A Letter from the Doctor (DWAN 2024 short story)

A Letter from the Doctor was the first short story and first release exclusively published in Doctor Who The Official Annual 2024 on 7 September 2023 by Penguin Group and written by Paul Lang.

The short story, also forming part of the A Letter from the Doctor series that originated in the first issue of Doctor Who Weekly in 1979, was stylised as a letter written by the Fourteenth Doctor to the readers of the annual.

Plot
Writing a letter to the readers of an annual, the Fourteenth Doctor asks his recipients if they had a good year, having been a year since he last wrote to them, going on to tell them about his year.

Full of ups and downs, the Doctor recently died on a cliff in a beautiful fashion with their arms outstretched while the sun rose, regenerating into a what usually would be a new body, but this time, it was not the case. After running his tongue over his teeth, recognising them from one of his predecessors, he then returned to the TARDIS.

Inside, while writing the letter, he realises that despite having the body of one of his previous selves, he does have new braincells, after remembering that he has a custard-cream dispenser in the TARDIS. Explaining that he didn't think he would've missed his hands until he lost them, he hopes he would be able to keep them attached for more than fifteen hours, dismissing the possibility that he would encounter the Sycorax again and get into a swordfight as "quite unlikely". Continuing, he questions why this face has returned and is surprised by how his clothes also changed, but, after he notices something making "a racket" on the other side of the console, he concludes by writing:


 * "All right then, universe — what have you got for me today?"

Characters

 * The readers
 * Fourteenth Doctor

Worldbuilding

 * The annual is a book.
 * The Doctor states that letting go into regeneration is like letting out a sneeze after having held it in.

The Fourteenth Doctor

 * The Doctor writes that he won't keep his teeth if he starts eating too many custard creams.
 * The Doctor notes he has a familiar face, fantastic hair, a "slightly quizzical left eyebrow", and "that brilliant grin".
 * The Doctor mentions that his clothes changing hasn't happened in a very long time.

Continuity

 * The Doctor heavily references his predecessor's regeneration seen in The Power of the Doctor and briefly in Liberation of the Daleks.
 * The Doctor directly compares his appearance to the Tenth Doctor, who debuted in The Parting of the Ways and finally regenerated in The End of Time.
 * The Doctor also mentions that his clothes haven't changed during a regeneration for a long time, referencing the change of clothes between his first incarnation's "renewal" into the Second Doctor in The Tenth Planet.
 * This story is set directly after the first panel of Liberation of the Daleks but before the second; the Fourteenth Doctor repeats the same line in both — "All right then, universe — what have you got for me today?" — although he vocalises it in Liberation but writes it in this story.
 * The Fourteenth Doctor's entry in appears to be an inner monologue wherein he questions his familiar appearance, implying that it takes place within moments of his regeneration.

Gallery
to be added