“It Looked Like the Death of the Show”: RTD on Gatwa’s Original Open-Ended Doctor Who Regeneration

Russell T Davies has revealed that Ncuti Gatwa’s final Doctor Who regeneration was originally filmed as an open ending, with no successor appearing, before Billie Piper was later added to the cliffhanger.

The details come from an edited extract from Davies’ new memoir, The Queerest of Folk: A Life in Television, published by The Guardian ahead of the book’s release on 8 October.

Davies explains that Gatwa’s final episodes were made without knowing whether Disney would renew its Doctor Who deal.

“So we had no idea what was going on,” he writes.

With a third series uncertain, Davies says “the finale was intended to climax with an open-ended regeneration”.

“So we shot that with Ncuti: he smiled and said his last line, and the screen melted into a golden glow…”

There was originally nobody waiting to emerge from the regeneration.

For fans who would have preferred a completely clean handover to Doctor Who’s next production team, that was effectively the ending that had been planned.

However, Davies says it did not work once they saw it on screen.

“Except when we edited that together, it looked like the death of the show.”

He says the production team immediately considered how younger viewers might see it: “Think of children watching that. It’s like a death. We can’t do that to them.”

By the time the episode reached the edit, Davies says it was “pretty much confirmed that Disney had said no”, while the BBC was still deciding what would happen next.

The production was left, in Davies’ words, “stuck in limbo with many months of inaction”, while he continued watching an ending that “looked like too much of an ending”.

Eventually, Davies called a meeting with the show’s executives.

“We can’t transmit this,” he told them. “We need someone to step in. We need someone to be there. Someone for him to physically regenerate into in front of our eyes.”

Davies says the answer quickly became clear: “We decided the Doctor should regenerate into … Billie Piper!”

Piper was subsequently approached about returning.

“She was so delighted to do it, because she loves Doctor Who and she loves the team,” Davies writes, adding: “She gave us the fastest yes we could have had.”

Davies believes the revised ending achieved what he wanted.

“And it worked, because everyone paid attention to the show once more,” he writes, recalling how people were suddenly talking about “Billie, Billie, Billie!” after transmission.