Renumber The Doctors?

Discussion in 'Doctor Who' started by intrinsical, Nov 24, 2013.

  1. davejames

    davejames Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Well only because Hurt identified himself as a Doctor on the viewscreen. With the war going on, I doubt they had much time to quibble over the details.
     
  2. Gov Kodos

    Gov Kodos Admiral Admiral

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  3. The Mirrorball Man

    The Mirrorball Man Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Depending on how you count, there have been either six or fifteen Assassin's Creed games. Yet the latest one is called Assassin's Creed IV. The novel The Three Musketeers tells the adventures of four musketeers. There were four people in Enid Blyton's The Famous Five. Numbering is not always straightforward.
     
  4. intrinsical

    intrinsical Commodore Commodore

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    Duhz if counting were easy, we wouldn't be talking about it would we? Sometimes, I don't even know what 1+1 is equal to :lol:
     
  5. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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    Use zero-based numbering so that Eccleston, Tennant, Smith, and Capaldi can remain the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth Doctors:

    0 - Hartnell
    1 - Troughton
    2 - Pertwee
    3 - Baker
    4 - Davison
    5 - Baker
    6 - McCoy
    7 - McGann
    8 - Hurt
    9 - Eccleston
    10 - Tennant
    11 - Smith
    12 - Capaldi

    It worked for Thermodynamics.

    Simples.
     
  6. intrinsical

    intrinsical Commodore Commodore

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    I've got a compromise.

    Renumbering the current 9th, 10th and 11th Doctors would only cause confusion to viewers who have not watched Day of The Doctor. It would also be a serious spoiler leak of the 50th anniversary special if we started calling Matt Smith the 12th Doctor. So lets keep Eccelston as 9th, Tennant as 10th and Smith as 11th.

    Capaldi however is the 13th Doctor because his regeneration happens after the events of Day of The Doctor.
     
  7. The Mirrorball Man

    The Mirrorball Man Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Or we could renumber them individually in the order we saw them. My first Doctor was the third, so for me he would be the first, then the fourth would be the second, the fifth would be the third, the seventh would be the fourth, the sixth would be the fifth, the ninth would be the sixth, the seventh would be the seventh (yeah), the second would be the eighth, the first would be the ninth, the tenth would be the tenth (yeah), the eleventh would be the eleventh (yeah), the War Doctor would be the twelfth and the twelfth would be the thirteenth.
     
  8. Captain Crow

    Captain Crow Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Actually we do see him regenerate into Eccleston.
    [​IMG]





    For those who can't handle the fact that Hurt IS the 9th Doctor just count Hartnell-McGann in incarnation order, skip Hurt, and use regeneration order (which is one number lower) for Eccleston onward.
     
  9. RevdKathy

    RevdKathy How scared are you? Moderator

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    In the end who's numbering counts?

    Eccleston's Doctor considered himself the 9th, as he'd rejected the war Doctor.
    Tennant's Doctor likewise called himself the 10th. Both knew there was another regeneration in between, but refused to call him Doctor.

    Smith considered himself the 11th until very shortly before his regeneration when he finally claimed and owned his 9th regeneration as Doctor. So Capaldi's Doctor will consider himself the 13th.

    And now that he remembers what happened he'll set out to release Gallifrey, whereupon he'll be rewarded with more regenerations. And the internet will explode again.
     
  10. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    With respect to Moffat, the next show runner of DW could disregard that and consider Smith to be the twelth Doctor. So the point is hardly moot.
     
  11. The Nth Doctor

    The Nth Doctor Infinite Possibilities... Premium Member

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    More to the point, what matters is what we see on screen. What we see on screen in "The Day of the Doctor" strongly says Hurt is The Ninth Doctor and so on, as seen from the most current incarnation of The Doctor.
     
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2013
  12. YellowSubmarine

    YellowSubmarine Vice Admiral Admiral

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    They are perfectly numbered in base-11 with the extra between 8 and 9 instead of after 9.

    1 - Hartnell
    2 - Troughton
    3 - Pertwee
    4 - Baker
    5 - Davison
    6 - Baker
    7 - McCoy
    8 - McGann
    Ɛ - Hurt
    9 - Eccleston
    10 - Tennant
    11 - Smith
    12 - Capaldi

    I can't wait to see the 1Ɛth Doctor.
     
  13. Lance

    Lance Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    My view? The show had a 'get-out clause' in the sense of him being some kind of 'Doctor No More', but I see no reason (given on screen) why Hurt is not now officially the Ninth Doctor. Certainly the under-riding thematic arc of 'Day of the Doctor' is of the Tennant and Smith incarnations learning to finally 'accept' this part of who they are, after centuries of (implied) ignoring him.

    Even more crucially, this is actually *confirmed* on screen when, in the climactic battle, the Capaldi incarnation is explicitly refered to as the thirteenth one. No ifs, no buts. Go back and watch it again. :)

    Frankly I don't see that there's any ambiguity in it. Steven Moffat rewrote everything we thought we knew about the new series Doctors, so basically we do now have thirteen Doctors. Eccleston is 'Ten', Tennant is 'Eleven' and Smithy is 'Twelve'. People might find that hard to accept. But it's true. :D
     
  14. The Mirrorball Man

    The Mirrorball Man Vice Admiral Admiral

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    No he's not. Go back and watch it again. The Time Lord says that there are 13 of them, he doesn't say anything about numeration or about the 12th Doctor.

    But anyway, the point is moot. As has been said, the showrunner decides how these Doctors are supposed to be referred to, and whatever is decided is fine with me.
     
  15. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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    Nope, in base 11, that would be:

    1 - Hartnell
    2 - Troughton
    3 - Pertwee
    4 - Baker
    5 - Davison
    6 - Baker
    7 - McCoy
    8 - McGann
    9 - Hurt
    a - Eccleston
    10 - Tennant
    11 - Smith
    12 - Capaldi

    So Eccleston is the "a" Doctor.
     
  16. Lance

    Lance Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I agree, the line has potential ambiguities, but myself I think it states a plain case. Thirteen Doctors = thirteen Doctors, and the line is said when Capaldi makes his entrance.

    Totally agreed. If there are now 13 official Doctors, and like I say that seems to be the thematic thrust of the story, and if it is the intention then I welcome it with open arms. :)
     
  17. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    You know, this is quite the legacy Moffat is leaving behind. It's already gotten to the point where we should essentially stop referring to the seasons by the # season and now we should probably stop referring to the Doctors by their numerical designation. You don't suppose Moffat hates numbers?

    The ironic thing is it wasn't until Moffat took over that the Doctor's current numerical designation was even mentioned in the show itself.
     
  18. Lance

    Lance Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    ^ It certainly causes a strange mess in the branding of the series. :lol: Every episode guide, every piece of merchandise (action figures etc) that have refered to the Doctor numerically, they've either all become instantly irrelevant, or else we are going to have to ignore the thrust of this script (which is, yes, that Hurt is a proper Doctor and he's simply one that the other new series Doctors have all been ignoring/repressing from their memory until now).

    In my view it's actually easier to accept that we've all just been operating under wrong assumptions for the last seven years. To just accept at face value that Hurt was the ninth Doctor, Eccleston the tenth, Tennant the eleventh and so on. I'm still not convinced we've seen anything on screen which disproves this, but we've certainly seen plenty of evidence that seems to confirm it! :D
     
  19. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The main problem is that since Moffat took over he's been drilling it into our heads that Smith is the Eleventh Doctor. The premiere episode is titled "The Eleventh Hour." The Doctor refers to himself as "the Eleventh" in The Lodger, which also features him wearing a jersey with 11 on it during the football game. And then there's the whole "Fall of the Eleventh at Trenzalore," which is kind of an integral part of the overall arc of the Smith era. So Moffat has gone out of his way to make sure we think of Smith as the Eleventh Doctor just to reveal that he's actually the Twelfth.
     
  20. JoeZhang

    JoeZhang Vice Admiral Admiral

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    But they were calling him the Doctor earlier in the Episode and so were the Daleks.