Doctor Who: Every Regeneration Ranked From Worst To Best
4. The Seventh Doctor (Doctor Who: The Movie)
The 1996 Doctor Who TV movie is extremely divisive. On one hand, it was praised for being more "grown-up" with a more mature tone and a greater emphasis on violence. On the other hand, the plot was heavily criticised, and some fans claimed the whole thing felt very un-Who like.
Regardless of your thoughts on the project, you can't deny that Sylvester McCoy's regeneration into Paul McGann was pretty cool.
After being shot by a street gang (told you it was darker), the Doctor dies on the operating table of a San Francisco hospital. He then undergoes his most gruesome regeneration yet, his face contorting and twisting as it changes.
The entire sequence is intercut with a morgue security guard watching the 1931 movie Frankenstein. The parallels between the famous monster and our hero are clear, and are presented very nicely in this sequence.
This might sound obvious, but this regeneration feels very cinematic. It uses more special effects than any other up to this point, and is filmed far more artistically than Who fans are used to.
The movie might've bombed, but at least they tried something new with this scene.