50 Fun Facts About The Tenth Doctor

Which former chart-topping pop singer plays Rose Tyler, the companion the Tenth Doctor loses to a parallel universe?

Billie Piper was 15 when her debut single entered the UK chart at number one, years before she stepped aboard the TARDIS as Rose.

Which sketch-show comedian plays Donna Noble, the Chiswick temp who travels with the Tenth Doctor?

Catherine Tate's casting was kept so secret that her first scene, at the very end of Doomsday, was filmed with only a minimal crew.

Which aliens in the Tenth Doctor episode Blink send victims back in time and freeze whenever they are watched?

Weeping Angels came to writer Steven Moffat after he saw an angel statue in a graveyard while on a family holiday.

Which doomed ocean liner shares its name with the starship the Tenth Doctor boards in Voyage of the Damned?

Titanic is an interstellar cruiser from the planet Sto in this story, and the cruise line's ousted boss deliberately sets it on a collision course with Earth.

Which monarch knights the Tenth Doctor and then banishes him after a werewolf attack at a Scottish estate?

Queen Victoria owns the Koh-i-Noor diamond that finally kills the beast, by focusing moonlight through a telescope built as a trap.

Which playwright do witch-like Carrionites bewitch into rewriting a play in a Tenth Doctor story set in 1599?

William Shakespeare is tricked into ending his lost play Love's Labour's Won with words meant to free the Carrionites from imprisonment.

Which crime novelist helps the Tenth Doctor solve murders at a 1926 house party stalked by a giant wasp?

Agatha Christie really did vanish for days in 1926, and the episode invents its own answer by setting the story on the day she disappears.

Which actor became the Eleventh Doctor when the Tenth Doctor regenerated at the end of The End of Time?

Matt Smith spoke first lines written by incoming showrunner Steven Moffat, who took over the script the moment the regeneration ended.

Which Australian pop star plays the waitress Astrid Peth in the Tenth Doctor's 2007 Christmas special?

Kylie Minogue had the part written specially for her, and her fame was credited with much of the episode's huge audience.

Which alien-hunting institute is teased throughout the Tenth Doctor's first series before getting a spin-off show?

Torchwood is an anagram of Doctor Who, first used as a decoy title while the revived show was filming so its episodes were not intercepted.

Which actress plays Martha Jones, the medical student who joins the Tenth Doctor after her hospital lands on the Moon?

Freema Agyeman had already appeared in the previous series finale as Adeola, a character later explained away as Martha's cousin.

Which Doctor Who actor plays the Master when the villain hypnotises Britain into electing him Prime Minister?

John Simm's Master was promoted with a spoof party political broadcast in which Sharon Osbourne and McFly backed his campaign.

Which veteran actor plays Wilfred Mott, the grandfather of Donna Noble, alongside the Tenth Doctor in The End of Time?

Bernard Cribbins had faced the Daleks long before, playing a policeman companion in the 1966 film Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.

Which former companion, an investigative journalist, does the Tenth Doctor meet again while undercover at a school?

Sarah Jane Smith's return led the BBC to approach actress Elisabeth Sladen about a spin-off of her own, The Sarah Jane Adventures.

What finally forces the Tenth Doctor to regenerate after he takes Wilfred Mott's place in a locked control booth?

Radiation floods the booth with the Doctor inside instead of Wilf, and he holds off the change long enough to visit his old companions.

Which planet does the Master drag into orbit around Earth in the Tenth Doctor's final story?

Gallifrey is pulled out of the Time War through a diamond that Rassilon sends to Earth, until the Doctor destroys the gem and cuts the link.

Which brand of canvas trainers does the Tenth Doctor wear in different colours to match his pinstripe suits?

Converse trainers completed a look that David Tennant said was inspired by an outfit Jamie Oliver wore on the chat show Parkinson.

Which Swansea-born writer ran Doctor Who as showrunner for the whole of the Tenth Doctor's original era?

Russell T Davies revived the show in 2005 after making his name with Queer as Folk, and returned to run it again in 2023.

On which planet does the Tenth Doctor visit Bowie Base One, a human colony doomed to explode in 2059?

Mars got a base named after David Bowie, the writer and singer of a famous hit about life on that planet, as the production team confirmed.

Which fruit does the Tenth Doctor throw at a button to send the treacherous Sycorax leader falling to his death?

A satsuma he had just found hits a control that folds away part of the ship's wing, dropping the leader, who had surrendered and then attacked from behind.

Which future Oscar nominee plays Sally Sparrow, who trades messages across time with the Tenth Doctor in Blink?

Carey Mulligan won a Constellation Award for this single episode, two years before An Education brought her a first Oscar nomination.

Which future Doctor plays Caecilius, a Roman the Tenth Doctor saves from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius?

Peter Capaldi's own Doctor later works out that he chose this face as a reminder of the man he was persuaded to save.

Which mistress of Louis XV is stalked through her life by clockwork androids in The Girl in the Fireplace?

Madame de Pompadour went to actress Sophia Myles without an audition, and the spaceship hunting her turns out to carry her name.

Which former James Bond plays Rassilon, the Time Lord president who returns in the Tenth Doctor's final story?

Timothy Dalton also narrates the opening of the story, and his voice led the teaser trailer shown at Comic-Con in 2009.

Which actor plays the War Doctor opposite the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors in the 50th anniversary special?

John Hurt played a previously unseen incarnation, the one who fought in the Time War, invented specially for the anniversary story.

Which Tudor queen does the Tenth Doctor accidentally court, marry and abandon in The Day of the Doctor?

Elizabeth I had already been seen ordering his execution in an earlier episode, a grudge the anniversary special finally explained.

Which rhino-like police-for-hire transport a London hospital to the Moon in the Tenth Doctor story Smith and Jones?

Judoon scanners are fooled when the fugitive they are hunting drinks the blood of the hospital's chief and so registers as human.

Which servant race, sold as slaves by a company for 200 years, do the Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble resolve to free?

The Ood carry part of their brain in their hands, which the company cuts away and replaces with a translation sphere to keep them obedient.

Which Doctor Who villains does businessman John Lumic create by sealing human brains in metal suits on a parallel Earth?

Cybermen were given a new Earth-born origin in this story, and the parallel world it introduced kept returning to the series.

Which old enemy, thought killed in the Time War, returns to fight the Tenth Doctor in The Stolen Earth?

Davros was pulled out of the war by Dalek Caan, and his comeback plan begins with the theft of Earth and 26 other planets.

Which archaeologist summons the Tenth Doctor to a planet-sized library in her first Doctor Who appearance?

River Song began as a guest role, but Alex Kingston returned across the next three series as the character became the Doctor's wife.

What is Donna Noble wearing when she appears from nowhere inside the Tenth Doctor's TARDIS at the end of Doomsday?

A wedding dress earned her the credit of simply The Bride, in a surprise cameo that was filmed during the wrap party.

In which country is the remote bay where the Tenth Doctor's hologram says goodbye to Rose Tyler in Doomsday?

Norway was played by Southerndown beach in the Vale of Glamorgan, where the farewell scene was filmed in January 2006.

Which New York skyscraper, still incomplete in 1930, hides a Dalek laboratory in a Tenth Doctor two-parter?

Empire State Building plates were filmed in New York City, but the story's shanty town was really a park in Cardiff.

Which part of the Tenth Doctor does the Sycorax leader slice off in a sword duel, before it grows back?

His hand regrows thanks to leftover regeneration energy, and the severed original returns years later to grow into a second Doctor.

Which future Hollywood superhero star appears in the Tenth Doctor two-parter that begins with Daleks in Manhattan?

Andrew Garfield called it an honour to join the show in 2007, five years before he first reached cinema screens as Spider-Man.

Which stage veteran plays Professor Yana, the kindly scientist the Tenth Doctor meets at the end of the universe?

Derek Jacobi's professor turns out to be the Master in hiding, a role he reprised a decade later in the audio series The War Master.

Which former Doctor is the real-life father of Georgia Moffett, who plays the Tenth Doctor's cloned daughter Jenny?

Peter Davison later became David Tennant's father-in-law, because the actress playing the Doctor's daughter went on to marry the Doctor.

Which sporting event's opening ceremony does the Tenth Doctor save in Fear Her, six years before it really took place?

Summer Olympics crowds vanish from the stadium in the story, and the Doctor ends up lighting the flame himself when the torch bearer collapses.

Which ancient being uses its last energy to free trapped motorists before telling the Tenth Doctor a great secret?

The Face of Boe was originally meant to die a series earlier, but that episode already featured another death, so the moment was put off.

What does the planet Krop Tor impossibly orbit in the Tenth Doctor story The Impossible Planet?

A black hole should have swallowed the planet long ago, but a gravity funnel holds it safe and lets the human crew come and go.

Which children's TV show ran the design contest that gave the Tenth Doctor the Abzorbaloff as an enemy?

Blue Peter's winner, a nine-year-old viewer, drew the monster and had pictured it as big as a double-decker bus.

Which microscopic swarms hunt as living shadows and strip the Tenth Doctor's allies to the bone in a vast library?

Vashta Nerada can animate the empty space suits of the people they have eaten, sending them walking after the survivors.

Which Tenth Doctor episode strands a tourist shuttle with an unseen entity that imitates the passengers' speech?

Midnight was conceived as a deliberately claustrophobic bottle episode, built on rising paranoia rather than visual spectacle.

Which Buffy the Vampire Slayer star plays Mr Finch, the alien headmaster the Tenth Doctor unmasks in School Reunion?

Anthony Head had narrated a BBC radio documentary about the show's revival the year before he joined it as a villain.

Which invading race, secretly humans from the far future, does the Master unleash on Earth in the Tenth Doctor's era?

Toclafane is a name the Master picked himself, and the invaders turn out to be the people who took the rocket to Utopia.

In which Middle Eastern city's desert was a double-decker bus filmed for the Tenth Doctor special Planet of the Dead?

Dubai also left its mark on the script: a shipping container damaged the bus there, so the story was rewritten to explain the dents.

Which composer scored every series of the Tenth Doctor's era, having earlier written the music for Queer as Folk?

Murray Gold was the show's musical director from 2005 to 2017, and his work on it earned two BAFTA nominations.

Which former EastEnders actress plays Lady Christina de Souza, the thief stranded with the Tenth Doctor on a bus?

Michelle Ryan's aristocratic burglar opens the story by stealing a priceless chalice that once belonged to King Æthelstan from a museum.

Which voice actor performs the Daleks throughout the Tenth Doctor's era, after first doing so in audio dramas?

Nicholas Briggs had voiced them for Big Finish's audio plays, which won him the same job when the television series was revived in 2005.