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Doctor Who: "The Reality War" Script Raises More S02 Finale Questions

The release of the shooting script for the Doctor Who season 2 finale, "The Reality War," raises more questions about the alternate endings.

The BBC Writers Room has released downloadable PDFs of the scripts for the second – and by now final – Disney+ season of Doctor Who, all eight episodes. These are offered as educational resources to scholars, academics, film and screenwriting students, so they can read and see what a BBC TV script looks like. This is what the licence fee pays for, in addition to dramas, reality shows, educational programs, and investigative news reporting. Reading scripts is a good way to learn how to write a TV script. Scripts are the start of how the sausage is made after all. Of course, Doctor Who fans grabbed the scripts for personal enjoyment, but many also downloaded the finale episode "The Reality War", looking for clues and answers. Did someone lie about how early or late the regeneration scene where Ncuti Gatwa turned into Billie Piper was written? If so, whom?

Ncuti Gatwa had said on The Graham Norton Show on November 11th, 2024, "It is all going well. We did the second series this year, the Christmas special is coming up, and we are filming a third series next year." However, fans have noted that the "regeneration" script for " The Reality War ", the draft uploaded to the Writer's Room, was completed on September 9th, 2024. This is labelled the shooting script. "Blue Amends" would be the amended draft, likely printed on blue paper to make it stand out from previous drafts. Each would have been printed in a different colour to distinguish it from a different stage of production and development. If you look at the top right corner of the pages, they're marked "March 26th 2024," which would probably have been the date Russell T. Davies submitted the finished draft.

Gatwa's remark was in a YouTube excerpt of The Graham Norton Show, but when the episode was broadcast days later, his line was completely cut out. Since then, Davies, Gatwa, and the BBC have insisted that Gatwa's departure at the end of Season 2 was the plan all along. There have been rumours that Gatwa had originally planned to stay for at least three seasons and hoped to face the Daleks at some point, but then he suddenly announced he was leaving at the end of the season. Every fan believes something happened behind the scenes: Gatwa's rumoured discontent with how long Disney was taking to officially greenlight a third season, and rumours of Disney's dissatisfaction with the show, leading Gatwa to decide to leave.

Yet the script for "The Reality War" that wrote out the original ending with Susan (Carole Ann Ford) was dated September. That's caused confusion amongst fans today, and they think the "conspiracy" to erase and cover up that alternate ending is afoot.

Below is the script for the final scene of the episode, which features the regeneration.

Doctor Who: "The Reality War" – Scene 109: The Final Scene

EXT. TARDIS IN SPACE

The TARDIS suspended in a magnificent cosmos.
THE DOCTOR stands in the OPEN DOORWAY. His HANDS are GLOWING
with GOLDEN ENERGY. He looks up and out, into space.

THE DOCTOR
I'm never alone. With you.

Far away: A STAR. Twinkling. That same star.

THE DOCTOR (CONT'D)
Joy to the world.

And now the GOLDEN ENERGY is spiralling out of him, curving
and enfolding him in shimmering curls. And he's smiling.

THE DOCTOR (CONT'D)
And that's exactly the word. This
has been an absolute joy.

He take a deep breath, and…
REGENERATION ENERGY volcanoes out of him! COLLAR and SLEEVES
filled with STREAMING BOLTS OF GOLD.
WIDER. The Tardis in space, the Doctor in the doorway, with
energy SHOOTING OUT INTO THE GALAXY, a wild display.
CLOSER, as the Doctor's face finally vanishes into the gold.
And…
A face appears!
A person wreathed in miraculous gold and light.
Who says…

Oh, hello!

END OF EPISODE 8 *

S2, Episode 8 – Blue Amends – 30.09.24 75.

============================================================================================

So Was the Regeneration Already Written before Gatwa Quit?

It seems that Davies wrote the new ending in September, and there were no plans to cast Billie Piper in the regeneration. The latter was shot back in February 2025 and quickly inserted for the series' premiere in Spring. Did he already have an inkling that Disney might not offer a deal for another season of Doctor Who? It's not unlike Davies to write an alternate ending with a regeneration just in case. In the 2005 revival of the show, a different cliffhanger ending with Christopher Eccleston was reportedly considered, although it may have even been filmed. However, when Eccleston decided to leave, Davies wrote the ending we received, which led to David Tennant. Who knows? One day, when all the dust is settled, someone will talk about the alternate ending to "The Reality War", though we already know what it was, as Carole Ann Ford and Bonnie Langford confirmed they had shot a different ending and Langford returned for reshoots later to make the version that was shown.

It's all fun and games to speculate, but it's more fun to think about what the future is, whether there will be more Doctor Who after next year's Christmas Special and how long it will take for a proper series to return.

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