Doctor Who Georgia Moffat Tennant Jenny

Remember when the Doctor’s daughter was killed off camera? Well, Georgia Tennant does, and she’s not happy about it!

Longtime viewers of ‘Doctor Who’ (boy does it feel weird to say that about a David Tennant episode!) may remember that the original ending of ‘The Doctor’s Daughter’ saw the titular Time Lady Jenny dead and buried, and called it a day. It was only (so goes the fan lore) at the insistence of writer Steven Moffat, who was due to take over as showrunner the following season, that Russell T. Davies ultimately changed the ending, allowing Jenny to regenerate (sort of) and take off in a “borrowed” spaceship. Because of this, Jenny’s return – or lack thereof – was for years one of the great unfulfilled promises of Moffat’s time as showrunner. Or at least it was until 2015 when he revealed that the whole thing had been blown rather out of proportion. Apparently, Moffat’s intercession on Jenny’s behalf was more of a suggestion than a plea, as he explained at the time:

“I’ve got Russell T. Davies’ answer. Apparently it was me that kept her alive, because I said – when I heard about the idea – “Oh don’t kill her at the end, that’s the ‘Star Trek’ thing to do.” So he kept her alive just because I said that. And I wrote to him after and said, “Well I didn’t know that I did that,” and he said “Oh it doesn’t matter, Steven, she flew straight into a moon!””

While that’s hard to read as anything other than Davies giving Moffat a tongue in cheek out in the event that viewers should ask what happened to Jenny, fans were understandably disappointed that such a compelling character was apparently being cast aside. But perhaps no one was quite as hacked off about it as Georgia Tennant herself.

Speaking to the Radio Times, Tennant responded to a question about the matter by explaining her own reaction to the news.

“Is this where I crash into a moon? Yeah, I heard about that. That’s nice, isn’t it? I sent [Steven] and Russell an email, with a link to the story, going, “WTF?” To which they both wrote back slightly panicked replies about it being sort of a joke. Clearly wasn’t a joke.”

But despite that, Tennant is quick to make clear that there are no hard feelings, adding that she has “high hopes for Chris Chibnall” when he takes the reins for the upcoming eleventh season. And perhaps it’s all worked out for the best in the end. After all, Moffat’s failure to revisit the character he inadvertently saved left the perfect opening for Big Finish to pick up that ball and run with it. And that’s exactly what they’re doing, with a series of audio dramas for which Tennant has reprised the role. Dubbed ‘Jenny: The Doctor’s Daughter’, the four audio stories will be available in a box set due for release in June 2018.