A friend and I were having a conversation and he mentioned the “Doctor Who reboot” a la other reboots of late (Superman, Batman, Star Trek).
I disagree that this a reboot in the true sense–the series went off the air for a while (call it a cancellation, call it a hiatus) but it has returned–no different than calling “Family Guy” a reboot because it was off the air for a few years and then came back.
For his part, he said that the back story of the Doctor changed a bit and it really is a reboot.
Who’s right? (no pun intended)
You’re right, there was no reboot.
There were a few mild retcons - the most notable ones being the decanonization of a retcon from the 8th Doctor movie (‘Doctor’s half human!’ ‘Don’t be daft.’) and a renaming of UNIT, at the UN’s request - and time proceeded, meaning the status quo changed a LOT between 8 and 9, but they’ve been adhering to the existing canon as well as they can, given that the old series played fast and loose with it.
Tengu is correct. In fact, fandago, you can prove it to your friend by noting the most recent Christmas episode (which has not yet aired in the U.S.). That episode has a flashback sort of sequence that shows the previous doctors.
It’s a continuation of the original series. Russell T. Davies has been very clear on that. It no different than any of the other regenerations the show portrayed in the past and nothing has changed.
The closest thing is the origin of the Cybermen, which did not originally come from a parallel world. They came from “The Tenth Planet” – a world that was on the opposite side of the sun as the Earth (but had the same orbit, so we can’t see it. The parallel world is close, but not the same.
Except that the Doctor even said in the first Cybermen episode that he’d seen it before in their own universe, and we saw a Cyberman head in the first Dalek episode – so it’s not a new origin, it’s new Cybermen.
That does bring up the question I’ve had, though – where are the original Cybermen?! If the two groups met, would they join forces or fight each other? (OK, that’s two questions.)