Day 134: The Tenth Planet Episode 4

It's just like any other final episode of a serial. The Doctor issues orders, the young male lead partakes in some action sequences, the young female lead gets captured and the baddies are defeated once more. But something feels different this time. The Doctor states when he wakes up that his body is "wearing a bit thin". It's an odd turn of phrase, it feels alien. We forget that the Doctor isn't one of us sometimes, but we put it down to him just being odd, and go on with our business watching the episode. After the Cyber-threat has been dealt with, we see the Doctor once more, but he's more aloof, more mysterious. Something is definitely happening as he goes off to the TARDIS, hurriedly sending it into flight. And even the TARDIS sounds different this time, reminding us that this now normal part of our lifestyle is secretly alien. Thing are different, changing before our eyes. The Doctor collapses onto the TARDIS floor. Again, this is nothing new, part of the way that the series works is that the Doctor is thrown into peril at the end of a serial to draw viewers back next week. But this is no ordinary peril. The camera moves to the Doctor's face and as the familiar wheezing groaning sound of the TARDIS engines roars away, we see a light envelop it, as the once familiar face of the Doctor becomes unfamiliar. Hartnell's grumpy old face that we've come to love, becoming the heart and soul of the programme and one of the primary reasons that we tune in week after week is dying, but a new face is coming. A younger face. New life is brought into this dying old programme. We don't know what is going on, how this is happening or indeed why this is happening, but it is. Doctor Who is changing, no, it's regenerating. Taking something that was hurt and bringing it back to life, albeit with a few changes. It could fail, it could succeed, we really don't know. But what we do know is that this series isn't just going to sleep. It's Got Work To Do.