Tenth Doctor costume transition

If you have been following my blogs you may have seen the coverage I have done of the costume transition scenes at the beginning of a new Doctor’s era.

When William Hartnell became Patrick Troughton, it wasn’t just his face that changed – his costume miraculously regenerated at the same time (see right).

Later, when Jon Pertwee took over, his new clothes were more realistically introduced by having The Doctor lift them from the changing room of the hospital where he is taken at the start of Spearhead From Space.

But it was Tom Baker’s transition scene that was the first to make some play on the anticipation of what The Doctor would be wearing.

Looking through the list of regenerations, I have realised there seems to be two dominant scenarios for these scenes:

The Hospital Changing Room scenario

The Third Doctor steals the clothes of a hospital consultant before stealing his car as well; after the Eighth Doctor emerges from the morgue, he takes the clothes of a surgeon, who is going to a fancy dress party; the latest regeneration sees the Eleventh Doctor lifting a the parts of his costume from the hospital locker room as he strides through.

The TARDIS Dressing-up Room scenario
Although we don’t see the dressing-up room, the Fourth Doctor keep popping out of the TARDIS dressed in unsuitable costumes; the Fifth Doctor finds his new clothes in the TARDIS, almost as if he was supposed to; the Sixth Doctor is the first to be seen in the dressing-up room to choose his new clothes; followed by the Seventh Doctor who goes through a similar selection.

We never saw a transition scene for Christopher Eccelston, so it wasn’t until David Tennant took over did we finally get a New Series spin on this classic key scene.

This fell firmly under the TARDIS Dressing-up Room Scenario, with a fantastically re-imagined dressing-up room, courtesy of The Mill’s special effects gurus!

To start with we see The Doctor scanning racks and racks of clothes, pausing over a red military tunic (see left) before settling on his brown pinstripe suit and stunning long brown coat (sorry, you know how I LOVE that coat!) (see below).

Of note here is a Tom Baker scarf on the right of the picture, which apparently is owned by then producer Phil Collinson – knitted by his mother!