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The Nth Doctor
Fifth Doctor: I'm the Doctor, who are you?
Tenth Doctor: Yes, you are! You are the Doctor!
Fifth Doctor: Yes I am, I'm the Doctor.
Tenth Doctor: Ohh, good for you, Doctor! Good for brilliant ol' you!
Fifth Doctor: Is there something wrong with you?
Doctor Who, "Time Crash"

Some element of a show's Applied Phlebotinum causes a character's appearance and voice to change completely. On Speculative Fiction shows, this can be almost anything. On real-world shows, this is almost always Magic Plastic Surgery - which, on TV, works much better than it does in reality.

This is a catch-all for the recasting of a character using an in-continuity explanation. It takes its name from Doctor Who, whose titular Doctor is an alien capable of "regenerating" into a new form whenever the lead role needs re-casting.

Compare to: Jonas Quinn (which introduces a totally new character much like the old one), and The Other Darrin, aka Sister Becky (where the actor is replaced without explanation).
Examples:

  • Doctor Who's the Doctor, as mentioned above. Each new regeneration brought with it a new characterization, costume, and personality.
    • The Doctor isn't the only Time Lord to get this treatment; The Master has had a number of onscreen incarnations, and Romana regenerated from Mary Tamm into Lalla Ward — who, confusingly enough, had appeared alongside Tamm in a serial just before she took over the role. This got explained by Romana liking Princess Astra's appearance so much she decided to regenerate into her.
    • Borusa, a Time Lord on Gallifrey, was in a different regeneration (a different actor) in each of the four stories he appeared in.
    • This trope was also spoofed wonderfully in the unofficial 1999 Doctor Who comedy special "The Curse of Fatal Death," where the Doctor regenerates 4 times throughout the half-hour special. Particularly one moment where the doctor "uses up three bodies in less than a minute all because he forgot to unplug" a rather large deathray.
      • Of course, that being a comedy special, almost all of Doctor Who was spoofed throughout.
    • Averted: The Doctor recently went through a regeneration only to come out looking no different from before.
      • It's not yet entirely clear whether that one time counted, though.
      • Actually, that incident was HandWaved by the Doctor, saying that he only used enough of the regeneration energy to heal his wounds, and channeled the rest into his dismembered hand because he didn't want to change.
      • Which would imply that it does count as a regeneration, since one way or another he used up all of his allotted regeneration energy.
  • On Sliders, Quinn Mallory's replacement by his non-identical counterpart from another universe, when Jerry O'Connell left the show, is half this and half Jonas Quinn.
    • On the other hand, third-season Big Bad Rickman is replaced by a new actor after his first appearance, and this is explained as a side-effect of his vampiric medical condition: in his first appearance, his facial features change momentarily whenever he injects brain tissue from his victims. This transformation turns out to have a small but cumulative permanent effect as well. In reality, Roger Daltrey was simply too expensive to keep on as a recurring character.
  • On Mystery Science Theater 3000: Replacement of voice actors/puppeteers for the robots, as in most puppetry and animation, was usually unexplained. However, the difference in Tom Servo's voice from one actor to another was so severe, that it was given an on-screen nod as Joel replaced Servo's voice module. Similarly, in the eighth season Crow T. Robot was the only one who'd stayed on the satellite for five-hundred-odd years, and thus had gone slightly mad; any other vocal differences were given a Hand Wave in the tenth season when Joel (appearing as The Cameo) suggested that Crow had replaced the bowling pin that formed his mouth.
    • This was also lampshaded in episode 905, where Mike cut himself on Crow, becoming a Were-Crow. In giving Mike the rundown of what being Crow would entail, Crow mentioned that "your voice is gonna change inexplicably every seven years or so." Of course, it was really 507 years... see MST3K Mantra.
  • Star Trek Deep Space Nine replaced Terry Farrell as Jadzia Dax with Nicole de Boer as Ezri Dax. It was already a well established part of the show's canon that the character of "Dax" was a symbiote that attached itself to a new humanoid host, thus explaining the new face and somewhat-different personality.
    • This replacement is also a partial Jonas Quinn, since the show established that while the symbiote carried its memories from host to host, the hosts themselves were distinct individuals with their own personalities.
    • Interestingly, the episode "The Host" from Star Trek The Next Generation plays this trope completely straight with regard to the Trill symbiotes; however, as a result it contradicts greatly with Deep Space Nine's portrayal.
    • What's never really explained is why the symbiosis comission would (A) allow a host who never went through the initiation process to keep her symbiote even though they were previously willing to kill to protect the secret that 50% of their population could be joined or (B) allow a Trill to reassociate COMPLETELY with her past life, including resuming an old romance, when this very thing was revealed to be a grave cultural taboo in a previous episode. It sort of boggles the mind.
  • In Smallville, the recurring character Morgan Edge is initially played by Rutger Hauer, and after a near-fatal accident and reconstructive surgery, he is played by Patrick Bergen, leading to this priceless quote:
    Lex Luthor: You can change your face, your hair, your voice... but not your DNA. You still sweat the same.
  • In Series 1 and 2 of My Parents are Aliens, Sophie Johnson was played by blonde Barbara Durkin. From Series 3 onwards, she was played by brown-haired Carla Mendonça, having 'got stuck' morphed that way.
  • Holly, the A.I. from Red Dwarf, gave himself a sex change after Series Two; "she" remained a female character for the next three seasons. Somewhat squicky, in that the female version drools over men like an adolescent schoolgirl. Or maybe it was just Ace Rimmer, in which case it's understandable either way. (What a guy!)
    • Less noticable was the recasting of the andriod Kryten (with Robert Llewellen replacing David Ross, who originally was to return but was unavailable). This was mainly achieved when the look of the series was entirely redesigned, with a greatly improved budget allowing for better costumes and prosthetics, plus the fact that Kryten was only in one episode the previously. Llewellyn originally impersonated Roos's original mannerisms before gradually making the part his own, this was further explored in Series XIII Episode 2 "Back in the Red: Part 2" when Kryten's behaviour is 'reset' and his actions and mannerism noticable revert to the 'Ross' Kryten (before being restored to his old new self).
  • Tedious British children's comedy Mike And Angelo had Angelo - an alien - go through a regeneration process into another actor that was a direct reference to Doctor Who.
  • Inverted on Babylon 5; at the end of Season 1, Delenn uses an ancient machine to transform herself into a being with both human and Minbari characteristics, radically changing her appearance, but is still played by the same actress. (It gets weirder: the original plan was for Delenn to be a male Minbari, who became female in her transformation...and it was always going to be the same actress, with makeup, effects, and voice manipulation. That part didn't work and was scrapped before filming began.)
    • The male makeup for Delenn is still in the pilot though, mostly in the jawline, the plan fell over at the voice manipulation, which couldn't be made to sound convincing.
      • Technically, the movie Delenn wasn't male, the plan was to have the Minbari as hermaphrodites, and adjusting to being a distinct gender was to have been part of the change.
    • Babylon 5 also messed with the trope in a couple other ways. When the first actor to play Draal was unable to return due to illness, a new one was cast, the difference being remarked upon by Sheridan. Delenn replies that the Great Machine had restored to him his youth and appearance of thirty years prior. When the original actress to play Anna Sheridan was unavailable, they recast her with the real-life wife of the actor playing her onscreen husband, and although the backstory involved would have made it ridiculously easy to hand-wave the change in appearance, they instead played it as The Other Darrin.
  • Animated exception: Transformers often upgrade, and occasionally mutate, into newer, more powerful bodies. The degree to which their new looks resemble their previous style tends to vary, and sometimes they even change their name, as Hot Rod did on becoming Rodimus Prime in The Movie, or like Overhaul did when he became Leobreaker in Cybertron. The voice actors tend to stay the same when this happens, as this is more about selling toys than about recasting.
    • Lampshaded in Beast Wars. Optimus Primal demonstrates all the toys and weapons in his new "Optimal" body, prompting Cheetor to remark that he learns his new bodies fast. Rattrap then remarks (staring directly at the camera) "Why not? He changes them often enough," accompanied by a Rim Shot.
  • Radio Drama example: To replace the late Peter Jones in the Quandary Phase of The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy, the guide receives an "update" during the first scene of the play. Thanks to some clever editing, the voice of the Guide changes in mid-sentence, and occasionally reverts back for a second, using recycled audio from the original series.
  • Likewise, the death of Philip Gilbert shortly into Big Finish's The Tomorrow People line was framed by having TIM require some repair work after damage received in Gilbert's last episode. John had to rebuild TIM's voice synthesizer, and couldn't quite reproduce the original voice. Gilbert's other recurring roles (He also voiced a family of clones on whose voice TIM had been modeled) were not so lucky, and became the Invisible Darrin.
  • In Lexx, the change from Zev Bellringer to Xev Bellringer was explained via the former dying and melting into a puddle of goo, from which the latter was incarnated via the sacrifice of a few hapless astronauts. The reason given for her being so different in behavior and appearance after the resurrection is that the alien who brought her back was working from the imperfect memories of Zev's friends.
  • The Oracle's actress exchange in The Matrix's third movie gets a Lampshade Hanging big enough to cover a small city.
    • (Though this troper hardly noticed it even through multiple viewings of the whole series. The new actress' looks and mannerism are almost eerily similar to the original's!)
    • This troper felt it would've been best either as an Other Darrin, or with a bolder change in the character's appearance (all of age, race, and gender).
  • In Big Bad Beetleborgs, Jo becomes the victim of a botched magical spell that alters her face from that of Shannon Chandler to that of Brittany Konarzewski. The change is permanent but a new spell makes everyone but the other heroes (and the viewer, of course) see her old face.
  • Subverted in a HUGE way by the Australian lifestyle show parody Life Support. In Season 3, Doctor Rudi changed actors, from Simon Van Der Stap to Jack Finsterer. However, it turned out that this new Dr Rudi, who had allegedly had Magic Plastic Surgery, was actually an impostor, and the old Dr Rudi was out for revenge. it culminated in a fist-fight between the Rudis at the new Dr Rudi and Sigourney's wedding.
  • On Allo Allo, Herr Flick was played by Richard Gibson until series 9, when he was replaced by David Janson. To explain the change in actors (who looked NOTHING alike) Herr Flick had plastic surgery to radically alter his appearance so he would not be captured by Allied forces.
  • Used for numerous minor characters on Stargate SG-1, but this is an acceptable technique as the characters themselves are parasitic aliens (Goa'uld or Tok'ra) living in changable human hosts.
  • Used in Stargate Atlantis for Elizabeth Weir. Previously played by Torri Higginson, Weir returned first as a faceless, fuzzy-voiced Virtual Ghost, who then built herself a replicator body played by Michelle Morgan, who had in the previous season played F.R.A.N., a replicator Mc Kay made. This allowed them to explain that to save time, Weir simply used the last template in the replicator machine, rather than try to remake her own appearance from scratch.
  • Spoofed twice in the Cheat Commandos cartoon "The Next Epi-Snowed". When Gunhaver's voice actor Crack Stuntman suddenly decides he wants to voice another character, Crackotage, instead, an in-story explanation is hastily concocted whereby a mishap of some sort caused Crackotage and Gunhaver's voices to become switched. Later, it is implied that Stuntman will be replaced when the Gunhaver character is said to have been sent on "a secret mission to the moon for an undisclosed period of time, and that when he gets back his voice might have changed."
  • German 90's TV show Balko used this. After the first actor Jochen Horst playing the main character left, the next season started with a near fatal car accident, forcing the till then unseen character to undergo plastic surgery, turning him into new actor Bruno Eyron (among the possible new faces given to choose from was also a famous German shepherd dog, 'Kommisar Rex').
  • Supernatural: Demons can possess different human bodies, so any demon character can be played by more than one actor. It happened with Lilith in Season 3, and then with Ruby/Kristy between seasons 3 and 4.
  • Heath Ledger's death will be dealt with in his unfinished movie The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus this way. Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell will play his character in different dimensions.
  • The Terminator known as Cromartie is reduced to a metal skeleton in the first episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and slowly creates a new flesh covering for himself over the course of the first season, being played by a second actor in the interim stages, and a third actor once the work is complete.
  • When George Lazenby replaced Sean Connery as James Bond, the producers considered including a dialogue saying Bond went under plastic surgery in order to fool his enemies, but then changed their minds to "different, but doesn't need explanation".

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The Other Darrin
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