Is the new Doctor really going to have the face of a previous companion? With the shocking ending of Doctor Who’s “The Reality War,” you might be wondering how the Doctor could possibly have the face of a previous companion, Rose Tyler, played by actress Billie Piper. Clearly, there are a lot of questions as to whether or not Piper is playing the next Doctor for real, or whether this was a kind of tribute to the 20th anniversary of the start of the new Who back in 2005.
But if Piper does end up becoming an incarnation of the Doctor, there’s very much a good precedent for it. And not from the Doctor themselves, but rather, from another Time Lord; Romana.
Back in the 1979 serial “Destiny of the Daleks,” the episode opened with the 4th Doctor (Tom Baker) being startled by the reappearance of Princess Astra in the TARDIS. Previously, Princess Astra, as played by Lalla Ward, appeared in the February 1979 “The Armageddon Factor,” during which time the Doctor and Romana (Mary Tamm) visited the planets Atrios and Zeos, of which Princess Astra was from the former. Fast forward to the very next serial, in September 1979, and the Doctor is baffled as to why Princess Astra is suddenly back, when it's revealed that this isn’t Princess Astra at all.
Instead, Romana has regenerated and specifically chosen to look like Princess Astra. Who fans tend to call Lalla Ward’s take on the character “Romana II,” but in terms of famous adventures, she arguably became the more famous version of the Time Lady, appearing in every episode from late 1979 all the way through “Warriors' Gate” in 1981.
Perhaps more than any other hero of Doctor Who, Lalla Ward as Romana helped establish the flexibility of actors returning to the series as a Time Lord, even if they’d previously played a different role. In the 5th Doctor (Peter Davison) Omega storyline, “The Arc of Infinity,” Colin Baker appeared as Commander Maxil, a Gallifreyan security officer.
Later, of course, Baker became the 6th Doctor at the end of “The Caves of Androzani” in 1984. This set up a nice precedent for the 12th Doctor to be played by Peter Capaldi starting in 2014, even though he’d previously played not just one, but two characters in the Whoniverse: John Frobisher in Torchwood: Children of Earth, and, more famously, the Roman named Caecilius in the 2008 10th Doctor story “The Fires of Pompeii.” Later, in the 2015 episode “The Girl Who Died,” the 12th Doctor remembered Caecilius and realized that he had subconsciously suggested to himself that he regenerate into that specific face.
And so, now with Billie Piper — most famous as Rose Tyler and an omniscient force known as “Bad Wolf” — could certainly be the next Doctor. And, this precedent wasn’t even set by a previous Doctor, but rather, by one of the most famous Time Ladies in the entire history of Who. This also means that it’s possible that even if Piper is not playing the Doctor outright (the credits don’t mention that she is), it’s possible that she’s a different Gallifreyan who has somehow popped through the time vortex during the 15th Doctor’s regeneration.
Either way, on some level, Billie Piper is now connected with Time Lord lore in a way she wasn’t before. And, if Doctor Who never explains why this regeneration occurred, it won’t really matter. Romana’s regeneration into the face of Princess Astra wasn’t truly explained back in 1979, and if there’s one thing Who does well, it’s dropping zany plot twists and not bothering to spend too much time thinking about it.
