10 Doctor Who Moments IMPOSSIBLE To Watch The Same After This
5. The Eighth Doctor's Regeneration Elixir Wasn't What It Seemed
For years, the Eighth Doctor’s regeneration remained a mystery. That was until the 2013 minisode The Night of the Doctor, which showed that it was quite an unusual affair.
Whereas most Doctors regenerate without any outside interference, the Eighth Doctor accepted a potion offered to him by the Sisterhood of Karn, to aid his transition into the War Doctor.
But what did this potion contain?
Onscreen, all we’re told is that it’s a special elixir designed to turn the Doctor into a warrior. But Steven Moffat’s novelisation of The Day of the Doctor, which includes a chapter based on The Night of the Doctor, suggests something very different.
In an aside with one of the novelisation’s many narrators (spoilers!), sisterhood leader Ohila reveals that the Doctor’s regeneration elixir was in fact – drumroll please – lemonade and ice.
“I was in a hurry,” Ohila reveals, "and it needed to look dramatic.”
She goes on to explain that the elixir merely served as a placebo, to awaken something in the Doctor that had been there all along.
Whether or not you consider this retcon canon, it certainly makes you look at The Night of the Doctor in a very different way.