The Doctor’s Last Words

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

The final adventure of David Tennant’s incarnation of the Doctor is nigh. To my mind, it’s pointless to discuss the first half of “The End of Time” because it’s mostly set-up for the meat of the story. So instead I’m going to put forward a challenge:

What do you think the Doctor’s last words will be? I’m betting they’ll be something reasonably memorable. If it were up to me, they would evoke his very first line of dialogue and he’d say, “Bûggër. I never DID get to see Barcelona.”

Anyone else?

PAD

95 comments on “The Doctor’s Last Words”

  1. They’ll probably be something about “fun” (with “Allons-Y” in there somewhere). Or maybe he’ll look into the older lady’s eyes and say “… Mom?”

    Actually, I’m more interested (read: concerned/disappointed) about what Matt Smith’s first words are reported to be:

    “I am The Doctor … and you are the Daleks.”

      2. It was heart-wrenching.

        He’d already cheated changing in Journey’s End. He liked who he was.

      3. I’m with those who found it heartbreaking. Even if he has the ability to regenerate, the Doctor over these past few episodes has been, basically, terminal. And I can imagine that “I don’t want to go” is a realistic sentiment for some terminal patients.

      4. Yeah, I think that’s actually pretty good. I can’t remember another time that the Doctor regenerated alone (and conscious). Nobody to be brave for, just alone with his death. It’s hard to say if that was why he acted different or if it was because his personality was different enough from the last Doctor, but the contrast between how the last one went out and this one was striking.

  3. I was right about the plot, wrong about the last line.

    “I don’t want to go” is all a bit Meta for me.

  5. Utterly heart-breaking….the slow build, the nods goodbye to those who meant so much to him, and then the Doctor, all alone, defying the inevitable one more time, even though he knows that this time, there’s nothing he can do to stop it. The first time in years that I’ve been close to tears watching any filmed entertainment, especially when I sure as hëll didn’t want David Tennant to go, either!
    .
    I have very little experience with Doctor Who prior to the revival….has there been any other regeneration where the Doctor was so utterly alone when it happens? I think that’s what really got to me….after four series plus specials of the Doctor as a very social being, even when he’s determined not to be, it was so sad that when the moment came, it was just him, with no one else to even echo the sentiment as he tried to deny what was coming.
    .
    .
    Chuck

    1. Yes, he was alone for his second to third and seventh to eighth, and presumably (though we didn’t see it) for his eighth to ninth, regenerations.

    2. Let’s see.

      1 to 2 he was in the TARDIS and with Ben and Polly watching

      2 to 3 was forced by the Time Lords and he was exiled to Earth by himself

      3 to 4 Sarah Jane and the Brig were there

      4 to 5 was with Adric, Nyssa, and Tegan

      5 to 6 was with Peri (poor girl)

      6 to 7 was with Mel

      7 to 8 was outside the TARDIS in a hospital in the morgue by himself

      8 to 9 we have no idea when or where but the assumption is that it happened after the time war

      9 to 10 Rose was there and it was in the TARDIS

      10 to 11 well you saw that one you lucky duck.

      Kath

      1. 8 to 9: I thought it was established that it was the act he performed to end the time war which triggered that regeneration.
        Even in Tennant’s farewell to Rose in season 4 he says that the 9th was born out of war . . .

      2. 8 to 9: I thought it was established that it was the act he performed to end the time war which triggered that regeneration.
        .
        I think that’s pretty much what we have to infer. And based on that, it’s pretty safe to say that destroying your entire race would leave you pretty dámņ alone.

  6. Yeah, I always inferred that the Time Lords met their end at the hands/claws/suckers of the Daleks during the Time War. That’s why – I thought – The Doctor moped around so much, mourning the loss of his people. He even said to Rose about the (supposedly) last Dalek “That thing killed everything I knew” (paraphrased). And he seemed quite desperate for The Master to suvive his gunshot wound. I’m looking forward to the show tonight, but I hope I’m misunderstanding the whole “destroying your own race” thing.

    2. As suggested in The Satan Pit, The Doctor is “The Killer of his own kind”. Now confirmed in End of Time. He had to stop them.

    1. Yeah. Apparently it’s now an insult to gingers to say you want to be a ginger. Idiots.

      1. They just misunderstood. He’s just checked to see if he still had legs, so it wasn’t clear if he was checking to see if something good happened or if something bad happened. It wasn’t clear from his words whether he wanted to be ginger or to avoid being ginger.

  8. It wasn’t clear from his words whether he wanted to be ginger or to avoid being ginger.
    .
    He said “Still not ginger”, a direct reference to when 9 regenerated into 10 and 10 said he wanted to be ginger.
    .
    Misunderstood, yes. Stupidity on the part of gingers, yes.

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