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!

Sadly though, apart from the scarf, there is nothing relating to previous regenerations here, which is a little disappointing.

Anyway, now he’s fully kitted out in his new clothes, do we finally get to see the full extent of the new Dressing-up room! (see below)

But it is THIS shot that houses what we have been looking for . . .
The area to look at first is to the right of centre. This is where the CGI takes over – and the costume spotters can have a field-day!

I have been reliably informed by the effects artist who did the shot that you can see the following, from left to right:

Jon Pertwee’s Inverness Cape from Terror of the Autons

A large brass/gold lamp stand seen in the console room from various Hartnell and Troughton stories including Power Of the Daleks (see right, top)

The Sixth Doctor’s coat in the shadows behind the pillar

Steven Taylors striped jumper as worn in The Celestial Toymaker (see right, middle)

The mirror that the Fifth Doctor viewed his new costume in from Castrovalva (see right, bottom)

In front of all this there is also:

A chest, again seen in the console room from Power of the Daleks, and in front, Second Doctor’s tall hat (see right again, top)

In the silver bucket:

Fifth Doctor’s hat . . . (see right again, bottom)

. . . on the end of the Sixth Doctor’s umbrella, which was used in The Two Doctors (see left, top) (and used again to fend off the Rani in Time And The Rani) . . .

. . . next to Seventh Doctor’s umbrella (see left, middle top) – if you look at the top right corner of Davison’s hat you can see the question mark is facing backwards

To the right of this on the floor is the First Doctor’s hat from Reign of Terror with the big white feather (see left, middle bottom)

And leaning against the right hand side of the mirror is the First Doctor’s twisted walking cane, used in a number of stories including The Aztecs (see left, bottom)

But amazingly that not all.
If you look to the lower level you can also see:

On the spiral stairs is the Fourth Doctor’s hat (brown version)

And hanging up is a Thal cloak from The Daleks (see right)

I am also told there are other bits hidden amongst the the generic stuff, but such that they cannot be recognise, but this did include a kilt to represent Jamie and one of the green coats is intended for the Eighth Doctor.

I never knew that SO much had gone into this blink-and-you-miss-it shot, but I guess this sort of stuff is there for the fans – and the DVD pause button!

You can read my reviews of the other
Costume Transition scenes below:

Fourth Doctor Transition

Fifth Doctor Transition

Sixth Doctor Transition

Seventh Doctor Transition