Just watched it
That would've been a wicked surprise if I hadn't have seen spoilers all over Twitter and Facebook.
shareYeah, the internet ruins everything!
Even if you do your best to avoid spoilers like I did before watching it, the rumour that Tennant would temporarily replace Whittaker has been unavoidable for months.
Personally I think the scene itself was spectacular and visually stunning.. but I suppose technical achievements like that are completely secondary when we still haven’t recovered from our four year breakdown over a female Doctor 😥
I genuinely didn't even know it was supposed to be a surprise. I actually thought to myself while it was happening 'Why on Earth did they announce that?' But, of course, the BBC has a bit of a track record of spoiling their own secrets and twists (John Simm's return as The Master springs immediately to mind. Imagine how good that would have been had he not been in the trailer and all over the marketing for the episode?)
But it turned out they hadn't actually announced quite that. Everyone had just correctly guessed that's what David Tennant's return to the role probably meant.
I think a lot of the time the BBC are forced to announce stuff to prevent it from leaking. The whole 10th doctor reveal would have been great if they had not announced it and we knew Ncuti Gatwa was going to be the doctor but sadly due to filming they had to announce early
shareYou're right. A lot of the time it's because stuff is going to leak anyway. It would have been impossible to keep David Tennant's return under wraps until this episode aired. So they announced it. And it was therefore pretty easy for people to guess the detail that Whittaker was going to regenerate into Tennant rather than into Gatwa.
But also a lot of it is simply marketing for social media engagement, 'buzz', all of that. Sod the spoilers; viewers are more likely to watch and talk about the show if they know a favourite actor is returning or whatever. Particularly galling, given that the BBC is a public service broadcaster. But it is what it is.
I'd love one day to get a proper surprise regeneration at the end of the series without any warning.
Not sure how possible it would be. You'd have to air the episode before filming begins for the next series. The regeneration side could be done by filming it in the studio. They'd have to have very few people knowing to prevent leaks. Maybe film the regeneration later separate with a very small crew.
But like you've said there's also publicity. People probably tune into regeneration stories who maybe haven't been watching as much to see how it ends