Media Essays: What If David Tennant Didn't Appear In Power Of The Doctor?

Written by The Wandering Fox

Oh time travel, interesting, you can think of many what ifs in your head, but with Doctor Who you think up of many what ifs for it. Yet here we’re talking of Doctor Who from real life. The 60th has come and gone and I’m thinking of many things the 60th could’ve done, like bring back Susan, 8th Doctor, be more fun with the Toymaker. Yet I just had a thought of something in recent memory of what else would have gone on if real life stuff didn’t go RTD’s way for his era.

What If David Tennant Didn’t Appear In Power of the Doctor?

I’m Wandering Fox, this is my idea on what RTD would have done if the Doctor return to an old face.

History

Back during Power of the Doctor’s creation, it had a different ending, given Chris Chibnall wrote this as the last Doctor Who episode. Was going to end originally with the Doctor’s last words going to be “I bet it's going to be brilliant.”.

Then she would regenerate, the camera fades to darkness, with no new Doctor at the end.

Its only once RTD returned we got the ending with Jodie regenerating into David.

But lets say something stopped it? You have RTD back but he can’t get David Tennant back for this ending because he’s busy with something else so what is RTD to do?

I’m not RTD, but if I was him, I’d take elements of what he gave us, I.e the Toymaker, a Doctor and Donna reunion, but play true to the tradition of this being a multi Doctor story yet keep it fresh.

If I could, I’d get in touch with David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Paul McGann, Carol Ann Ford, David Bradley and Maureen O’Brien, go over my ideas.

So, this would be the case with David Tennant not at the end.

The Sixtieth Anniversary Series

With criticisms to the sixtieth, its how The Giggle should have been a two parter, which I agree for the story was badly cut up in it.

Instead a ten part series would have done better. They’d be a series of two parters, with one Doctor in one story, the final two parter introducing Ncuti Gatwa as the 14th Doctor. Here’s how it might have worked.

First: The Star Beast Part 1 and Part 2. Tenth Doctor and Donna.

Second: Journey to the Console Part 1 and Part 2: Eleventh Doctor and Amy.

Third: Blood of the Time Lords Parts 1 and 2: Eighth Doctor and Susan.

Fourth: The Goddess of Stories Parts 1 and 2: First Doctor and Vicki.

Fifth: The Final Game. Introduces Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor.

The Toymaker appears throughout the series in the background, keeping his eyes on the Doctor.

Yes, I liked Wild Blue Yonder, but it should have been saved for a Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby episode, and I liked the fan theory of the Toymaker being the one to bring David Tennant back as the Doctor for some meta of how we have to let go of him after becoming so reliant on him in the Whittaker era.

So, with it out in the open, let's go over what each story tells.

The Star Beast

It's kinda the same only it's the Tenth Doctor. waking up inside the TARDIS, he’s confused to find the console has transformed, with him not recalling this. Finding the TARDIS has landed, he goes outside to investigate, only he’s feeling a bit weary. He goes and rests against a wall then looks at a mirror but finds the Eleventh Doctor there. The Doctor brushes his eyes and sees himself. He then bumps into Donna, remembers he mustn’t be with her but he meets Rose. The story then plays out the same with only these differences:

The Doctor does try to avoid meeting Donna.

Donna didn’t give the majority of her money to charity, instead buying a house for Wilf, saving some for Rose’s education, the mortgage and Shaun can retire.

Wilf appears in this episode with him bonding with Rose, describing the creatures he saw. Once Beep the Meep is brought back by Rose, Wilf calls UNIT. The Doctor follows Beep’s blood to the house and meets Wilfred, who jogs his memory of his death. The Doctor is stunned, admitting he remembers but doesn’t know how he’s back. He is sorry to Wilfred, who forgives him.

The pronouns scene is handled much like in The Curse of Peladon I.e “The Meep isn’t defined by gender, neither a he or a she, just The Meep”.

The UNIT soldiers under Beep’s brainwashing kidnap Donna once Beep overhears of the meta crises, with Beep holding Donna hostage so the Doctor can repair their ship. The Doctor teams with the Wraith Warriors to help him, they stun the UNIT soldiers while the Doctor finally faces Donna. With the glass separating them, the Doctor brings Donna’s memories back, but he has Rose with him. With DoctorDonna back, they stop the ship from leaving. Donna is about to die but Rose helps siphon the metacrises off, for being the daughter of Donna she has some way of helping her, with her releasing it as energy to utterly stop Beep’s ship from working.

Donna remembers some of the Doctor’s memories and is angry at him for not only taking her memories away but how he was rude to Wilfred. The Doctor brings Donna in the TARDIS to talk, yet it then dematerialises.

Journey to the Console

This has the Eleventh Doctor wake up in the TARDIS library, with him somewhat remembering his death. He calls for Clara yet wanders out to find the TARDIS interior is mix matched with several walls of the classic and modern era combining. Hearing someone crying, the Doctor goes through the corridor then finds himself on one platform resembling a time rotor, the other side there’s a woman being held, with a strange figure by her side. The Doctor tries to reach them but keeps forgetting. Its once the girl frees herself and jabs her foe she screams his name. The Doctor realises its Amy. Getting to her he hugs her, finding she’s greying in hair and is dressed as if she were from the 1950s.

The Doctor theorises they’ve been caught in a temporal wave, bringing Amy back to him. He says they’ll have to reach the console to land the TARDIS. They go through the TARDIS, coming to the playroom in which the Doctor keeps several toys. Amy questions the Doctor of how he will get her back. The Doctor doesn’t want to admit it but he’s forced to face the truth Amy has been brought back from the 1950s once she and Rory were left behind in the 1930s. Turning around, the Doctor finds Amy coming out of the wardrobe. They go on to find the console yet the Doctor is suspicious of Amy asking him where they’ll go for their next journey.

The Doctor learns the Amy he’s with is a double, a doll. The Doctor flees back to the playroom and tries to find Amy in the wardrobe but the floor falls. The Doctor finds himself in a room full of old consoles and rotors, him theorising this is the TARDIS’s spare extra room to bring in old and new consoles. The Doctor is then found by the doll Amy, who asks him why he wouldn’t come back for her and Rory, he might’ve got a taxi from outside New York and gone to grab her. The real Amy then appears, her held back by some strings, with her saying her fate was sealed and she has a family to go back to. The Doctor forgets which Amy is real until he sees the reflections in the rotors. Its the Silence, trying to mess with his mind. The Doctor breaks the glass with his sonic screwdriver and flees with Amy.

Finally finding the TARDIS console room, but its like the one the Tenth Doctor woken up in, the Doctor ejects the Silence into the time vortex. The Doctor questions Amy if she’s enjoyed her life, to which she says its been quite the story to live, but she and Rory are happy. She asks him if he found someone, to which he says he has but he doesn’t know where she is. The TARDIS then begins thrusting them through the console room, ending the episode.

Blood of the Time Lords

His mind full of visions of future faces, the Eighth Doctor wakes up on a battlefield, with him surrounded by dead Time Lords and Daleks. He laments how this is just horrid, yet to his confusion, the Time Lord bodies fade away with the Daleks reviving, they try to exterminate him yet he escapes to the TARDIS. Finding the console room different, the Doctor begins to feel weak, his body phasing in and out. Yet it's then he hears a voice telling him to take a Toy Pill. Taking it, the Doctor is okay. The voice tells the Doctor the answer he’s seeking is back on Galifrey. The Doctor tries landing on Galifrey but finds its gone, the TARDIS saying it doesn’t exist. It finds a small ship in the middle of where Galifrey once was.

Landing the TARDIS, the Doctor walks out with several Time Lord soldiers confronting him. Susan appears, with her bringing the Doctor to the deck. She explains to him the ship they are in is from the remains of TARDISes which have ceased to exist, keeping themselves safe. Susan shows him the Time Lords are disappearing, theorising the Daleks have found a way to travel back and erase the Time Lords from history. The Doctor figures of he can tether them back with his TARDIS they can stop the Daleks from doing so.

While inside, the Doctor and Susan begin talking, with Susan letting out some anger at him, for leaving her to grieve for her son, for while their friends died, the Doctor might’ve stayed with her to help her. The Doctor would bitterly know he did wrong by leaving her, with him promising to make things better once they stop the Daleks, yet he asks her if its worth it.

Landing on Galifrey’s past, they find the Galifreyans enjoying their lives, with Susan asking her grandfather if he would have liked this life than just going in the TARDIS. The Doctor is questioning himself much, he never thought of stopping, but he wants Susan to have a happier life. They are then found by the Daleks, who believe the Doctor is so special they believe killing as many Galifreyans as they can will erase him from existence. They try killing yet Susan takes a laser for one Galifreyan. The Galifreyans briefly disappear but return, with Susan realising who she’s just saved. She was wearing armour which kept her safe. With the Galifreyan saved, the Daleks begin to disappear, the Doctor bringing Susan on the TARDIS while time resets once more in the Time War, him and her being the ones who remember this.

The Doctor tells Susan he can take her back to Earth, to the 70s, offering her a place to stay at a house he owns, but Susan isn’t sure, until the TARDIS thrusts them back and forth.

The Goddess of Stories

It begins in Ancient Times where we meet Vicki, having long lived her life, yet she meets someone who says the Goddess Mnemosyne has come, telling stories of the universe. Interested, Vicki goes and finds she is telling the story of Earth and how soon it will be a playground once the old guy in the blue box loses his game. Vicki is suspicious of this goddess and goes to confront her, only for her to be stunned once the goddess warps reality and brings Vicki to the TARDIS, telling her she can go back, be with the Doctor. Vicki still doesn’t believe the goddess, for the Earth is no playground from her time. The goddess is angered and knocks the TARDIS, turning it to mere wood.

Yet before the goddess can hurt her, Vicki is stunned once the First Doctor appears, his presence enough to make the goddess stop. Vicki hugs the Doctor, with him tearfully hugging her, happy she found her family in the past. He tells the goddess to lose the disguise for he knows who she is, calling her Toymaker. The Toymaker brings them to the real TARDIS, questioning the Doctor if he’s happy. The Doctor says Vicki’s life isn’t  to be played with, only the Toymaker tells the Doctor this is all a game, probing him in how much he remembers. The Doctor explains he does, he knows what the Toymaker has done.

Doing his doll show, the Toymaker reveals to Vicki how she’s lucky. Sara, Adric, Lucie, Alex, River, Amy died, how the Doctor has died so many times, just letting those faces fade away, not thinking of himself he says all those faces, all those companions, he's never gone back for Vicki. The Doctor is hurt and tells the Toymaker he’s had enough, he wants him to leave Vicki alone and let him play the game. Yet Vicki won’t leave him so she goes with him in the TARDIS. It ends with the TARDIS landing in a giant toy room, with the First Doctor stepping out, then he’s followed by his successors and companions.

The Final Game

It's revealed the Toymaker split the Doctor while she regenerated, thus bringing back these Doctors for a final game. The First Doctor tried staying to the edge of reality to figure out what was going on with the timeline and found the Toymaker was doing this. With all of which occurred in Flux, the universe is smaller and creatures from beyond the universe have begun coming in. The Toymaker wants to play a final game with the Doctors. If they beat him, he will leave Earth alone but he can play with the universe. If they lose, Earth is his playground.

For the First Doctor, it's a game of Guess Who, in which he has to answer every question correctly.

For the Eighth Doctor, it's Dalek Dodge, dodge the Daleks to save Susan.

For the Tenth Doctor, it's escaping a trap room with Donna.

For the Eleventh Doctor, its hide and seek.

The Doctors win the games, but its revealed the Tenth Doctor had somewhat bent the rules so the Toymaker kills him. With him dying, the Doctor is sorry to the Eleventh for his behaviour. Yet the First Doctor urges him to live, for they are all the Doctor, they can live. The Doctors thank the Toymaker for giving them one last go at life, before they reconnect and finish the regeneration, with Ncuti Gatwa as the 14th Doctor.

With one last game, the Doctor defeats the Toymaker with rock, paper scissors. With the Toymaker banished from existence, the Toyroom disappears, with each companion saying a final goodbye to the Doctor, yet only Amy returns to her home. With Susan, Vicki and Donna in the TARDIS, the Doctor begins taking them home, though Vicki and Donna do have a point in Susan not having a home to go back to, Vicki urging him to finally give his granddaughter a home and something to do. Susan doesn’t want to stop protecting Earth to which the Doctor figures he can help her get a job at UNIT. Bidding goodbye to Donna and Susan, the Doctor asks Vicki if she will be okay, at which she says she will. It ends with Vicki telling her grandchildren of the Doctor’s story.

Well, it's finished.

I'm the Wandering Fox and this is how I would have done the 60th if David Tennant never appeared in the 60th.