The ‘Doctor Who’ Regeneration Controversy, Explained - Fans were surprised by the 15th season finale of ‘Doctor Who,’ after Ncuti Gatwa regenerated into Billie Piper, marking a first for the Time Lord.

Billie Piper as the 16th Doctor in 'Doctor Who'
BBC Studios

“The Reality War,” the finale of the 15th season of Doctor Who, saw Ncuti Gatwa exit the role of the Doctor, regenerating into Billie Piper, who previously appeared in the series as the Doctor’s companion.

Fans of the show were shocked at the reveal, as recasting a former companion as the Doctor was a first for the long-running sci-fi series.

The Doctor has been played by a total of 16 different actors across the show’s 60-year history, with each new actor introduced via “regeneration.”

Why Does The Doctor Regenerate?​

Doctor Who is an interesting example of a sci-fi story offering viewers an in-universe explanation for the inevitable recasting that occurs during a multi-decade series.

The Doctor is a member of an ancient alien race known as the Time Lords, who have the ability to regenerate into a fresh body when fatally wounded, imbuing them with a new personality and appearance.

Canonically, Time Lords are limited to 12 regenerations, but of course, the Doctor was granted an exception, so that the series could continue.

The ability to regenerate can result in a Time Lord changing race and sex, and the Doctor’s recent regenerations have introduced more diversity to the series, but the show’s latest regeneration proved controversial with fans.

The backlash wasn’t some tedious culture war bickering, but a debate over canon, nostalgia and the future of the show.

Why Was Billie Piper’s ‘Doctor Who’ Casting So Controversial?​

“The Reality War” sees Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor regenerate into Billie Piper, who first appeared in the series as Rose Tyler.

Rose was the Doctor’s companion between 2005 and 2013, during the eras of Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant, who both played the Time Lord.

Many fans viewed the recasting of a previous companion as a desperate move motivated by nostalgia.

One commentator even explained the casting through the lens of Spider-Man, so outsiders could understand the controversy.

The discourse sparked a discussion about what kind of audience is still watching Doctor Who today, with some asserting that children are no longer the main audience of the series.\

Other commentators were disappointed to see Gatwa’s time as the Doctor end so abruptly. Gatwa’s Doctor was unusually short-lived, lasting a mere 18 months, and the actor never got to see his Doctor face off against the series' most iconic villains.

Some viewed the modern Doctor Who regenerations as too frequent, with actors leaving the show before they could truly leave their mark on the role.

Many comparisons were made to the MCU recasting Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom, a movie which was widely viewed as a gimmick among Marvel fans.

Some fans even suspected that there was more to the story, and that Piper’s casting was a red herring, noting that Piper was not officially introduced as the Doctor in the show’s credits.

“Just how and why she is back remains to be seen,” the BBC said in a suspiciously vague statement after the finale aired.

“It’s an honour and a hoot to welcome her back to the TARDIS, but quite how and why and who is a story yet to be told,” showrunner Russell T. Davies said.

Despite the controversy, Piper sounded optimistic about her new role, saying that the opportunity to "step back on that TARDIS one more time was just something I couldn't refuse.”

Article Link

Archive

 

[X Prime]

This was my experience with the fanbase as well.

That's always the issue.

Show starts good, but gets a small and very loud fanbase of Tumblr-adjacent women and gay theater kids in general. The women tend to be fujoshi, who are into gay men. The show Supernatural got this so badly that these women harassed the male actors' real-life wives because they thought said wives were preventing the brother characters from fucking.

I refer, once again, to my post on the subject:

In my experience, you can chart a fandom's decline to a couple of things:

1) Prevalence of women of a certain type (read: fujoshis, the sex obsessed)

2) Prevalence of browns (particularly from Latin America) with an extremely poor grasp of English

3) Prevalence of LGBTQ+ types

If these are a significant proportion of prominent figures in a given fandom, avoid it like the plague. It will be a vortex of autism and stupid drama. You can literally chart fandom decline in some cases by watching if relatively well adjusted white dudes are interested and steering discussion, it's absurd.

 

[Made In Wales]

Honestly it's refreshing they brought back the chav princess to revive "globohomo: the show". I remember as a boy having the episode "The Doctor's daughter" play and my autistic boomer father watching the anti-war speech by Tennant and saying "I dont remember it being this gay"

Nigger bombing advertisement works because liberal whites have a negative same-race selection while blacks have a high same-race selection and are loose with their money. For The British Sci Fi show, maybe they should focus on their traditional viewers of autistic men instead of women and niggers. Even in 2005 they made beautiful and pure Rose have sex with that disgusting nigger Mickey

The BBC have tried this for the longest time with Death In Paradise, and even the normal audience are now saying 'enough of the relationship crap'.

Trouble is that the BBC Writers, Producers and Directors won't listen.

Even the Death In Paradise Fan Fiction writing is way better - one of the writers got an episode in Series 14 (the death at the football ground).

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

I am afraid to do that because I don't want people to think I'm being a troll and then mass report me.

I'm pretty certain the question will have been asked at least once in there. The posters tend to be fairly relaxed in the multimedia threads compared to lolcow specific ones.

Heck, the thread started as a troll post.

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/dr-who.9989/

 

[Mmemes]

Guys in my family first my mom watched Classic Dr. Who as a teen on PBS then I became a huge fan of Who as a kid then later my sisters watched NuWho for Tennant and Smith and now no one in my family watches Who cause it fucking sucks. Such great progression from the BBC.

 

[SirCliveSinclairdabbing]

16th doctor?
Nobodies gonna watch all that.
Damn that (Billie Piper) pussy nice.

 

[Corpun]

This show is really stringing along on nostalgia bait isn't it. Do British people really watch this show or is it just some cultural icon that refuses to die?

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

That's always the issue.

Show starts good, but gets a small and very loud fanbase of Tumblr-adjacent women and gay theater kids in general. The women tend to be fujoshi, who are into gay men. The show Supernatural got this so badly that these women harassed the male actors' real-life wives because they thought said wives were preventing the brother characters from fucking.

I refer, once again, to my post on the subject:

>Supernatural
I wanted to like that show but the Tumblr fanbase scared me off for the reasons you already described. I'm not one to sperg about white-this and brownoids-that, but you are dead fucking right that there are too many franchises and hobbies which started out with white guys as the predominant consumer base, only for the globohomos, commies, and LGBTWTFBBQs to invade and fuck everything up.

 

[Milkshake Sniffer]

Fans of the show

Usually these sort of comments are generalisations that reflect a small number of loud fools on social media. In this instance you can check with all of them directly and it only takes a couple of dozen phone calls.

The ability to regenerate can result in a Time Lord changing race and sex,

No he can't. Nu Who lore is no different to Disney Star Wars lore. It never happened.

 

[X Prime]

>Supernatural
I wanted to like that show but the Tumblr fanbase scared me off for the reasons you already described. I'm not one to sperg about white-this and brownoids-that, but you are dead fucking right that there are too many franchises and hobbies which started out with white guys as the predominant consumer base, only for the globohomos, commies, and LGBTWTFBBQs to invade and fuck everything up.

Wait until you find out it's happening to sports too. I have seen shit like fujos ship married players together.

 

[TaimuRadiu]

So is Billie Piper the next Doctor or what?

 

[tehpope]

This show is really stringing along on nostalgia bait isn't it. Do British people really watch this show or is it just some cultural icon that refuses to die?

It did die. It was off the air for most of the 90s and the early 00s. There were audio plays and novels and comics still. The BBC and Fox tried to bring it back around 96/97 with a TV movie. It aired but it never went anywhere.

So is Billie Piper the next Doctor or what?

yes. The doctor is skinwalking as his old companion. True peak Troon shit here.

 

[TaimuRadiu]

It did die. It was off the air for most of the 90s and the early 00s. There were audio plays and novels and comics still. The BBC and Fox tried to bring it back around 96/97 with a TV movie. It aired but it never went anywhere.


yes. The doctor is skinwalking as his old companion. True peak Troon shit here.

Can they just bring back Tom Baker already? He was the best Doctor.

(With this information you know I'm old.)

 

[Sweeter and Savoury]

ha ha the nigger didn't even last a single season and now they're going with some boring white chick whose been on the show before? How the fuck does that make sense?

Good thing Doctor Who only had 9 seasons. All this fan fiction can just be ignored thankfully.

 

[Woe-B-Gon (TM)]

The BBC and Fox tried to bring it back around 96/97 with a TV movie. It aired but it never went anywhere.

And I'd take that motorcycle-chase Eric-Roberts-does-Terminator-cosplay movie over anything the BBC has done in years.

 

[Spoonge]

Can someone explain to me what the appeal is of this show? I am full on The Last Stand here. I don't get it and I'm curious why people like it. I watched one episode with the dude who had no eyebrows and felt like the whole show was him cleaning up messes that his chavette friend intentionally created.

Well....and keep in mind I havent watched for ages...it was cheesy, goofy sci fi with some novel concepts and usually the role of Doctor was taken by someone with enough acting chops to make 'ageless, perpetually lonely, PTSD riddled alien who uses timetravel and showing humans the wonders and terrors of the universe as a way to keep running from his problems' something interesting to watch.

I liked all the Doctors up to 12. They each brought something to the role, even eyebrowless. Capaldi was the last good one. I liked the mutual toxic relationship he had with Clara. How they kept hurting each other but couldnt let each other go. How she was the first companion to have serious problems with how much the Doctor changes with each regeneration.

BUT. I will admit even those seasons people liked had plenty of problems and bad episodes. It was just we got stuff like the Waters of Mars to make up for it.

And it did give us Torchwood: Children of Earth. Which was probably the peak of modern BBC sci fi stories.

 

[SITHRAK!]

Can someone explain to me what the appeal is of this show? I am full on The Last Stand here. I don't get it and I'm curious why people like it. I watched one episode with the dude who had no eyebrows and felt like the whole show was him cleaning up messes that his chavette friend intentionally created.

It was a staple of my youth in the Jon Pertwee to Sylvester McCoy period. The Doctor was like the irascible eccentric uncle you wish you had, with his companions providing different personalities for some texture to the relationships within the TARDIS.

At the time there were few, if any, science-fantasy shows, let alone with the ability to bring a ‘monster of the week’ esthetic that the X-Files so successfully exploited in the 90’s.
Each iteration of the character brought something new and unique from the actors themselves. Tom Baker, arguably the most popular Doctor of all time, is genuinely a daffy eccentric in real life. Pertwee was a no-nonsense man of gravitas. McCoy is a fun-loving trickster (and his seasons had a sense of fun to them that later iterations sadly lacked).

For people that only got on board after the abortive McGann reboot onwards, they didn’t get to see classic Who for what it was, a fun, light show with silly monsters and situations (The Pirate Planet, written by Douglas Adams, was a favorite). It was a show that, while sometimes maybe being a little too scary for really young kids, was intended to appeal to the whole family.

From McGann onwards it started to take itself too seriously. The insertion of grimdark-lite themes (Bad Wolf, Ecclestone’s Doctor having PTSD etc) and the Doctor becoming less avuncular and more romantic in relation to some companions was a betrayal of core character traits.

It’s not a shock that you’re not finding nu-Who engaging. Most people, even fans, started checking out during the Matt Smith- Peter Capaldi era when, for instance, Edwardian London was suddenly portrayed as 40% nonwhite and lectures on diversity were being delivered in-camera.



So it went from family entertainment to the usual postmodern slop, with every kind of fucktarded progressive trope, from girlbossery, to retconning history, to race and gender swapping the doctor, to gaywashing, all in a misguided belief that the show was a propaganda vehicle instead of entertainment. That reliance on progwashing instead of entertainment is likely why it didn’t do much for you.

They should have stuck with the rubber monsters, kooky scripts, oddball fish-out-of-water companions and eccentric actors.

 

[WhiskeyJack]

Most people, even fans, started checking out during the Matt Smith- Peter Capaldi era when, for instance, Edwardian London was suddenly portrayed as 40% nonwhite and lectures on diversity were being delivered in-camera.

I tuned out after the 50th Anniversary because I felt that was a good getting-off point, they kept hinting at revealing more of the Doctor's backstory (even giving him a name) and the last thing I wanted was to learn more of his life history and ruin what was left of the mystery. I got a few episodes into Capaldi's run just to check him out as I like him as an actor, but I dropped the show by the time they redid CE's Dalek episode, Rusty or whatever it was called. Honestly, the writing had been going downhill for awhile already, I didn't care at all for the Smith's third season, regardless of any 'woke' progressive garbage.

Though truth is, I've always found NuWho to be too full of gays, every season had at least a few prominent gay character moments, which ruin the tone and often don't fit the setting (the lesbian dino/Sherlock and Holmes knockoff couple in Victorian England most obviously). I also don't care for the format; the old show would have four or more 30 min episodes for a single story, plenty of time to fully develop and explore whatever idea the writers had. The new 45min standalone episode format ends up being too formulaic and rushed most of the time.

I am one of the few people who actually liked Rose Tyler as a companion, mostly because she occasionally called someone "a bitchy trampoline" or what have you, which is more spirit than most companions have. Reminded me a lot of Leela.

And it did give us Torchwood: Children of Earth. Which was probably the peak of modern BBC sci fi stories.

And then we got Miracle Day, where a child rapist and murderer saves Earth in a self-sacrifice and tells his victim's mother he will hunt down her daughter in the afterlife.

 

[SITHRAK!]

Reminded me a lot of Leela.

She was my favorite companion of all time, followed closely by Ace, which is weird because I’m the CEO of Misogyny LLC.

 

[round robin]

I've never watched more than a few seconds of Doctor Who. When he "regenerates" he's still the same character with all the same memories, right? And the person he "regenerates" as is not supposed to be a pre-existing person, it's just a new shape for him? But now he's regenerated as a living (or maybe dead idk) person? Does that person still exist? What exactly is going on?

 

[Iron Jaguar]

The show Supernatural got this so badly that these women harassed the male actors' real-life wives because they thought said wives were preventing the brother characters from fucking

Gee Zisk Riced.
Mind you, I do recall catching a bit of a late season episode where they cross into "our" world and come across fanfiction where they are an item, so I guess the writers were very aware of just how insane their fanbase were.