'I don't want to go'

(Huge spoiler alert, should anyone not have seen The End of Time yet)

The final words of the Tenth Doctor. I think many of us watching felt the same way. We’ve known it was coming since late October 2008, we’ve known who the new Doctor will be for almost a year, but finally, it’s here. We’ve been on one hell of a journey, but journey’s end for this Doctor seems to have come far too soon. They did well to save this for New Year’s Day, for it would have made for a miserable Christmas night.

As with many of RTD’s big epics, the real heart was in the small scenes, not the big set pieces, and credit has to go to Bernard Cribbins for simply breaking your heart as Wilf, old soldier, and staunch supporter, but, finally, the Doctor’s doom, because he couldn’t let a good man die.

The scenes where the Doctor revisited his companions for the last time were self indulgent, yes, but I’m prepared to forgive them that for the end of the story. Whilst I’m not sure it’s canon to be able to fit all this in before regenerating (just call me pedantic, ok?), it was also Russell’s farewell to the characters he had created.

His ‘reward’ was to change their lives, to save Martha and Mickey from the Sontarans, save Luke for Sarah Jane, provide Jack with a companion (and how perfect was it that it should be Alonso Frame from Voyage of the Damned), and give Donna a winning lottery ticket. He even visited the descendant of Joan Redfern, just to make sure she had been okay. His encounter with Rose was the most moving. He couldn’t resist seeing her one last time, but he had to go back to a time before they met, and she had no idea who he was, and would not even remember her encounter with a random ‘drunk’ at New Year. And then, finally, Ood Sigma appeared again with a promise that they would ‘sing him to his rest’. I can’t be the only person who had another play, and another performance, in my head at that point.

Thank you Russell, for all the story lines, the laughter, the tears, but most of all, thank you David Tennant for the most amazing dramatic performance on TV. I don’t have enough superlatives for just how good an actor you are.

The programme will return, with the Eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith. A good actor by all accounts, and of course I will watch, and will probably enjoy the programme. With Steven Moffatt at the helm, it has lots of potential. But isn’t he just a little bit too young, and how can he ever come close to the way that David could break your heart with just a look?

There is a tiny spark out there which reminds me that somewhere in an alternate universe there is a half human Doctor who will forever look like David, and will age as he does. Don’t try and tell me that this isn’t a possibility, for I remember The Five Doctors when all previous incarnations of the Doctor were brought together.

But for now, it’s time to bid a grateful, and tearful, farewell. Perhaps it isn’t inappropriate to borrow a few words which seem suitable for the occasion. He was ‘our’ Doctor and ‘(we) shall not look upon his like again’.