‘Doctor Who’ Shocker: Jodie Whittaker Regenerates Into [SPOILER]

If you were expecting Jodie Whittaker’s final episode as The Doctor on Doctor Who to end with the character turning into the actor who is ostensibly playing the new Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa? Well, get ready for a surprise. Spoilers past this point, but in the final moments of “The Power Of The Doctor”, Jodie Whittaker regenerated into none other than… David Tennant, who previously played the tenth iteration of The Doctor from 2005-2010.

Here’s how it went down, followed by an explanation on why this is a big deal for any more casual viewers (or people who skipped the episode entirely). After a climactic battle with arch-enemy The Master (Sacha Dhawan) left The Doctor mortally wounded, she retreated to her TARDIS for some ice cream and Earth-gazing with Companion Yaz (Mandip Gill). That out of the way, and Yaz dispatched to a support group for former Companions, The Doctor went to a lovely cliff to watch the sun set one last time.

As the energy of regeneration, the process which preserves the Doctor’s life while allowing them (in real world terms) to be played by a new actor, as a new character, swirls around her, she says, “That’s the only sad thing. I want to know what happens next. Right then, Doctor whomever I’m about to be. Tag. You’re it.”

The energy then shoots out of the Doctor’s hands and torso, as we’ve seen many times before on the show. But instead of transforming into someone new (i.e., Gatwa), not only does her face and body transform in those of Tennant, but her clothes transform into a new version of Tennant’s classic costume as the Tenth Doctor, as well.

Stunned and confused, The Doctor feels around in his mouth with his tongue. “I know these teeth,” he says. Then he begins to look around at the rest of his body, whatever he can see, and utters a very Tennant, very confused, “What? What? What?” As a stinger, the end credits jokingly state “And Introducing David Tennant as The Doctor,” riffing on the idea that usually in these moments we usually get an intro to the new Doctor at the end of the previous iteration’s run.

So why is this a big deal? Because it’s never happened in the nearly sixty year history of Doctor Who. We’ve certainly seen previous versions of The Doctor interact with each other, and pop up again — even in this episode, David Bradley, Colin Baker, Peter Davison, Paul McGann, Sylvester McCoy and Jo Martin all helped out via an afterlife/hologram deal that’s a little too complicated to explain here. But once regeneration happens, the whole idea is to introduce an entirely new actor, not step backwards in time.

This, however, is a unique circumstance, and those worried that Gatwa was a red herring should know that he will be showing up at some point. This week’s episode is not only Whittaker’s final turn as The Doctor, it’s also showrunner Chris Chibnall’s final episode. Next year, not only will David Tennant be returning to Doctor Who, but former companion Catherine Tate will be back. And perhaps most importantly, Russell T. Davies, the man who reinvented Doctor Who for the modern era will be back as showrunner for the series’ sixtieth anniversary.

What this all adds up to is three special episodes (exact premiere date TBA, though the first is expected to roll out in November, 2023) celebrating the anniversary of Doctor Who involving a big mystery: why has the Doctor returned to a previous iteration for the first time in his history? That’s almost definitely the plot Tennant and company will be exploring, and one that will lead to Gatwa joining, officially, as the Fourteenth iteration of The Doctor, when the new series kicks off in earnest (though Gatwa will be in the first special, as teased in a brief promo from the BBC).

Also joining the cast for the specials are Jacqueline King, Karl Collins and Bernard Cribbins, who filmed scenes shortly before his death earlier this year. Yasmin Finney is joining as a character mysteriously named Rose (potentially after another of Tennant’s Companions, Rose Tyler), and Neil Patrick Harris is playing a character who looks like a villainous toymaker.

Whatever happens, Whittaker is done as The Doctor (for now), Chibnall has passed the keys to the TARDIS to Davies, and a new era of Doctor Who is about to begin — just with an old face at the helm.