There's no relation between age and appearance when it comes to regeneration.
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Doctor Who Series Seven |OT| The Question You've Been Running From All Your Life
- Thread starter Mr. Sam
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There's no relation between age and appearance when it comes to regeneration.
terrdactycalsrock
Member
My man
I know, but that's the thing. It's not an unusual trope and it'd add some sort of dimension to the regen mechanic. That's probably just me but I like when they reflect on the doctor as an entity.
Keyser Soze
Member
The biggest crime I could see happening - based on the main storylines the show consistently uses - would be that Hurt's character put his life before the life of somone else (a companion?). He let / causes someone to die even though they were helping him
Doctor's always show regret when they lose a companion (and fight overwhelming odds to save them), so doing the polar opposite would be the biggest crime a Doctor/Regeneration could commit.
PlanetSmasher
Banned
The Seventh Doctor let a lot of people die. Manipulated a lot of people into dying as well. I think Hurt's crime has to be bigger than that.
The Hurt Doctor has to be the one who activated the Moment. It's really the only logical explanation, I think.
Sure, that's actually a cool idea.
I like the randomness of it.
"I might never make sense again! I might have two heads, or no head. Imagine me with no head, ha! And don't say that's an improvement... But it's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you're going to end up with."
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Okay then, directly killing a companion? Maybe the Moment requires the blood of an innocent or something...
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Yeah, one of the more popular bits of speculation is that Hurt essentially sacrifices a companion in order to end the time war.
Basically, Hurt would have to pull a Captain Jack.
Basically, Hurt would have to pull a Captain Jack.
PlanetSmasher
Banned
That's possible, but the Doctor's companions tend to be the kind of people who would sacrifice themselves for the greater good...and the complete destruction of spacetime is definitely something they would probably want to stop as well.
Straight-up murder would also be possible, but the Doctor has killed so many people in his day that it'd be really weird (and hypocritical) for him to get so mad about one killing that he disowns an entire incarnation.
It has to be something so large-scale that it shakes him to his core, and I think the whole-scale slaughter of his entire species at his own hand would justify such a breakdown.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Yeah but again, The Doctor owns that. He repeatedly owns up to killing all the Time Lords. It isn't a secret. So if it is anything to do with the Time War, it's how he achieved this.
PlanetSmasher
Banned
Maybe he did sacrifice a companion...and the companion he sacrificed is his own flesh and blood. It would mesh with the fact that he speaks about Susan as if he knows she's dead. Maybe she's the key to all of this.
I think the key in what you're quoting is if he did it for *himself*, not that he did it at all. All incarnations of The Doctor have been cavalier about loss of life in the face of something bigger and more important, but to do so out of purely selfish motivations? I'm not sure that's happened often, if at all.
PlanetSmasher
Banned
That is a very important distinction to make, indeed. I guess it's so anathema to the Doctor as a character that I'm having trouble grasping the possibility of him even doing it.
Napoleonthechimp
Member
I still don't get how the Hartnell Doctor was an old man at (200-ish) when he first took the TARDIS but the 11th went on his travels for 200 years and didn't seem to age a day.
They're not going to end the show because of a silly rule someone made up. However, it'd be dumb of them not to make a really good arc about it that could open the show up to more good stories.
Perfect next Doctor:
NO! Not David Tennant.... Jessica Hynes.
If this actually happens I will literally piss my pants with joy.
Napoleonthechimp
Member
I don't know why but I feel really against a female Doctor.
You just know a Moffat written female Doctor would be played and written very similarly to his Irene Adler and in her very first scene there would almost certainly be a moment where she gushes about her sexy she is and probably gets turned on by realising she now has breasts.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
I don't think Matt Smith's regeneration will ever be able to top this one. I mean he had the best post-regeneration scene, but Eccleston had the best pre-regeneration scene. And it was fantastic.
'...You were fantastic, and you know what? So was I!'
I hope Matt doesn't go out like a wuss like Tennant did, "I dont want to go", blech, just cheesy. Eccleston regenerating was much better.
People keep saying this, what the Doctor said in SJC was just a throw away line, RTD said this himself and that they would need address the regeneration limit because it is too ingrained in the fan base not to.
Obviously they aren't going to put a limit on it, it's TV, they can give him infinite amount to keep the show going, but I don't doubt for a second it will be addressed properly as part of the story.
People keep saying this, what the Doctor said in SJC was just a throw away line, RTD said this himself and that they would need address the regeneration limit because it is too ingrained in the fan base not to.
Obviously they aren't going to put a limit on it, it's TV, they can give him infinite amount to keep the show going, but I don't doubt for a second it will be addressed properly as part of the story.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
I get tears every time.
I love Tennant, but his regeneration was basically him wandering around time for 20 minutes before crying "I don't want to go..." But at least we get a nice 2-3 minute scene of Matt Smith testing out his new body and preparing for a crash.
I am eager to see Matt regenerate. It'll be my first regeneration since becoming a fan. (I only got into the show when Community season 3 premiered 2 years ago. And by the time I had caught up, Series 6 was already over and it was Christmas time. But I had at that point seen every episode of NewWho.)
Zeouterlimits
Member
Cool, glad to see Matt moving on, I hope it makes for a great 50th and Christmas Special.
It was Smith's first special that got me into Who really. Went and bought the 4 Seasons box set and the specials after seeing it.
It was Smith's first special that got me into Who really. Went and bought the 4 Seasons box set and the specials after seeing it.
Moffat will raise the stakes for the whole season and build it up to incredibly levels before having it all be fixed in the last five minutes because of love and the connection the whole universe has to The Doctor. WE NEED THE DOCTOR ETC
The thing about speculating on who the next Doctor will be is that the show picked a young, fairly unknown actor last time. Why would you do that? Because outside of all the bluster, Smith would have been comparatively cheap.
The BBC doesn't have any more money now than it did then (indeed it has less, and the show isn't quite delivering those ratings either), so the chances are the next Doctor will be someone of whom none of us have ever heard.
I'm sure they will be very good, as Smith was, but they won't be someone who's Hollywood famous.
EDIT: I am also sure a big deal will be made of the regeneration limit and overcoming it. And I really hope that the Valeyard will be a big arc too.
The BBC doesn't have any more money now than it did then (indeed it has less, and the show isn't quite delivering those ratings either), so the chances are the next Doctor will be someone of whom none of us have ever heard.
I'm sure they will be very good, as Smith was, but they won't be someone who's Hollywood famous.
EDIT: I am also sure a big deal will be made of the regeneration limit and overcoming it. And I really hope that the Valeyard will be a big arc too.
Weirdly enough, I don't really care about Eleven, though he was my first Doctor (I watched most of Tennant's and Eccleston's runs after season 5 ended). Now that I think about it, Moffat's arcs rarely make me emotional. He's like a magician; the tricks are impressive but you know it's fake all along. No suspension of disbelief. Still think he's a better writer than RTD, but he sucks at pathos.
As for the regeneration limit; Could it be that the "un-doctory" thing that Hurt did is not ending the Time War, but stealing the remaining regenerations of another Time Lord or even (through the Moment/whatever he did to end the War) all remaining Time Lords? Similar to what the Valeyard and the Master, who both are more or less the opposite of the Doctor, tried to do in the past. This would make the "500+ regenerations left" thing, even if at the time it was meant as a throwaway-line not to be taken serious, from SJA make much more sense.
Now that would be interesting. Not very Moffat-esque, but a good idea me thinks.
I think the fact that Moffat referenced the Valeyard at all is proof enough that the writers still consider the 13 regenerations rule to be in effect. Isn't the existence of the Valeyard predicated on there being a finite amount?
Not that they're just going to end the show after this next doctor, because whoops, rules say that's all. But I'd be surprised if Moffat or the next guy didn't make a story arc out of the Doctor being at the end of his regeneration limit.
Not that they're just going to end the show after this next doctor, because whoops, rules say that's all. But I'd be surprised if Moffat or the next guy didn't make a story arc out of the Doctor being at the end of his regeneration limit.
Not making a story out of the limit would be a huge missed opportunity. They can keep shrugging off parts of the Who mythos but this one can actually turn out interesting in the hands of a skilled writer. We all know he'd get more regens, but it's his decisions and the journey to get them that matter.
Depending on what happens in the 50th (Time War etc...) - it could be something to do with an imposed limit by the Timelords, which he has to go to Gallifrey to alter?
River flat out gives him "regeneration power" in Hitler, I don't think the way he gets it really matters. Deus ex machinas are abound in Who anyway, it's kind of the basis of how the series rolls.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Got to go to a panel at Denver Comicon today with Colin Baker. Didn't get in till it was half over, but it was nice hearing some stories. Nothing ground breaking, but he apparently likes watching the new series.
Hot Coldman
Banned
Probably not, but we're talking about the most deus-ex-machina friendly fiction in existence. Worst case scenario, the explanation is mildly low-key.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
As he's regenerating I figure they need to play the most awesome, spine-tingling rendition of I Am The Doctor.
I really wish they would start using a new theme. At times it feels like "I Am The Doctor" and its remixes are the only bgm they have.
brucewaynegretzky
Member
I'm sure they will with the new guy.
You realize the limit itself is essentially deus ex machina (in literal meaning if not in spirit) to begin with, right? It's an arbitrary number from outside the story used to give conflict to a character (the Master originally) with zero narrative effort.
The Time Lords themselves are probably the best example of a literal deus ex machina in modern television, actually, now that I think about it. They are literally gods in machines. Their first appearance in the show would have been perfectly at home in a Greek play.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
Easiest way of writing it would be Timelords returning. They set the limits, they can break them. Rassilon and The Master already have.
Hot Coldman
Banned
The Doctor probably has too. If Moffat manages to get through the 50th without at least one line saying how the Doctor got himself infinite lives during the Time War, he fucked up.
RTD and Moffat have both made it abundantly clear that the Doctor is by no means immortal (Turn Left/The Impossible Astronaut, plus the Master choosing to die at the end of TLotTL), god knows why they haven't definitively scrapped the limit yet.
"You know... Beans really aren't so bad after all."
APZonerunner
Member
This has always been the case, even in old Who. If a Time Lord is killed before they can activate regeneration, they're dead. If the Seventh Doctor had been shot in the head and not the chest, he'd have been dead. If you count the things that have caused regeneration, they've all been slow deaths generally speaking - radiation, internal bleeding, etc. Regeneration is a process to cheat a fatal problem in progress, not one already passed.
They've even gone out of their way to make this clear in weird ways - like the Dalek in The Stolen Earth only 'glancing' the Doctor with its beam, so it doesn't instantly kill him (if you watch the effect, it only sort of electrocutes half his body, not all like usual, because he was a running, moving target) and both Moffat and RTD have shown regeneration 'disabled' - so regeneration isn't really linked to his mortality in that sense.
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