They changed when 1 regenerated into 2, and 4’s boots changed into shoes when 4 regenerated into 5. (Real-world reason for that is that they were actually Tom Baker’s boots, and very dashing they were too: I wouldn’t have left them behind either.)
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It could also be a callback to the Fourth Doctor’s companion Romana “trying on” new forms when she regenerated, eventually choosing the form of Princess Astra (previously played by Lalla Ward, who played Romana’s new regeneration.)
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I want to know how she hid her jacket in a “brand new” building that Kate “just signed the lease” on.
Ooooorrrrr… it’s The Valeyard!
I’m mostly joking but honestly I’m surprised Chibnall didn’t pull that guy out given his nostalgia-boner.
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That must sting a bit more given your handle. 
Yeah, I didn’t have a way to watch it until Monday evening in the US and the news was everywhere by then.
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Tenth "doctor’ as the Valeyard has been my headcanon for a while.
That whole making a big deal about not shooting people then casually subjecting people to unending fates worse than death.
Not to mention that his attitude toward regeneration was a pretty far cry from all the others’ “the time has been prepared for.”
Fifth doctor gave his companion the antidote when there was only one dose, no fuss, no whinging, tenth, well, let’s say there was not a lack of whinging.
Having been a fan through the plastic-bottle and paper mache years and accepted all of it, Romana “trying on” bodies is one of the few scenes that makes me cringe.
The clothes only ever changed before for the very first regeneration (One to Two), where they were a long way from codifying what exactly the change meant. (The first arguably “modern” regeneration was Three to Four.)
The Doctor’s footwear changed on the Four to Five regeneration due to a production error. Romana’s onscreen regeneration involves different clothing, in addition to the bodies she tries on, but that one is really weird.
The clothing changing this time is almost certainly a plot point. Because this regeneration is very clearly abnormal, and the clothing magically changing is just one of the reasons why.
The very fact that they gave him his own number suggests this is a real incarnation.
BUT.
Something is clearly fishy with the regeneration, and even the Doctor knows it, to judge by his reaction. The clothing change, something which even the Doctor’s reaction to the clothes hammers home does not happen, merely emphasizes this point.
As for the out-of-universe reasons this was done, it’s actually quite simple: Big anniversaries like the 60th are a terrible time to introduce a brand-new Doctor, who would invariably get off to a bad start by being overshadowed. So Davies’ plan is clear: bring back an old Doctor like this, and make the fact that he has one of his old faces back a major driver of the plot for the anniversary.
1 into 2
2 into 3
Older, but DW has been revisiting a lot of older stuff lately.
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While I don’t mind a “little” revisiting, it’s been getting worse and worse of late, IMHO.
I want to see NEW stuff, not the same old stuff repeated ad-nauseum.
One of the things I hated about the first RTD run was the over-use of the Daleks. fully one third of his episodes had the Daleks. In old-Who they were used at most once a season.
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Agreed 100%.
You can use the Silents over and over because they were the recurring background villain of the year but it did get a bit Dalek heavy. I’ll take a little of the old and then spin it in the flavor of the new.
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I like that Chibnall brings in the older stuff, because i felt like a lot of NuWho wanted to pretend none of it happened. But he ends up making the same mistake; nothing ties them together. Chibnall doesn’t want to talk about anything after Eight, and the previous series mostly avoided anything before Nine.
(Although to be fair i did have a think about who in NuWho would even be available to appear, and the pickings are slim. Either the character isn’t available for plot reasons, or the actor is busy elsewhere)
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What’s gotten my goat is that the BBC have signed a deal with Disney+ to at least distribute Dr Who, and possibly produce them as well.
Pro: all the money.
Con: The distribution is through Disney+. Which means the 50-year run of Dr Who being broadcast in Australia on the ABC, free to air, will end.
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