10 Doctor Who Controversies Fans Can't Agree On

Last year, we were given something a little different when the time came to pass the baton to the Fifteenth Doctor. Instead of the usual fireworks, Fourteen gets shot by a laser cannon, pulls Ncuti Gatwa out of his ribcage, and walks the whole thing off. 

It sounded bad in concept when it leaked, but the episode managed to pull it off, using this bi-generation to rehabilitate the Doctor and shake off the trauma they'd spent 60 years piling on. The Doctor could retire without affecting the timeline of the show, and it all worked rather neatly.

There are however a number of issues people have with this. Firstly, including the Metacrisis Doctor, we now canonically have three Doctors walking around the universe played by David Tennant, which feels... bizarre. RTD’s suggestion that every regeneration is now retroactively a bi-generation is also far too messy to unpack, and is something that could undercut the show’s history severely if it were explored.

Speaking of undercutting, there’s discussion around whether forcing Gatwa to share his first scenes with Tennant – and having another Doctor on Earth for potentially his whole era – is fair on him. The show does seem to be pushing forward though, which is important to establish that this new Doctor is the definite article.

OUR VERDICT: The execution was great – with the Doctor giving himself a hug and waving himself off – but it’s not something we want to see explored further, and we certainly hope this isn’t a means of bringing Tennant back for yet another victory lap.