Series 12 News & Spoilers
- Thread starter Lonemagpie
- Start date
Exactly. Saying Capaldi was the first would make more sense, since he was the first of the new cycle, not that that's saying much.
The TARDIS said regeneration disabled (due to the Judas poison)
Mind you, the part I never got was in Let's Kill Hitler, River transfers all her regeneration energy to the Doctor, it's even stated she can't regenerate anymore as a result. Since she's only on her third life, that should mean the Doctor received enough regeneration energy for ten extra lives.
And then there's the whole "I can regenerate right now" bit from Nightmare in Silver, told to someone the Doctor shouldn't be able to lie to. But of course, Neil Gaiman didn't know a whole new former Doctor was going to be introduced in the very next episode.
And then there's the whole "I can regenerate right now" bit from Nightmare in Silver, told to someone the Doctor shouldn't be able to lie to. But of course, Neil Gaiman didn't know a whole new former Doctor was going to be introduced in the very next episode.
The Doctor was perfectly able to lie to Mr. Clever - the whole point was that he was keeping Time Lord secrets in his half of the shared brain, including how regeneration works... so Clever wouldn't know enough to notice the shared body lacked that capability.
River's total number of regenerations was never established to be 12 either - Vastra wasn't even sure she COULD regenerate. Maybe she only got a few?
River's total number of regenerations was never established to be 12 either - Vastra wasn't even sure she COULD regenerate. Maybe she only got a few?
Also, my impression was that it took a looot of regeneration energy to counter the poison and basically used up multiple charges so to speak.
As a child created in the vortex, she could have had any random number of lives. The Time Lords were the ones limiting the ability to 12 regens after Rassilon's early days.
Though Rassilon did ask the Doctor "how many lives did we give you?" (maybe he was just being an a-hole), so they could probably control that aspect as well. 12 regens was just the default setting.
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Like I've mentioned before, an alternate Doctor or a future Doctor (ala the Curator) are both real Doctors. That satisfies #2 and explains #3. So, no, not really complex.
Or, at least no more complex than, oh, there's a cycle before Hartnell who the Doctors we've seen can't remember but oh wait, they do retain memory of the name and other details! Somehow.
Your guess might be correct but we just don't know.
Ok, I sort of suspect you're correct. But, I'm holding out hope that you're not!
I'm not a fan of the idea she is a pre-Hartnell Doctor and even less of a fan of there being an entire cycle before Hartnell (gender of which being irrelevant).
Well it's not an alternative Doctor but that has been ruled out. as for it being a future Doctor - the whole of the scene with the two doctors and Gat is to signal to the reader that this is not the case - this is reinforced by the scene with the Doctor at the end with the companions. That is the narrative purpose of both scenes.
Forget the in-universe stuff - to the casual viewer this to signal and then reinforce - "this Doctor is clearly from the past and that is the mystery we are setting up". Sure you could ignore it but then you might as well ignore all of the episode...
Ruled out by the Mirror. As I mentioned in the other thread, there's reason to doubt that the usually tight lipped Chibnall would go to the Mirror, and only the Mirror, to set the record straight. I'm taking the Mirror's report with a grain of salt for now.
I don't think the scene with the Two Doctors and Gat rules out Jo being a future Doctor. Just that there is *something* mysterious going on. We don't know what. My take on the final scene is just that it reinforces that there's a mystery.
I'll be honest, I don't like the idea of Pre-Hartnell Doctors. It cheapens what we saw of his journey as character that we saw unfold. Hartnell should be the original. YMMV. So, yeah, I'm sure I'm grasping at straws
but that's my prerogative and I won't believe Jo is a pre-Hartnell Doctor until it's definitively established.
The implication of LKH is that the regeneration was blocked because the poison was so deadly. The reason the TARDIS says it in the first place is the Doctor says he'll have to regenerate because there's no cure to the poison.
Well River wasn't strictly speaking a Timelord was she? It's possible the Doctor thought he could regenerate, especially given he'd blocked all thoughts of the War Doctor from his mind and maybe he hadn't worked out yet that the metacrisis Doctor would count as a full regeneration? (continues straw clutching)
I see Chibnall is now down as the co-writer on episodes 6 and 7 too, which he hadn't been previously. And I'd be shocked if that didn't also turn out to be the case for episode 8 as well, since it features the 'Lone Cyberman'.
So it seems like there's only going to be two completely stand-alone episodes this series. What a difference a year (and a bit) makes...
So it seems like there's only going to be two completely stand-alone episodes this series. What a difference a year (and a bit) makes...
More Moffat-era than the present day, novelist and comic book writer Joe Hill (son of Stephen King) pitched some stories for the television series, but was then rejected because he was an American. I know of some novelists who have had their agents look into writing Doctor Who novels for BBC Books (Peter David, Timothy Zahn) only to be told no because they're American; Hill may be the first case I'm aware of where an American writer got the door open far enough to pitch and was then shot down for that reason.
I don't know the answer to that, Mr. Awe. There's obviously no issue with British ex-pats (Neil Gainan) writing for the television series, nor British ex-pats (Michael Moorcock, Lance Parkin) writing novels for BBC Books. On the flip side, Americans have written for Big Finish and comics. It does seem that a distinction is being drawn, though.
They don't buy spec scripts from anyone, for one thing. For another, the name Joe Hill won't mean anything to most people, so I wonder if they just thought, "Here's another deluded fan sending in a script thinking we'll buy it off them."
In Hill's account, his agent got him an invite to pitch; I hate putting it this way, but the agent puts him ahead of 99.9% of fans. He worked up a couple, ran them past Neil Gaiman for his thoughts, Gaiman gave a yay or nay on them, and then sent them off. There was never a spec script, and while you could argue the pitches were technically unsolicited -- his agent reached out to Cardiff, rather than Cardiff reaching out to him -- at the point Cardiff told his agent they would take Hill's pitches, you can't say they were unwelcome.
Hill may be overstating the BBC's reaction for comedic effect, but I see no reason to doubt the outlines of his story.
Honestly, I can't say I've even heard of Joe Hill before now. Then again, I've only read one Stephen King book and found it meh.
