David Tennant's Return To 'Doctor Who' Is As The Real Fourteenth Doctor; Full 2023 Schedule Revealed

TV & Film

Oct 25

He knows those teeth, I know those teeth, you know those teeth. Jodie Whittaker exited as the Thirteenth Doctor in Sunday’s Doctor Who, the BBC centenary special episode “The Power of the Doctor”, which aired Sunday. So who is the “Doctor Whoever I’m About to Be” that Thirteen tags in? It turns out, not Ncuti Gatwa, but David Tennant! What. What? WHAT?

Indeed, David Tennant, the show’s Tenth Doctor from 2005 to 2010, as well as the face of the eleventh incarnation through a not-actually-stopped regeneration, is also the Fourteenth Doctor. With this reveal, we have also learned exactly how 2023 will play out for the series. No Christmas this year, nor a week later New Year’s. There will be three 60th anniversary specials, all airing in November, so it’s going to be over a year's wait before the show returns. Tennant will be appearing in all three specials with Catherine Tate, who he was announced to be returning with in May. If the editing of the teaser and the timing of everything is to be believed, it will be Tennant’s Fourteen that will be going up against Neil Patrick Harris’s still-unrevealed character touted as the “greatest enemy the Doctor has ever faced”. Not only do we get Tate and Harris, but Yasmin Finney as Rose (why she has that name will presumably be answered), and Bernard Cribbins reprising his role as Wilfred Mott one last time.

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But wasn’t Ncuti Gatwa announced as the Fourteenth Doctor? Well, that is correct, but he is instead the Fifteenth Doctor, as newly-returned showrunner Russell T. Davies has confirmed. It seems Fifteen will be freshly confused by their regeneration as he stands in Fourteen’s shirt and untied tie. But at least we won’t have to wait until spring 2024 for his first adventure. Instead, Doctor Who seems to be returning for Christmas for the first time since 2017’s “Twice Upon a Time”, which ended Capaldi’s run and began Whittaker’s. Specifically, it’s airing “over the festive period in 2023”, and it wouldn’t say 2023 if it was a New Year’s Day 2024 special. Series 14 begins filming next month.

So yes, just in time for a female prime minister meets her downfall, David Tennant is the Doctor again and Russell T. Davies is the showrunner. Allons-y!