^ River gave the Doctor all of her remaining regeneration energy. In terms of lives there was Melody - Mels - River. River gave up 10 regeneration in "Let's Kill Hitler". On to Moffat though. I suspect there will be a lot of build up to something epic, but little pay off. Moffat prefers to have character's talk and exposit dialogue rather than show us something grand. TV and film are visual medium. You need to show more and tell less. Seriously how much of "The Name of The Doctor" was just character's standing around talking about the consequences of Trenzalore, or what would happen if someone went inside the Doctor's time stream? The same thing can be said about the Doctor's relationship with River. We are constantly told how much they are in love/will be in love, and yet you never see that grow or materialize.
"All of it". We can be certain River used at least 3 of her lives (Little Girl in US, Mels, and River) possibly 4 or 5, but, no reason to believe any more than that, so, likely between 8 - 10 lives (7 - 9 Regenerations). We don't know what effect the poison might have on them. We were given the impression from dialogue that healing from the poison burned it all up, but, it's definitely an out to add an unknown number of Regenerations to him.
Why should you expect to see ANYONE from the old days? That's a really odd expectation. It's the 50 year anniversary episode! 50 years of Doctor Who!?!? That means we need to ONLY see David Tennant return. Because it is the 50th. ALso, let's focus on what a jerk the Doctor is. How he's really a mean, nasty, selfish person with questionable morality. Let's do a lot more of THAT. To celebrate him.
Hey, I can play that game too! Let's see EVERYONE from the old days! I want to see every single person, every Doctor and every companion, and each one of them should shout catchphrases and eat jelly babies! And I want the Doctor to be super nice and morally irreprochable, because it's his anniversary and who doesn't enjoy a flawless character? THAT is what kids want.
^^ The only Doctor I wanted to see in the 50th is 9. [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kofN4Je1ark[/yt] "Fantastic" line at 7:03
There's no sense in that whatsoever. If they wanted to incorporate a regeneration from the 8th Doctor, they'd get Paul McGann, who was more than willing to appear in it, and indeed has expressed disappointment at not being in it. I'm sure there will be representations of all the Doctors in some form, but as you say, I don't expect to see new footage of past Doctors bar Tennant. That said, it would be nice if they're all lying to preserve the surprise but I'm not holding my breath.
Yeah, I think stock footage for both McGann and Eccleston will be shown (or at least, I hope they'll show it). And the BBC probably forced Moffat to only bring one past Doctor alongside Hurt, and that was an obvious choice - the most popular Doctor since Tom Baker it is!
Don't get me wrong - I'm not implying that they should use stock footage or another actor - I'd much rather see McGann return. But what I'd like ain't going to happen. I'm pleased that we'll see David again, but it's a shame that we won't see any other versions of the Doctor, other than clips. If that.
On the other hand, was The Five Doctors all that good, once you took away the nostalgia factor of seeing Troughton, Pertwee and their companions (and stock footage of Baker and someone pretending to be Hartnell)?
It's like playing a Doctor Who version of Fluxx. Well, with Clara, the whole mystery was how she kept coming back even though she died each time. With Rory, I don't care because I love Rory and I don't want him to die. With Sherlock, Arthur Conan Doyle did the same thing, so you can't blame Moffat for that. (And Guy Ritchie did the exact same thing in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.)
I'll agree that, once you take away the nostalgia factor, "The Five Doctors" is a mediocre story at best. But the whole point IS the nostalgia and I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. What's wrong with getting really rediculously nostalgic & fan-wanky if you're only really doing it once every 10 years or so?
I never did like five doctors that much. Three Doctors and Two doctors are far superior. Those two had some actual good story to it while five doctors really was just three doctors, one guy dressed as a doctor, and archive footage of another doctor.
On the contrary, I think The Five Doctors is superior to The Two Doctors. Robert Holmes writes great 25-minute episodes, but really struggled with the 45-minute format. The story was twice as long, and really boring. And, not mention a rather shoddy affair - the Second Doctor's barely in two of the three episodes, and Hines is wasted as Jamie. What a wasted opportunity. At least in The Five Doctors each Doctor had something to do. Sure, again the Second Doctor got the short stick, and the First Doctor got way more screen-time than he should've, but each Doctor had something to do (well, maybe not the Fourth Doctor).
Well-said, that's exactly how I feel about it as well. I wouldn't want to see this type of story done all the time, but hell, it IS the show's 50th anniversary and nostalgia is indeed the whole point.