Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor concluded with Jodie Whittaker's Doctor regenerating, but it wasn't into the iteration set to be played by Sex Education star Ncuti Gatwa. Instead, the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant, is now the Fourteenth Doctor and BBC (via SFFGazette.com) confirms that the actor will appear in three episodes starting next November.
The Jessica Jones star played The Doctor between 2005 and 2010, and has now opened up on his unexpected return to the iconic sci-fi franchise.
"What a lovely, lovely thing to get to revisit something that was such a wonderful, happy, significant time in my life," the actor says. "You move on from it with a whole mixture of emotions. And one of those is sadness and regret. So to be able to revisit that and to get another another shot, it was a total joy from start to finish."
"It didn't really feel like a risk," Tennant continued when asked about coming back to Doctor Who. "It felt in a way that the pressure was off. But also I knew that Russell T Davies was in charge. And I love working with him and I love receiving a script with his name on the front. So that just felt like it was a bit of a no-brainer."
The actor was understandably reluctant to give away any details, but acknowledged that one of the biggest questions right now is how Catherine Tate's Donna Noble is at his side again. "She's, as eagle-eyed viewers will know, when we last left Donna Noble, she could not remember the Doctor's existence, or her brain would melt. So there's a bit of an issue there."
As for that regeneration scene, you might have noticed that Tennant's Doctor has received a slightly updated costume. "To a sort of casual viewer, I look like I'm sort of dressed in the same way as I used to be. But actually we've gone for something that's sort of the same but different. That has echoes of the past but it's also a bit something of the now as well."
It's definitely going to be interesting to find out how and why the Fourteenth Doctor looks like the Tenth one. There's clearly something much bigger at play here, and we have to believe that involves Neil Patrick Harris' mysterious villain (thought to be The Toymaster).
Will fans quickly embrace Gatwa's iteration after spending time with Tennant's classic version? For now, that remains to be seen, but it's an exciting time to be a Doctor Who fan.