There are rumors David Tennant will return to Doctor Who's longevity lies in regeneration, a convenient plot device that allows the show to switch lead actors. Regenerations serve as the perfect opportunity for showrunners to reinvent the series, and one such transition point is approaching at speed.
Jodie Whittaker's tenure as the Thirteenth Doctor is coming to an end later this year, and current showrunner Chris Chibnall is departing alongside her. The next showrunner is none other than Russell T. Davies, the man responsible for relaunching Doctor Who back in 2005, and by all s, he has an exciting vision for the show's future. Although the BBC is yet to announce Whittaker's replacement as the Fourteenth Doctor, there's evidence pre-production on Davies' season 14 has begun, and it's only a matter of time before an official announcement is made. The last few days have seen a number of fans settle on one idea - that Davies should bring back a fan-favorite past Doctor, David Tennant. According to the rumors, Whittaker's Doctor will decide to regenerate into a familiar face, but Tennant will get to play a very different version of the Doctor.
The idea of David Tennant's return as the Fourteenth Doctor seems to be going mainstream, even covered on breakfast television by the BBC's rival ITV. Tennant has always been considered the best of the post-2005 Doctors (and, indeed, many consider him better than even classic favorite Tom Baker), and he seems to have loved working alongside Russell T. Davies back when he played the Tenth Doctor. But such a move would be a seriously bad idea.
Why David Tennant's Return As The Fourteenth Doctor Is Possible
Curiously enough, there is actually precedent for a Doctor's return. Although the Doctor has traditionally had little control over the faces and forms he takes on when he regenerates, other Time Lords have been able to control regeneration a little better - with the Fourth Doctor's Time Lady companion Romana deciding to copy the face of a woman she'd crossed paths with during her adventures with the Doctor. More recently, the Doctor does seem to have been able to exert some degree of subconscious control over the process, with Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor reflecting on the psychological reasons he'd chosen that particular face and form.
The Doctor Who anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor" even hinted the Doctor can return to faces he has worn before. Its final scenes saw Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor come face-to-face with a mysterious being called the Curator, who strongly hinted he was a future incarnation of the Doctor himself. The Curator was actually played by Tom Baker himself, and he cryptically hinted that, in years, to come, the Doctor might find himself revisiting a few old favorites. This scene clearly implies Tom Baker is both a once and future Doctor - and his precise wording, "a few old favorites," seems to imply there are others as well. Thus there is definite precedent for the Doctor to regenerate into another Tennant incarnation.
Why David Tennant's Fourteenth Doctor Would Be A Bad Idea
The idea may be feasible from an in-universe perspective, then, but that doesn't make it a good one. The core problem is that Doctor Who should never be built purely on the foundation of nostalgia; the Doctor is always looking forward, changing, regenerating, embracing the future rather than looking to the past. When Russell T. Davies relaunched Doctor Who back in 2005, he didn't just play the nostalgia card - he relaunched it, proving Doctor Who could work in the modern age of television. The episodes were longer but the stories were shorter, with only a handful of two-parter stories. Davies used the Time War as a plot device to wipe the continuity slate clean, reinventing the Daleks as religious fanatics who worshiped an Emperor whose glory days were in the past. And when he brought back Elizabeth Sladen's Sarah Jane Smith, it wasn't just nostalgia porn - it served to shine a light on the relationship between the Doctor and his companions, playing an important part in Rose's development as a character. This wasn't just something old - it was also something new. Bringing David Tennant back as the Fourteenth Doctor would break with everything Davies had tried to do when he brought Doctor Who back to life.
It's easy to see why viewers are falling into this trap. Davies is returning, after all, and he's bringing key of his old production team back with him due to the BBC's co-production with Bad Wolf Studios. But this isn't simply a matter of bringing the band back together; he's already Davies has told them to Steven Moffat - who's thrilled at what's coming. Davies' plan shouldn't just be to relive his glory days; it needs to be to make Doctor Who bigger than ever before. And he's perfectly positioned to accomplish just that.
This doesn't necessarily mean David Tennant won't return in a different manner; 2023 is Doctor Who's 60th anniversary, and the show traditionally celebrates milestones with multi-Doctor adventures. Thus, far from returning as the Fourteenth Doctor, Tennant is likely to turn up again as the Tenth - reprising the role he played so well. A one-off would be far easier to work around his other commitments, given Tennant has just signed up as part of the voice cast for Legend of Vox Machina. And it would be far better for the future of Doctor Who to boot.