What if Doctor Who ended in 2009?

If you went by the Revelation of the Daleks, "I'll take you to B--" method of leaving the season open-ended, you could have ended the episode as the Tenth Doctor regenerates with the TARDIS disintegrating around him. The camera pulls out as the room is consumed by fire and the credits roll. Alternatively (and this is the method I prefer personally), you could have had him enter the ship, hit the controls and on January 1, 2005, an innocuous police box vanishes into the quiet of the winter cold. After all the bombast of Murray Gold, we get a full ten seconds of complete silence and then a modified version of the end credits kick in. It starts off with the most recent theme, but by the end its transformed to a remastered version of the old Delia Derbyshire rendition as the BBC Wales logo comes up and we fade out...

As fascinating as it is to consider how the revival could have ended if it had been the projected final end, I'm much more curious about what would have happened immediately afterward. Doubtless, the series would have continued in some other form, the show had attained quite a following by 2009 thanks to the Tennant/Davies production team. I think there would have been a veritable eruption of expanded media focusing on the further adventures of the Tenth Doctor, it's even possible that the New Series Adventures would have transformed into something akin to the New Adventures. However given Davies's fondness for the DWM comic strip run for the Eighth Doctor, we could very well have had an official continuation in comics that took the opportunity that had been denied to them with The Flood and regenerate him into an eleventh iteration we had never seen before. This time round they wouldn't have to jettison their new companion for the sake of continuity and the whole of the cosmos is free for them to explore.

Total non sequitur. Even if someone had put forward such nonsense I don't believe that it was seriously considered by anyone.

Putting that aside, it nevertheless makes for a very interesting road not travelled. I've heard programmes cancelled for more foolish reasons than "Better go out on a high."

Assuming RTD and the crew knew this was the end and that they may never have a chance to do anything else, I would hope The End of Time might end on a more optimistic note, with the Doctor perhaps coming to terms with his regeneration and the audience would either experience the regeneration as normal or the camera would cut away before it could finish.

Other than that, I think the revived series would have been fine to end with The End of Time, despite my disdain for the story. We already had almost all the familiar faces from the past four seasons show up for the Series 4 finale and most of them turned up again for a cameo in TEoT, so the audience already has a lot of closure. Maybe they might add a scene with River Song to the Tenth Doctor's farewell tour, but it wouldn't be missed if it wasn't present and I imagine the novels and comics following the television series' end would eagerly expand upon her - though, given that Big Finish would already be a powerhouse by this point, perhaps the audios would get first dibs.

I'm doubtful this would be the end of Doctor Who's television life, though. I think fan demand would increase and within a couple years, we'd probably have the show back on television and maybe even with a certain Steven Moffat at the helm as well.

To be honest i haven't enjoyed the show half as much since Tennants departure.

I like Capaldi but i don't think some the story's he's been given have done his incarnation justice, i was never a fan of Matt Smith, the show became too kid friendly.

If only Malcom Hulke or Robert Holmes were still alive i bet they would've written a awesome Twelfth Doctor story, that's my fantasy wishlist alas never to be.

Says who?  Doctor Who has always been aimed at family viewing, so sure child friendly, but it's funded from the general BBC1 drama budget.

Agreed. I find it mad that the BBC even considered the idea that David Tennant was too popular for the show to continue. 

Well either way, it has still always been child friendly.