Doctor Who celebrated its 60th anniversary with three specials featuring returning characters, The Doctor revisiting a familiar face, the reintroduction of a villain from years ago, and a major twist when it came time for the regeneration.
David Tennant returned as the Fourteenth Doctor, having previously played the Tenth Doctor, alongside Catherine Tate whom is back as companion Donna Noble. And while the last time they saw each other, she couldn’t remember who he was or her mind would burn up — after she took the power of a Time Lord into her head — the first special, “The Star Beast,” solved that problem, thanks to her sharing the metacrisis with her daughter, Rose (Yasmin Finney), and then the two just letting it all go.
Then in the third special, “The Giggle,” The Doctor faced the Toymaker (Neil Patrick Harris) and when he took a fatal blast, bigenerated, splitting off into the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa). The Fourteenth Doctor stopped traveling, instead settling down to live a life with a family — Donna, her husband, her daughter, her mother, and her granddad — and Fifteen set off on the next big adventure. (We’ll see him in the Christmas special, “The Church on Ruby Road,” alongside new companion Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson.)
But those three episodes did leave us with quite a few major questions about what’s to come for both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors (and chances are it will be a while before we get answers about Tennant’s because it’s Gatwa’s time to shine as the Time Lord). Scroll down for more.
Doctor Who, 2023 Christmas Special, Monday, December 25, Disney+