Alex Kingston on David Tennant cuts through the usual nostalgia: she said he was already starting to “disengage” from the Doctor while they were filming Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead in 2008. Kingston’s memory lands inside Tennant’s last full season, before he went on to specials the following year and later returned for the 50th anniversary and 60th.
Kingston’s 2008 memory
“I was aware that somehow something had shifted,” Kingston said, adding that “people knew that was going to be David’s last season, so there was just an element, it wasn’t melancholy, but there was just an energy that I was aware that somehow something had shifted.” She also said, “I don’t think he ever wanted to stop playing the Doctor, as he loved it so much.”
That puts a precise edge on the way viewers now talk about Tennant’s exit. Kingston was not describing a dramatic break on set; she was describing a change in energy while filming a story that aired in 2008, when she first played River Song opposite the Tenth Doctor.
Tenth Doctor and River Song
“It wasn’t that he didn’t welcome me because he absolutely did, but I think it was him starting to already disengage with the character,” Kingston said. “I’m not even sure whether he knew he was doing that consciously or not, but there was just something there.”
That is the useful part of her remark. She is not claiming a public rift or a production problem; she is describing a performance shift, the kind that shows up in rhythm, attention and the way an actor inhabits a role at the end of a run. For a character as long-lived as the Doctor, that kind of late-stage change is often the first sign that the clock is already running down.
Matt Smith in season 5
Kingston said the atmosphere changed again when Matt Smith arrived as the Eleventh Doctor, because “he was about to start, and was looking for that support to help him step into David’s very huge shoes, enormous feet!” She later appeared opposite Smith across season 5, season 6 and season 7, then returned for one episode during Peter Capaldi’s tenure.
Her final on-screen appearance to date was The Husbands of River Song in 2015, and she has since reprised River Song in multiple Big Finish audio dramas. She also has an upcoming Big Finish story with Arthur Darvill’s Rory, which keeps River Song active in audio even after her television run closed.
David Tennant’s returns
Tennant’s exit did not end the role’s hold on him. After the 2008 run, he starred in a series of specials the following year, and his regeneration was broadcast on New Year’s Day 2010. He returned again in 2013 for the 50th anniversary and in 2023 for the 60th.
That sequence makes Kingston’s observation more than a memory of one day on set. It reads as a snapshot of the moment just before a long-running lead role changed shape, and the cleanest question left is what, exactly, she saw in 2008 that told her Tennant was already easing away from the Doctor.
