Doctor Who: 5 Reasons You Should Give The 1996 TV Movie A Chance

4. The Regeneration Scene Has A Clever Twist

Thanks to modern CGI, the regeneration scenes can now look as explosive and awe-inspiring as they always deserved to look, but while the regeneration scene in the movie may not have been as technically advanced as the ones we're used to seeing nowadays, it had a clever twist that reminded us how, well, alien regeneration is to humans. As the lightning began to sizzle inside the morgue cell where the Doctor's body lay inert, we see one of the morgue workers watching Universal's 1931 Frankenstein film on TV. While the mad scientist strives to bring life to his creation, we cut back to similar processes happening to the Doctor's body, and by the time Frankenstein exults, "It's alive!" we see the new Doctor rise from the table. To add to the mood, a storm is raging outside. This was certainly an unorthodox way of showing regeneration--up to this point, we had never actually seen the Doctor die; he had always regenerated right at the last minute. The light would surround his features, and the new man would emerge before the old body technically died. But this time the anesthesia used for the surgery interfered with the regeneration process, and we watched the Doctor die. When he regenerated hours later, it really was like watching a man come back from the dead.