Full spoilers for Doctor Who: “The Star Beast” follow.
A funny thing happened on the way to the Doctor Who 60th anniversary special. For as celebratory as the occasion is, it is also a reminder of how tragic the Doctor’s life can be.
First the celebratory part: Not only is David Tennant – certainly one of the most popular Doctors – back for three specials, the first of which aired on Disney+ in the US and BBC One in the UK on Saturday, but also writer-producer Russell T Davies, who re-released Doctor Who in 2005 after a 16-year absence (not counting the American TV movie). Davies gave us many of the hallmarks of modern Doctor Who, including the casting of Tennant and the creation of Donna Noble, the companion of Catherine Tate, who is also back for these specials.
David Tennant in The Star Beast.
But with Donna, some of that tragedy comes into play. At the start of “The Star Beast”, the Doctor gives a quick “back to” directly to the camera, reminding us that to save her life he had to erase the memory of his former companion when we last saw her (long story). This means that Donna has no memory of the Doctor, their time and space adventures together, or all the good they did for the universe (including saving it from annihilation!).
And yet, as we immerse her back into her domestic life in London in “The Star Beast,” something gnaws at Donna.
“Sometimes I think something is missing,” she says. “Like I had something beautiful and it was gone. And I kind of look to the side like there should be something there, but there isn’t.” Donna acknowledges that she has a family that loves her and that she should be happy. “But some nights,” she says, “I lie in bed and think: What have I lost?”
Donna has lost what every other companion of the Doctor has lost: a life full of unfulfilled dreams, achieved in incredible ways against all odds.
She has lost the same thing that every companion of the Doctor eventually loses: a life full of unfulfilled dreams made incredibly true against all odds, the chance to travel to the farthest corners of time and space and back again and experience untold wonders . Who can say if she’s better off than any of her other former companions, as she can’t even remember what she’s lost since leaving the Doctor’s side only to return to the humdrum reality of life on Earth . Maybe erasing her memory was a blessing.
I remember one of the great stories from Davies’ original time on the show, back in David Tennant’s first season. In the 2006 episode “School Reunion”, former companion Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) returned to Doctor Who after originally appearing alongside the Third and Fourth Doctors in the 1970s. Here, the Tenth Doctor is delighted to meet his old friend, but the time-traveling alien super-genius’s perspective is very different to that of Sarah Jane, who feels that she was essentially abandoned by the Doctor years ago.
“I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve missed you,” Sarah Jane tells the Doctor.
“Oh, you didn’t need me. “You moved on with your life,” the doctor replies obliviously.
“You were my life,” she says.
It’s a heartbreaking moment, and it comes in an episode that’s also about school teachers who are secretly giant, flying vampires rendered in bad CGI, so that’s saying something. But like Donna, who can’t quite remember why she has an aching hole in her soul, Sarah Jane longed for years for the “glory,” as she puts it, of her days with the Doctor.
Perhaps the even more tragic figure, however, is the Doctor himself. In “School Reunion”, Sarah Jane presses the Doctor about why he never came back for her. He flatly states that he couldn’t. And at the end of “The Star Beast”, Donna – now that her memories have been restored and the day has been saved, of course – once again declines the trip with the Doctor, but suggests that he might pop in for a visit every now and then and a cuppa Tea. “Why is saying goodbye to you so big?” She asks. However, the Doctor is strangely non-committal about the prospect.
Sarah Jane says goodbye to the Doctor.
It all comes down to the Doctor’s immortality, doesn’t it? It used to be thought that he had a cap of 12 regenerations, but he has since exceeded that limit (gotta keep the franchise going). This means that our favorite Time Lord could very well live forever, but at least he must be thousands of years old by now. (An exact calculation is difficult.) Imagine the colossal loneliness of this existence, even if it is peppered with companions for only brief moments from the Doctor’s perspective. Moments that he clearly remembers and that he will never forget. “But I really remember it. Every second with you,” he says to Donna.
It’s not a new concept – that the immortal character must watch over and over again as everything he loves ages and dies. While it’s certainly a happy ending that Donna is freed from her memory wipe at the end of The Star Beast and has adventures with the Fourteenth Doctor again, she will inevitably have to say goodbye to him again in just a few weeks. And as the Tenth Doctor told Rose (another companion he’s long since left behind) in “School Reunion,” he’s ultimately alone: ”It’s the curse of the Time Lords.”
Talk to Editor-in-Chief Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottColluraor listen to his Star Trek Podcast, Transporter Room 3. Or do both!