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.”

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[ToroidalBoat]

They should've kept the doctor always regenerating as a dude. None of that SJW-ish "transgender" stuff.

Also, pre-JJ Star Trek is better than Doctor Who anyway. Cybermen and Daleks may be interesting though.

I've never watched more than a few seconds of Doctor Who.

From what little I've seen, there's very little space travel, and the gang are always getting kidnapped. I tried watching the first episode, and they get abducted by cavemen and there's something about fire. Lost interest soon after that. One may think a show with a vehicle that could go anywhere in spacetime instantly would be more interesting.

 

[whatever I feel like]

Seriously.

What happened to Christopher Eccleston's foxy sidekick?

She did a lot of drugs and looks like a hooker now.

Still, would.

 

[melty]

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.

The appeal of the show since it's revival is that you either want to be the doctor or you want to fuck him. That's why it's become increasingly unpopular with the new fanbase since they switched from young charismatic leads to old people and women. No one can relate to it anymore, so the only people still watching are weird die hards who won't admit that's the whole reason they liked the show in the first place. I'm not sure any of the old people who liked the show in the 60s are even still watching it.

 

[Neodanthril]

From what little I've seen, there's very little space travel, and the gang are always getting kidnapped. I tried watching the first episode, and they get abducted by cavemen and there's something about fire. Lost interest soon after that. One may think a show with a vehicle that could go anywhere in spacetime instantly would be more interesting.

it started out as an educational show, allegedly. the magic box was just the same idea as the magic school bus, a vehicle to get the characters to a place where they can teach the child audience about some historical topic. at some point this changed, but i couldnt tell you when exactly. i can tell you there was a huge change between the original running and the current iteration.

 

[Spoonge]

>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.

Its a real shame because the early seasons are genuinely great. Mullet rock and flannel road trip horror. The season 1 episode with the kid in the lake still creeps me the fuck out.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

it started out as an educational show, allegedly.

How is cavemen kidnapping crew because they want "the fire" (IIRC) educational?

 

[OrionBalls]

And still no ginger representation.

 

[Neodanthril]

How is cavemen kidnapping crew because they want "the fire" (IIRC) educational?

did the kids in magic school bus need to get cummed on by a salmon to explain how salmon propogate?

 

[whatever I feel like]

How is cavemen kidnapping crew because they want "the fire" (IIRC) educational?

They argued that, themselves, when making it but gave up and filmed it since the scripts were ready and they had a deadline. The Daleks, the second serial, had a lot of education/moralizing stuff in it but all the kids cared about was the scary "monsters" going on about exterminating so by the time they were actually able to take audience feedback into account they largely ditched the whimsy and wonder to focus on monsters for the second half of season 1 and every season there-after.

 

[Pentex]

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

The obvious has already been stated (the alien Time Lord can't get the girl; becomes the girl instead). I'm sure the BlueSky audience will love it.

I've had Whovians try to explain this show to me, and...yeah, it's no dice.

Billie Piper was kind of cute in that call girl show that was on Showtime back in the 00s.

 

[Beautiful Border]

I was a diehard Doctor Who fan when I was a kid. Watched the show religiously during the Eccleston and Tennant eras, watched reruns of the classic series and fell in love with that as well, and then sort of aged out of it and lost interest at some point during the Matt Smith era.

It really testifies to how worthless the show is now that my first reaction to seeing this article was "Oh, okay, whatever". If you had told ten year old me, "Hey, the woman playing Rose Tyler? She'll play the Doctor someday", that would have blown my mind. Now I can't even force myself to care.

 

[GloryHole Stalker]

The best thing I can say about this show is, when I was a kid in the 1980s, and it came on my local PBS station, I couldn't turn it off fast enough, lol.

 

[Purple Francis]

They've just been continually jumping the shark since Tennant left. Rose (Billies character) was the main companion of Tennants doctor, and their plots are the most fondly remembered by fans and casual viewers. But having the Doctor regenerate in to a side character from over a decade ago is... Certainly a choice that was made.

I really feel like they tried to get Tennant back to drum up hype, but he said sod off. So they went for Billie instead. If they wanted to dredge up a old, well liked character to be the Doctor that isn't Tennant, they should have gotten my GOAT Christopher Eccleston.

 

[Dog-O-Tron 5000v5.0]

Not only was Moffat the guy who said "let's put brown people in medieval Europe ahistorically for good boi points," RTD took it to the next level in his new reign by saying the show wasn't going to be optimistic anymore because "young people are growing up under devastating climate change and racism and we have to show things the way they see it." And besides explicitly making it Gay Scifi by and for gay people, he did that weird handicapped stanning with that abrasive wheelchair UNIT scientist who had a chip on her shoulder, the ridiculous TARDIS handicap ramp, and worst of all, the retconning of Davros as never having been injured and scarred in a chair, which is like taking Vader out of the suit. Actual disabled people liked to cosplay Davros as a cool villain but RTD decided to abledsplain to them why Davros was offensive to people in wheelchairs.

There's a couple of newer YT people who fawn over the show, Confused Adipose and Tharries. They love the new new era, are all in on Whittaker and Ncuti. Even they didn't like the finale. Tharries is is a guy who sounds like a retard and is in a wheelchair. He stans for the show so hard he was in a cameo this season. And even HE hated the finale. To paraphrase the quote about Walter Cronkite, "when you lose Tharries, you've lost even the most diehard woke fans."

I used to watch the show. I thought Tennant was OK, but too twee at times. In retrospect, Smith and Capaldi were the peak. I gritted my way through the beginning of Whittaker, Graham was a good character and I liked the actor from L&O:UK. The new Master was the highlight of that era. But I checked out with the Timeless Child when Chibnall ruined the Doctor's past. I came back for the Tennant specials thinking RTD would right things, only to get disappointed he doubled down on Chibnall's crap, because in the end he, Chibnall and Moffat are this unbreakable fraternity of 80s fans who ran the show and won't undercut each other.

Davies has horrible flaws as a writer which are glaring when you see them. He's an ideas guy. He likes to throw out Big concepts and never follow through or leave them to fans imaginations or others to follow up, which is lazy. Concepts and plot points like The Time War and the destructionof Gallifrey, Captain Jack's amnesia, "The Nightmare Child," the Human Doctor and Rose in another universe, bi-generation--thrown out there and never explained, unless by other writers like Moffat, who really fleshed out the Time War and how the Time Lord's vanished and could come back.

Moffat was really in hindsight the best of the three, though he had his flaws. He was a great expositor, giving the detailed explanations RTD lacked in his plots. His big writing sin is misdirection--he likes to build up a big concept or bad guy only to pull the rug out and say "nah, they're no big deal, the REAL threat is something else!"

Truthfully they would have made a great team in the old way of running the show, in the producer/script editor model. RTD could have been the John Nathan-Turner who was the public face of the show, dealt with the BBC execs, scouted cool international locations, got big name guest stars, and came up with big Concepts. Moffat would be the Eric Saward who wrote the scripts and fleshed out RTD's dumb ideas and made sure they weren't being rewritten at the last minute like RTD did.

The best thing to do for the show now, and as a continuity loving scifi nerd I hate to say it, is rest the show 5 years and do a Total Reboot. Actually have the guts to do what RTD didn't in 2005 and jettison the whole continuity like the TARDIS swimming pool. Go back to the original concept: a weird high school girl, and "unearthly child" if you will, who has gaps in her knowledge of history but also is very smart in science is followed to her home by concerned teachers. It's a junkyard, she goes into an old Police Box. They follow her in. It’s a giant Ship on the inside. A time machine. Her mean, scientist grandfather kidnaps them and takes them away and then can't get them home because he can't control the broken ship. Is he an alien? A human from the future? From the Victorian era? The writers shouldn't even know going in. Literally have the guts to make it up as you go along. No backstop. No Time Lords, Master, Daleks, etc. A really fresh show. Take it back to Sydney Newman.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

Classic tv move. Have a failing show? Remind people of a more successful season!

Looks like Doctor Who won't be able to pull the same trick as Dallas did when they menaged to bring back Bobby Ewing.

 

[Rubick]

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.

I don't get it either. Terrible actors for the most part fight a galactic threat of trash bins with plungers or some shit.

 

[Vic Viper T301]

I've never understood the draw of the show either. Back in the day I had a couple of very good friends that would get together with me and watch Star Trek. We ran through all of TNG and all of DS9 and had a great time. But Voyager was dragging halfway through and Enterprise wasn't great either, so they wanted to try Dr. Who. They liked it and kept watching, and this was at the height of David Tennant era so the show had a lot of hype behind it, but it just never grabbed me so I largely stopped coming by when they had Who nights. I said "I'll take the EMH over this Doctor any day."
Then the woman doctor showed up and even they stopped watching.

 

[pwnest injun]

Who the hell is still watching this?

 

[Not A Bunny]

Who the hell is still watching this?

Even the hate watchers aren't interested anymore. That's how boring it all is now. I remember still catching synopses of the Whitaker era. Nobody seems to care that much about the Gatwa era, and with good reason.

Even Whitaker was introduced with a distinctive costume, which, anyone with so much as a passing knowledge of the show could have described. Does Gatwa? I don't think the writers ever cared about Gatwa beyond "BLACK AND GAY". And if the people behind the show don't care, why the hell should the audience?

 

[TaimuRadiu]

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.

I want everyone to stop recommending anything Torchwood since that means I want to watch it if it's so damned good.

First series of Torchwood was... I noped out after watching a scene of a big dude jerk off to mid looking chavettes in a washroom

@melty

12th Doctor was almost better than Baker. Also I'm sure many fans both wanted to look like and fuck Jenna Louise Coleman.

Anyway here's scifi in a nutshell