I know, and I'm not judging him either way. I'm merely saying that he wanted to do it. And he skipped two regenerations so that it wasn't left to another writer to explain. If he'd have brought back McGann and not had the "War Doctor" he wouldn't have gotten to explain it away, somebody else would have to.
Moffat talks Eccleston and The Day of the Doctor
- Thread starter Starkers
- Start date
Moffat already had a story in place for Time of the Doctor that didn't involve the regeneration limit, in addition to the truth field the Time Lords set up something on Trenzalore that prevented regeneration. It was after the creation of the War Doctor that Moffat realized if he counted Tennant's aborted regeneration he could use the limit instead, and believed fans would go along since it was a canonical precedent. We might have to, had the new series not spent eight previous years pretending the limit didn't exist (RTD literally did) and had the Doctor not referenced regeneration still being possible three episodes earlier.
Maybe it was just me, but up until "Time of the Doctor" I'd always assumed the Doctor had multiple, if not infinite, new regenerations as a result of taking command of the Moment and becoming "god" for a hot second. And that was before RTD had the Doctor make the throwaway joke in SJA about having thousands.
Nightmare in Silver, while talking to the Cyber presence inside his head about regeneration the Doctor says "I can regenerate right now. Don't want to, use this me up who knows what I'll end up with next."
People tend to wave this off as "the Doctor lies" but given he's talking to something implanted in his head and should know if he's lying, the statement should therefore be truthful. To be fair, Neil Gaiman didn't know about the War Doctor when he wrote the episode. Hell, when he wrote the episode, Clara was still supposed to be from Victorian times.
No, Moffat had the Doctor claiming that he regenerated into himself, he(Tennant's Doctor) had vanity issues.
I've come to the conclusion that the many times when there has been some sort of bad guy mind control / link / whatever to the Doctor, what the Doctor is actually lying about is how much control the opposing force actually has over him. Meaning, he makes them think they have more control than they really do.
And yet he's one of the few Doctors who didn't look into a mirror following his regeneration.
Oh yes forgot about that (I've tried to forget a lot about Nightmare in Silver TBH) I think it's fair to say that even with something implanted in his head he's still got to have some way of shielding certain thoughts, and you wouldn't admit to an enemy that you couldn't regenerate. I think you're right, it probably wasn't the intention as it was written but it is explainable.
It is a shame that Eccleston was not in the 50th, especially since he was the only surviving actor to portray the Doctor not involved in the 50th anniversary in some way. Still, it's his choice, and fandom needs to respect that.
Overall, I think things worked out for the best. I'm glad that 10's non regeneration counted, because then every Doctor since that should chop off a hand right away, and always have at least one get out of jail free card.
Overall, I think things worked out for the best. I'm glad that 10's non regeneration counted, because then every Doctor since that should chop off a hand right away, and always have at least one get out of jail free card.
But when he finally did, he decided to make up for lost time!
I haven't seen Tennant yet but I'll take Gillan's Nebula over Eccleston's Malekith any day of the week! Thor: The Dark World was a complete waste of his talents. (As was his villainous turns in G.I.Joe & The Seeker.)
Not exactly.
Similar threads
