Interesting article about the inspiration for the effects (not special) of regeneration.

Doctor Who regeneration was 'modelled on LSD trips'


Also I like this line...


Now that is some story arc when the TimeWar has been seeded in the shows mythology for soooo long

Also some great early impressions of how viewers found the previous Doctors.

DW origins was on the Today program (Radio 4):

Viewers' complaints about the very first Dr Who programmes are to be released today by the BBC, along with internal memos which reveal that the Doctor's regenerations were modelled on bad LSD trips. Andrew Cartmel, novelist and playwright, and former Doctor Who script editor, reflects on how the Time Lord's relationship with the public has change since first appearing on our screens.

What an hilarious article. I can so see that the regenerations were like a bad LSD trip.
Not sure about the ones in the new series though.

As for viewer reactions, initially people were very critical of each of the new Doctors, but by the second story they seem to really get into it and become even more of a fan.
I think it's a testament to Dr Who that any change made initially provoked a negative reaction from viewers, simply because they liked the way it was so much, but they soon got used to it and became intrigued and excited by the new direction.

I just thought the galactic war thing was some well known part of who lore that i know nothing of.

If not thats quite cool.

Most of this is old news. It's long been said that the regeneration was supposed to have an LSD feel to it.

The Doctor's reasons for leaving Gallifrey are never given onscreen, but initial, offscreen, production musings suggested there may have been an intergalactic war. (Of course, Gallifrey and Time Lords weren't invented til much later).

The idea of regeneration is GENIUS, isn't it?! Created back in 1966, as a way to keep the series going after Bill Hartnell's ill health forced him to quit, it's integral to the series and has kept it going for nearly half a century. Whoever had that idea (Gerry Davis? Innes Lloyd? Someone else?) is a hero.

I always wondered if the makers of James Bond wish they thought of it first. But that would have taken James Bond into a whole other direction, if he was some alien or something. But with the lead actor changing numerous times, you do lose the feeling of continuation between the series of films.
Doctor Who would have most likely just ended when William Hartnell left, but instead some genius used the changing of the show's main part to it's advantage.

They always used to say you became a different person after dropping acid...

Daily Mail readers?

Aint it just. In many ways its a keystone of the whole success story of DW that you can 'just' recreate your main star and make it a part of the whole series.

Some very interesting material about all this in the BBC archives:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/changingwho/

I've never understood why the James Bond franchise has never thrown in a line about the name being a fake identity which, along with the 007 number, is passed on to a newly appointed agent.

After all for a man who was a Submarine commander during the war Daniel Craig is looking rather spry.

I fully agree. My view is the the same. Bond is a different agent with each actor only with the same name identity and 007. So all 006's will be Paul Smith etc

Yeah-that's actually a common fan theory. It's a bit like
the "Phantom" comic strip, where each new Phantom is the son of the previous one.

Like Clive thought the Doctor was?

I know this is totally off-topic, but I never really thought of that before. I was always quite accepting of it being the same character only played by a different actor, however that is an intriguing theory.

If canonised though, it would leave the door open for female and gay bonds...

Perhaps James Bond is another Time Lord who's been exiled to Earth - just not quite as much of a pacifist as The Doctor

Different agents, all called James Bond, at least two of whom were married to the same women at the point at which she died?

I had a look at the stuff on the BBC Archive site. I wasn't around when Doctor Who was on originally, it's interesting to see that not much seems to have changed.

There's a gallery of images from stuff the old Doctors did before they were the Doctor. That was interesting because I've only ever known the classic Who actors through Doctor Who. I saw David Tennant and Matt Smith floating around in things before they did Who so it's interesting to have a glimpse into how the older actors would have been perceived when they joined the show.

Reading the comments about Sylvester McCoy's first series, it doesn't really seem surprising that it was axed a bit later.

He thought it was a title passed from father to son, so yeah, just like the Phantom example.

I was gonna say, that wouldn't work with one being married to a woman at the end of one film, she dies, and in the next one with a different actor he's mourning her death...

Whovians

McCoy's first series was rubbish... Bonnie Langford, Kate O Mara and Paradise Towers... ewww...

Ace almost singlehandedly saved it.