Matt Smith is the 12th Doctor, or at least the 12th regeneration. David Tennant cheating death, blow a regeneration, making his Doctor both the 10th and 11th regeneration of the Doctor. I am well aware this view is not shared by fandom at large, but its my view.
^But even if one regeneration is used up, Tennant was still only one Doctor, not two. So Smith is still the Eleventh Doctor. And he's only the tenth regeneration, or eleventh under your scheme. People tend to overlook the "re-" part at the beginning. The First Doctor didn't regenerate into existence, he was just generated, i.e. born. (Or loomed, if you go by the Virgin novels' continuity.) The first regeneration produced the Second Doctor, the second regeneration produced the Third, and so on.
Your view is nothing more than meaningless semantics. Whether or not the Doctor has used up 11 or 12 regenerations, Matt Smith is the 11th Doctor.
The joke is in being able to substitute actor's names in for the positions of the clock, not whether Matt's is the eleventh or twelfth Doctor. He's the eleventh actor in the role.
What do you mean, "one less." That implies that the show won't go on forever and forever, so long as it remains popular. Are you saying they would STOP the show after the 12th or 13th Doctor? Or are you just going to stop watching?
I love Doctor Who as much as anyone, and fully expect them to continue making it as long as it...well, I was going to say, "makes money" but is that an issue? But the BBC isn't a for-profit corporation, is it? So what if DW is a internationally popular money-making series - would that prevent the BBC from canning it again, someday? Can DW go on forever? I don't think they'd let some old "12 regenerations" limit stop them since there is always a way around that (they've even laid the pipe for it over the last series), but what could shut down DW? A producer at BBC that doesn't like it?
Put the 13th Doctor's face in the center of the watch and the other 12 the the correct numerical places! Case solved. LOL
Quite right. The 12-regeneration limit was itself a retcon that wasn't introduced until about halfway through the original run. And the show wasn't even consistent about whether Hartnell's Doctor was the first. "The Three Doctors" had a character refer to him as "the earliest Doctor," but the later "The Brain of Morbius" had a scene showing what purported to be the faces of as many as eight pre-Hartnell incarnations. (Fans have rationalized them as being Morbius's earlier incarnations, but that wasn't the intent of the script.) But by "The Five Doctors," it was again assumed that Hartnell's Doctor was "the original, you might say." In short, Doctor Who has never let continuity get in the way of the stories it wanted to tell. Either they'll concoct an explanation for how the Doctor can have more than 13 lives, or they'll just ignore the regeneration limit altogether. In "Death of the Doctor" on The Sarah Jane Adventures, Russell T. Davies had the Eleventh Doctor say he could regenerate 507 times, which could be taken as a joke, but was basically RTD suggesting that there was no reason to cling to the 13-life rule. Of course, fans are so attached to that particular bit of trivia, even though it was rarely mentioned, that I'm sure the show will address it in some way.
Absolutely they will. The JNT era of the show referenced the 12-regen limit often enough (at least for Doctors 4-6), but it also brought up the notion of bring able to supercede it (that the Time Lords could do so for the Master, and they ultimately did). I fully expect for whoever the 14th Doctor is to briefly mention it at some point, and move on. Just like every other reference to it. Mark
I'm just wondering if they'll remember to do the origin of the Valeyard when the time comes for 12 to regenerate into 13.
I believe once the Master described him as being somewhere between his 12th and final incarnation. If the regeneration limit ends up abolished or extended in someway, then that completely changes how far up ahead the Valeyard could be from. I agree it would be nice to see the character explained, since those years provided some good childhood memories for me. But JNT era Doctor Who is typically maligned by fandom (to say nothing of public perception) and not as referenced by the New Series as the 70s and 60s - beyond Steven Moffat's charity skit declaration of love for the Fifth Doctor, that is.
Yes and no, the way I see it. I think the Ten-to-Ten regeneration should count in some way, as should Eleven's little donation in The Angels Take Manhattan. I reckon he expects that he doesn't have quite enough juice left for regeneration number twelve. But then, who knows just what happened with River's own regeneration energy in Let's Kill Hitler?
I've seen it proposed that River giving the Doctor her regeneration energy could've "recharged" his own regen cycle and extended his lifespan. But I doubt that'll be the explanation, since there will probably be quite a few years between "Let's Kill Hitler" and whenever the Thirteenth Doctor leaves the show (unless the next two actors both pull Ecclestons), and it wouldn't be fresh enough in viewers' minds when that time comes.
Or...if the BBC "retires" the series before we even reach a 13th incarnation. No, I don't wish that to happen, but if the ratings decline or economic forces make the BBC restructure its budget, it could occur. In that case, whether the Doctor has 13 or 1,300 lives will be moot. Sincerely, Bill
They tried that once. It came back. Even if this incarnation of Doctor Who doesn't make it to a fourteenth Doctor, I think it's inevitable that there will be another revival, even if it takes another decade and a half or more. DW is an institution, and its very nature makes it endlessly revivable and reinventable.