Doctor Who 50th Anniversary: 3 Possibilities For Ten And Rose’s Return 

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Doctor Who 50th Anniversary: 3 Possibilities For Ten And Rose’s Return

As the 50th Anniversary episode of Doctor Who approaches this coming November, Whovians around the world are coming up with…

Anniversary episode of Doctor Who approaches this coming November, Whovians around the world are coming up with countless thoughts and theories about what to expect for the special feature-length episode presenting the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant), companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) and mystery Doctor (John Hurt) starring alongside the series regulars – the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) and his companion, Clara Oswald (Jenna-Louise Coleman).

There have been endless speculative articles regarding some possibilities for John Hurt’s part in the whole scheme of Doctor Who; whereas I have been more perturbed by how on Earth Ten and Rose will be coming back!

Everyone remembers how their tragic story ended in Series 4 – Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) accidentally created a human/time-lord biological Meta-Crisis Doctor (that’s a mouthful!) with all the same memories of the Doctor, but with one heart and the lifespan of a human. After committing genocide against the Daleks, Ten had to make the ultimate decision to leave the Meta-Crisis Doctor with Rose and her family in Pete’s World (the parallel universe) to live out the remainder of his human life with her. It was a bittersweet moment for the entire fandom. Rose has the opportunity to spend the rest of her life with at least one version of the Doctor that doesn’t have the regenerative power to live forever – but the real Doctor must now live the remainder of his days without Rose at his side.

There are certainly a few possible situations regarding how these characters could return in the 50

Anniversary Special. But the challenge is discovering which one appears the most plausible?

In celebration of this upcoming special, I have brought to you 3 potential reasons for the aforementioned return of our beloved characters – the Tenth Doctor and Rose.

Feel free to comment on these theories or share some of your own!

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This article was first posted on August 3, 2013

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As much as I hope that it’s the Doctor and Rose from the parallel universe because I want to see what they’re doing now, I hope that they think of something a bit more exciting and interesting like your other ideas.

Im just glad Tennants back, even just for 1 episode

I know what you mean, Hayley! It would be interesting to see if they’ll take a predictable route or something completely different that no one would expect!

As much as I love the idea of seeing Meta 10 and Rose and seeing how they’ve lived their lives, I would be afraid that something horrible would happen to Meta in the end. He is human and could die stopping further appearances of David Tennant unless they go to Ten’s past. I also think back to what the beast said in Series 2 that Rose will die in battle. So while again I would love to see Meta and Rose, I would be absolutely terrified of what may happen to them.

I would prefer for the reasons above that they have Ten and Rose from the time right before she goes to the parallel universe. Rose would wonder why she wasn’t there in the present and it could make for some interesting interactions with her and Eleven. This would also make the most sense with having future Doctor and present Doctor with also having past Doctor. I suppose this could be possible with having Eleven and Clara try to get out of the timeline and ending up in the past. Future Doctor could follow or just be sucked in somehow. They could be working together to fix Ten’s past, Eleven’s present and the future of the future Doctor.

Whatever way they do this I just hope they don’t close off possibilities of seeing Ten and/or Rose again someday.

I LOVE your ideas, Valerie! There are so many different ways that the two of them can come back – it gets so confusing to even think about! Thank you so much for your comment :)

Sounds pretty sound. But in response to Satan saying that Rose will die in battle, he was referring to the battle between the Cybermen and the Daleks- The Battle of Canary Warf. Upon the list of the dead was Rose Tyler’s name. So, if you’re worried about Satan’s words, they’ve already come to pass. No need to worry, there.

There is an even scarier possibility…what if Ten and Rose are Zygons?

The scary thing about that is……… its actually possible.

The MetaCrisis Doctor was a canon-shatteringly terrible idea that doesn’t hold up to any scrutiny and should never be mentioned again.

– If you can save on regeneration by having a spare hand around then why don’t all Time Lords double their lifespans by chopping off their own hands the minute they regenerate?

– The Doctor said the MetaCrisis can’t exist; if Donna were to remember anything her head would explode. We can safely assume the MetaDoctor’s head exploded fifteen seconds after the TARDIS left Pete’s World.

-It’s also a black mark on Rose’s character development; she used to be in love with who the Doctor is, rather than what he looked like. Now she’s happy with a cheap knock off who can’t go anywhere and enjoys mass slaughter as long as it looks like Tennant.

Although you make good points – the metacrisis Doctor can exist. Donna was more human than Docotr, which is why she can’t survive. But the metacrisis Doctor is more timelord, which is why he can survive happily.

Plus, metacrisis Doctor is simply a copy of 10th – he’s the man Rose loved still. There’s an extra scene where he was given a TARDIS which Davies decided to edit out, but says it still happened. 10th and Metacrisis become the same man.

am i the only one who thinks rose wasnt happy and was only kissing meta 10 to make 10 jealous like she done to the doctor so many times before and successfully might i add. She used mickey and jack harkness in season 1 to make 9 jealous. she immediately turned around when she heard the TARDIS leaving and sort of ran after it for like two steps before realizing it was too late and the TARDIS was gone.

I can’t see it being the MetaDoctor for the simple fact he’s wearing the brown suit.

You can’t say that, he constantly changed his colour of suit depending on if he visited the past, present or future.

Yes, but the Meta-crisis Doctor does not have a brown suit. He only threw on a blue one and then walked out. Also, how would the Meta-Crisis Doctor get a TARDIS? I mean, technically at the end of season 4 there WAS a deleted scene where the 10th gives the Meta-Crisis Doctor a piece of TARDIS so he could grow his own, but still……

according to written leaks of the trailer showed at comic-con, eleven mentions he vaguely remembers their entire meeting (ten and eleven).

in all honestly i would be happy if they have shoved rose in the cupboard and never let her out. she was a great character but the writers insistence on having her pop up all the time is causing me to dislike her.

Oh really! I hadn’t read that, but I think having the past Ten and Rose should actually make for some interesting interactions if that’s what happens.

I see what you mean about Rose – I know some people who feel the exact same way!

I’m sure I’ve read that Moffat confirmed it’d be the past Doctor & Rose – which I want it to be, because I want to see THE REAL 10th Doctor. The only thing I don’t like about this, is if he’s with Rose, he doesn’t understand half of what the audience does because he’ll be from so long ago.

I really do hope that he comes out of his time stream, because that means the 11th is more or less just interacting with his own memories and that’s not fun at all. I can’t see it being set in the time stream because The Doctor said he would die in there after too long, and plus – it wouldn’t explain why only 10th is helping him out and not ALL of his incarnations which are in there too?

Hi Jack! I definitely agree with you in terms of the time stream theory. It wouldn’t make sense at all if no other incarnations helped out with whatever is going on.

I actually didn’t hear about Moffat confirming the Tenth Doctor and Rose from the past, but if that’s true then it should definitely make for an interesting story!

“it would be challenging to justify why Ten and Rose never mentioned seeing Eleven, Clara and the Mystery Doctor at any point in their travels together”

why did 1st 2nd 3rd never mention meeting 5th in five doctors for the 20th. the classics have the answers

I like all do doctor who be course be with he is so nice man matt smith stay in doctor who all time Actor

please come back I love you so much all us doctor who fans in Leytonstone London and I and friend missing you I WANT MATT SMITH BACK HE IS THE BEST DOCTOR WHO ACTOR

Can’t wait to see David and billie however it’s done and want to know what is going to happen to leave it so that Peter Capaldi can join in Xmas

I agree! Very excited to see Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor – should be excellent!

Has the author ever watched Doctor Who? You don’t need to indulge in all that head-scratching. Some ideas that are used to tell a tale in a single episode stand up to so little scrutiny that we do not want to revisit them. These would include the visual representation of the Doctor’s time stream at the end of s.7, and the creation of a Doctor-clone at the end of s.4. We don’t want to see the meta-crisis Doctor ever again, and the closure of the barrier between realities means that we don’t have to!

The Doctor is a time traveller. He has crossed his own time stream (i.e. met other incarnations) on many occasions – The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors, The Two Doctors, and countless novels and audio dramas. Eleven and Clara will meet Ten and Rose at some point during season two (from Ten’s perspective). No complications, no worries.

Of course I’ve watched it – why else would I have written this article?

With a television show like Doctor Who I find that the possibilities are endless, really. I (as well as many others) enjoy speculating about different events that could occur – whether they end up actually happening or not. That’s something that I love about Doctor Who – anything can happen!

Has anyone seen the deleted scene from journeys end? Ten gives metacrisis doctor a piece of tardis to grow his own tardis and even tells him how to speed up the process. So with that piece of video, the MetaCrisis doctor theory is totally backed up

Yeah, and the only reason that scene was deleted was due to time constraints. Russle t. Davies stated that it still happened and that it is actually canon. Meta doctor and Rose have their own Tardis.

The meta crisis doctor and Matt smith doctor team up to fight the dark doctor who has gone rogue (INSANE) during the time war. The final battle takes place at trenzalore, meta crises doctor and rose die in battle making the prophesy true, as meta crisis doctor as the tenth doctor is in fact the 11th because of john hurts doctor.

John hurts doctor realizes what he has done and with Matt smiths help locks the timelords and daleks in the timelock. John hurt commits suicide and becomes Chris ecclestone . This explains why Matt smith doctor has gotten darker in the last serious and why he fears his grave because he knows what is to happen.

It also paints a picture of a doctor torn not only by what he has done but by what he knows he must do.

Just a theory, it would make a dark and tragic story though. This would explain the broken window on the tardis and the tardis tomb. They are the same tardis , Matt smith doctor escapes using meta crisis doctors Tardis. Perhaps the new doctor after Matt’s regeneration is older because he is weary and scarred from the tragedy.

Let’s face it since ecclestones doctor they have become younger and less angry, as they moved away from the time war. Maybe a timelords appearance post regeneration reflects their mental state.

I’m just makin this up as i go, but hey it’s fun.

Wow! That all made sooo much sense! It’s hard not to be aware of the acting performances of previous Doctors and their apparent ignorance of pasts that get rewritten in the future. It is all certainly possible but leaves a few unsatisfying loose ends (but hey! Less than Moffat leaves on an episodic basis!) Eccleston would thus have to remember Rose when he met her, but that seems unimaginable.

What fun! Ok–listening to you guys makes me think it will be the real 10th and not MC-10, but maybe it’s both. I think it’s more logical (as if that mattered) that it start out being MC-10 and he puts on the chameleon arch (or transforms some way) and becomes his old two-hearted Time Lord self. That way there are no crossing time streams and 10 and 11 are both the real Doctor, and at the end of the episode they can put 10 and Rose back in the parallel universe for the same reason they had to live there before, or whyever, and there they are: biding time until the peoples of earth rise and chant as in one voice “Doctor. Doctor” and the producers are forced to give us another helping of David Tennant, because obviously it isn’t as difficult to pop between parallel universes as we’d been led to believe.

Loving everyone’s comments and reading about all of your different theories and ideas! I can’t wait for the 50th!

Thank you all for reading my very first article, and for all of your excellent input, I truly appreciate it! :D

Firstly let focus on David Tennant. Having seen some images of filming the 50th I can say with confidence that it will be the REAL 10th doctor as in the picture I saw tennant was stood very clearly outside HIS OWN tardis. The meta-crisis doctor didn’t have a tardis. He also has brown suit (meta-crisis doc has a blue suit) and despite the time lapse, the doctor left his meta-crisis version in the parallel world to make sure he couldn’t cause harm (lets be honest his hated him) so it’s hardly likely he would go back to him. He may want to see rose i here you ask?… well since “travelling between parallel worlds is impossible” anyway he cant. why rose anyway? why not go back and see a companion from his own universe-like his own grand daughter (a better way to round off 50 years)- saves him breaking the laws of space and time

Now for John Hurt. Why wasn’t Paul McGann in Doctor Who (watch again and look carefully- he isnt) and which doctor is John Hurt? One solution… they are one and the same. All the doctors that appeared last night were as they look before they regenerated and since we don’t know when and how the 8th doctor looked before he regenerated it makes sense. he could have grown old before he changed into the 9th doctor. (just as the first regeneration was because of old age) Moffet is a clever man, he must have had a reason not to include McGann…..

What about Peter Capaldi? Wouldn’t it be good to get a taster of him in the 50th. Why not? From the 10th doctors point of view he is seeing his own personal future (11th) so why can’t the 11th doctor see his future. It would be like Steven Moffat to do something bazaar and twisted like that.

Lastly I would like to add at what stage of series two does the 10th doctor and Rose meet the 11th (possible during “Love and Monsters” when they’re absent- where were they? Or in the sort montage at the star of “Army of Ghosts”?)

What if its normal 10, sometime between waters of mars and the end of time, and he ends up finding rose sometime in the Elizabethan era.she was touched by a weeping angel in her world and thrown back in time to before the two universes split. He’s here because the TARDIS homed in on her with a giant version of the timey wimey detector we saw in blink. He ends up having to rescue her from the tower of london, and angers the queen in the process,explaining her anger in the Shakespeare code. He is then called up by the 12th doctor to help him rescue his past self and then save something from the daleks. :P far fetched, but something like that would be cool.

could john hurts dr be the parallel Tennent Dr thats aged ?

You clearly don’t know how time travel works in Doctor Who. The possibility of Ten just stumbling into Eleven could be achieved, only one of the two would have to cross their own time stream(highly unlikely but possible)and it could also be Ten and Rose NEVER did meet Eleven up until Eleven decided to head to whatever location he decided.

I want meta – Like you said I want to know how they’ve been living their lives. And how eleven and meta would react to each other. Especially with Eleven having lost his wife :( (I loved river song, as much as I loved rose). But reading some of the comments I can understand why people wouldn’t – but I think I would be disappointed if it was characters from the past. I know their story – I know where they’re going. He can’t change anything because that would be even more annoying (would anything that happened to him still have happened?) Wheres the suspense – The drama? Whatever they do I hope they keep me surprised -With so much build up i’d hate to be left disappointed. :(

Id love it if Ingrid Oliver was the key. By playing Romana!

Theory goes that Pete world is actually “E Space” visited by 4 and Romana and where she was left to live. Romana senses the Mete Dr, both hook up and work out how to get back to N space.

I just want to debunk that first theory right off the bat with the argument you tried to make of “why didn’t they say anything about meeting 11 and Clara. Simple, because it hadn’t happened yet! If you watched any of the original multi doctor specials(and I’m talking Three Doctors, Fove Doctors, and Two Doctors(not Time Crash)) then that point would be fairly obvious.

After reading everyone’s comments (especially about Ten and Rose from the past) I feel kind of silly! I haven’t had the opportunity to see any Classic Who yet so I obviously didn’t have all the facts that I needed for my first point. However, even though the likelihood of that theory is obviously higher than I thought, we still don’t know 100% what’s going to happen in the episode! Thank you for your comments though, I’m definitely grateful to hear about the facts that I’ve missed so I can learn how to improve for next time!

The 10th Doctor and rose from the past. Because in one of the pictures the 10th and 11th is standing by the 10ths older looking TARDIS. and hes wearing his brown suit that got burnt and chucked away after his regeneration into 11th

What does a colored suit have to do with anything. He could have just bought another one as the meta-crisis. The color of the suit is not a valid claim to say that it is the 10th Doctor from the past. Good thinking though.

As many of the comments above, I believe it is 10 and rose from an early time. Not because of the suit though, surely, he could of bought another suit if he liked it? I do believe that 11 will keep his identity secret from rose though.

What about the episode “The Shakespeare code”? We Know that in the 50th special there will be Elizabeth I, and in the second episode of the third series when the Doctor and the Queen met, she recognized him and wants his head to be cutted off, but the Doctor of the third series hadn’t the faintest idea of what she was talking about and he wondered what he did to her. So. The couple Rose/Doc can’t be from the second series, and actually, I don’t think that Moffat is going to show something so silly and stupid like ereasing the memory of this adventure with the Queen to both (Rose and the 10th Doctor). The solutions to this “mistery”, in my opinion, are:

1 – the 10th doctor in his time-line is between the third and the fourth series, Rose too, the walls of the universes are falling because of the time war and the daleks (remember that we are going to see the daleks again) so they met again. In my opinion this could give prominence to the fourth series and could explain how Davros survived to the Time War (the doctor: but you were destroyed, at the very first year of the time war at the gates of Elysium, I saw your command ship fly into the jaws of the nightmare child, I tried to save you. davros: but it took one stronger than you, dalek kaan himself. Kaan: I flew into the wild and fire, I danced and died a thousand times. davros: emergency temporal shift took him back to the time war

What about the episode “The Shakespeare code”? We Know that in the 50th special there will be Elizabeth I, and in the second episode of the third series when the Doctor and the Queen met, she recognized him and wants his head to be cutted, but the Doctor of the third series hadn’t the faintest idea of what she was talking about and he wondered what he did to her. So. The couple Rose/Doc can’t be from the second series, and actually, I don’t think that Moffat is going to show something so silly and stupid like erasing the memory of this adventure with the Queen to both (Rose and the 10th Doctor). The solutions to this “mistery”, in my opinion, are:

1 – the 10th doctor in his time-line is between the third and the fourth series, Rose too, the walls of the universes are falling because of the time war and the daleks (remember that we are going to see the daleks again) so they met again. In my opinion this could give prominence to the fourth series and could explain how Davros has survived to the Time War (the doctor: but you were destroyed, at the very first year of the time war at the gates of Elysium, I saw your command ship fly into the jaws of the nightmare child, I tried to save you. davros: but it took one stronger than you, dalek kaan himself. Kaan: I flew into the wild and fire, I danced and died a thousand times. davros: emergency temporal shift took him back to the time war. doctor: but that’s impossible! the time war is time locked!). So, how could dalek kaan go back in time to the time war if there hadn’t been at least a little gap in the lock? That gap could have been the things that are going to happen in the 50th.

2- Rose and Doctor from the parallel world. I am curious about them, nobody wants to hear from them how their lifes are going on?

If real ten meets eleven and Clara then he’ll know that Clara’s a future companion. Meeting when eleven met her in the snowman he would already recognise her as his future companion.

I personally think the only reason they can bring back ten and rose logically is if its tentoo and rose. Although I wouldn’t mind either way – and seeing ten and rose during season 2 phase will be just as entertaining.

Let’s brainstorm about the little loopholes and plot mysteries that could be explained by the Doctor going back into his own history!

For example, had Christopher Eccleston decided to be in the 50th anniversary, I can picture him in a canteen, drinking and looking morose while thinking about Rose refusing his first offer for space travel (at the end of episode 1: Rose) until he gets met by 11, who gives him the advice:

“Did you mention to her that it also travels in time?”

I agree that current Rose and Meta-crisis 10th Doctor seems to be the option that makes the most sense, and is the one I’d prefer. The “but he’s in a brown suit!!” arguments people make for past-10th doctor are kind of ludicrous. I’m sure in Pete’s World, similar suits of all colors are readily available, even without the Tardis, and as others have noted, they do have a Tardis in the paralell universe as Meta-crisis 10 was given a piece of Tardis coral and told how to accelerate the growth. Deleted scene though it was, it’s been described by those in charge as having happened and being cannon, I’m not even a hardcore DW fan and I know that!

I think interacting with past 10 and Rose would not only be a paradox, but would create way too much angst with Rose and 10 being all upset about a future in which they weren’t together, which frankly I don’t think anyone wants to see, we saw enough of that already and their never remembering it or talking about it again because their memories of meeting 11 get wiped is just kind of BS. When Donna’s memories were wiped, it was sad, in this case, it would just be dumb, IMHO.

If “Bad Wolf” is written on walls on the new poster, and all of the universe seems to be in dire peril again, then different universes interacting seems plausible. Plus, I’m just a sap who loves Rose and the Rose-Doctor love story, and would like to see what they’re up to, especially since, while the situation was still kind of tragic and less than ideal, Meta-crisis 10 *is* the same man as fully-time lord 10. The Doctor always wanted on a deep level to be able to experience human life and live out his life with Rose, and through meta-crisis 10, he’s on some level able to do that. Since he’s still mostly Time Lord, I doubt he’s dying too easily, and he and Rose can still defend Pete’s Universe.

I read this article in the hopes of gaining some sort of understanding about what this 50th will be about and how Rose and Ten fit into it all…but now I’m more confused than before because I think you’ve all got good theories and I always leaning towards the ‘Rose and Metacrisis Doctor’ theory, but I don’t know anymore.

Also this may be completely irrelevant and unrelated (forgive me, I only just watched seasons 1-4 last week) but what about the Bad Wolf/Rose-Time Vortex thing. Could that link in somehow? Would it help make things more logical at all? I know Nine absorbed it from her, but there could be a chance that some of it remained, right?

Ok, ignore me, I’m just rambling. I don’t even know what I’m trying to explain to be honest. Guess we’ll find out next month.

My theory, which would be a dream come true, would be that it is rose and the meta crisis doctor because ten have the meta crisis doctor a piece of Tardis crystal so he could have certainly built himself a tarsus and they could have both been pulled together by some outside force which seemed to happen often, or someone sends out a message and it reaches the doctor or in this case 11. He’ll maybe rose and the meta crisis doctor are trying to contact him by sending him message through psychic paper?! The sad part is rose will never know what ten went through when he died and became eleven, that apart of him actually died and how sad he was. She will either be happy to see her friend and I will cry for ten, or she will see eleven an know her doctor is gone forever and mourn him. She rejected ten when he first regenerated so who knows. In my wildest dreams I am hoping that because Billie piper and David tennant are not attached to anything huge right now to my knowledge that this could mean a spin off. This could be an introduction to the idea of a spin off. They almost gave rose one by herself but then she was coming back into the show and had her happy ever after with meta crisis doctor and now the spin off idea could work. Especially when such smaller spin offs have been made like torch wood, Sarah Jane adventures, and k-9. Compared to those this would be MASSIVE if they did it correctly and it’s hard for me to believe that the BBC giants wouldn’t have thought of this themselves. Either way David and Billie are coming back!!!!! But I’ll be crossing my fingers it’s for longer than this episode!

While yes the past theory would involve a paradox, that’s nothing new to the show. In all honesty, that one makes the most sense because if you look at classic doctor who, there’s about four or five times that the doctor has met himself, and for the 20th anniversary special they actually had four doctors working together at one time. David Tennant also met the 5th doctor in a special. While yes maybe there would be a few loop holes (i.e. ten and rose not remembering) but I think those can be overlooked because it really doesn’t matter, as long as it’s a good special.

Since we’ve seen him on a date with Elizabeth 1st…this sorta tell us where the 10th will be from. He “marries’ Queen Elizabeth during the time between Waters of Mars & The End of Time – he says so to Ood Sigma in the first bit of the episode. So that means, he definitely can’t be meta-crisis TenTwo Doctor. It also means, Rose can’t come back with him as a companion.

It also means that he meets his 11th incarnation, days before he regenerates…the feels!

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