The Written Podcast: When the Doctor Became the Doctor – David Tennent’s Moment: Blink

It might sound a bit of a copout to say my first ever episode of Doctor Who was when David Tennent’s incarnation of the Doctor became the Doctor – even though I knew nothing about the Doctor at the time of watching Blink. That’s the beauty of that episode, though. Despite featuring the Doctor through a series of DVDs and two scenes where he actually appears in person, Blink establishes so much about the Doctor.

Written by Stephen Moffatt before he became head writer, Blink is considered one of the best episodes of New Who. (Side note: It was considered the best episode for many for years until Heaven’s Sent came along which blew Blink out of the water, knocking it down into second place.) At the time, being someone who never watched at episode, I struck lucky with watching one of the best episodes to watch if you’re new to the show. Whilst you could argue on two accounts that the first episode of the series should be the one you watch first if you have not a clue what the show is about, and that this episode features very little of the Doctor himself. I can understand where those arguments are coming from, having had that episode as my first episode, I would disagree with them.

A friend of mine at school told me about the show, intrigued me enough to dedicate time to it on a Saturday evening, and Blink had everything my friend had described about the show in. Blink is scary, full of well-written time travel, and fleshed out characters – everything I hoped the episode would have after listening to my friend.

Whilst Blink is essentially an oxymoron as it’s the episode where the Doctor became the Doctor even though he barely featured, the way David Tennent’s acting shone through the TV screens was amazing. Stephen Moffatt’s writing made me want to watch more and watching David’s portrayal as the Doctor since the Christmas special episode, The Christmas Invasion, Blink remained as the episode where the Doctor shined the brightest.

I didn’t know anything about the show or the character, but the genius of the episode is that I was given the fact the Doctor had a plan up his sleeve even though he was stuck in the past, 1969, to be precise, with Martha Jones, who still remains my favourite companion – but that’s a series for another time.

The more I saw of David Tennent’s incarnation on screen, the more Doctor moments happened. One of the biggest moments was during the two-part finale in series 4, when the Doctor was trapped by Davros, and was shown his true self. Davros’ monologue about how the Doctor takes innocent people and turn them into weapons and forcing him to remember those who sacrificed their lives to help the Doctor win, broke his hearts. That two-part finale was rich with continuity from not just in David Tennent’s era, but within Christopher Eccleston’s era as well. Series 4 was Russell’s final full series before bowing out from being head writer and from Doctor Who altogether. He wanted to go out with a bang, and he wrote one heck of a finale, bringing together companions from his entire tenue, and making the Daleks more menacing than ever.

Russell made sure we knew who the Doctor was prior to this two-part finale, but we were introduced to his darker side during this finale. Out of options, desperate, Dona Noble shocked that the hero she knew was defeated, the Doctor was down.

Of course, he doesn’t stay down for long and he does eventually win against Davros and destroys the entire Dalek fleet in the process. David Tennent’s performance during that epic conclusion of four years was brilliant. Another fantastic moment showcasing David’s virtually unmatched performance was during The Waters of Mars, when he took things too far. He wasn’t going to let time catch up with him and did everything he could to stop the impending regeneration, only for it to all backfire on him. He became the Doctor only when he realised what a terrible mistake he made whilst straying slightly off course from his lighter side. but it wasn’t necessarily my moment when he became the Doctor. I would classify both moments as being one of the moments when the character became the Doctor. David Tennent’s moment when he became the Doctor was, and always will be, Blink, my first ever episode of the show, when even though he appeared so little, flooded the screen with the feeling that he knew exactly what he was doing, he just had to wait for all the pieces to fit together.

Throughout his tenue, he made many references to him being the last of his kind, which was briefly proven false when the Master returned at the end of series 3, and when I saw briefly, I meant that the Master did die, making the Doctor officially the last of his kind. The 50^th anniversary very cleverly changed that fact. He’s forgotten when he did to save his planet due to the timelines being too unstable, but the rages David Tennent’s Doctor performed because he was the last of his kind, became more powerful when we know the truth. This deeply layered character played masterfully by a brilliant actor, part of a TV show that constantly changes; I probably wouldn’t have become a fan so easily if it weren’t for Blink.

Next article I would be discussing Matt Smith’s moment.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)