A Prediction (Specualtion and Possible Spoilers)

[The Wormhole]

With the trailers for the coming Christmas special indicating that it'll feature the Doctor's final battle at Trenzalore and the fabled "fall of the Eleventh" which Name of the Doctor reveled ends with the Doctor's permanent death, that got me thinking. Particularly, a rumour going around that Smith is the last incarnation of the Doctor (taking into account Hurt's existence and Tennant's aborted regeneration) and that Peter Capaldi is a new man who pretends to be the Doctor.

So, I'm making this prediction. Yes, the Doctor does die at Trenzalore, and leaves behind the funky light show which is apparently his corpse. But his consciousness is transferred into the body of someone at Trenzalore played by Capaldi, similar to how the Master transferred his consciousness into Tremas's body. He then embarks on his quest to find Gallifrey and when he does so, the Time Lords grant him a new cycle of regenerations. This way here we technically have the Doctor dying permanently and leaving a corpse behind and a new man who is also the Doctor

The main problem so far is that it is unlikely the Doctor would willingly take over someone else's body, even if that person volunteered. We can get around this by assuming the character played by Capaldi knows this and somehow forces the Doctor's consciousness into his own body, feeling it to be the only way to save the Doctor. But then, I haven't figured out how the Capaldi Doctor will get around the universe if the TARDIS is to stay behind on Trenzalore and degrade to the state we saw it in in Name of the Doctor.

Thoughts, anyone?

 

[Tom]

I think the JE regeneration will be forgotten about and Capladi is the 13 doctor. The season will deal with finding Gallifrey and possibly mortality issues by the Doctor knowing that there is no more regenerations left. Of course, somehow he will get new lives, we just have to see how.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I think the JE regeneration will be forgotten about...

Moffat hasn't forgotten it.

 

[Christopher]

I'm skeptical of that Mirror report. The "All thirteen of them!" line in "The Day of the Doctor" suggests that Capaldi is his thirteenth life.

Besides, we've seen how concerned Moffat is with checking off continuity boxes, so I can't believe he'd ignore the Valeyard issue. The Valeyard is supposed to have split off at the end of the Doctor's twelfth life, and if Tennant post-"Journey's End" was his twelfth life, then that's a problem. Unless Moffat is going to repeat himself and reveal that there's another untold story from the Doctor's past that happened sometime during the closing minutes of "The End of Time" or something. But I don't think so. The mention of the Valeyard in "The Name of the Doctor" sounded like foreshadowing to me.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

He was said to have come between his 12 and final lives. Capaldi pretty much proves that Smith isn't the final life of the Doctor.

Also, I don't think it means that the JE Doctor counts as an incarnation, but it DOES count as a regeneration. Because Ten did regenerate in JE, but didn't change his face - instead he redirected the rest of the energy on that hand, basically wasting an incarnation that way.

 

[Christopher]

He was said to have come between his 12 and final lives. Capaldi pretty much proves that Smith isn't the final life of the Doctor.

Yeah, but it was the Master who said that, and he no doubt assumed that "13th" meant "final," because as far as he knew, he himself was the only exception to that rule.

Also, I don't think it means that the JE Doctor counts as an incarnation, but it DOES count as a regeneration. Because Ten did regenerate in JE, but didn't change his face - instead he redirected the rest of the energy on that hand, basically wasting an incarnation that way.

I suppose there's merit to that argument, but I'm hoping it's not true, because I don't want the Valeyard question to be skipped over as something that already happened.

 

[Tom]

Because Moffat added in Hurt he pretty much has to ignore JE so that Capaldi can be the 13th incarnation (or Doc 12). So it would make sense the Valeyard's birth is coming this Christmas. Capaldi can play both the Valeyard and the Doctor, he can look petty dam evil if you haven't noticed.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

I can't remember which of these UK sources is known for publishing crap in exchange for page views... But I call bollocks on it anyway.

At least a couple times in his tenure, Smith's Doctor has considered regeneration to get himself out of a mortal problem ("Let's Kill Hitler" and "Nightmare in Silver"). In both cases he didn't seem to be terribly worried about already being on his last body (or even worried that regeneration would be a big deal), and there's no way Moffat would allow such a reference to stick.

My call on the situation is that The Moffat's Masterplan (sic) involves him sticking around through the next three years and Peter Capaldi's incarnation, assuming the latter wants to stay for the common length of tenure. The overall arc will involve the Doctor searching for and bringing back Gallifrey, which he'll do in a suitable epic fashion.

Should Capaldi leave at that point, they'll deal with the final incarnation issue at the same time and start off a new era of Doctor Who with a new regeneration cycle and a revived home planet to annoy him; Moffat will be gone and will have arguably checked off all his boxes. And if Capaldi were to stick around for further adventures, I'm sure that Moffat will stay just long enough to seed the solution for the end of the Doctor's life through the story and then hand it off.

Mark

 

[YellowSubmarine]

I would like to order a plain regeneration with no sauce and extras, with a couple of Daleks by the side. Thank you.

 

[Skellington]

I'm skeptical of that Mirror report. The "All thirteen of them!" line in "The Day of the Doctor" suggests that Capaldi is his thirteenth life.

The Gallifreyan saying that would presumably not be aware of the Metacrisis regeneration (even if there is a precedent for Gallifreyans watching what for them is a future adventure of the Doctor). What the "all thirteen" quote tells us is that, as far as the speaker knows, our hero wasn't given 507 regenerations or anything like it.

If the Metacrisis regeneration doesn't count towards the limit, then expect Capaldi to lop off one of his hands within 15 hours of regenerating and store it in a jar.

In my opinion, the Metacrisis regeneration should count towards any limit that still exists. Ten's given reason for not going the full distance was simply that he didn't feel like changing his face; not that it would save a regeneration and extend his life expectancy by several centuries.

 

[Candlelight]

I think both the Valeyard and the 13th Doctor will be born on Trenzelore.

And Matt is the 12th.

*runs away*

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Yeah, but it was the Master who said that, and he no doubt assumed that "13th" meant "final," because as far as he knew, he himself was the only exception to that rule.

Oh, I agree. I really hope we'll see this occur.

I suppose there's merit to that argument, but I'm hoping it's not true, because I don't want the Valeyard question to be skipped over as something that already happened.

Same here. I really hope the Valeyard will be explored on the show.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Smith meets Capaldi.

They have an adventure.

They both die.

Smith turns into Capaldi as the other Capaldi dies proper.

 

[Skellington]

Seemingly, the Doctor has to die in his Matt Smith incarnation (as it was the final incarnation's past that Clara visited, and she saw only eleven incarnations plus a brief glimpse of Hurt (who presumably wasn't out of the time lock for long enough to need saving from the GI - make of that what you will)).

So, could Capaldi be an adversary who swaps bodies with the Doctor only to discover the hard way that our hero has been fibbing to everyone about how many regenerations he's used? Could the Doctor's very mortality then be this deep dark secret he's kept from everyone?

Or, since the TARDIS would seem to be still in use post-Smith, will there be some timey-wimey reversal? Maybe we'll see the Doctor regress through each of his incarnations until we get to David Bradley as One, who subsequently regenerates into Capaldi as the new Two.

 

[Christopher]

I'm skeptical of that Mirror report. The "All thirteen of them!" line in "The Day of the Doctor" suggests that Capaldi is his thirteenth life.

The Gallifreyan saying that would presumably not be aware of the Metacrisis regeneration (even if there is a precedent for Gallifreyans watching what for them is a future adventure of the Doctor). What the "all thirteen" quote tells us is that, as far as the speaker knows, our hero wasn't given 507 regenerations or anything like it.

Yes, but -- if there were only 12 distinct Doctors from his original cycle, then why would only one extra Doctor have shown up? Why not all of his future selves?

In a recent interview, Moffat said:

"It was the plan from the start - all the Doctors… all the Doctors will fly in to save Gallifrey and change the timeline," Moffat told the press at the official Doctor Who Celebration at London's ExCel.

"That meant we should have the new one. I knew there was going to be a new one, so I wrote it not knowing who would be doing that [scene]."

Which implies he intended there to be 13 Doctors in all, which doesn't quite fit with the idea of there only being 12 distinct incarnations plus an extra.

Although, granted, there he says "change the timeline" while in another interview he explicitly says that this was what really happened all along, so maybe his interview statements aren't always definitive.

In my opinion, the Metacrisis regeneration should count towards any limit that still exists. Ten's given reason for not going the full distance was simply that he didn't feel like changing his face; not that it would save a regeneration and extend his life expectancy by several centuries.

Well, I never thought it made sense to divorce the transformation part from the healing part. The idea in the past was always that the regeneration, the total renewal of every cell in the body, was the thing that did the healing -- that the way to survive when your body was beyond repair was to start over with a whole new body, essentially. It doesn't make sense to claim that the process first replaces every cell in the body with a new one and only then begins transforming the body. Those have to be one and the same thing, or it's completely redundant to have the transformation at all.

 

[Guy Gardener]

When they printed the final episode of TNG onto video tape, the following month they started from the beginning again except this time, they put three episodes on each tape instead of two.

Back to One again after Capalpi? Except this time they explain all the Gallifreyan stuff, and Susan treats Ian and Barbara like small children.

 

[Skellington]

Yes, but -- if there were only 12 distinct Doctors from his original cycle, then why would only one extra Doctor have shown up? Why not all of his future selves?

Maybe because with Capaldi's addition it was job done.

Although, granted, there he says "change the timeline" while in another interview he explicitly says that this was what really happened all along, so maybe his interview statements aren't always definitive.

I think we can take it as a given that they aren't always definitive. He tends to make grandiose statements (eg about A Good Man Goes To War being a "game changer") and even what later appear to be outright lies (eg about killing off a major character in The Impossible Astronaut; although maybe he holds the view that the Doctor really did die the first time around that closed time loop).

Well, I never thought it made sense to divorce the transformation part from the healing part. The idea in the past was always that the regeneration, the total renewal of every cell in the body, was the thing that did the healing -- that the way to survive when your body was beyond repair was to start over with a whole new body, essentially. It doesn't make sense to claim that the process first replaces every cell in the body with a new one and only then begins transforming the body. Those have to be one and the same thing, or it's completely redundant to have the transformation at all.

I pretty much agree. It makes little sense to have the change of appearance as some kind of freebie you get with the regenerative process. The whole Metacrisis thing was probably in large part a way for RTD to allow his proxy to (kind of) settle down with the Doctor.

 

[chardman]

if there were only 12 distinct Doctors from his original cycle, then why would only one extra Doctor have shown up? Why not all of his future selves?

Well, it's 12 distinct regenerations atop the distinct original, so we're still talking about 13 incarnations.

But let's suppose for a minute, that when the Curator brought up the idea of revisiting old faces, he was hinting at a way around the regeneration limit. Perhaps timelords only think they're limited to 12 regenerations, when in reality, they're actually limited to additional 12 forms, but could conceivably reuse each of these 12 forms as often as they wanted? Just an idea.

 

[RevdKathy]

Well, I never thought it made sense to divorce the transformation part from the healing part. The idea in the past was always that the regeneration, the total renewal of every cell in the body, was the thing that did the healing -- that the way to survive when your body was beyond repair was to start over with a whole new body, essentially. It doesn't make sense to claim that the process first replaces every cell in the body with a new one and only then begins transforming the body. Those have to be one and the same thing, or it's completely redundant to have the transformation at all.

I pretty much agree. It makes little sense to have the change of appearance as some kind of freebie you get with the regenerative process. The whole Metacrisis thing was probably in large part a way for RTD to allow his proxy to (kind of) settle down with the Doctor.

I tended to see that more as being about the Doctor's ability to determine what he gets to look like. Most of the time when he regenerates it's in crisis, even unconscious, so has no control over the process. We know (from Romans) that it is possible to direct the appearance. My assumption was that on that occasion he had enough conscious control to regenerate from David Tennant into.... David Tennant. Which spared him the disorientation involved with having to work out who he was and adjust to a new body.

 

[Guy Gardener]

He was also given choices at the end of the War Games.

Can someone prove or disprove that the poster of the Leader for the parallel Earth from Inferno, was one of the options the Time Lords gave the second Doctor to change into, ipsofacto fearless leader on that doomed word was a dark version of the Third Doctor.