I've never felt that having the regeneration at the end was a tragedy. It's sort of the perfect Christmas story, actually. The Doctor falls and then rises again. I always have found regeneration to be very exciting and always excited to see what's next.
Well it could be, one of the most famous Christmas specials was an episode of the soap Eastenders that ended with Dirty Den handing his wife divorce papers so maybe we just don't like a happy christmas!
^ Or being born. How many kids or adults are running around Coronation street with a birthday of 25 December? Including, ironically, their own anti-Christ David Platt.
Moffat has said this is going to be a "traditional regeneration story" so that likely means regeneration will occur at the end of the episode, like it has in seven out of the previous nine regeneration stories. Can't get much more traditional than that.
Count me in the camp who just wants a normal send-off, where it occurs at the end of the episode. I'd like Matt to get a nice full story to depart in. We'll have plenty of time to get to know Peter Capaldi as the Doctor, no need to rush it. Conversely, Capaldi should have his own introduction story. If it's crammed into a part of an episode, you won't get nice scenes like we did in 11th Hour. I think it's better for both to do it the traditional way. Mr Awe
Since we're talking regenerations, I wonder if we'll ever listen to an audio story about the Eighth Doctor's regeneration, or even a better send-off for the Sixth Doctor before his Rani-sized accident.
McGann, hard to know where it might go, considering Hurt and The Time War, and everything we only see sketches of. C. Baker, Big Finish could probably do it and I think it would actually be very cool
A near enough traditional regeneration would be good to me. But I'd like five minutes with the new doctor like we did Smith in the End of Time.