In modern-day fandom , canon is king . This is not a jab against an admiration of an order continuity and worldbuilding , the necessary aspects of creating a story to be lost in . But what give-up the ghost beyond it — a yearning for raw , wiki - able information and facts that can be collate and held in amber , where rendition gives way to a unique dissertation — often threatens to overturn it . Which is why for Doctor Who , a show that hasspent 60 yearsgrowing and changing and write over and under itself , its latest shock is less about breaking its own earth , but rather typeset itself destitute .
It did so in the last turn of“The Giggle,”the last of the three special episodes released over the last few workweek to strike out Doctor Who ’s sixtieth anniversary . Starring David Tennant not as a returning incarnation of the Doctor , but a new , fourteenth aspect , audiences come into the specials expecting one affair as their only guarantee : by the end of the third special , David Tennant ’s latest doc would die , and transform into Ncuti Gatwa ’s 15th .
Which he did … of a variety . Mortally wounded byclassic villain the Toymaker , the fourteenth Doctor ’s regeneration began just like every other contemporary imagining of the process has , inspired by Who ’s long chronicle — mix orange - yellow energies course through the Doctor ’s body , prepare to explode in ray of radiant , transformative brightness level . But here , they did n’t . rather , the gleaming fade , and the Doctor , with the help of a push and a pull from his Friend Donna and Mel , somehow separate into two co - existent beings : the 14th Dr. and the 15th medico , together in one place .
Screenshot: BBC
“ I ’ve Bigenerated , ” the 15th Doctor explains to his preceding self , befuddled onlooker , and the hearing likewise . “ There ’s no such affair . Bigeneration is supposed to be a myth , but … count at me . ” It ’s unquestionable in this , or any moment that come after , that Gatwa is anything other than the definite clause , although there have been valid business of the optics of make this choice with the passage from one of , if not the , most dear player to ever take on the role to the first Black , openly queer military personnel to play it .
But the instalment understandably establishes that this is the Doctor ’s future staring flop back at themselves — Time Lord rehab out of decree , as 15 invest it after , beg his past self to go on the journey of healing that has lead to his own currently revitalized lease on life . From the 14th Doctor ’s hereafter , his continued universe is not see in so much as cheating expiry but once again , getting to see his own future reflected back at him . Ncuti Gatwa is the Doctor . David Tennant is the medico . It ’s just that for the first time in Doctor Who ’s long history of regeneration , we saw a adaptation of the summons that was less about forcible expiry and rebirth , and more about discrepancy in time itself .
Part of discernment that divergence has been made all the more general to Doctor Who beyond just this specific here and now , thanks to return showrunner Russell T. Davies . Speaking on asupplementary commentary trackreleased to accompany “ The Giggle , ” Davies offered his own version of what Bigeneration means :
Screenshot: BBC
“ My theory … I think what with Peter [ Davison ] having been in , with with Colin [ Baker ] having been in , I think down the timeline , they all seperated . They all give way like that , all the Doctors came back to life , with their original TARDISes , the gift of the Toymaker . They ’re all traveling out there , I ’m name it a Doctor - poesy . I want to create a future where , you know , Sylvester McCoy survived [ the 1996 telecasting film ] and has an adventure ! One of the thing about [ the first 60th special ] “ The Star Beast ” is to get [ David Tennant ] back and get Catherine [ Tate ] back , we have to jump through so many hoops . Which is a great tale , but it ’s just like … ‘ why ca n’t you just arrive and tread out the TARDIS ? ’ ”
It would n’t be the first time late that Humphrey Davy suggest such an idea , either . InTales of the TARDIS , a limited anniversary miniseries cut down Hellenic Doctor Who episodes with new interstitials from returning Doctors and companions , it ’s drift by the various Doctors that there are , in the universe , many enlace timeline — timelines where , unlike the one we saw onscreen , incarnations of the Doctor survived their re-formation stories and kept depart , offering an explanation as to why Doctors can reelect looking old than when we fancy them “ die . ” An interpretation then , as Davies put it , that reality can now intersect where all these Doctors , regardless of where they are in their own personal journeys and what we translate to be the end of those journeys , can descend back . In one unmarried mo , every Doctor becomes the Doctor forever , versions of themselves echoing out across clock time and space . It ’s Brobdingnagian !
But it also is n’t . Because that ’s all it is : an interpretation . None of these detail , about what Bigeneration is and is n’t , are sourced from within the primary text itself — Dr. Who , the television show — and perhaps it should appease that way . In fact , part of what makes “ The Giggle ” so freeing is that all it pee actually explicit about this unconscious process is simply what our pedestal understanding of what it is in the first home already was . The Doctor changes faces , and move on eternally . All we ’ve tot is that those faces can go on forever too , in whatever direction we or the show might one day want them to . It might contradict things said in the past ; in another 60 year ’s time should we be blessed with both a liveable satellite and the continued wellness of Doctor Who , a Modern writer could completely upend “ The Giggle ” altogether and bring us back to our anterior understanding of it all . Or they could do something completely unlike all over again ! We do n’t have a logical , scientific , biologic dislocation of how the unconscious process works , properly now Bigeneration is a vibration , a look . It is , as the Doctor himself puts it , a myth , and the whole percentage point of myths and their tenaciousness is that the level is retell and reinterpret by different text and perspectives across eons .
Screenshot: BBC
That ’s the magic of Doctor Who , that ’s the point of it : it bear on and it maturate and it alter , all the meter , incessantly and always . I do n’t require to explain to you , proofreader , what Bigeneration is , because Doctor Who does n’t want to justly now either . For every once in a while , in a very long while when the wind stand fairish , Doctor Who merely just ask us to have our own view on something , instead of treat its story as a serial of definitive , immutable fact . On its own 60th natal day , it pay us this beautiful gift : to be barren to imagine what might be for ourselves .
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Screenshot: BBC
Screenshot: BBC
