Who Mysteries: The Doctor’s Daughter
Guest contributor Craig Sightings wonders what happened to the other Jenny.
In 2008 Doctor Who fans were introduced to Jenny, the genetically engineered daughter of the Doctor, in the appropriately titled The Doctor’s Daughter.
The character was played by Georgia Moffet, the real life daughter of fifth Doctor Peter Davison. But that’s just a strange coincidence rather than the purpose of this article.
The conclusion of the episode saw Jenny die in the Tenth Doctor’s arms after being shot in the chest. Only she didn’t die. After the Tenth Doctor, Donna and Martha have departed, the final scene showed that Jenny had come back to life later on. She then gets into a ship and prepares to go off on adventures of her own.
The dialogue follows:
Cline: Jenny, come back.
Jenny: Sorry, can’t stop. What are you gonna do, tell my dad?
Cline: But where are you going?
Jenny: Oh, I’ve got the whole universe. Planets to save, civilisations to rescue, creatures to defeat and an awful lot of running to do.
So the mystery is: whatever happened to her? This conclusion seemed like it was setting up a future appearance, yet here we are in 2013 and there’s been no sign of her coming back. It seemed odd the Doctor never got to know she was alive.
On the one hand we shouldn’t be surprised as Steven Moffat has been keen to focus on his own creations and characters in his era. However (now here’s where it gets intriguing), in the episode commentary for The Doctor’s Daughter released on the official website following broadcast, Russell T Davies revealed that originally Jenny stayed dead in an earlier script, but was later saved due to the intervention of a certain Steven Moffat. He suggested she live to see another day and thus she did.
Now, there is no indication that this was part of a greater plan by Steven Moffat. We know Moffat hates killing off his characters. He’s admitted it in interviews in the past and the once fresh “Everybody lives!” has become a bit of a Moffat cliché in the years since he took over. So maybe he just didn’t like the thought of her dying. Or maybe he wondered if he could bring her back should he be running the show. One day we might find out.
Moffat, of course, was happy to use the same name for another character when he paired up Madame Vastra with Jenny Flint. When the cast for A Good Man Goes to War was first revealed, fans speculated that it could be the Doctor’s daughter, but as we know it never went beyond that. I would find it surprising if Moffat had forgotten about her entirely though.
As for Georgia Moffet’s feelings on the matter, when she was initially asked about coming back, she was very keen to return to the role: “Bring Jenny back. Please!”
But there’s been no serious talk since. Coincidentally though in the years that followed broadcast of the episode she married David Tennant and they now have their own daughter together (certainly an interesting family tree going on there!)
There were also rumours of a Jenny spin-off, though nothing ever came of them.
So will we ever see Jenny again? We’ll have to wait and see. Perhaps the question is now: do fans still want her to return? Or is it too late?
