There’s a moment in “Rose”, the very first episode of the revived Doctor Who, where the Ninth Doctor briefly addresses his appearance, like so:
Common fan theory is that the Doctor arrived in London, picked out his new clothes, realized the Nestine Consciousness was present and up to the business of conquest, and so set to the task of stopping them. Most fans place conspiract theorist Clive’s pictures of the Doctor as occurring during the time between his leaving leaves without Rose and his return a few seconds later to inform her that the TARDIS “also travels in time”. I don’t.
Why? Simple, really. The Ninth and Tenth Doctors experienced survivor’s guilt after being solely responsible for the destruction of the Time Lords, and I’m personally of the opinion that after the Doctor regenerated into his ninth incarnation he simply wasn’t capable of looking at himself in the mirror. He wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t. He couldn’t look himself in the eyes and see what he’d done.
But in the scene above, he doesn’t have a choice – the Tylers have a mirror in their front room, and the Doctor sees his own reflection for the first time in, potentially, years (although I’m inclined to say it’s only been a few months, but then this is all fanwank anyway so it’s more or less a non-isssue). Looking in the mirror, it turns out, is easier than he expected it to be.
Or something. I don’t know. This just popped into my head and I felt like typing it out somewhere.