David Tennant & Billie Piper Return For Doctor Who 50th Anniversary!

p00rdbc4BBC reports that David Tennant and Billie Piper are now confirmed as appearing in the upcoming 50th anniversary special of Doctor Who. The special is expected to air on or around the anniversary date of November 23, 2013. The special will also star the current Doctor, Matt Smith, and his companion Clara Oswald...or Oswin...or Onslow...or whatever she's called the next time we see her. Also appearing is noted character actor John Hurt. Well, we knew this was pretty much inevitable, didn't we? One of the most popular Doctors along with one of the most (inexplicably) popular companions...that was pretty much a given. And you know what? I'm fine with them coming back. Oh, I dislike Rose with the burning intensity of at least three suns, but seeing her again, just one last time, would be quite nice. This does raise up some larger questions. I'm assuming we'd see them at some point during their season two adventures, probably being pulled out of their normal time stream to intersect with 11 and Clara Oscar. That's perfectly fine, but it does make it very unlikely that Rose would also appear alongside Christopher Eccleston's 9th Doctor. Now while rumors about him appearing have circulated for some time, we haven't had any confirmation. Of course, until just today, we didn't have any confirmation about Tennant and Piper, so make of that what you will. Anyhow, if she's not with 9, that makes for an interesting situation. The only time we saw the Ninth Doctor without Rose was when he just met her, and it's strongly implied that was right after he regenerated. Does this mean that we fans might get what we've been aching for all these long years and finally, finally get to see Paul McGann return as the 8th Doctor and see him regenerate into the Ninth? As one other Doctor once said, time will tell. It always does. We also have yet to hear about any other possible casting news, like other companions (Donna, please), possible villains (the Master would be fine, but maybe the Rani?), and any old series characters that might put in an appearance (I can haz Baker, Davison, Baker and McCoy?). We also haven't any idea if we'll get things like daleks or Cybermen or the like. And of course, we won't know for months yet what the quality will be like. Multi-Doctor stories are always problematical, and while "The Three Doctors" is one fine piece of story-telling, "The Five Doctors" and "The Two Doctors" both suffer mightily, for all that they're still very entertaining. We here at WhatCulture will, of course, bring you more news on this, and any developments, to Doctor Who as a whole and the anniversary special in particular. In the meantime, I think we can just all go sit down and go "squeeeeeee!" for a bit.
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Chris Swanson is a freelance writer and blogger based in Phoenix, Arizona, where winter happens to other people. His blog is at wilybadger.wordpress.com