Doctor Who's Missing Regeneration Scenes Are Finally Complete After Patrick Troughton's New Ending

Doctor Whohas a rich, extensive history that reaches all the way back to 1963, often making it difficult for new audiences to know exactly where to start. While this long history is usually a great thing, as there are so many classic episodes that audiences can explore and learn about, it also means that certain episodes have either been lost over time or are missing parts. There have been plenty of bumps in the road throughout Doctor Who’s many episodes, and that’s resulted in a handful of frustrating gaps in the story.

One of the most noteworthy omissions from Doctor Who’s catalog is the Second Doctor’s unusual regeneration scene. At the time of filming, the producers didn’t have a replacement in mind for Patrick Troughton and couldn’t reliably film a regeneration as they had for William Hartnell. As such, they merely replaced him in the first episode of Doctor Who’s seventh season with Jon Pertwee. It wasn’t a huge problem at the time, as there wasn’t much precedent for replacing the actor, but when the show continued to show every Doctor’s regeneration, Troughton’s became one of the only transformations that was missing.

Doctor Who's Remastered Version Of "The War Games" Includes The Second Doctor's Regeneration

The Newly Edited Episode Fixes The Problem

The colorized version of the Second Doctor and the black and white version of the regeneration scene in Doctor Who's The War Games

Thankfully, a remastered version of the Second Doctor’s final episode “The War Games” has finally worked around this issue and created a loose version of the character’s regeneration. A condensed, colorized version of this popular story was released in 2024 in an effort to help bring the show’s most beloved classic stories to new audiences, in the same way that “The Daleks” was remastered the year before. However, one of the biggest changes in this new edit used footage from Jon Pertwee’s episodes to reverse-engineer Patrick Troughton’s regeneration.

Instead of merely ending with the Second Doctor’s departure as the episode was initially released, “The War Games”’ new remaster includes a brief clip from Pertwee’s era and some enhanced visual effects to create the illusion of regeneration. While slightly controversial among fans, this decision helps fill an important gap in Doctor Who’s history in a way that helps newcomers fully experience the character’s backstory.

Doctor Who Previously Filled In Other Missing Regenerations

The War Doctor's Absence Was Quickly Explained

Matt Smith, John Hurt, and David Tennant as the Doctors in the Doctor Who episode The Day of the Doctor. — The Tenth, Eleventh, and War Doctors in Doctor Who The Day of the Doctor

Although Troughton’s regeneration was the last that needed to be filled in, it certainly wasn’t the first. Doctor Who’s shocking season 7 finale “The Name of the Doctor” revealed that another incarnation of the Time Lord existed which audiences had never seen before, and the show wasted no time filling in those gaps. A six-minute short titled “The Name of the Doctor” brought Paul McGann back to explain how the Eighth Doctor regenerated into the newly-named War Doctor, and “The Day of the Doctor” offered a brief glimpse of this incarnation transforming into Christopher Ecclestone’s Ninth Doctor.