There were rumors suggesting that Doctor Who would feature a bi-regeneration in the months leading up to "The Giggle," but it was admittedly hard to believe it would actually happen. Then I tuned into the final 60th-anniversary special with my Disney+ subscription and saw it with my own eyes. It's wild how Russell T. Davies pulled that off with Ncuti Gatwa and David Tennant. As surreal as that was on its own, however, Davies recently revealed another major detail that shook me to my core, and it could mean big things for the future of the franchise.
In a commentary track for "The Giggle," which is unfortunately not officially available to fans in the United States, Russell T. Davies dropped a pretty substantial reveal about the bi-regeneration (via @WilliamWhoDW on X). Read what Davies said to David Tennant and executive producer Phil Collinson when they watched the latest regeneration scene:
So the whole timeline bi-generated then. Sylvester McCoy…woke up in a morgue, and Jon Pertwee woke up on the floor of the laboratory. They all did. Most of those, the modern Doctors, just end up in their own TARDIS. They probably woke up in the TARDIS.
There is some dispute amongst fans regarding whether Russell T. Davies was delivering actual information with this comment or just theorizing. It if is indeed the former, then this is a major development. Assuming that every Doctor bi-regenerated into their next incarnation but continued to live, then it's feasible that every single Doctor is still alive and somewhere out there in the universe. I'm absolutely shaken by what that could mean, assuming again, he's genuine about this piece of information.
If every former Doctor is still alive, this presents yet another new and inventive way for a former protagonist to have adventures in the Whoniverse. More importantly, it would allow the franchise to bring back actor like Jon Pertwee or Sylvester McCoy to play The Doctor without explaining why they don't look like their past selves. Assuming they all lived for this long, they had to have aged!
I had already theorized that Doctor Who did the bi-regeneration to open the door for potential standalone adventures with David Tennant's Fourteenth Doctor without having to address him looking different from how he did as the Tenth Doctor. Assuming Russell T. Davies has canonized the return of every previous bearer of that title, it would appear his plans for the Whoniverse are much grander than that. The franchise now has the ability to bring back Matt Smith and others who left the show for their own new live-action adventures or even entirely different series.
This is great for someone like Peter Capaldi, who went on the record as not liking multi-Doctor adventures. Granted, he's someone who openly stated he doesn't want to return to Doctor Who, so there's no telling how receptive he'd actually be to reprising his role.
There are also additional hurdles with a star like Christopher Eccleston, who returned for other adventures but had issues with Russell T. Davies during his initial run and may not want to return to live-action. All this to say that while it's now easier than ever to get past Doctors into stories, it remains to be seen how successful the franchise would theoretically be at doing that. But again, we still have to keep in mind that these thoughts came solely from Davies, and we'll have to wait and see if this logic is officially established within the series itself. In the meantime, fans will be plenty occupied with Ncuti Gatwa's upcoming episodes, which will hopefully be as great as these specials were.
Doctor Who's 60th anniversary specials are available to stream on Disney+, and the upcoming Christmas special will stream on Monday, December 25th. It feels like there's a lot to look forward to with this franchise in the next couple of years, so be sure to catch up if you aren't already!
