Are regenerations still capped at 12?

[Wereghost]

FalTorPan wrote:

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The Master, who was but a noncorporeal intelligence of sorts in the 1996 telefilm, was a full-fledged Time Lord with the ability to regenerate by the time he surfaced in the new show. It's possible that the Doctor's regeneration cycle has already been extended, so that he could fight in the Time War or something.

Easily possible. However, I do think that he has a finite number left (River's recent comment about precious regeneration energy, and of course that fact the she herself had used up her remaining (and therefore numerically limited) regenerations.)

Evil Headhunter wrote:

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I've read this idea many times and I still don't like it.

I've heard it before too and think it's a dreadful idea. Much better to give him an ending or just jump off the roundabout and let his adventures continue in the public imagination as the series did on its first run.

The Wormhole wrote:

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Honestly, the 13 life limit was a bit of a mistake. It served the story purposes of The Deadly Assassin, sure. But it was obvious, even back then that the Doctor will continue to regenerate. Classic Who even put in precedents allowing Time Lords to get another set of 13 lives.

When the time comes, the Doctor is going to live past his thirteenth life. We will see a 14th Doctor, we will see a 507th Doctor and so on in that order.

Yep. The 12-regen limit was slackened by The Five Doctors, about seven years after it was introduced. It can be extended retrospectively in the middle of a line of dialogue if need be, though maybe the next showrunner* will make a long story arc out of it.

* I'm in the camp that says the Ten-to-Ten regeneration should count, so if the Doctor hasn't had his cycle restarted/extended then Twelve should be running on empty regen-wise.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Wereghost wrote:

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I've heard it before too and think it's a dreadful idea.

Sorry.

[zarkon]

The Wormhole wrote:

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Honestly, the 13 life limit was a bit of a mistake. It served the story purposes of The Deadly Assassin, sure.

It also really helped the story of mawdryn undead.

[Photoman15]

First, the limit was made for that particular story, not from the get go.
Second, If I recall, the twelve limit was not a natural limit, it was imposed by the Timelords (probably to stop a timelord from becoming a demi-god). Now that the Timelords are gone, the machination that limits the regens may be gone, but the Doctor may not know this, so 13 may think that's the last one. The 507 that 11 told Clyde (Sarah Jane) should/could be ignored. 13 dies, regens, surprised/shocked/tickled/mad that he regenerated (depending on the personality of 14).


In an unrelated topic, every time I go to subscribe to a thread, I think I see Marge Simpson.

[hadd001]

bigdaddy wrote:

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I like that one and it would fit best into the show.

Think about how ever regeneration could be the Doctor's last because he just doesn't know how many are left. I think that would be great for the series because clearly they will never actually end it after the 13th Doctor.

But I do like the idea of ending it and they can do spin offs and such with his daughter or soemthing. be kind of fun.

I also think that this is the best case scenario ... and it would make a great suspense builder because he would not know how many are left him in the future.

[Mark_Nguyen]

In my personal canon I like to think that a Time Lord can regenerate twelve times without any special intervention, ergo this is their "natural" life cycle. However, should he have said intervention, a guy could in theory regenerate many more times, perhaps even 507 as an upper limit. Davies is on record as saying he wrote that bit deliberately to screw with the hardcore fans (this was in fact his last writing for Who after all), but we're still stuck with it, in-joke, real joke (who would get that, anyway?) or actual fact.

We do have proof that lives can be extended. In "The Five Doctors", the Master (who by that point had already had 1-3 incarnations after his supposed final "natural" incarnation, depending on how you look at it) was offered another regeneration and a completely new life cycle by the high council. He accepted this as though it weren't a big deal. I believe that even if Time Lord society may (or may not) have a societal taboo against regenerating longer than their physiology permits, under the right circumstances it's possible without that much to-do. It wouldn't be a permanent solution (thus why I think 507 might be that upper limit), which explains why Borusa was in search of true immortality, or as he describes it in that story, "endless, perpetual regeneration".

In any case, we learn the Master was subsequently resurrected (again by the high council) to fight in the Time War, and granted a new life cycle anyway - we see that his regeneration was under intended circumstances, and the Doctor believed that the Simm incarnation could simply regenerate again to survive being shot. Arguably Rassilon himself is a product of the same process. Furthermore, the crispy and then extra-crispy Masters (some, including myself, treat them as different incarnations of the Master due to their different makeup, character portrayal, and actors playing them) were obsessed with finding a way to extend or renew their lives. It suggests to me that adding extra regenerations is certainly possible, at least if you have Gallifrey to return to and get special permission from the bosses. It may even be possible without them, but even an extraordinary intellect like the Master found it tough to do.

I like to think that the Doctor is still effectively mortal - that he believes he'll wake up in his 13th incarnation and go "Well, that's it then... Blew my last chance at being ginger", and then simply carry on with his life. We know that it's a drag watching the show with him KNOWING he'll die at some point (see all of last season, or the almost two-year stretch the Tenth Doctor knew he was going to die since Ood Sigma told him so), so I hope that the producers by that point will choose to portray him as serene and knowing that through all these centuries, and indeed in this final kick at the can, that he did the best he could with the time the universe gave him.

So, instead of going all Mastery and looking for ways to keep soldiering on regardless of the cost, he'd barely even reference it until his time came. Expecting to die, he'd bid farewell to his plucky companion, stumble into the TARDIS, and set it on a course for a black hole, or deep space, or wherever his body or the TARDIS would never be discovered. Finally collapsing, his body failing him for the last time, he would simply exhale his last and slowly, inevitably, close his eyes...

...And promptly regenerate. He'd stand up, in full ginger glory, and exclaim "Well, THAT's different..!". Cue credits, a new mystery, and a 14th Doctor never knowing if his next death would be his last.

Mark

[Alidar Jarok]

I think they should proceed as if 13 is his last regeneration. It would definitely be more interesting.

That being said, I sure as hell would not want to be the one to pull the trigger and permanently kill the show just because the actor wants to leave. So I suspect they'll find a workaround because nothing is ever set in stone in Doctor Who.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Mark_Nguyen wrote:

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We do have proof that lives can be extended. In "The Five Doctors", the Master (who by that point had already had 1-3 incarnations after his supposed final "natural" incarnation, depending on how you look at it) was offered another regeneration and a completely new life cycle by the high council. He accepted this as though it weren't a big deal.

I always just assumed that the council was basically BSing the Master. They may have promised him a new life cycle, but that doesn't mean they could have actually given him one. (And there's no real proof that the Master even believed them when they said that.)

[Mark_Nguyen]

It's not unreasonable IMO. My read on the Master's reaction was more of "Oh. YOU guys would do that for ME?", rather than "Oh. You guys can DO that?", as if it were something they could do with the resources of Gallifrey at hand, where the Master could not do so otherwise (despite years of trying). I interpret it to mean that it wasn't a big deal if you were on the high council's good side.

And then like I said, they did exactly that later on. He was "resurrected" per dialogue, so between that and Rassilon's subsequent re-appearance despite being previously comfortable as a giant floating head I figured that while probably not easy or culturally cool to do, bringing back Time Lords and giving them new bodies with new sets of regenerations wasn't a problem.

Hell, in TVM the Master was trying to grab the Doctor's remaining lives with the help of the Eye of Harmony, again implying that transferring regenerations is possible with the right tech. Ditto with the creepy pulsey brain aliens in "Mawdryn Undead". Then again, River gave up "all" of her remaining regenerations to unpoison the Doctor, and there were no Eyes in play aside from her own lovely pair... But I digress.

Mark

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Mark_Nguyen wrote:

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It's not unreasonable. My read on the Master's reaction was more of "Oh. YOU guys would do that for ME?", rather than "Oh. You guys can DO that?", as if it were something they could do with the resources of Gallifrey at hand, where the Master could not do so otherwise (despite years of trying). I interpret it to mean that it wasn't a big deal if you were on the high council's good side.

Another thing that makes me not actually believe the council in that scene was that it was Borusa who delivered the line. Given what we would later learn about him, I'm not inclined to trust anything he said. As for the Master's reaction, I got kind of a "Yeah, right..." vibe from it.

[Mark_Nguyen]

We'll agree to disagree on that one, then. I see the Master as smart enough to accept it was possible to begin with.

Another fan theory goes that now that all the other Time Lords are dead, the Doctor could potentially be the recipient of all that regeneration energy and thus could afford to wile it away on stuff like growing the handyclone or fixing River's hand. Of course, we'll likely never really know how regeneration actually works, though the extended universe of Doctor Who has a loooooot of factoids that may or may not contravene what we see on screen:

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Regeneration

Mark

[Mr Light]

The Master's story proves 12 is not a limitation.

But you don't even need that. The Doctor took control of The Moment and became an all powerful god for one second and wiped out two mighty civilizations in the blink of an eye. You don't think that wouldn't have recharged his mana?

[Gov Kodos]

They won't kill off the cash cow. The limit will be quickly forgotten, retconned by the 507 comment or written around. Something, whatever, I'm good with it.

[Starkers]

I don't mind if they retcon it, I just hope they mention it rather than just sweeping it under the carpet.

[Haggis and tatties]

I am sure they will find a very entertaining way to get round this when the time comes........i personally would love to see the old timelords back and rewarding the Dr with some more regenerations for services rendered.