My theory about Smith saying that he could regenerate in episodes like "Let's Kill Hitler" & "Nightmare in Silver" amounts to him not being sure just how much regeneration energy he had left. I'm thinking, the metacrisis regeneration in "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End" used up a lot of regeneration energy but not as much as would have been used by a full regeneration. He thought that he might potentially have enough left over for another regeneration, at least in theory, although it would probably still be quite risky. River is aware of how tenuous his remaining supply of regeneration energy is, which is why she's so cross with him when he uses some to heal her wrist in "The Angels Take Manhattan." Perhaps the Doctor was genuinely unsure of just how much he had left, between the metacrisis regeneration, healing River's wrist, excess energy bleed-off from when Tennant regenerated in "The End of Time" (which seemed to damage the TARDIS console in the process), Tennant blowing 10 years of his life force into a damaged piece of his TARDIS in "Rise of the Cybermen," not to mention wondering how much he had left over from River's remaining regenerations in "Let's Kill Hitler." It was only after the Doctor had a few centuries to kill on Trenzalore that he actually ran the numbers and realized that he no longer had enough left to safely attempt a regeneration at all. (Presumably, if he tried, he would have ended up all crispy like the Master in "The Deadly Assassin" & "The Keeper of Traken.")
I'm not so much discussing the regeneration here but more the episode itself: what if the episode has no prophecies (you know, four knocks, the fall of the eleventh etc...) or foreshadowing but instead it is the episode where something simply goes wrong. Just as they think they're in the clear - BANG! I always thought The Stolen Earth was the perfect final episode for a Doctor.
Agreed. While we can argue about whether or not Smith could've or should've known that he could or couldn't regenerate in "The Time of the Doctor," the point is that the whole episode was heavy with portent that this was THE END. "The End of Time" was the same way. I would prefer the Doctor's regeneration to be sudden & shocking, a surprise for him even if the audience knows it's coming. In fact, that might make it more poignant if the audience can see the danger while the Doctor can't.
There's an image that's come into my head. I don't know what the preceding episode would have been but it ends with the Doctor on a boat at sea. He thinks the danger is over and he takes a moment to pause and look at the sunset. Caught up in his reverie, he doesn't see a man approach behind him, one of the villains of the story whom the Doctor had presumed was either dead or safely locked away. The audience would shout to warn the Doctor if they could but of course he can't hear us. And then, while the Doctor is enjoying his peaceful moment, a shot rings out. The Doctor collapses and falls overboard. We see him face down in the water as he's engulfed by regeneration energy. Once the regeneration completes, the new Doctor's first thoughts are that
he's still drowning and is miles from shore! The words appear heavy on the screen: "TO BE CONTINUED."
Season 11 opens with the Doctor washing ashore and he could be anywhere leading into any adventure. (It could even be a story decades later, implying that the Doctor was drifting for ages. When someone asks him about this, he just says, "I can hold my breath... a really long time." The Doctor's soaking wet clothes would also give him a reason to change early on in the story. "They're not mine. They belonged to the other guy," he explains to his baffled rescuer.)
I’d still like to see a good(ish) Master, one who’d work with the Doctor but who would perhaps harden over time (sort of the opposite to Capaldi’s Doctor) or else one who approached death with sadness, knowing that with the next regeneration he/she would likely revert to type.
I'd like to see an episode where the Master goes "straight." Or at least, straight by the Master's standards, which would be running an alien casino and being a ruthless mob boss but no longer trying to conquer the universe or commit genocide. The Doctor spends the entire episode thinking that the Master is obviously behind all of the mysterious goings-on but it turns out he's totally innocent and there's some other alien menace that they have to team up to fight.
I like Missy. She's my 2nd favorite version of the Master, after Roger Delgado. I can even picture her with a goatee!
I'd do that, but maybe make the 13th Doctor someone like Rowan Atkinson or Richard E Grant (not because I'm against a female Doctor, but because I think one of those two would be a more entertaining way to do the scene). Heck, they could even do it that way and give more opportunities for adventures with that Doctor. Just have the 12th Doctor regenerate outside the TARDIS, enter without the companion then disappear, have them reappear seconds later and invite the new companion into the TARDIS, and when that happens then have them trip. That way you could have the gag and only have to use the special actor for a few minutes of screen time, while non-TV material could do the "lost adventures" of the 13th Doctor for the time that elapsed for him between appearing and disappearing. If they used Richard E Grant for this, that could even put Scream of Shalka back into continuity.
