10 MORE Important Doctor Who Details That Are Almost Never Mentioned

Regeneration is a messy and chaotic process. These days, the Doctor seems incapable of changing their face without half-destroying the TARDIS, crashing on some random planet, and spending a good few days as a deranged amnesiac before everything settles back down again.

But the thing is, this only seems to apply to the Doctor themselves.

Most other Time Lords seem to be pretty darn good at regeneration, at least to the extent that they don’t nearly blow up the room while they’re in the process! In fact, Romana had so much control over her regeneration that she was able to “try on” various different bodies and ask the Doctor’s opinion, before eventually settling on one she liked.

River Song was able to control her aging and didn't suffer from any sort of post glowy face trauma, and even the Master is back to his old self almost immediately after regenerating in Utopia – although, since he’s already insane 100% of the time, he likely didn’t have any marbles left to lose.

This seems to imply that regeneration is a skill that needs to be mastered – like playing the guitar or riding a horse – rather than a basic bodily function that comes naturally and effortlessly, like breathing.

Either the Doctor has the regeneration equivalent of asthma, or they need to get their act together and start practicing. Then they can finally just choose to be ginger after so many centuries of waiting.