10 Doctor Who Changes That Were Completely Justified

10. It Feels Different This Time

You’d imagine that a biological process would be fairly consistent in the way it worked, but regeneration in the classic run was always a bit weird.

Sure, you had the majority fall into the general box of ‘whooshy effect around the face area’, but then there were some outliers, like Seven Frankensteining himself into Eight, Two dropping acid and falling down a big hole, and Tom Baker getting a cuddle from a bald ghost made of cotton. Nobody seemed quite sure how they wanted regeneration to work – they weren’t even consistent in whether the change happened pre or post death.

Cue the revival, in which all three showrunners have, remarkably, seemed to be in agreement with the style established in 2005 (minus Matt Smith’s little time-sneeze, but he’d already had his light show on the clock tower). This has been a nice connecting through-line over the years, making jumps between Doctors and showrunners a little less jarring, and frankly, it's a ruddy great special effect too.

Nothing says drama like having a little cry and shooting fireworks out of your head!