Jodie Whittaker Discusses The Power Of The Doctor's Emotional Scene With The Former Doctors

And with that, Jodie Whittaker's time as the Doctor has come to an end. "The Power of the Doctor" –- the first of a series of specials intended to mark the 60th anniversary of the iconic and storied science fiction series "Doctor Who" –- saw the Thirteenth Doctor say goodbye not only to us but also to a great many others from her own past.

"The Power of the Doctor" seemed to cram in a great many well-known characters from Doctor lore. There were Daleks. There was her long-long-standing nemesis the Master –- now played by Sacha Dhawan and capering around under the guise of Rasputin in 1916. There were also the Cybermen –- or rather the Cybermasters, or Cybermen-Time Lord hybrids concocted in the final episode of Season 12. There was even a support group of the Doctor's former companions, which led to some touching moments.

Then there was the Thirteenth Doctor's reunion of her own. While in a sort of limbo as the Master regenerates as the Doctor, she finds herself on a desert cliff, where she is approached by a robed figure, who, at various moments, takes the form of previous incarnations of the Doctor. Specifically, the Doctors that speak to her from within the robe are the First Doctor (originally played by William Hartnell in the 1960s, though now played by David Bradley, who has appeared as both the First Doctor in more recent "Doctor Who" episodes and as Hartnell himself in the BBC docudrama "An Adventure in Space and Time"), the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison), the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker), Seventh (Sylvester McCoy), and Eighth (Paul McGann).

Speaking with Digital Spy and other press, Jodie Whittaker said, "The scene for me when I get to meet other iterations was such an emotional day, such a wonderful day ... To be on set with people who've paved the way for us to be is a really emotional thing."

It is, naturally, always emotional when a Doctor whom fans have grown to love and root for over the course of several seasons finally departs. As Den of Geek pointed out, all of the Doctors that appeared as the robed figure were those who, like Whittaker's Thirteen, stubbornly resisted regeneration. This was hit home in the episode's final moments when Whittaker's character regenerated not into the expected next incarnation of Ncuti Gatwa, but into David Tennant's Tenth Doctor. Tennant's famous last lines as the Tenth Doctor were, "I don't want to go."

In the run-up to "The Power of the Doctor," Whittaker also commented to Entertainment Weekly on how much was jam-packed into it, and also how much of a roller-coaster her final appearance as the Doctor was going to be for fans. "But then for me — as Jodie — it has the ending I knew was coming, but it still makes me sad to think about," she said. "I basically didn't tell you anything, but I told you loads of things!"

As to how and why the Thirteenth regenerated into Tennant's incarnation of the Doctor, that moment now has fans asking all sorts of confusing questions. The expectation and hope is that coming specials and episodes will be able to fill in the blanks.