Born Again

"I changed... right in front of you."

Writer: Russell T Davies

Format: TV

Broadcast: 18th November 2005

Series: 2005 Children in Need Special

Featuring: Tenth Doctor, Rose

Synopsis 

The Doctor has regenerated following an epic battle with the Daleks on Satellite 5. But the change is having an adverse effect on the Time Lord and things are beginning to go wrong...

Verdict 

Born Again is a fantastic little minisode and it's actually rather incredible that it sees the first real look at David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor! It's only seven minutes long and was produced as part of the 2005 Children in Need telethon. This little story often gets forgotten about which is a shame because this is where we see Rose come to terms with the Doctor changing faces right in front of her. She doesn't cope very well in the immediate aftermath but by the time the seven minutes are up she has a smile on her face. The Doctor appears to be coping with his regeneration very well at first but that would later change as the minutes rolled on. He was rather impressed with his hair and sideburns and I thought the mole comment was just ludicrously typical of David Tennant, even at this extremely early stage in his run as the Time Lord. Tennant gives a confident performance but I was actually rather surprised at how normal he appeared to be. I hadn't yet discovered the wonderful world of Doctor Who when this was broadcast but I think my viewing today was only the second time I have watched it. It's not widely known which is actually staggering to me because it's the first time we get to see David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor! It continues directly where Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways left off and we even got a nice little flashback to lead us up to where this story begins. Rose was obviously right to question the Doctor's identity and I loved the story references that came in his convincing of Rose that he was truly the Doctor. We had excellent references to The Unquiet Dead, Aliens of London/World War Three, Boom Town and The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances but the reference that was most striking was the Doctor taking us all the way back to Rose and the moment he first took Rose's hand and said "run". That was terrific. Something that I found particularly intriguing was the Doctor and Rose talking about Captain Jack. I figured Rose thought he hadn't survived but that was clearly not the case with her mentioning going back to him. It was the Doctor's reply that really struck me with him mentioning that "he's rebuilding the Earth". I do hope that's an ambiguous meaning and that the Doctor has always known Jack finds his way back to twentieth century Earth. I'm not too sure that's the truth but I'd love to believe it was. Towards the end of the minisode, the Doctor started to become quite erratic with his steering of the TARDIS and set sights on landing on Christmas Eve in the Powell Estate. These events would of course lead straight into The Christmas Invasion so I don't think it's difficult to work out what story I will be blogging tomorrow. Overall, short but very sweet. I don't really think I can give it a higher rating than I have because of its length but there weren't really any problems. David Tennant has arrived.

Rating: 8/10