10 Huge Doctor Who Moments That Didn't Matter At All

From the moment the Doctor regenerated into David Tennant (again), the question on everyone’s lips was: “Why?”. Also, "WHAT?!"

The real-world reason was clear – to draw in a big audience for Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary. But we were promised an in-universe explanation too, with lines like “Why did this face come back?” featuring prominently in all the trailers. In a way this mystery was the thrust of the entire 60th celebrations.

But in the end it was just the Doctor telling himself that he’s old and needs to slow down (or... something). Bit of a cheat really!

Like it or not but at least with Peter Capaldi it was woven into the plot in a significant way, by saying Twelve chose a face he met in Pompeii as a reminder to hold himself to the mark.

Conversely the answer for the Fourteenth Doctor's face was so throwaway that you could conceivably miss it quite easily.

In fairness this might be one of those things where fans get carried away with speculation – at the time were were all thinking that this was something to do with the Toymaker's meddling, or perhaps that it would be somehow link to the Metacrisis Doctor. But then again, when the show presents something as a massive moment and spends a full year hyping it, is it unreasonable to expect an equally massive answer?

Let’s face it, when it comes to actors coming back as different characters it’s always a bit of a scramble. Perhaps in the future we should just treat these cases as the coincidences they are, and leave it at that. Although in Billie Piper's case that probably won't be the route they go down...