Doctor Who: 14 Cool Details Steven Moffat Just Revealed About The Day Of The Doctor

3. John Hurt's Regeneration Was Added At The Last Minute

Doctor Who The Day Of The Doctor
BBC/Twitter: @StevenWMoffat

Immediately after that scene, the episode cuts to a shot of the War Doctor stood inside his TARDIS, before he regenerates into Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor.

It's quite an important moment in firmly establishing the link between War and Nine, but amazingly, it wasn't always part of Moffat's script.

In fact, the former showrunner added Hurt's regeneration "at the last minute", at the same time he was writing The Night Of The Doctor, the 50th anniversary prequel mini-sode starring Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor.

While it was disappointing that we didn't get to see War fully turn into Nine (Eccleston didn't want to reprise the role), it's always good to see a regeneration scene, and with Murray Gold's fantastic score and director Nick Hurran's sweeping aerial camera shot, this was a solid one.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.