Theories for In-Universe Change

[The]

Something I enjoy doing is discussing, theorizing, and imagining valid, or pseudo-logical reasons for why certain changes occur in Doctor Who. Recently reading the thread questioning why the console room was destroyed by Ten's regeneration, many answers were offered. While one set of fans tried coming up with imaginative ways of why this happened in-universe (Ten's repression of the regen), the rest simply regurgitated comments from interviews for why it happened in the real world (i.e. new production team).

I'm of the crowd that notes the real world reason, and then enjoys trying to see where the inexplicable change fits into the in-universe logic of the show. For example:

• -I agree Ten holding back his regeneration caused a build-up of regen energy that literally exploded from him. He probably didn't foresee it happening, as he was in a desperate state. Or, as another friend of mine suggested, he's still leaking the Bad Wolf/Vortex energy he sucked out of Rose, and it affects his regeneration every time now (ergo the escaping wisps of energy Tennant and Smith have exhaled).

• -Why did the Sixth Doctor die? Did he simply fall down? I know alternate media have suggested various reasons for it (i.e. he was already hurt from a previous unseen adventure, his future self was 'self-inducing' it to avoid the evolution that leads to Valeyard, etc.). I'm willing to go with these, although I think the whole "future Doctors exist in his head all the time" aspect is very silly 90's-type scifi. Anyone got anything new?

• -Why did the 7th Doctor suddenly go from goofy clown Chaplin figure, to the darker, manipulative, philosopher we came to know later? My personal theory is this: Shown his possible path during his recent Trial, the Doctor is ever more vigilant to not allow himself to lose control and become the Valeyard. Constantly aware, constantly probing, and possibly even peeking ahead a little, the 7th incarnation inadvertently becomes aware of the upcoming Time War. Seeing the final battle to come, one that would irrevocably change his lives forevermore, he dropped the clownish act. Because, it's all an act. Deep down he is always the Hartnell Doctor. Humans may have changed him in some ways, but his very nature remains detached, calculating, and aware. He didn't change so much as he did "man-up" for the coming war.

• -Who destroyed Gallifrey? Was it Doctor Eight or Doctor Nine? Maybe Eight was killed during the War and Nine ended it shortly thereafter in a post-regenerative traumatic haze? Or, perhaps Eight simply decided to sacrifice himself and his planet to stop the Daleks once and for all. But, much to his surprise and chagrin, The Doctor still regenerated into Nine. Thus born the incarnation wracked with survivor's guilt.

There are many, many more of these fun little inconsistencies. Anyone want to offer their own? Or even take a shot at the ones I proposed above?

 

[Mr. Sin]

I'm mostly curious about the 'gaps' in Doctor Who. Like Star Trek's "Lost Years" series which dealt with the years between the first act of Generations and Encounter At Farpoint, Who has many gaps. A lot of these are filled by the novels/audios/comics etc. but some aren't.

There's quite a few:

-The Doctor and Susan's adventures before the pilot. Presumabely they at least went to Revolutionary france...

-Of course the infamous season 6B explaining why Troughton aged and also knew the fate of his companions without regenerating.

-The Fourth Doctor's time travelling alone (Or were there more companions between Sarah and Leela)

-Possibly more adventures with Fourth Doctor and K-9 between Invasion of Time and The Key To Time...

-The Sixth Doctor's adventures after he presumabely dropped future Mel off with his future (but still sixth) self, and any companions he might've had.

-The adventures between Survival and the TV movie, including the official fate of Ace.

-The Time war of course and Eigth's adventures.

 

[ITL]

the rest simply regurgitated comments from interviews for why it happened in the real world (i.e. new production team).

In-Universe speculation is a fine thing and I enjoy the creativity, but why the insulting turn of phrase here? "Simply regurgitated"? Good grief.

 

[The]

^No, no...that's a misinterpretation. I wasn't singling anyone or anything out. I meant that there are those that enjoy in-universe speculation, and those that don't. I should have used a different word than "regurgitate'. It was meant to convey they don't bother with creating in-universe reasons for things they know have real-world answers, even if it's in some way an obvious narrative hiccup.

That's all, swear. No worries.

 

[ITL]

Cool. No worries, also.

 

[FalTorPan]

-The Doctor and Susan's adventures before the pilot. Presumabely they at least went to Revolutionary france...

This is the "lost era" about which I'm most curious. The series implies that the Doctor and Susan traveled for years before their stay at Totter's Lane on Earth.

I'm also curious about exactly what prompted the first Doctor's regeneration. Presumably the Doctor's illness in the third episode of "The Tenth Planet" was related to his oncoming regeneration, but why did it initiate? Yes, the first Doctor was old, but he seemed to be physically and mentally well. Perhaps his age coupled with his Time Lord physiology made him susceptible to bacteria or something brought to Earth by the Cybermen of Mondas.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I'm also curious about exactly what prompted the first Doctor's regeneration. Presumably the Doctor's illness in the third episode of "The Tenth Planet" was related to his oncoming regeneration, but why did it initiate? Yes, the first Doctor was old, but he seemed to be physically and mentally well. Perhaps his age coupled with his Time Lord physiology made him susceptible to bacteria or something brought to Earth by the Cybermen of Mondas.

Or perhaps, like Morpheus in Sandman, the first Doctor had reached a point where he had to change or die and that he had changed as far as he was going to in that incarnation. In order for a fresh perspective, he opted for renewal (aka regeneration) instead of stagnation.

 

[23skidoo]

I agree Ten holding back his regeneration caused a build-up of regen energy that literally exploded from him. He probably didn't foresee it happening, as he was in a desperate state. Or, as another friend of mine suggested, he's still leaking the Bad Wolf/Vortex energy he sucked out of Rose, and it affects his regeneration every time now (ergo the escaping wisps of energy Tennant and Smith have exhaled).

I like that second point, though it's been pointed out that the Eighth Doctor actually appears to do the same thing in the TV movie as he wakes up. Back in 1996 we assume it was his breath being seen in the cold storage room; in retrospect it takes on a possible new meaning. Otherwise I'm also of the opinion that his decision to hold back the regeneration for far longer than usual caused the damage. Heaven help any companion who might have been present at the time had he not been travelling alone.

Why did the Sixth Doctor die? Did he simply fall down? I know alternate media have suggested various reasons for it (i.e. he was already hurt from a previous unseen adventure, his future self was 'self-inducing' it to avoid the evolution that leads to Valeyard, etc.). I'm willing to go with these, although I think the whole "future Doctors exist in his head all the time" aspect is very silly 90's-type scifi. Anyone got anything new?

The physical link between the Doctor and the TARDIS has been referenced many times, most recently in The Eleventh Hour. It's very possible that the Rani's snatching of the TARDIS might have caused some sort of feedback that triggered the regeneration.

Why did the 7th Doctor suddenly go from goofy clown Chaplin figure, to the darker, manipulative, philosopher we came to know later? My personal theory is this: Shown his possible path during his recent Trial, the Doctor is ever more vigilant to not allow himself to lose control and become the Valeyard. Constantly aware, constantly probing, and possibly even peeking ahead a little, the 7th incarnation inadvertently becomes aware of the upcoming Time War. Seeing the final battle to come, one that would irrevocably change his lives forevermore, he dropped the clownish act. Because, it's all an act. Deep down he is always the Hartnell Doctor. Humans may have changed him in some ways, but his very nature remains detached, calculating, and aware. He didn't change so much as he did "man-up" for the coming war.

I feel the turning point was Remembrance of the Daleks. Up to and including most of that story, he was a clownish figure. Then, suddenly, he found himself destroying an entire planet and manipulating humans to their deaths. I feel the change from clown to dark Doctor was finalized when he tells Ace "Time will tell, it always does" at the end. I don't think we need to postulate any sort of "off-screen" rationale for this one. It's clearly spelled out over the course of those 4 episodes.

Who destroyed Gallifrey? Was it Doctor Eight or Doctor Nine? Maybe Eight was killed during the War and Nine ended it shortly thereafter in a post-regenerative traumatic haze? Or, perhaps Eight simply decided to sacrifice himself and his planet to stop the Daleks once and for all. But, much to his surprise and chagrin, The Doctor still regenerated into Nine. Thus born the incarnation wracked with survivor's guilt.

I haven't seen many people disputing this one. It's been pretty clearly suggested that the Doctor didn't expect to survive, but he did. That tells me Eight made the hard decision, expected to die, but instead he regenerated and we ended up with Nine, wracked with guilt and - it would appear - not even able to look himself in the mirror for a time after his regeneration as he drifted around to places like Dallas in 1963 and Southampton in 1912 (per "Rose").

As for who actually pulled the trigger on Gallifrey, I'd say the Doctor probably made the Time Lords and the Daleks pull the trigger on each other at the same time. The question is whether, for the Time Lords, this occurred before or after their encounter with the Master in End of Time. If after, then that opens the door that the Master might have played a role. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey.

There are many, many more of these fun little inconsistencies. Anyone want to offer their own? Or even take a shot at the ones I proposed above?

I dispute the use of the term "inconsistencies". These are simply plot points that the writers either never got around to explaining, or had no intention of (as was the case of the circumstances behind Eight's regeneration into Nine).

A more troubling inconsistency would be, say, the Doctor being half-human in the TV movie, which writers have tried to explain away in spin-off media for years (most recently in the IDW Comic Book, and RTD came close to including a line resolving it in End of Time). Or the fact the Doctor has one heart in The Edge of Destruction, but 2 hearts as of Spearhead from Space. And why the USS Enterprise works for UESPA in some episodes of TOS but Starfleet in all others -- OOPS! Wrong show!

Alex

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I'm also of the opinion that his decision to hold back the regeneration for far longer than usual caused the damage. Heaven help any companion who might have been present at the time had he not been travelling alone.

Perhaps, had he not been travelling alone and had a regular companion at that point, he might not have felt so alone & scared of the whole thing that he felt the need to hold off regenerating long enough say goodbye to all of his companions. Afterall, hasn't the Doctor almost always had companions carry over from one incarnation to the next? "The Tenth Planet" had Ben & Polly, right? "Planet of the Spiders" had Sarah Jane Smith, the Brigadier, & UNIT. "Logopolis" had Adric, Nyssa, & Tegan. "The Caves of Androzani" had Peri. "Time & the Rani" had Mel. "The Parting of the Ways" had Rose Tyler. The only ones that didn't have companions at the very end were Patrick Troughton in "The War Games" and Sylvester McCoy in the 1996 movie. Paul McGann probably didn't have any companions during his unseen regeneration between the 1996 movie & "Rose" but who can really say?

As for who actually pulled the trigger on Gallifrey, I'd say the Doctor probably made the Time Lords and the Daleks pull the trigger on each other at the same time. The question is whether, for the Time Lords, this occurred before or after their encounter with the Master in End of Time. If after, then that opens the door that the Master might have played a role. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey.

I got the impression that "The End of Time" was a botched attempt by the Time Lords to leapfrog their own destruction. However, when their plan failed and their connection to the Master was severed, it prevented the present day events of "The End of Time" from ever happening, at least from the Time Lords' perspective.

In other words, from Rassilon's perspective, the encounter with the Master in "The End of Time" either happened before the destruction of Gallifrey or never happened at all.

 

[davejames]

The thing I've been wondering about recently, is why exactly the 1st Doctor was able to live well until old age, yet each successive regeneration has only been able to last an average of 3 years?

Hell, even his MOST successful new life (the 4th Doctor's) only lasted seven!

Did he suddenly decide to start taking more risks, or did the threat level in the universe just ramp up considerably? The only thing I can figure, is that he started out simply wanting to go on innocent expeditions through history with Susan, but then something triggered a desire to start using his TARDIS to help people instead...

 

[David cgc]

Well, there's a good deal of off-screen gap, too, where he's either between on-screen companions or with companions that are long-lived aliens. Remember, he quoted his age as 450 not long after his first regeneration, and now he's somewhere over 900, possibly a lot over.

As for why he hasn't aged nearly as much, well, that still means each subsequent incarnation lasted an average of "only" 50 years, and assuming it's a one-to-one match that would be something like seven years of aging for a human.

 

[davejames]

I think you could probably squeeze in a few more years for each Doctor (allowing more more adventures with unseen companions, etc), but that still doesn't explain why they all died looking so much younger than Hartnell's Doctor.

Even allowing for a slower aging process, that first Doc clearly lived a LOT longer than all the rest. And I'm just wondering why.

 

[Stevil2001]

Presumably because he didn't go on as many adventures!

 

[Peter the Younger]

I think you could probably squeeze in a few more years for each Doctor (allowing more more adventures with unseen companions, etc), but that still doesn't explain why they all died looking so much younger than Hartnell's Doctor.

Even allowing for a slower aging process, that first Doc clearly lived a LOT longer than all the rest. And I'm just wondering why.

Well as you say, it all depends on how slow Timelords age. If its' slow enough, those gaps could be decades, and we would never know. The series is replete with references to how various long-lived species view years as the blink of an eye, even the 10th's little detour before visiting the Ood could have lasted years.

If that's true, a typical Timelord - i.e., one who abided by their policy of non-intervention and lived out his full lifespan in each body - could be expected to live for millennia. So, who's to say that the First Doctor didn't start out his life doing exactly that? Some of the supporting material has suggested as much, saying that he spent "centuries" at the Academy on Gallifrey. We know he raised a family at some point, at the very least. I kind of like the idea that the Doctor lived a long, "normal" life before something changed - and he grabbed his niece, took the Hand of Omega, stole the Tardis, and started on the path to becoming the rogue genius that we know.

Another factor to consider is that regeneration is a potentially traumatic thing to go through - especially if you've never done it before. Certainly, if it's anything like the 10th Doctor describes ("You die, and another man walks away..."), one might expect many young Timelords would view it with some trepidation.

 

[BenRoethig]

• -Who destroyed Gallifrey? Was it Doctor Eight or Doctor Nine? Maybe Eight was killed during the War and Nine ended it shortly thereafter in a post-regenerative traumatic haze? Or, perhaps Eight simply decided to sacrifice himself and his planet to stop the Daleks once and for all. But, much to his surprise and chagrin, The Doctor still regenerated into Nine. Thus born the incarnation wracked with survivor's guilt.

No clear indication but most assume its the later.

 

[davejames]

If that's true, a typical Timelord - i.e., one who abided by their policy of non-intervention and lived out his full lifespan in each body - could be expected to live for millennia. So, who's to say that the First Doctor didn't start out his life doing exactly that? Some of the supporting material has suggested as much, saying that he spent "centuries" at the Academy on Gallifrey. We know he raised a family at some point, at the very least. I kind of like the idea that the Doctor lived a long, "normal" life before something changed - and he grabbed his niece, took the Hand of Omega, stole the Tardis, and started on the path to becoming the rogue genius that we know.

Man, how I would love to see that period of time explored on screen someday...

 

[Mitty]

I figured that the reason the TARDIS was so damaged in the End of Time, was that when the Doctor Regenerated all the Radiation from the Vocci Booth came out. He'd absorbed it remember... and then out it came, destroying the Console Room in the Process. He was fine after this of course, apart from the usual Re-gen trauma. Meanwhile the TARDIS regenerated as well.

 

[matthunter]

I'm also curious about exactly what prompted the first Doctor's regeneration. Presumably the Doctor's illness in the third episode of "The Tenth Planet" was related to his oncoming regeneration, but why did it initiate? Yes, the first Doctor was old, but he seemed to be physically and mentally well. Perhaps his age coupled with his Time Lord physiology made him susceptible to bacteria or something brought to Earth by the Cybermen of Mondas.

He may have been culmulatively weakened by several events prior to that. He was exposed to the Dalek's Time Destructor weapon in Master Plan, something that killed one of his human allies. He had some of his life energy drained in The Savages. These are only a few stories prior to Tenth Planet, so it's conceivable they exacerbated the effects of his advanced age and he only really started to feel the effects when exposed to the Antarctic cold of Snowcap Base...

 

[Tomalak]

I think you could probably squeeze in a few more years for each Doctor (allowing more more adventures with unseen companions, etc), but that still doesn't explain why they all died looking so much younger than Hartnell's Doctor.

Even allowing for a slower aging process, that first Doc clearly lived a LOT longer than all the rest. And I'm just wondering why.

Presumably because he didn't go on as many adventures!

Yes, exactly. Before he meets Ian and Barbara, he's just keeping his head down, avoiding the Time Lords. They are exiles, not adventurers. He even enrols Susan in the local school!

After they are unable to get home, they land on Skaro. In retrospect you have to ask whether he really had no knowledge of the Daleks, but regardless it serves to help turn him into the crime-fighting adventurer we all come to know. Maybe it reawakens the rebellious spirit, and he remembers the reason he fled Gallifrey in the first place.

Unfortunately this rather more dangerous lifestyle means his successive incarnations last much shorter.

He may have been culmulatively weakened by several events prior to that. He was exposed to the Dalek's Time Destructor weapon in Master Plan, something that killed one of his human allies.

Yeah exactly. We've seen from The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords that each body can last for hundreds of thousands of years (I forget exactly how long it was). The Time Destructor destroyed the Daleks and Sara, and although it didn't kill the Doctor, it will have added a good many years to his life.

 

[knine]

I've been convinced for a long time that The Doctor lies about his age.