Tenth Doctor - Personality

Personality

The Tenth Doctor generally displays a light-hearted, talkative, easy-going, witty and cheeky manner, but repeatedly demonstrates a vengeful and unforgiving streak as well. This emerged early on when he sends the Sycorax leader (who is attacking him from behind) falling to his death while commenting that, with him, there are "no second chances". In "School Reunion", he acknowledges that he is less merciful than he used to be and has stuck to his "one warning" code, punishing his enemies if they persist in their hostilities. This is demonstrated in "The Runaway Bride" when he drowns the Empress of Racnoss' children and stoically watches on, prompting Donna Noble to declare that he needs somebody to stop him, and in "The Family of Blood" where he gives each Family member an individual and eternal punishment. His strong personal sense of justice makes him quick to anger when he feels it is violated, as in "New Earth" when he learns of the plague farm run by the Sisters of Plenitude, he brings down their entire operation. When Prime Minister Harriet Jones gives an order to destroy the retreating Sycorax ship against his intentions, he brings down her government in six words, "Don't you think she looks tired?", which reaches the press via her assistant's headset. In "The Waters of Mars", he goes so far as to declare himself above the laws of time, although there are catastrophic consequences as a result.

This is coupled, however, with an intense sense of regret of the deaths of both his friends and enemies. In "Journey's End", he has a flashback of those who have died instead of/for him, including Astrid Peth, Jenny, Luke Rattigan, Lynda Moss, and the hostess from "Midnight". He also offers Davros the chance to escape the destruction of the Dalek mothership, but Davros spits the chance back at him, calling him the "Destroyer of Worlds". A recurring line on the part of the Tenth Doctor is his saying that he is "so sorry" for actions he takes, even as he takes them. The loss of his companions and people he befriended becomes a sensitive issue and a mere mention may trigger a sudden outburst of anger without warning. In "The Doctor's Daughter" he explains to his daughter Jenny how "killing...infects and once it does you'll never get rid of it" and that the worst part of it was that he "became clever", reflecting on his involvement in the Time War and witnessing the destruction of his own kind, friends and enemies.

The Tenth Doctor has a tendency to babble, mixing apparent nonsense with vital information, sometimes acting erratically to put his enemies off-guard. He is prone to making comments that to outsiders seem obtuse or rude, sometimes to his own embarrassment. In "The Christmas Invasion" and "Tooth and Claw", he is surprised at his own unintentional rudeness when making disparaging remarks, and Jack Harkness, after reuniting with the Doctor, notes that his "new regeneration (is) kinda cheeky". He has a tendency to use technobabble to describe scientific concepts before substituting it with a simpler, analogous explanation, such as his description of non-linear temporal physics as "a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff". He is also able to rapidly switch between moods, from mania to anger to nonchalance and uses this as a form of reverse psychology on several occasions ("Fear Her", "Love & Monsters" and "Army of Ghosts"). In the latter, by switching gears suddenly after failing to dissuade Yvonne Hartman from her current activities, he is able to make her uncertain enough to get his way.

Another recurring theme in the Tenth Doctor's stories is that of his intense loneliness. In "School Reunion", he describes the ability of Time Lords to live so long as a curse, because while his human companions all someday leave him and eventually die, he continues to live. He also commented to several of his female companions, especially to Rose and Donna, that while they may spend spend the rest of their lives with him, he is unable to do so due to his ability to regenerate. Other characters have also commented on the Tenth Doctor's loneliness. During a conversation with his nemesis, the Master, he admits that since the end of the Time War and the loss of the other Time Lords, he has been "alone ever since". Indeed, when the Master subsequently dies, the Doctor openly weeps over his body. In "The End of Time", he ultimately ends up regenerating in the TARDIS alone, despite visits to his past companions in his dying hours.

The Tenth Doctor is more extroverted and gregarious than his predecessor, quickly establishing a firmer rapport with Rose Tyler's friends and family than he ever did in his previous incarnation. He is openly fond of mankind and is apparently in awe of their tenacity and curiosity, a trait previously exhibited by his fourth incarnation. In "The Impossible Planet", he hugs the leader of an Earth expedition for daring to explore a planet orbiting a black hole merely "because it was there". In "The Age of Steel", he describes human beings as both brilliant and stupid in the same sentence while arguing the necessity of emotions with the Cyber-Controller. The Doctor even goes so far as to exclaim he's willing to battle the Master across the cosmos so long as he leaves Earth alone in "The Sound of Drums". However, he is also quick to criticise mankind when he feels it is necessary. Indeed, his confidence in the human race becomes far less pronounced in later series, and at the end of "Midnight" he is left speechless after witnessing the steps humans can become willing to take when placed in a threatening situation, as he is almost killed by a panicky group of people who turn on him.

The 2006 series continued the exploration of the Doctor's romantic aspects, with the Tenth Doctor sharing kisses with Rose (albeit while she was possessed by Lady Cassandra) and Madame de Pompadour. In "School Reunion", Sarah Jane Smith all but confesses that she had been in love with him. In "Doomsday", during their farewell, Rose tells the Doctor she loves him; he begins to reply but only manages to say her name before the transmission is cut off, leaving him alone in the TARDIS with tears on his cheeks, all but proving their romantic relationship that could have been. After this, whenever he is reminded of Rose he sometimes becomes depressed or pensive. In the audio commentary for "Doomsday", the executive producer, Julie Gardner, claimed that she will confirm to the nation the Doctor was going to "say it back". Later, in Series 4, Rose returns for the series finale and parts with a Doctor who is human, and thus able to spend their lives together. In Series 3, the Doctor gradually learns that Martha harbours feelings for him before she leaves his company – which he inadvertently inspires by kissing her as a distraction – and also exchanges kisses with Astrid in honour of "an old tradition" from her home planet, but really seems to be an intense connection and like for each other. Following the complications with Martha (for which he blames himself), the Doctor seems reluctant to embark on any other potentially romantic companionship, and makes sure that before allowing her to join him, Donna understands that all he wants is a friend. In keeping with this, when he is poisoned in "The Unicorn and the Wasp" and asks Donna to give him a shock of some kind; kissing him proves to be so out-of-character for her that it is sufficient to trigger the detox process.

The Tenth Doctor sometimes dons a pair of spectacles, like the Fifth Doctor, whose youthful appearance he shares. In the 2007 Children in Need special, "Time Crash", the Tenth Doctor notes other inherited/inspired tendencies when meeting the Fifth Doctor, aside from "the brainy specs" (which he observes were worn by the Fifth simply to look clever rather than out of necessity, therefore implying that his are used for the same reason despite the Fifth Doctor stating twice in series that he was actually near-sighted in his left eye ("Castrovalva") and actually needed a corrective lens for that eye), such as wearing plimsolls (trainers) and both of their voices becoming high-pitched when shouting. He also exhibits a remarkable sense of taste, again similar to the Fifth Doctor ("Planet of Fire"), able to identify the blood type of a blood sample ("The Christmas Invasion") or the presence of mistletoe oil ("Tooth and Claw") just by licking. He also shares the Fifth Doctor's skill with a cricket ball, as demonstrated in "Human Nature". The Tenth also admitted to the Fifth that he was the Tenth's favourite past incarnation.

The Tenth Doctor speaks with an Estuary English accent, rather than the Greater Manchester accent (Christopher Eccleston's own accent) that the Ninth Doctor used, the Received Pronunciation of most earlier Doctors, or Tennant's natural Scottish English. David Tennant told SFX magazine in 2006 that Russell T Davies had asked him to drop his natural Scottish accent, because he felt "we'd like to not go for another obvious regional accent, because I suppose they'd done that". In a 23 December interview on BBC Radio 1, Tennant explained that a line had been scripted for the Christmas special explaining that the newly-regenerated Doctor had imprinted on Rose Tyler's accent, "like a chick hatching from an egg", but the line was cut from the final programme. The Tenth Doctor has displayed a flexibility in changing accents, having spoken in an American Appalachian accent in "The Christmas Invasion", and a Highland Scottish accent in "Tooth and Claw" at various times in the episodes.

Like the Ninth Doctor, the Tenth Doctor used his sonic screwdriver quite often. This Doctor relied heavily on the device, and chided his fifth incarnation for going "hands free" in "Time Crash", a reference to the Fifth Doctor's loss of the device in "The Visitation". This reliance came to a head when the screwdriver was burned out in "Smith and Jones", having been pushed past its limits in order to boost the radiation output of an X-ray machine. He obtains another screwdriver by the end of the episode.

Much as the Ninth Doctor frequently declared things "Fantastic!", this Doctor has also favoured certain phrases on various occasions, such as "What?!" (like the Fourth Doctor, it is used to refer to something unexpected happening; however, the Tenth sometimes says it three times in rapid succession), "Brilliant!", "oh yes!" (used in an exuberant fashion, often when he has successfully done something), "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry", and the French expression "Allons-y" ("Let's go"). The latter was first used in "Army of Ghosts", where the Doctor stated that he should say it more often and that he would love to meet someone named Alonso so he could say "Allons-y, Alonso!", eventually achieving this aim in "Voyage of the Damned" with midshipman Alonso Frame. He also often used the Italian expression Molto bene ("Very good"). In addition, he often clarifies his own mistakes by beginning with an elongated "Well..." Like his predecessor, the Tenth Doctor shows a fondness for human popular culture—a characteristic not all of his previous incarnations seemed to share—but even more so, to the point where he finds himself unknowingly quoting the song "Circle of Life" from Disney's The Lion King during a confrontation with the Sycorax leader, dropping a reference to Kylie Minogue's Never Too Late, referring to the Harry Potter books twice during an encounter with William Shakespeare, and proclaiming his fighting of the Sycorax leader while wearing pyjamas "very Arthur Dent".