Given this feels like his death, the Ninth Doctor’s truest and final end, prehaps it casts new light on the “and so was I”. Rather than being a cheeky comment to his companion, it becomes a poiniant moment of introspection from a post Time War Doctor with so much to doubt about himself and his place in the universe – a realising that in the final ballance of things he wasn’t coward or killer, but simply fantastic.

To look at the line in this context, the proceeding “You know what Rose..?” isn’t a question to affirm something he already knows, but the sudden revelation to himself that he is a worthy and just individual who has made his peace with himself and the final end.

Just a thought…

I’d fault the idea of regenerations, like end of year stories, having to be continually topping the previous one.

Clock’s not wrong, I’ve retconned myself!

The whole “feels like death” thing and the “I don’t want to go”, just made me think with deeper hindsight of how fantastic Dr Eccleston was in his departure.

“Yes, I sucked up the Time Vortex, and yes I did it for someone I cared about. You don’t see me going all weepy and maudlin do you! Yes it feels like death and yes it hurts! Dogs with no noses… Bye Rose.”