Regeneration time! Matt Smith leaves Doctor Who in a blaze of glory as Peter Capaldi makes first appearance as Time Lord (with a Scottish accent)
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In The Thick Of It star Peter Capaldi assumed his new position as the 12th Time Lord on Wednesday evening as outgoing Doctor Who Matt Smith departed from the show in a blaze of glory.
Matt, who has played the Doctor for four years, made an emotional farewell moving millions of fans to tears as his Time Lord character regenerated with the words: 'I will always remember when the Doctor was me'.
Capaldi's appearance lasted just one scene and fittingly 31-year-old Matt took the acting honours in his final episode with spectacular scenes and special effects which saw his boyish face age 300 years.
Here comes the Doctor: Peter Capaldi made his first appearance as the Time Lord
Time Lord's up: Viewers saw the Eleventh Doctor character age by over 300 years before dying and transforming into the newest Time Lord, played by Peter Capaldi
300 years a Doctor: Matt took the honours as he bowed out in a stunning regeneration which saw him age 300 years
Viewers saw the Eleventh Doctor character age by over 300 years before dying and transforming into the newest Time Lord, played by Peter Capaldi.
The Thick of It star Capaldi, who will take over the highly sought-after role next year, burst onto the screen looking in pain and said 'kidneys' as he clutched his stomach.
He then asked sidekick Clara, played by Jenna Coleman, if she could 'fly this thing' while pointing at the TARDIS controls.
He's back again: Capaldi looks as stunned as Clara as he assumes his role as the 12th Time Lord
Set to stunned: The Doctor's assistant Clara (Jenna Coleman) looks on in shock as she witnesses the arrival of the new Time Lord
Help: Peter arrives into the tardis and asked Clara: 'Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?
The festive episode saw Matt and his sidekick Clara, played by Jenna Coleman, battle with Daleks and Weeping Angels, while coming to terms with their own mortality - before Peter arrives into the tardis uttering the words: 'Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?'
The Doctor, played by Matt, finds out that he is the 13th doctor, meaning that he will vanish forever when he dies.
But first there's lots of action and even stripping; In one scene Matt is naked as he's off to a church in the sky where visitors are expected to be de-robed.
Clara calls The Doctor in an emergency because her family have come round for Christmas dinner and she has been pretending she has a boyfriend.
Do me a favour: Clara called the Doctor to come over for Christmas as she has been pretending to her family that he is her boyfriend
Church of the nude: Matt strips off as he is going to a church in the sky where the congregation are not allowed to wear clothes
Naked doc: The Doctor is called upon visit a church in the sky where the congregation are expected to worship in the buff
But a mistake with visual vortexes and nakedness leaves more of an impression on the Oswald family than first expected.
The Doctor and Clara then find themselves meeting the head of the Papal Mainframe – a rather glamorous character called Natasha.
They were transported to a faraway land where clothes are banned and the snowfall is heavy – a town called Christmas.
Clara falls prisoner to a Weeping Angel as they land– a living statue who can only move when no other living creature is looking at them.
The Angels: Clara fell prisoner to The Weeping Angels, enemies of The Time Lord
Holding hands: Clara and The Doctor run through the snow as they escape the clutches of The Weeping Angels
Perish: The Weeping Angel statue is buried under snow and ice as they come off worse in a battle against the Doctor
There was a truth field over the town, with The Doctor inadvertently blurting out he was wearing a wig to the first couple they met.
The Doctor and his assistant were in the town to decode a message that was being sent through the galaxy which The Doctor was trying to decode.
After much ado The Doctor decoded the message which was a request for information being projected through time and space on a repeated cycle.
The message read: ‘Doctor Who, Doctor Who, Doctor Who.’
Run away! The Daleks were coming back to kill The Time Lord
Suddenly war was declared by Natalie, the head of the Church of the Papal Mainframe, who said: ‘There is a siege on the planet of Trenzalore.’
In the next scene we see The Doctor who’s aged and walks with a cane as he defends his new planet.
It was said in time the Doctor seemed to forget he lived any other life than on the planet of Tranzelor in the village of Christmas.
As the tardis appears The Doctor shouts: ‘Where have you been for three hundred years?’
War: The Daleks fought with all they had, including fire, against The Doctor
He's called The Doctor: The time-traveling Time Lord fought his last battle in his current reincarnation
With Clara attached, the Doctor reveals she’s been floating around space and time, the pair hug and make up after a rather fraught embrace.
After the realisation that he is the final reincarnation of The Doctor, Clara tries to convince him to go into the future and change the inevitable.
But, alas, he wouldn't and after he dropped Clara back on Earth he travelled back to Christmas to fight his sworn enemies on his own - without putting his assistant in danger again.
Many years later in The Doctor's life, yet just minutes in Earth time, Tasha comes back to find Clara and reveals The Doctor is dying and wants his brunette assistant to stay with him in his final moments.
The Head of the church: Tasha, the head of the Church of the Papal Mainframe, plays a huge part in the episode
Just as the audience think The Doctor is about to breath his last death and suffer at the hands of the Daleks, another regeneration of the character begins to happen.
With church bells ringing and fire streaming from Matt Smith's hands,The Doctor and his friends disappear into victorious chaos.
Saying, 'Times change and so must I', the doctor saw Amelia - the first face his reincarnation saw, giving a nod to the current changing process he's going through.
Guess Who: Matt Smith played The Doctor for the last time on Wednesday evening, fighting the daleks
Emotional: In the final ten minutes Karen Gillan made a brief appearance as Amy Pond as viewers saw Smith bow out as the Time Lord and hand over the controls of the Tardis to Peter Capaldi
Old sidekick Karen Gillan made a brief appearance as Amy Pond at the end of the episode as viewers saw Smith bow out as the Time Lord and hand over the controls of the Tardis to Peter Capaldi.
Both Smith and Gillan had to wear wigs after having his head shaved for his role in Ryan Gosling's film How to Catch a Monster, while Gillan wore a wig of her own hair which she had cut off for the Marvel sci-fi film Guardians of the Galaxy.
And with a powerful orchestral score The Doctor as we know him is suddenly transformed into a new version of himself - Peter Capaldi.
Matt tweeted a final message to fans: 'To the Whoniverse, thanks a million. You’re the best. I’ll miss you. And I’ll miss the madness.'
While Peter, a lifelong Doctor Who fan who won an Oscar for Live Action Short Film in 1995, admitted he found it difficult to keep his new job a secret from his 16-year-old daughter Cecily.
He said: 'It's so wonderful not to keep this secret any longer.
'For a while I couldn't tell my daughter. She was reading the rumours on the internet and getting upset that they weren't mentioning me. I kept saying "Rise above it, rise above it."'
Send for The Doctor: The Cybermen returned for Matt Smith's final episode to try and murder the 13th Time Lord
During a special unveiling event in the summer, Peter admitted to the BBC audience he used to play Doctor Who as a child growing up in Glasgow, and was thrilled he was able to play it as an adult.
He enthused: 'I'm a lifelong Doctor Who fan. I haven't played it since I was nine. As an adult actor I've never worked on it.
'(For the audition) I downloaded some old scripts from the internet and practiced that in front of the mirror.'
Peter admitted he was on holiday when he received a phone call from his agent informing him he was the twelfth Doctor.
Christmas villagers: The people of Tranzelor and the village of Christmas accepted The Doctor's presence in their world
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