I found it interesting in "Let's Kill Hitler" and most recently in "The Angels Take Manhattan" that they express concern about "using up" regeneration energy. River uses all of her remaining regenerations to save the Doctor's life, and the Doctor uses some of his regeneration energy to heal River's wrist. River freaks out about this. What would happen if he had used too much? Would he not be able to regenerate? Would he regenerate wrong?
That's a good question because in "Rise Of The Cybermen" The Doctor uses regeneration energy to power the TARDIS back up. He says it took ten years off his life. So maybe that's the only consequence, a shorter life span.
as someone else pointed out, the Doctor's regenerations seems to be atypical because they are the result of a violent 'death' - not only does Romana spend her time picking and choosing between bodies but neither her nor the Doctor seem concerned that is a dangerous or risky process - indeed it seems as risky as trying on new clothes.
I have a vague recollection of a Time Lord Spirit guide of sorts that would guide a Time Lord through a regeneration.
Yeah, but not really a spirit guide. Apparently Time Lords really skilled in regeneration can project their own future self as a separate being, molding and tweaking them to their own liking, then merging together with the projection come the critical moment. That may have been what Four was seeing in the opening moments of Romana's regeneration - the projections coming out for his approval while Romana was preparing to change back in her room. Four (who wasn't skilled at all) subconsciously created such a projection - an ghostly, unformed "Watcher" - on his last adventure. Or, as some speculated, Five projected the Watcher backward in time to help Four against the Master (and also gathering his own future Companions together) while reminding him "Hey, time's up, you've had that body long enough, it's my turn now."
The novelization of 'Power Of The Daleks' describes regeneration as an agonizing process that, according to the Doctor, no on one would go through voluntarily. That's not mentioned on screen though. The Master's scream in 'Utopia' suggests it's not a terribly pleasant process.
I think the amount of pain involved depends on circumstances of the regeneration, Romana and the Doctor both went though painless regenerations. Also The Power Of The Daleks was written well after the serial came out, the word regeneration wasn't even used until Planet Of The Spiders.
sorry if this is a bit OT...but is ten´s "partial" regeneration counted towards his max regenerations, or did it not really use up one regeneration because his body didn´t actually change?
I don't think they're getting more violent over time. The Regenerations of River and The Master were both pretty similar to the ones of 9-10 and 10-11. The only difference with 10-11 was that because he'd been holding it in to long it was extra violent when it happened and the poor console room boar the brunt of it. I think it also had something to do with the radiation he had absorbed being released.
Also I think the whole Master scream was more down to him being eeevvviiillll! Always sounds kinda like a bird of prey (as in actual bird not a Klingon ship!!) to me.
My take on the 'screams' and violent nature of the transformation is that it would be painful. As Ten said to Rose, every single cell in his body changed. That would be intensely painful. As for 'what happens' to Time Lords, I think that Ten was right on the money when he told Wilf that 'another man' goes swanning off after the regen is complete. The individual is gone, but the memories remain. So yeah, I think that regeneration is death for all intents and purposes. The person who was The Doctor dies and someone else who shares his memories is born.
Well it all depends on how you view the individual. From any Doctor's point of view, their lives end the moment regeneration takes hold. From an outside observer, The Doctor persists past that point with a new face and roughly similar personality traits. So it may look better than a 'final' death to the observer but for Doctor Ten, he died with the words 'I don't want to go' on his lips. I suspect that many of us will feel the same when the time comes, 'regeneration' be damned.
I'm not sure Ten was awfully pleased to see Sarah Jane after all so I'm not sure how much that new man notion holds up totally, though I do get what you mean. From my perspective dying but knowing your memories and personality at least in some form continues would be preferable to just dying and all those experiences being lost. As for Ten's end, well my view has altered somewhat, Ten's regeneration will always be a bit emotive for me to watch because my dad died about two and a half months after TEOT pt 2 aired, he'd been ill and basically had had enough, told them he was ready to go--basically chose his own time to die, and that's altered my perspective somewhat, I'd always imagined death was something to rail against, suddenly it was something to be accepted. I think in hindsight that's made Ten's actions seem more whiny than they probably were. It still gets me every time I see it though!