Doctor Who: Varada Sethu on Gatwa-Piper Regen; Would "100%" Return

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Posted in: BBC, TV | Tagged: doctor who

Doctor Who: Varada Sethu on Gatwa-Piper Regen; Would "100%" Return

Doctor Who star Varada Sethu (Belinda) offered some insights into the Ncuti Gatwa-Billie Piper regeneration at the end of "The Reality War."

Published Tue, 27 Oct 2026 12:08:08 -0500
by Ray Flook
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Article Summary

  • Doctor Who star Varada Sethu says she would "100%" return as Belinda Chandra when the series comes back.
  • Sethu reveals she learned of Ncuti Gatwa's Billie Piper regeneration in The Reality War with everyone else.
  • The Whoniverse Show interview details how the Doctor Who finale twist was kept tightly under wraps from cast.
  • Sethu also shares hopes for Doctor Who's future as the BBC tender process plays out and the show eyes its return.

With BBC's Doctor Who in the middle of the tender process, the key step in determining the show's future, we have some time to reflect on the previous two series to examine what worked, what didn't, and what the newest production/creative team could learn from all of it. Checking in with Tia Kofi on the latest edition of The Whoniverse Show, Varada Sethu (Belinda Chandra) left little room for doubt regarding whether she would return to the Doctor Who universe: "100% yes. I would." Over the course of the episode (which you can check out above), Sethu covers a whole lot of show-related territory – including her reaction to the Ncuti Gatwa–Billie Piper regeneration at the end of "The Reality War," and what she hopes to see from the show once the tender process has wrapped and the long-running show returns to screens around the world.

Image: BBC; Doctor Who YT Screencap

Sethu on "The Reality War": Ncuti Gatwa-Billie Piper Regeneration – When asked for her reaction to the famous/infamous regeneration scene, Sethu shared that she was at the Mighty Hoopla outdoor music festival when it first aired. "I had so many people come up to me like, [gasps], 'That ending was mad,' and I was like, 'Yeah [laughter], you know Poppy's like Poppy… I'm the mom.' I had no idea. I didn't really understand what had happened. I found out the same time as everyone else found out," Sethu shared, confirming that the ending "was all under wraps" until then.

"And what was mad was, about two weeks before, I was at an event, and I was sat next to Billie Piper, and she was so lovely, and she didn't mention it once the whole time, and we took a selfie," Sethu continued. "She was like, 'Let's take a selfie and send it to Russell [T. Davies],' and she sent him this cheeky text, and now it's afterwards, I was like, it's all [laughter] it all came crashing down on me. That's what that was. I mean, she's lovely. I'm sure we would have had that interaction anyway, but like the fact that yeah, I'd seen her a week or two before and I still had no idea."

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