Doctor Who: The Doctor's Regeneration Episodes Ranked Worst To Best

The regeneration of the Doctor brings a mixture of sadness and excitement. Sadness, because some of us will have become so attached to a Doctor/actor that resonated with our own personality: be it they were quirky, mysterious or charming, or simply that person was the Doctor you knew first, and subsequently grew up with- and the thought of anyone else piloting the TARDIS is nigh on sacrilege. Either way, it’s tissues at the ready - we don’t want them to go.

But just as soon as we've dried our eyes, there’s a bubbling anticipation when a new face emerges in front of us. What’s this Doctor going to be like? What will set them apart from their predecessors? What will they wear that will define this new incarnation as much as their adventures across time and space?

These unique episodes have seen the Doctor battle the Time Lords, take on giant spiders, and defeat the Daleks, but at the cost of their own lives. So thank you to all the actors past, present (and future) who put their own unique stamp on our favourite time travelling hero.

However the biggest thank you must go to two of the early pioneers of Doctor Who - producer Innes Lloyd and script editor Gerry Davis - for it is they who introduced the, as it turned out, ingenious concept of regeneration, and thus captivated an audience beyond 1966.

Although Sylvester McCoy says that he went out in "spectacular fashion... I think I got the best exit of all the Doctors", his incarnation - from a narrative viewpoint - isn't afforded a decent send off in the TV film by playing a mere sedentary role.

The Doctor's downtime in the opulent surroundings of the TARDIS - talk about bigger on the inside - is rudely interrupted by the escape of the Master's oozy remains, which sort of resembles an infant Prisoner Zero that proceeds to cause all manner of timey-wimey havoc with the console.

This skulduggery results in the TARDIS having to "instigate automatic emergency landing" on Earth - blimey, what are the chances? Unfortunately, for the Doctor, he chances upon a gun-toting gang who unceremoniously shoot him down.

So, in only a few moments, the Doctor goes from enjoying an on the nose science fiction novel and a cocktail of jelly babies, to lying down on an operating table and eccentrically babbling like one of McCoy's other memorable characters he portrays, Radagast the Brown.

Eventually, Dr Grace Holloway fails to live up to her "Amazing Grace" moniker by inadvertently killing the Doctor. Now that's what you call a companion in the making.

Goodbye enigmatic Doctor. Hello potential (on-screen) great: the parallel sequence of a morgue orderly watching Frankenstein whilst McCoy gurns into Paul McGann, with Terminator time travel lightning added for dramatic effect, makes this the creepiest of all the regenerations.