Goodbye David, Hello Matt

The BBC has announced that, according to early overnight figures, the second half of "The End of Time", David Tennant's final outing as the Tenth Doctor, was watched by 10.4m viewers on New Year's Day. Critics were generally appreciative of Tennant's final episode, which also marked the end of head writer Russell T Davies' tenure on the show. David Tennant’s final words on the show were ‘I don't want to go’. While Matt Smith, as he made his screen debut as the Eleventh Doctor, first uttered the line ‘legs! I've got legs!’ followed by, after feeling his delicately featured face, ‘Argh! I'm a girl!’.  "The End of Time" saw The Doctor battle against his nemesis, The Master (played by John Simm), who took possession of the body of every human on the planet, paving the way for the return of the Time Lords (whose President was played by Bond Actor Timothy Dalton) - who planned to end time itself. After defeating The Master and the Time Lords the prophecy, ‘he will knock four times’, which has been haunting The Doctor for over a year finally caught up with him – but in a very unexpected way. Before succumbing to his tenth regeneration The Doctor was able to catch up and, in some cases, give a helping hand to his former companions. These included Martha and Mickey (now married to each other!), Donna Noble (who we now suspect has won the lottery thanks to a winning ticket given to her by The Doctor), Sarah Jane Smith and of course Rose Tyler (who he gets to meet before she joined him in the TARDIS). This 73-minute episode ended with the TARDIS in flames, plummeting towards Earth. And for viewers who carried on watching after Doctor Who Confidential – the behind the scenes look at the making of this story shown immediately afterwards on BBC 3 – would have seen a trailer showing clips of some of the forthcoming stories. It showed the Eleventh Doctor facing vampire-like creatures, a Weeping Angel, hitting a Dalek with a mallet, and shouting what seems set to become his catchphrase: ‘Geronimo!’. The trailer also hints at the return of Alex Kingston as River Song - an archaeologist who had appeared to have had an intimate relationship with The Doctor. Her character was created by Steven Moffat, who has taken over from Russell T Davies as the head writer. Matt Smith's first full story is due Spring 2010.