# Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall both leaving Doctor Who - thoughts? \[Russell T Davies is returning\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted, disney-hulu\ **Created:** [July 29, 2021, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodie-whittaker-and-chris-chibnall-both-leaving-doctor-who-thoughts-russell-t-davies-is-returning/947620 "2021-07-29T23:48:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodie-whittaker-and-chris-chibnall-both-leaving-doctor-who-thoughts-russell-t-davies-is-returning/947620/162 "2022-11-04T01:41:04Z")
As someone who’s been a Doctor Who fan since the 80s, I was torn about that. On the one hand, I liked seeing the previous Doctors again. And I hadn’t heard that it was going to happen, so it was a nice surprise. On the other hand, there’s no real reason for them to have aged, other than the difficulty of hiring a 30-year-old Peter Davison these days. Colin Baker, in particular, looks quite different than he did as the Doctor. It was a bit distracting, and almost felt like somebody felt bad that only Tom got to be in the 50th anniversary show back in 2013, and decided to rectify the situation. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodie-whittaker-and-chris-chibnall-both-leaving-doctor-who-thoughts-russell-t-davies-is-returning/947620/163 "2022-11-04T02:15:05Z")
Did they just not acknowledge the aging, or give a token excuse? You’d think with the fact that older David Tenant is the 14th Doctor, they’d need some excuse. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodie-whittaker-and-chris-chibnall-both-leaving-doctor-who-thoughts-russell-t-davies-is-returning/947620/164 "2022-11-04T13:25:03Z")
In “Time Crash” (the short that brought back Peter Davison and David Tennant together for Children in Need, and fits between Martha Jones leaving the TARDIS and the collision with the Titanic), it’s brushed away with a line about the effects of the paradox of two TARDISes (TARDII?) occupying the same space. I assume they can run with this catch-all. The AI might also just be aging the Doctors to match the years passing for the relevant companions as an automatic adjustment. ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodie-whittaker-and-chris-chibnall-both-leaving-doctor-who-thoughts-russell-t-davies-is-returning/947620/165 "2022-11-04T15:22:21Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > Colin Baker, in particular, looks quite different than he did as the Doctor. They should have given him the wig McCoy wore when he regenerated into the 7th doctor. ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodie-whittaker-and-chris-chibnall-both-leaving-doctor-who-thoughts-russell-t-davies-is-returning/947620/166 "2022-11-04T15:48:14Z")
So, those various Doctors weren’t meant to be the _actual_ Doctors residing in some post-regeneration afterlife, but incarnations of the Doctor’s own memory of her/his past iterations, if I understood it correctly. If so, there’s no logical explanation for them to have aged at all. Plus, David Bradley as the First Doctor looked very much like William Hartnell did back in the day, so the aging was… inconsistent, at best. I think it’s one of those things you just aren’t meant to think about too hard. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodie-whittaker-and-chris-chibnall-both-leaving-doctor-who-thoughts-russell-t-davies-is-returning/947620/167 "2022-11-04T16:10:15Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Did they just not acknowledge the aging, or give a token excuse? You’d think with the fact that older David Tenant is the 14th Doctor, they’d need some excuse. But Older David Tenant still more or less looks like Young David Tenant. I understand the practical reason is that fans like the original actors and, being human, they age over the decades the show has been on. From a story-telling perspective, it just makes me confused because it raises a bunch of new questions about the “timey-wimey” mechanics of Doctor Who: - Like why does the Doctor, given that he can go anywhere or anywhen he pleases, seem to be locked to our passage of time in and around the UK . The obvious real-world answer is that’s when and where they film it. But in theory Earth, UK, late 20th to early 21st century should have no more significance to the Doctor than almost any other locale in time and space. - Does the Doctor age? Obviously the actors do, but since the Doctor states his/her age in the hundreds of years, does each version get older over the centuries? Cause it seems like he/she more or less materializes young/old/in the middle and more or less stays that way. - When did the Doctor become almost a thousand years old? The Doctor has always had a couple of human companions tagging along since the 1960s and since they only stick around a few years, from where I’m sitting it seems like the Doctor burns through lives pretty quickly. - Is there some in-universe reasons 14 Doctors can’t just all show up at the same place at the same time when it isn’t an anniversary special? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodie-whittaker-and-chris-chibnall-both-leaving-doctor-who-thoughts-russell-t-davies-is-returning/947620/168 "2022-11-04T16:45:45Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > - When did the Doctor become almost a thousand years old? The Doctor has always had a couple of human companions tagging along since the 1960s and since they only stick around a few years, from where I’m sitting it seems like the Doctor burns through lives pretty quickly. His age has always been pretty high. Apparently he revealed it had been 750 years since he left his planet, shortly after his first regeneration, but this seems to be Gallifrey years, as he later told his companion that he was closer to 400 Earth years old. By the time of the fourth Doctor and traveling with Sarah Jane, he was apparently 748. It mostly increases from there, though he oddly seems to go backwards between Eight and Nine, losing just over 100 years of age at some point. > **[The Doctor's age](https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Doctor%27s_age)** > > Contradictory information has pointed at different estimates of the Doctor's age, both in conversations and in terms of the length of various incarnations. It was difficult to determine the Doctor's life expectancy, given their ability to regenerate.... ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodie-whittaker-and-chris-chibnall-both-leaving-doctor-who-thoughts-russell-t-davies-is-returning/947620/169 "2022-11-04T17:58:45Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > I think it’s one of those things you just aren’t meant to think about too hard. _Most_ of Doctor Who are those things! I am a bit interested though in trying to parse out the identity issues related to forced regeneration into the form of The Master. My understanding is that each regeneration is still The Doctor - in a different physical form and filtered through some specific to that form personality quirks, but still with the _essence_ of The Doctor there and The Doctor’s memories. Do we fanwank that access to that essence and to the memories does not occur until passing that edge? Because without those The Master regenerated out of the energy and matter of The Doctor has little claim to then identity of The Doctor, is in no sense The Doctor. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodie-whittaker-and-chris-chibnall-both-leaving-doctor-who-thoughts-russell-t-davies-is-returning/947620/170 "2022-11-04T20:19:42Z")
Didn’t Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor learn that even the age they have been giving out was wrong because Doctor #1 was not the first Doctor? There were negative number Doctors? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodie-whittaker-and-chris-chibnall-both-leaving-doctor-who-thoughts-russell-t-davies-is-returning/947620/171 "2022-11-04T20:50:35Z")
Sure, but I go with “It was all a dream” for the Chibnall years. I _do_ think that a lot of what was “revealed” will end up being decanonized one way or another. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodie-whittaker-and-chris-chibnall-both-leaving-doctor-who-thoughts-russell-t-davies-is-returning/947620/172 "2022-11-04T22:30:23Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > On the other hand, there’s no real reason for them to have aged If they could have afforded to Deepfake or otherwise de-age, I’m sure they would have. I would love to see some enterprising VFX artist do that, actually… ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2022, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodie-whittaker-and-chris-chibnall-both-leaving-doctor-who-thoughts-russell-t-davies-is-returning/947620/173 "2022-11-06T20:33:30Z")
I realized today that I’ve only seen one episode of NuWho…yet have absorbed enough to be emotionally effected by clips of companions leaving and Regenerations. Thats a bit daft. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodie-whittaker-and-chris-chibnall-both-leaving-doctor-who-thoughts-russell-t-davies-is-returning/947620/174 "2023-03-15T19:59:41Z")
Was Kate Stewart / Ace / Tegan a backdoor pilot? > **[Doctor Who Spinoff Series Will Focus on UNIT and Feature Jemma Redgrave](https://www.escapistmagazine.com/doctor-who-spinoff-series-will-focus-on-unit-jemma-redgrave/)** > > Russell T Davies has a Doctor Who spinoff series in the works for Disney and the BBC focusing on UNIT, featuring Jemma Redgrave. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodie-whittaker-and-chris-chibnall-both-leaving-doctor-who-thoughts-russell-t-davies-is-returning/947620.md?page=8)