Jodie Whittaker’s Regeneration to Break Revival’s Tradition

The TARDIS won’t be ablaze this time round

The Time Lord is set to have a new face this year when Jodie Whittaker exits from her role as The Thirteenth Doctor. Not only that, but it seems there’ll be a change to the usual setting of The Doctor’s regeneration scene.

Since Doctor Who was brought back in 2005, it has become tradition for the iconic regeneration scene to take place within the TARDIS. However, director Jamie Magnus Stone seems to have confirmed that this time round we’ll be seeing Jodie change into her successor somewhere new

The director was noted as saying the following in a recent interview with Radio Times:

We shot the last-ever scene in the TARDIS, and said goodbye to the TARDIS, and then there were some tears, and then we went out to film, basically, her regeneration, and the last shot that we did, I think, will be the last shot in the episode as well. So it was really nice to do things in sequence. And it was mostly Jodie and Mandip’s scenes on that last day. So it was just super-emotional.

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Before the show was brought back in the early noughties, it wasn’t uncommon for our Time Lord to regenerate outside the confines of his/her home. Examples of this include Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor and Sylvester Mccoy’s Seventh Doctor.

Whittaker’s regeneration will take place in the third special of 2022 which is due to air in the backend of this year. The special will air as part of the BBC’s centurion celebrations. Whittaker departs alongside current executive producer and head writer Chris Chibnall. From there, the reigns of the show will be passed back to Russell T Davies.

Davies is known for bringing Doctor Who back from the dead with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth incarnation. The return also featured Billie Piper as the new companion, Rose Tyler. Davies’ departure was marked by David Tennant’s final episode as the Tenth Doctor on January 1, 2010. This exit made way for Matt Smith’s Eleventh version with Steven Moffat taking over head writer duties.

It is currently unknown who will replace Whittaker or if Mandeep Gill will stay on the show’s companion. Favourites to replace her include It’s a Sin‘s lydia West and Years & Years frontman Olly Alexander.

Doctor Who returns in the Spring with the second of three specials, ‘Legend of the Sea Devils’.