standing to close to tthe regenerating doctor

[FreddyE]

In nuWho there seems to be a pretty big deal to my about people not standing to close to the Doctor while he is regenerating.

What do you think would happen if someone stood to close and was hit by the regeneration energy?

I have this fantasy about a companion beeing hit by the energy and also regenerating.

Or even more crazy...how about someone is hit by the energy, his body dissolves and his soul/mind gets trapped inside the doctors mind?

[intrinsical]

It has happened before. We saw Tennant's doctor redirecting part of his regeneration energy to his disembodied hand in Journey's End. Later, Donna touched the hand and got her brain enhanced with Timelord intellect and knowledge.

[FreddyE]

intrinsical wrote:

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It has happened before. We saw Tennant's doctor redirecting part of his regeneration energy to his disembodied hand in Journey's End. Later, Donna touched the hand and got her brain enhanced with Timelord intellect and knowledge.

Oh yeah...I forgot about that. That´s what happens when you try to absorb 6 seasons worth of a tv series in just a little over a year and a half ;-)

[The Wormhole]

In a best case scenario, you end up with another DoctorDonna. In a worst case scenario, massive destruction like when the Doctor regenerated in The End of Time.

[Christopher]

Here's a compilation of all the regenerations:

http://youtu.be/uXCpY_3Sac8

In the first regeneration, Ben and Polly are crouched right over the Doctor as he changes. There is a wash of blinding light similar to the modern effect, but they aren't affected in any way by their proximity. Similarly, in the fourth regeneration, Adric, Nyssa, and Tegan are crouched right over the Doctor as he changes, although there's no burst of light in this version. And in the sixth regeneration, the Rani's hench-beast turns the Doctor over in mid-regeneration, to no evident ill effect.

Sarah Jane and the Brig are at a distance in the third regeneration, but there's no burst of energy there, just a simple fade. There does seem to be a burst of energy in the fifth regeneration, with Peri several feet away. The seventh is the first one that seems dangerous, with bursts of electricity around the body. Rose retreats when the ninth regeneration begins, but that could've been just alarm. The tenth is the most clearly violent one, with the energy tearing up the TARDIS interior.

Hmm. Looking at that, I wonder if you could make a case that the more energetic regenerations are the ones where the Doctor's resisting it the most. The First Doctor seemed resistant to change, and there was a burst of light, though not enough to affect the people next to him. The Second resisted fiercely, but we don't see the actual moment of transition. The Third was resigned to his fate and was unconscious, so there was no resistance and it went smoothly. Similarly with the Fourth, though he was conscious. The Fifth was more mentally troubled, as the montage reveals, and there was some outpouring of energy. The Sixth was knocked unconscious so there wasn't much energy, but some. The Seventh "died" in distress on the operating table, so while he was unconscious at the time it happened, maybe there was enough residual stress in his nervous system to cause a limited energy discharge.

But the Ninth seemed pretty resigned to it, so it's hard to explain the burst of energy there under this theory. Maybe it was just his general anger and edginess causing it. But the Tenth fought it fiercely and thus we got a violent burst of energy.

Ehh, not a perfect theory, but it makes things about as consistent as anything can be over the 50-year span of the franchise.

[Shazam!]

I imagine it was perfectly fine until RTD spazzed up the regeneration process by turning it into a firework display.

[Kelthaz]

You ever see The Fly? Yeah, that.

[RoJoHen]

What if the companion is giving the Doctor a hug when he regenerates? Would they get absorbed into the regeneration, creating some sort of weird hybrid?

I think so.

[od0_ital]

I figured the regeneration from Ten to Eleven was so violent because he held it back to visit the previous companions.

Ya know, kinda like how if ya have to pee a bit, but can't find a restroom, and by the time ya do, ya are stuck there for forever while very drop of liquid in your body flows out...or is that just me?

[Redfern]

I read or heard it somewhere that the original intent of Eccleston's "fireworks" type regeneration into Tennant was to depict him "expelling" the "Heart of the TARDIS" vortex energy which he absorbed from Rose to save her life. However, when Derek Jacobi regenerated into John Simm, the FX team applied a similar optical, thus implying the the violent release of energy is the norm for all TimeLords. When Tennant redirected the same golden flames towards his severed hand to stave off a regeneration, that pretty well cemented the visual as "the" standard. Afterwards, we got Teannant into Smith with the same effect as well as two regenerations with Melody pond/River Song.

If the production had stayed with the original plan of the "flaming" regeneration being a unique event, I wonder what effects subsequent regeneration sequences would have employed?

Sincerely,

Bill

[Christopher]

od0_ital wrote:

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I figured the regeneration from Ten to Eleven was so violent because he held it back to visit the previous companions.

I don't buy the "held back" explanation. There's a far more plausible one. What "killed" the Tenth Doctor was the same thing that "killed" the Third in "Planet of the Spiders" -- a radiation overdose. And after the Third Doctor's lethal exposure to radiation, he was lost in the time vortex for weeks before finding his way back to UNIT HQ and finally succumbing. Which is consistent with how radiation poisoning works in reality -- its effects are delayed, and a lethal dose can take days or weeks to kill. So there's no reason to expect that the Doctor would have regenerated right away after lethal exposure to radiation. A delayed reaction is exactly what should happen. So there's no need to assume he held anything back.

[FreddyE]

RoJoHen wrote:

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What if the companion is giving the Doctor a hug when he regenerates? Would they get absorbed into the regeneration, creating some sort of weird hybrid?

I think so.

If you take the whole DoctorDonna thing into account, that would actually make sense.

[Captaindemotion]

Maybe the regeneration thing is like the Klingons' bumpy foreheads. They always looked like that but the budget hasn't been there to show them properly until recently!

[RoJoHen]

I really enjoyed the way they did it in "Let's Kill Hitler" when Mels transformed into River. It was more or less the same as we've been seeing it in nuWho, but I just liked the way the regeneration effects looked.

[The Wormhole]

Captaindemotion wrote:

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Maybe the regeneration thing is like the Klingons' bumpy foreheads. They always looked like that but the budget hasn't been there to show them properly until recently!

An easter egg on the Time and the Rani DVD does actually show the Six to Seven regeneration with done with the nu series regeneration effect.