surprise regeneration.
At the time, it had been three years since the much-beloved David Tennant handed his TARDIS keys over to Smith. There was nothing concrete to suggest Smith would wrap up his run that year, it also wouldn’t have surprised us terribly. (He wrapped up in 2013)
No matter who the Doctor is, he or she would be hard pressed to make it a more emotional departure than that of David Tennant. You remember, don’t you? “I don’t want to go.” You’re starting to cry a little at that aren’t you? No, wait, that’s me.
Since all of us have had years to work out our residual issues from “The End of Time” with our therapist, Tennant spent some time reflecting on his iconic run as the Doctor, and more specifically on the final line that split our poor little hearts right clean in half.
Talking with The Big Issue in 2012, Tennant recalled his time as the Doctor fondly, saying that he had nothing but good memories of his time spent playing the Time Lord. He also addressed that line.
David Tennant said, “I think that was a very clever line. It absolutely made sense in terms of character—that’s exactly what that version of the Doctor would say. So it didn’t break the fiction. But at the same time it was a bigger line than that. It was partly Russell [T Davies] expressing how he felt about leaving the show because we were all leaving together.”
David Tennant continued, “We all felt it was the right time to go—we’d given it all we could—but at the same time we all knew there would be nothing else we’d ever do that would be quite like this. You might have real success doing something else, you’ll work on other things, but whatever happens this is unique. There’s nothing else like Doctor Who. In the world. So yes, it was a bittersweet goodbye.”
David Tennant really hit on the core of what made that line so powerful (aside from his heartbreaking delivery of it).
While the Doctor has regenerated many times before, the strange paradox of the process is that, while he is still a new version of himself and incorporates all the memories of his previous incarnations, the person he is right then is still being lost in some way.
When the Doctor regenerates, he may still be very much like the man or woman he was, but he’s also a new being.
David Tennant’s version of the Doctor always felt somehow more human than some of the versions that came before, and I think that was why he connected with so many fans, both new and old.
It was only appropriate that, at the end of David Tennant’s run, the Doctor had to face something all the rest of us will eventually: death, or something not wholly unlike it.
And just to refresh your memory…
If you’ll excuse me, I have something in my eye… all right, fine, it’s a tear, is that what you want to hear? Yes, there’s a tear in my eye, you heartless bastard!
