Doctor Who: David Tennant hints he’s not the same Time Lord as before

David Tennant is due to return to Doctor Who as the Fourteenth Time Lord this year – but he’s “not necessarily” playing the same character as before.

While Christopher Eccleston was the first to wield the sonic screwdriver when Doctor Who was revived by the BBC in 2005, Tennant’s era is one of the most widely-beloved in the show’s history among longtime fans and younger viewers.

So, you can imagine people’s delight when Jodie Whittaker didn’t regenerate into Ncuti Gatwa – instead, we were suddenly reacquainted with Tennant’s Time Lord and left in a what-the-f*ck state of surprise.

We know this much: Tennant will return in the 60th-anniversary special later this year, which will also see the return of Catherine Tate’s Donna and the debut of Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor. However, all may not be as it seems.

David Tennant teases Doctor Who 2023 special

In an interview with Doctor Who Magazine (as per the Radio Times), Tennant said he and Donna are “not necessarily exactly the same versions of themselves as they were.”

“The Doctor’s been three different people in the meantime, so I’m not necessarily the same version of the Doctor that I was before. I’m not the Tenth Doctor now, I’m the Fourteenth. Well, strictly speaking we don’t know what the actual number is anymore, do we?”

Plot details for the special are under wraps, bar a vague synopsis from the BBC, which reads: “The Doctor and Donna parted ways when the Doctor had to wipe Donna’s memory, making her forget him, in order to save her life.

“He left her family with a warning: if ever she remembers, she will die. But with the two coming face to face once more, the big question is, just what brings the Doctor and Donna back together?”

Tennant’s Doctor was forced to scrub Donna’s memory as her knowledge of the Time Lord’s extensive existence was slowly killing her. In the teaser trailer, we see him trying to avoid her – but she’s clearly involved somehow in whatever’s going on with Neil Patrick Harris’ villain. “I don’t believe in destiny, but if destiny exists, then it is heading for Donna Noble,” he says.

You can find out everything we know about the Doctor Who 60th-anniversary special here and Season 14 here.