49

In the episode “The Doctor's Daughter”, the Doctor encounters a cloning like device and his daughter is generated. I was really upset to not have anything come about the Doctor's daughter after the show. I was expecting a spin-off series, or at least a plot-line where we get visitations from the Doctor's daughter. After the Doctor's daughter leaves to go gallivanting across the galaxy, what becomes of her? Does she appear in any more Doctor Who works? or say a spin-off series?

Do we know of any plans to include her in future segments? Since she sort-of regenerated I think its safe to say she's still alive. I'm just curious if she's ever been written in the universe or if she's one of those characters the writers forgot.

Rand al'Thor
  • 134,408
  • 65
  • 607
  • 854
jumpcutking
  • 5,980
  • 9
  • 41
  • 58
  • 33
    BTW, in case you didn't know, the actress that played Jenny, Georgia Moffet, is the daughter of Peter Davidson (the 5th Doctor), and is engaged to David Tennant (the 10th Doctor) - they also have a new daughter. – Tony Meyer Apr 26 '11 at 23:51
  • @Tony Meyer Wow, who would have thought! – jumpcutking Apr 27 '11 at 12:34
  • 3
    Well, they kept Doctor River Song in from the David Tennant Years (when she was professor) so why can't they bring back the doctor's daughter? it would be nice to see her and the doctor again. –  May 14 '11 at 09:00
  • 2
    @Josh River Song was introduced by Steven Moffat. He's the one who wrote the two-parter where we first saw Pr. Song. So it's more logical he kept her. He probably already had ideas about what he'd do with her. – Loïc Wolff May 14 '11 at 14:24
  • Well Steven Moffat is the one who suggested she would come back to life! –  Apr 07 '12 at 22:51
  • Unrelated but: According to The Time Traveller's Almanac she did *not* regenerate; she was revived by The Source, the rejuvinating power that appeared in the episode. This is mostly in keeping with one popular theory (of many) that regenerations are something artificially provided to Time Lords and not a natural genetic ability of Gallifreyans. – KutuluMike Aug 08 '12 at 21:13
  • If this was QI, this would be the 'nobody knows' joker question. – Pharap May 28 '14 at 13:04
  • 1
    @TonyMeyer That they did not name Susan.... might have really been too meta. – BMWurm Aug 26 '14 at 13:13
  • @KutuluMike This is actually canon now… at least, as much as DW has a canon. – wizzwizz4 Mar 21 '21 at 21:25

3 Answers3

31

We probably won't see her again. As Russell T Davies didn't bring her back while he was still showrunner, it's incredibly unlikely that the current showrunner, Steven Moffat, will bring her back. Since Moffat took over, there was a sort of break between the two eras, with minimal characters or monsters of the week from the Davies era returning.

During a recent interview, Moffat was asked about Jenny, and gave a non-committal answer:

A return for the Doctor's daughter, Jenny?

"The door is open, it's entirely possible."

Community
  • 1
  • 12
    How sad, she was such a promising character! – jumpcutking Apr 26 '11 at 14:52
  • So she's a great character the writer (team) forgot... Well maybe they can plan a episode with the Doctors Daughter in the future! – jumpcutking Apr 26 '11 at 16:04
  • Moffat has said that the break isn't intentional, it's just that they really haven't had a need for anything from the Davies era. Even in the Davies era we didn't really have a lot of recurring monsters other than the Daleks and Cybermen, both of whom have made an appearance in the new series, and the Cybermen are set to have a two parter later this year. The only reason we haven't had any old characters come back is because they aren't needed and they don't know the new Doctor (and he doesn't really know them). Even in the old show it was a similar situation (though no showrunner). – dkuntz2 Apr 27 '11 at 20:30
  • 1
    @DKuntz2: The Davies era had a number of recurring monsters or foes from before. For example, RTD started the new series with an encounter with the Nestene, included the Sontarans in the 3rd season, and also dealt with The Master. – Tango May 14 '11 at 15:51
  • @TangoOversway, Yes, I know. The two eras I'm talking about are the two showrunners (which were the eras mentioned in the answer I commented on (this one)). I wasn't talking about the old/new shows. – dkuntz2 May 15 '11 at 02:36
  • Steven Moffat will not be running things forever. Even if he is opposed to bringing back the Doctor's daughter (I have no information to suggest that he is), a future producer (they used to be called "script editor" in the old days) may well choose to have her reappear. – Christi Jun 01 '11 at 14:27
  • 15
    @DKuntz2: “Even in the Davies era we didn't really have a lot of recurring monsters” — he seemed to bring back those green farting ones a few more times than necessary. – Paul D. Waite Aug 23 '11 at 21:01
  • 7
    Well, we also know the (first) Doctor has a granddaughter, so a story tying the two ladies together would be a worthwhile addition to the canon. – Blazemonger Jan 06 '12 at 21:01
  • I agree with Blazemonger, tying the two would be a good way to validate the original series. To be a grandfather he would have to have a daughter or son that lives who then has a daughter. I like the Jenny charactor. And would love to see return. –  Sep 20 '12 at 17:16
  • 4
    The Ninth Doctor made a few remarks that indicate that his children (however many he had) were all gone; e.g. in "The Empty Child" he says that he "used to be" a parent and a grandparent but isn't any longer. – KutuluMike Sep 20 '12 at 18:12
  • 4
    It's worth noting that Jenny coming back to life was Moffat's idea so I doubt he's opposed to her. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doctor's_Daughter#Writing – NikolaiDante Sep 20 '12 at 21:28
  • @MichaelEdenfield: that's all before this episode. he wouldn't know about her, not without travling along his own timeline, which he supposedly can't do. you know, unless it's for a special. – Thom Brannan Feb 23 '13 at 00:42
  • 2
    The good news is, since she's at least a Time Lord herself, she could come back in as any actress...or actor. I mean, timelord after all. – Zibbobz May 28 '14 at 14:52
11

Recently there have been some more reveals about this, as quoted in this Radio Times article.

Peter Capaldi, the incumbent Twelfth Doctor, said:

The Doctor never forgets about anyone, but there are a lot people - a lot of time and space - and he hasn't got time to deal with everyone at every moment of the day. No, he hasn't forgotten about her.

But Steven Moffat revealed that RTD intended her to crash and die off-screen shortly after the end of the episode "The Doctor's Daughter":

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!'

So according to the then-showrunner, she's out of it (barring some kind of miracle involving her crashing into a moon and surviving). But it's not clear whether or not this is canon, since it never actually happened on-screen. Given Doctor Who's tendency to play fast and loose with the laws of canon and continuity, it's entirely possible that she could return to the show at some point in the future. Here's hoping!

Rand al'Thor
  • 134,408
  • 65
  • 607
  • 854
2

An updated answer is that while Jenny has not reappeared on television (as of November 2023), she has appeared in other media, including short stories and especially comics and audio adventures. These two major storylines may not be compatible from a continuity standpoint, mostly because of interactions she has with the Doctor; certainly the audio adventures are generally more consistent with later TV stories where the Doctor seems to still think she is dead, since their audio encounters are often forgotten or rewritten thanks to weird time travel effects.

Comic book adventures

Jenny first reappeared in several of Titan Comics’ ongoing Doctor Who titles, beginning with the 50th anniversary story “Prisoners of Time”, where she meets many of the Doctor’s companions.

After this she acquires a Gallifreyan “bow ship” from the time of their war with the ancient vampires and fashions herself armour featuring the Seal of Rassilon. She has a brief encounter with the Fifth Doctor, then fails to catch up with him across multiple incarnations. She loses the bow ship when she helps several Doctors save the universe from a white hole, but is afterwards returned to her future time by the Doctor. (Most of this happens in the crossover event “The Lost Dimension” appearing across the various Doctors’ individual comic book lines.)

Audio adventures

Big Finish gave Jenny, still played by Georgia Tennant (neé Moffet), her own mini-series in 2018, with a follow-up in 2021. She’s also appeared in several other Big Finish audio plays, including twice appearing alongside Georgia’s real life father Peter Davison as the Doctor.

In the audio series she has her own adventures in various stolen or borrowed spaceships, including picking up a mysterious companion named Noah, and fleeing from a cyborg bounty hunter named COLT-5000, who wants the valuable Time Lord biodata contained in her DNA.

Jenny does time travel on a few occasions, and in her most recently published adventure (as part of the sixtieth anniversary series Once and Future) ended up in the extremely far future, though it’s uncertain at what point in her adventures this occurs. But assuming that’s her current whereabouts, she has means to escape and is likely still out there having adventures.

Guybrush McKenzie
  • 2,361
  • 12
  • 17