Though the circumstances which led to the event were disputed, (PROSE: Time and the Rani [+]Pip and Jane Baker, adapted from Time and the Rani (Pip & Jane Baker), Target novelisations (Target Books, 1988)., Spiral Scratch [+]Gary Russell, BBC Past Doctor Adventures (BBC Books, 2005).; AUDIO: The Brink of Death [+]Nicholas Briggs, The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure (Big Finish Productions, 2015).) the Sixth Doctor underwent his regeneration into the Seventh Doctor within the control room of his TARDIS shortly after the craft had been brought to the planet Lakertya by the First Rani. (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 24 (BBC1, 1987).)
History[]
Anticipation[]
Info from Project Lazarus [+]Cavan Scott and Mark Wright, Main Range (Big Finish Productions, 2003)., Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing [+]Robert Shearman, Short Trips: The Muses (Short Trips, 2003)., The Book of My Life [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW., & Gone Too Soon [+]Christopher M. Wadley, Short Trips and Side Steps (Short Trips short stories, 2000). needs to be added
While living on Gallifrey, there was a rumour that the First Doctor was able to glimpse his first seven regenerations during a game of Eighth Man Bound. (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet [+]Lawrence Miles, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1996)., Lungbarrow [+]Marc Platt, adapted from Lungbarrow, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1997).)
After the TARDIS became "stalled in the equivalent of a galactic lay-by", the Sixth Doctor had a worried thought of Peri Brown growing old and dying in the TARDIS, while he would "go on regenerating until all [his] lives [were] spent". (TV: Vengeance on Varos [+]Philip Martin, Doctor Who season 22 (BBC1, 1985).)
During an encounter with the First Rani on Koturia, the Doctor was warned his regeneration could "happen sooner than [he thought]". (PROSE: Something Borrowed [+]Richelle Mead, Puffin eshort (Puffin Books, 2013).)
When the Tremas Master exposed the Valeyard's alliance with High Council to the Doctor at his trial, he revealed that the Valeyard was acting as the prosecutor for the trial in exchange for the Doctor's remaining regenerations. (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Robert Holmes and Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).)
After being mortally wounded by Zor, the Doctor began to regenerate, and was on the brink of a regenerative collapse when he was found and healed by Captain Jack Harkness after the TARDIS landed in late 20th century Wales. (AUDIO: Piece of Mind [+]James Goss, The Lives of Captain Jack: Volume Two (The Lives of Captain Jack, Big Finish Productions, 2019).)
When discussing cosmetic surgery, the Doctor quipped that he would only change his appearance "over [his] dead body". (AUDIO: Reverse Engineering [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.)
The causes[]
Banging his head[]
![The Doctor lies crippled on the TARDIS floor. (: [+]Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 24 (BBC1, 1987)](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/tardis/images/6/65/Time_and_the_Rani_Sixth_Doctor_dying.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20250620110100)
The Doctor lies crippled on the TARDIS floor. (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 24 (BBC1, 1987).)
According to the first account, the Sixth Doctor was piloting his TARDIS when the controls became unresponsive, heralding an attack that he was unable to prevent due to the HADS being deactivated. (PROSE: Time and the Rani [+]Pip and Jane Baker, adapted from Time and the Rani (Pip & Jane Baker), Target novelisations (Target Books, 1988).) The attack buffeted the TARDIS out of flight, (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 24 (BBC1, 1987).) and caused the Doctor's head to collide with the TARDIS control console (PROSE: Time and the Rani [+]Pip and Jane Baker, adapted from Time and the Rani (Pip & Jane Baker), Target novelisations (Target Books, 1988).) as the TARDIS was pulled on to Lakertya. (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 24 (BBC1, 1987).)
Killed by Time's Champion[]
According to the second account, just after almost becoming the Valeyard and nearly killing Mel Bush on 1 January 2000, the Sixth Doctor was influenced by his next incarnation into killing himself. The Seventh Doctor did this out of fear of becoming the Valeyard (PROSE: Head Games [+]Steve Lyons, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1995).) and because he felt he needed to be "born". According to Death's version of events, the Sixth Doctor joyfully piloted his TARDIS into a tractor beam, (PROSE: Love and War [+]Paul Cornell, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1992).) with his regeneration being triggered when he hit his head on the TARDIS control console (PROSE: Head Games [+]Steve Lyons, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1995).) as the TARDIS was pulled on to Lakertya. (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 24 (BBC1, 1987).)
Aged by the Spiral Chamber[]
According to a third account, the Sixth Doctor was forced to sacrifice much of his chronal energy to stop the Lamprey, a pan-dimensional being, from destroying creation with the power of the Spiral Chamber, a powerful Time Lord artefact that acted as a portal into the nexus of the Time Vortex. The Doctor was able to wrestle the Lamprey into the Chamber, but he was drained of time-sensitive chronon particles which helped sustain his life force, causing him to start deteriorating as he made his way back to the TARDIS with Mel. Wanting to take a final look at the universe he had just saved, the Doctor deactivated his TARDIS' defensives to enable hover mode as he started to age into an older body, while also telling Mel not to feel cheated by his fate, as he was satisfied with the life he had led, before he drifted into a half-conscious haze and slumped over. However, the TARDIS was suddenly attacked by a tractor beam (PROSE: Spiral Scratch [+]Gary Russell, BBC Past Doctor Adventures (BBC Books, 2005).) and forced to land on the planet Lakertya, (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 24 (BBC1, 1987).) with the Doctor too weak to escape. (PROSE: Spiral Scratch [+]Gary Russell, BBC Past Doctor Adventures (BBC Books, 2005).)
Struck down by Fenric[]
A fourth account explained that Fenric manipulated the timelines so that the Sixth Doctor regenerated into a "baffled innocent", with the larger goal of maneuvering the "hapless imbecile" in his scheme. (PROSE: The Runes of Fenric [+]James Goss and Steve Tribe, The Doctor: His Lives and Times (BBC Books, 2013).)
Stopping the Valeyard[]
According to a fifth account, the Sixth Doctor found out that the Valeyard had infected the symbiotic nuclei of his TARDIS with creatures called Nathemus to help him replace the entire Time Lord civilisation with his consciousness, and determined that the only way to defeat the Valeyard was to send a message to his younger self just prior to the Valeyard's victory and have him regenerate by going to the deadly radiation he had earlier detected in the Lakertyan System. As the younger Doctor found his TARDIS caught in a barrage of laser fire made of focused radiation beams, the future Doctor faced the Valeyard in a final confrontation, where he stated the Nathemus were only linked to the unique mind he had in his present state and that a regeneration would replace every cell in his brain, leaving the Nathemus without any connection to feed on to manipulate the TARDIS.
As his consciousness began to wane in the wake of time being rewritten, the younger Doctor saw Mel lose consciousness as he felt the radiation, which was harmless to a human, killing him. As he fell over onto the floor, the Doctor made peace with the idea his time had come as a figure appeared to him and told him it was "far from being all over." The Doctor wondered who it was as regenerative energy began to flow out of him, (AUDIO: The Brink of Death [+]Nicholas Briggs, The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure (Big Finish Productions, 2015).) and the TARDIS was forced to land on Lakertya, (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 24 (BBC1, 1987).) with the future Doctor feeling his younger counterpart regenerating. (AUDIO: The Brink of Death [+]Nicholas Briggs, The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure (Big Finish Productions, 2015).)
The regeneration[]
As the TARDIS was buffed by the tractor beam pulling it to Lakertya, the Doctor and Mel were left unconscious on the floor of the TARDIS control room, with the Doctor's exercise bike falling over in the chaos. Once the TARDIS was made to land on the planet, the First Rani and her Tetrap servant, Urak, forced their way in, and the Rani ordered Urak to "leave the girl" as it was "the man [she] want[ed]". With the instruction to take him to the Rani's laboratory, Urak rolled the Doctor onto his back in order to take him away, just as the final stages of the regeneration commenced, and the Doctor fully transformed into his seventh incarnation. (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 24 (BBC1, 1987).)
Immediate aftermath[]
Info from Time and the Rani [+]Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 24 (BBC1, 1987). needs to be added
After defeating the Rani, the Seventh Doctor wrote in his diary about his recovering from the regeneration. (PROSE: First Day of the Doctor [+]Paul Lang, Doctor Who The Official Annual 2024 (Penguin Group, 2023).)
Legacy[]
When the Eighth Doctor was stabbed by Charlotte Pollard to purge a contamination of anti-time, a mental construct of the Sixth Doctor in the Doctor's mind applauded his eighth incarnation's demise as being "a better exit" to his own, which derided as a "bang on the head". (AUDIO: Zagreus [+]Alan Barnes and Gary Russell, Main Range (Big Finish Productions, 2003).)
Behind the scenes[]
Sylvester McCoy on set as the Sixth Doctor.
As Colin Baker had been dismissed from the role of the Sixth Doctor, he decided to decline from returning for a single episode in Season 24, as he feared it would diminish his job opportunities if word got out that he was still filming for Doctor Who. When he tried to haggle for filming all of Season 24, he was not contacted about returning again.[source needed] Instead, Sylvester McCoy was cast as the Seventh Doctor, and the choice was made to film a regeneration sequence with McCoy playing both incarnations during the transformation. During the sequence, a white swirling mist was added to McCoy's face in post-production. By coincidence, the stage production Doctor Who and the Daleks in Seven Keys to Doomsday [+]Terrance Dicks, 1974. had done a similar trick in 1974, having Trevor Martin play both the Third Doctor and a new Fourth Doctor.
Colin Baker imposed onto the Doctor's face with CGI
One notable discrepancy noted by both cast and fans is that McCoy is much smaller in stature than Baker, making it appear that the Sixth Doctor "shrunk" right before regenerating. An explanation for this discrepancy is given in PROSE: Spiral Scratch [+]Gary Russell, BBC Past Doctor Adventures (BBC Books, 2005)., as the Doctor is said to have diminished in height due to being weakened over the plot of the story.
A modification of the regeneration, which used CGI to include Colin Baker's face, was included as an easter egg on the Time and the Rani DVD release.
