Doctor Who specials (2008–2010)
specials of a television series
The 2008–2010 specials of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who are a series of five specials that linked the programme's fourth and fifth series. The specials were produced in lieu of a full series in 2009, to allow the new production team for the programme enough time to prepare for the fifth series in 2010, in light of Russell T Davies's decision to step down as showrunner, with Steven Moffat taking his place in the fifth series. Preceded by the 2008 Christmas Special, "The Next Doctor", the first special, "Planet of the Dead", was aired on 11 April 2009, the second special "The Waters of Mars", was aired on 15 November 2009, with the last special, the two-part episode "The End of Time", broadcasting over two weeks on 25 December 2009 and 1 January 2010.
The specials started production in April 2008 for "The Next Doctor", and filming for "The End of Time" began in March 2009. Two supplemental episodes were also filmed alongside the specials. "Music of the Spheres" was filmed for the 2008 Doctor Who Prom in July 2008, and the animated six-episode serial Dreamland was produced for the BBC's Red Button service, which was released over six consecutive days in November 2009. Midway through the sequence of specials (commencing with "Planet of the Dead"), production switched to filming in high-definition.
The specials included appearances of one-off companions, portrayed by David Morrissey, Velile Tshabalala, Michelle Ryan, Lindsay Duncan and Bernard Cribbins, as well as featuring cast from previous seasons, including Catherine Tate, Billie Piper, Freema Agyeman, Noel Clarke, John Barrowman, Elisabeth Sladen and John Simm. The two-part episode "The End of Time" was the last episode of Doctor Who to feature David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor until the 2013 special "The Day of the Doctor", and the last episode of Doctor Who to have Davies as the showrunner and head writer until the end of the 2022 special "The Power of the Doctor, where Tennant would begin appearing as the Fourteenth Doctor.
Episodes
"The End of Time" was the first two-part episode with an overall title and episode numbers since Survival in season 26, the final serial broadcast during the series' original run.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Doctor Who specials (2008–2010)” is specials of a television series. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Doctor, specials and television, not as a finished interpretation.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5287435. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2008, 2010, 2009 and 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “Doctor Who specials (2008–2010)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.