The current season of Doctor Who aired on BBC One in the UK on October 23. The show will return in November 2023 for what the network is calling “three spectacular episodes.”
A recent episode “The Power of the Doctor” featured the last appearance of Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor and the now-traditional cliffhanger of the Doctor’s regeneration into their next body. And this time it’s a familiar face to the show’s viewers. For some time now, we’ve known that Whittaker’s successor, Ncuti Gatwa, will arrive in 2024 as the thirteenth Doctor. As the show came to a close, however, it wasn’t Gatwa that viewers saw regenerate into Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor—it was David Tennant. Previously, it was known that the Scottish actor who played the Tenth Doctor from 2005 to 2010 will be reprising the role for three specials in 2019, but now we know that he will be joined by his former companion and aide Donna Noble (Catherine Tate).
The BBC said that Tennant would be portraying the Fourteenth Doctor, and not a rehash of the Tenth Doctor; the character’s bewilderment at having “the same teeth” verified this. There was also talk about Gatwa being the 15th Doctor. The BBC released a statement from the show’s creator, Russell T. Davies: If you found David Tennant’s entrance surprising, just wait until you see what more we have in store! A trail of intrigue, horror, robots, puppets, peril, and amusement leads to Ncuti’s Fifteenth Doctor. And what does this have to do with the return of the fantastic Donna Noble? Where, when, and why? We’ll let you have a year to guess before everything goes to crap.
In her last episode, Whittaker faced up against Time Lord nemeses Daleks, Cybermen, and the Master. This episode took viewers all the way back to the pilot, with David Bradley reprising his role as the original Doctor, William Hartnell. Those who have previously commanded the Tardis in the 1980s and 1990s made brief cameos throughout the 90-minute episode. In appearances that were closely guarded by the BBC, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann all returned to the role of the Doctor.
Time Lord adventures will resume in the fall of 2023.