What if it wasn't 11 that *SPOILERS*

[Guartho]

Impossible Astronaut spoilers ahead:

Spoiler: Impossible Astronaut

What if it wasn't 11 that died in the beginning of the Impossible Astronaut? Someone mentioned in the gender-changing Timelord thread that when Romana regenerated she tried on several forms and deliberately settled on her final regenerated form.

The Doctor never appears to do this, but why? Someone suggested that the Doctor's regenerations were always unplanned and under extra stress. It's also possible that it's a skill he never mastered. Either of those cases could presumably be overcome. The Doctor can be fortunate to have some proper prep-time, or he can learn the necessary skill in the mean time.

Now, why am I suggesting this? Because it means the Doctor can regenerate into a different form for 12. 12 can have loads of his own adventures. 12 can then regenerate into 13 who looks just like 11 and then come back and die in Utah.

 

[Starkers]

Or on a simpler theme the next two episodes relate to

Spoiler: random thoughts!

cloning

 

[Gov Kodos]

My thoughts too about the next episode. It might explain Amy's situation as well.

 

[StCoop]

Or on a simpler theme the next two episodes relate to

Spoiler: random thoughts!

cloning

In fact if you look back at one of the pre-series trailers you'll see

Spoiler: Hmm...

the Doctor with the same sort of face that the Gangers have.

 

[diankra]

Except... Amy raises that possibility, and older Canton dismisses it out of hand - dramatically, that's a bit like "Chekov's Gun", except it's the writer removing a possible answer from the options, rather then setting one up. If he then goes back and uses that solution, I'll feel very let down.

 

[Sindatur]

Except... Amy raises that possibility, and older Canton dismisses it out of hand - dramatically, that's a bit like "Chekov's Gun", except it's the writer removing a possible answer from the options, rather then setting one up. If he then goes back and uses that solution, I'll feel very let down.

Are you sure Canton eliminated the clone possibility, I don't remember him saying "It's not a Clone", he only said, "It's really him", I believe, and a Clone, would be Him, just not him.

 

[StCoop]

Are you sure Canton eliminated the clone possibility, I don't remember him saying "It's not a Clone", he only said, "It's really him", I believe, and a Clone, would be Him, just not him.

In fact that seems to be one of the themes of the upcoming two-parter, that the Gangers are just as alive and real as their originals.

 

[Starkers]

Yeah, plus for all we know maybe the Doctor we'll follow from now on is the clone Doctor!!

As get outs go it'd be moderately annoying, but I'd be more annoyed at a timey wimey time can be rewritten get out that wasn't exceptionally well crafted...

 

[StCoop]

It also means that the person in the spacesuit could also be the Doctor, which seems like the sort of thing Moffat would love.

 

[Gepard]

Yeah, plus for all we know maybe the Doctor we'll follow from now on is the clone Doctor!!

It would be an interesting way to get around the supposed regeneration limit, as well. Have the Doctor's memories transferred into the clone and as a bonus, it turns out the clone flesh reset his regeneration count, because it's a fresh version of him. Or something.

 

[Sindatur]

It also means that the person in the spacesuit could also be the Doctor, which seems like the sort of thing Moffat would love.

Yup, could be not only does he have a reason to want a Big Bad to think he's dead, but, he may also, need to clean up the extra copy of him running around.

Or...that could be exactly what Moffat wants us to theorize at this point, and Amy's "Throwaway line" and the Cloning in the trailer for the next episode are red herrings.

 

[Chaos Descending]

What difference does it make if

Spoiler: Seriously..

the Doctor that is killed is 13 or 11? Since it doesn't actually add anything, I don't see any reason for it to be the case.

 

[Guartho]

It doesn't make a difference except that it gives the producers an out to leave this unresolved for 200 years of the Doctor's on-screen life. It can really be the Doctor that dies and they can drop still drop the ball on this completely.

I certainly agree that it serves no good purpose!

 

[Skellington]

Does anyone else think that surviving for almost 200 years makes Eleven more awesome than the previous two Doctors put together? FFS, Ten regenerated twice!

Re the dead Doctor, does anybody recall John Brunner's 1969 novel Timescoop? An enjoyable romp, it involved a process where a time machine could scan the past and make temporal cross-sections of historical figures, who then kind of bilocated in time, existing both sides of the cut. With the Doctor it could be something like quantum superposition where the two states become severed from each other in some way and you end up with two Doctors, eaxh with an equal claim to being the original. Then maybe they toss a coin...

 

[Whofan]

Maybe it was a regenerated Maxil


For those who have no idea who I'm talking about, Colin Baker's first WHO role was as a Time Lord guard named Maxil, about a year or so before he became cast as the Sixth Doctor. I'm not sure it has been explained why they look alike, even in the more fan-oriented books and audios. The Doctor of course has had other doppelgangers over the years, ranging from human look-alikes such as Salamander and the Abbot, to of course the sci-fi tropes of clones and robots.



As for Matt's Doctor being the most long-lived incarnation in terms of unseen years, I think it's more likely that the Fourth Doctor was around the longest, as in his last couple of seasons he was hanging out with a fellow Time Lord and a robot. Plus he travelled alone for a while too before picking up Leela (Although it's possible there were other companions between Sarah Jane and Leela that we never saw, such as the ones in the comics). We never saw how old the Eighth Doctor was, for all we know he could've been an extremely old man when he regenerated.

 

[OmahaStar]

Maybe it was a regenerated Maxil

Who says he had to regenerate? Or maybe he did, and now he looks exactly like Colin Baker does these days.

I think I love this idea.

 

[diankra]

As for Matt's Doctor being the most long-lived incarnation in terms of unseen years, I think it's more likely that the Fourth Doctor was around the longest.

Not if we accept the various refernces to the Doctor's age in the original series (some of the later ones by Colin and McCoy, of course, having now been contradicted by Tennant and Smith's comments in the recent series).
On the basis of them, the Doctor apparently gets through 200 years between Tom Baker's second season and Sylvester McCoy's first story (with the whole Davison and Colin incarnations in the meantime).
Bizarrely, on the basis of the various comments about the Doctor's age, the longest lived incarnation apart from Hartnell (400-odd years) looks to be Troughton, and the shortest Pertwee (that's down to Troughton saying he's 450 in season 5, Pertwee being '700 years old' when he gets the TARDIS going again in season 10, after being stuck on Earth since his last regeneration, and Baker saying he's only 749 in season 13).

 

[Guartho]

the longest lived incarnation apart from Hartnell (400-odd years) looks to be Troughton, and the shortest Pertwee (that's down to Troughton saying he's 450 in season 5, Pertwee being '700 years old' when he gets the TARDIS going again in season 10, after being stuck on Earth since his last regeneration, and Baker saying he's only 749 in season 13).

Would not the shortest be Eccleston? He's implied to be newly-regenerated in "Rose" by his actions* and he dies at the end of the season.


*and implied to be older by the conspiracy-theory website guy. Those are all clearly bad 'shops though so I'll go with his actions over those. It's also possible that he had a couple of adventures before seeing himself in a mirror for the first time in "Rose" a la' Smith in the 11th hour "That's rubbish, who's that supposed to be?" That would still make him not very old at all when he meets Rose.

 

[David cgc]

^ I still like the theory that Nine had years of adventures between leaving at the end of Rose, and then coming back seconds later and adding that the TARDIS did time-travel, too.

 

[Sindatur]

^ I still like the theory that Nine had years of adventures between leaving at the end of Rose, and then coming back seconds later and adding that the TARDIS did time-travel, too.

Yea, anytime, the Doctor goes into the Tardis by himself and dematerializes, all bets are off as to how much has passed for him when he hooks back up with a travelling companion. It could be just what we see, or it could be hundreds of years (Though Idris kinda put a kink in that with her quote of years and the other quotes for years we've gotten in the series)