A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor")

[Christopher]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

With hindsight, that adds something to Tennant's "I don't want to go," and if you think about it a recurrent theme throughout Smith's time has been that imminent death has been breathing down the Doctor's shoulders; his own supposed death at Lake Silencio, his future grave on Trenzalore, his repeated meetings with River (the woman whose ultimate fate he saw on the day he first met her), Rory and Amy's fates being set in stone by their sight of their own deaths. Also, stretching it a bit, Rory's repeated deaths, the other Amy in The Girl Who Waited, the Brig's passing, whatever the Doctor saw in his God Complex room (and Amy's sight of the Angels in her room when they would indeed be the ones to get her) and maybe more... It's as if the universe has been saying to him, "Everybody lives is impossible, it can only be everybody lives for now. And you've run out of ways to postpone death any longer."

I think you're right. Moffat has been building to the Trenzalore thing throughout Smith's run. And I couldn't help but notice in "The Name of the Doctor" that the Doctor's "tomb" at Trenzalore was in the current version of the console room. I just chalked that up to budget limitations -- it would've been too expensive to create a whole new future version of the console room for just a few scenes -- but in the context of what Dorium said a while back about "The Fall of the Eleventh" being at Trenzalore, it makes sense. So we have been told this was coming. Dorium said the Eleventh fell at Trenzalore, and the Doctor revealed that Trenzalore was where he died once and for all. All we had to do was remember and do the math.

Of course, that raises some questions. Will Capaldi be a new, separate person taking over as the Doctor, or some alternate incarnation? Will the Doctor change his own future? Or maybe it'll be the same kind of thing Moffat's done before, where it turns out that what we think we're seeing isn't the whole truth, that the Doctor found some way to cheat death while preserving the appearance of it.

 

[Mr Awe]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

^ Well, yeah, except for the fact that he's not going to die once and for all! Just like he didn't really, truly, honestly die at Lake Silencio. As you say, Moffat has played that card already. Will be interesting to see if he tries that one again or has something new up his sleeve.

 

[Christopher]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

Moffat has a way of doing something brilliantly original... and then reusing it over and over until it gets stale. I'm not sure he has anything new left.

 

[Mr Awe]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

Unfortunately there's always the chance that he'll reach too far trying to outdo himself. If he goes with something like a character who assumes the Doctor's identity, or Capaldi is a secret previous incarnation, or something like that, he's run out of ideas. Well, good ideas.

I was worried about that with Day of the Doctor, but that was brilliant. And, that was even a reuse of the Lake Silence "death" scenario. So, perhaps it'll all be good. We can hope!

Mr Awe

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

With hindsight, that adds something to Tennant's "I don't want to go," and if you think about it a recurrent theme throughout Smith's time has been that imminent death has been breathing down the Doctor's shoulders; his own supposed death at Lake Silencio, his future grave on Trenzalore, his repeated meetings with River (the woman whose ultimate fate he saw on the day he first met her), Rory and Amy's fates being set in stone by their sight of their own deaths. Also, stretching it a bit, Rory's repeated deaths, the other Amy in The Girl Who Waited, the Brig's passing, whatever the Doctor saw in his God Complex room (and Amy's sight of the Angels in her room when they would indeed be the ones to get her) and maybe more... It's as if the universe has been saying to him, "Everybody lives is impossible, it can only be everybody lives for now. And you've run out of ways to postpone death any longer."

I agree:

On the one hand, it seems really convoluted - and it makes John Hurt's War Doctor all the more obvious in its stunt casting - but on the other hand, it kinda makes the Tenth Doctor's farewell tour in End of Time retroactively justified, since that is almost the last body he'll ever use, and his reward before finally dying is to see those companion that still live, of has left behind as living.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

My one concern with Matt Smith being the 13th Doctor is that they didn't get the opportunity to do a story arc about this. It has such potential for dramatic storytelling that it's kind of sad that there's only one episode between finding out that Matt Smith is "The Last Doctor" and the resolution of that plotline.

Imagine Capaldi being extremely timid and scared to do anything for a little while because he doesn't have anymore regeneration in his body. However, his very nature is at odds with that and he has to continuously rise above it.

Add that to the finding Gallifrey story and Capaldi's run pretty much writes itself. I'm very excited for Capaldi, but it's hard not to get a little concerned by Moffat rushing such a fantastic plotline that could be catered to the slow build.

I completely agree. I've been saying for years how much I want to see how The Doctor handles being on his last incarnation, facing his mortality and being on recurring theme. (Of course, my big dream was for the show to end with The Doctor actually dying but I know that would never happen) In addition to the fact that I've never been a fan of the whole Meta-Crisis incarnation (despite otherwise loving that two-parter) and would prefer to pretend that it never happened, I'm quite disappointed that Moffat had decided to abruptly, without warning, to rush to this point and skim over it in just one episode. It would be one thing, as suggested by others in this thread already with The Tenth Doctor's "I don't want to go," to have the audience actually know the full situation in advance but we don't even have that consolation. I have faith in The Moffat but I"m going into this episode concerned and unhappy.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

My one concern with Matt Smith being the 13th Doctor is that they didn't get the opportunity to do a story arc about this. It has such potential for dramatic storytelling that it's kind of sad that there's only one episode between finding out that Matt Smith is "The Last Doctor" and the resolution of that plotline.

Imagine Capaldi being extremely timid and scared to do anything for a little while because he doesn't have anymore regeneration in his body. However, his very nature is at odds with that and he has to continuously rise above it.

Add that to the finding Gallifrey story and Capaldi's run pretty much writes itself. I'm very excited for Capaldi, but it's hard not to get a little concerned by Moffat rushing such a fantastic plotline that could be catered to the slow build.

I completely agree. I've been saying for years how much I want to see how The Doctor handles being on his last incarnation, facing his mortality and being on recurring theme.

We already pretty much got that from the end of Tennant's run and I don't really see a reason to rehash it just because of something that was probably always going to be either ignored or somehow side stepped.

 

[Christopher]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

^Right. The Doctor getting all maudlin about his imminent mortality has been a running theme for years now -- "He will knock four times," the cracks in time erasing the Doctor, the "fixed point in time" astronaut assassination, the fields of Trenzalore. I'd like to see the Doctor stop obsessing over his impending doom.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

I only hope he won't be as obsessed over his imminent regenerations from when he turns into Capaldi and onward.

 

[Mr Awe]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

My one concern with Matt Smith being the 13th Doctor is that they didn't get the opportunity to do a story arc about this. It has such potential for dramatic storytelling that it's kind of sad that there's only one episode between finding out that Matt Smith is "The Last Doctor" and the resolution of that plotline.

Imagine Capaldi being extremely timid and scared to do anything for a little while because he doesn't have anymore regeneration in his body. However, his very nature is at odds with that and he has to continuously rise above it.

Add that to the finding Gallifrey story and Capaldi's run pretty much writes itself. I'm very excited for Capaldi, but it's hard not to get a little concerned by Moffat rushing such a fantastic plotline that could be catered to the slow build.

I completely agree. I've been saying for years how much I want to see how The Doctor handles being on his last incarnation, facing his mortality and being on recurring theme. (Of course, my big dream was for the show to end with The Doctor actually dying but I know that would never happen) In addition to the fact that I've never been a fan of the whole Meta-Crisis incarnation (despite otherwise loving that two-parter) and would prefer to pretend that it never happened, I'm quite disappointed that Moffat had decided to abruptly, without warning, to rush to this point and skim over it in just one episode. It would be one thing, as suggested by others in this thread already with The Tenth Doctor's "I don't want to go," to have the audience actually know the full situation in advance but we don't even have that consolation. I have faith in The Moffat but I"m going into this episode concerned and unhappy.

Hopefully it's a great episode. However, even it's great, I do feel like we missed out on the drama of the Doctor knowing it was his last regular regeneration. Skipping ahead has removed that.

As a kid watching the classic series, I thought we'd never ever reach the 13th Doctor. It just seemed so far away as I was enjoying Pertwee, Baker, and Davison.

When the new series started, it still seemed far away but that we could potentially reach it after some time. Still quite a milestone because it would involve 4 regenerations in the new series.

But then to find out that we had reached the momentous milestone but only realized in hindsight makes it anti-climatic. Or even worse, it takes that huge milestone and reduces it to a plot point of one episode.

Mr Awe

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

My one concern with Matt Smith being the 13th Doctor is that they didn't get the opportunity to do a story arc about this. It has such potential for dramatic storytelling that it's kind of sad that there's only one episode between finding out that Matt Smith is "The Last Doctor" and the resolution of that plotline.

Imagine Capaldi being extremely timid and scared to do anything for a little while because he doesn't have anymore regeneration in his body. However, his very nature is at odds with that and he has to continuously rise above it.

Add that to the finding Gallifrey story and Capaldi's run pretty much writes itself. I'm very excited for Capaldi, but it's hard not to get a little concerned by Moffat rushing such a fantastic plotline that could be catered to the slow build.

I completely agree. I've been saying for years how much I want to see how The Doctor handles being on his last incarnation, facing his mortality and being on recurring theme. (Of course, my big dream was for the show to end with The Doctor actually dying but I know that would never happen) In addition to the fact that I've never been a fan of the whole Meta-Crisis incarnation (despite otherwise loving that two-parter) and would prefer to pretend that it never happened, I'm quite disappointed that Moffat had decided to abruptly, without warning, to rush to this point and skim over it in just one episode. It would be one thing, as suggested by others in this thread already with The Tenth Doctor's "I don't want to go," to have the audience actually know the full situation in advance but we don't even have that consolation. I have faith in The Moffat but I"m going into this episode concerned and unhappy.

Hopefully it's a great episode. However, even it's great, I do feel like we missed out on the drama of the Doctor knowing it was his last regular regeneration.

But again I doubt it would be any different from how obsessive he was over impending deaths since Waters of Mars.

 

[Mr Awe]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

^ It all depends on how it would've been done, right? It all comes down to execution.

 

[DWF]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

The four knocks at the end of Tennant's time only came about after he announced that he was leaving the part, the same can said for some of the events The Day Of The Doctor. Trenzalore was meant as the fall of the 11th, but that was before the creation of the War Doctor and Moffat's shift of Smith to the final incarnation of the Doctor. The same can said for the Watcher in Logopolis, he was meant as a foreshadowing of the fourth Doctor's upcoming regeneration.

But there's only one for the Doctor to get more lives and that's from the Time Lords, which means time was changed in The Day Of The Doctor. In Dalek the Doctor said that he could feel if there were any other Time Lords left, the Master became human in order to hide himself. But it's obvious now that the Time Lords have returned and evcen if it's in the future they could return in time to regenerate the Doctor so that he could find them in the future.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

But there's only one for the Doctor to get more lives and that's from the Time Lords

Well, that's unimaginative.

In Dalek the Doctor said that he could feel if there were any other Time Lords left, the Master became human in order to hide himself.

Except the Doctor can't sense River or Jenny. And he specifically said that, if Time Lords were in a pocket universe, he couldn't sense them either (The Doctor's Wife). It's entirely possible there are reasons they can't be sensed either.

 

[Christopher]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

And he specifically said that, if Time Lords were in a pocket universe, he couldn't sense them either (The Doctor's Wife). It's entirely possible there are reasons they can't be sensed either.

That's easy enough. He could sense them in a pocket universe if they were active, but since they're frozen in time, there's nothing to sense, no mental activity to register.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

Well, I said he couldn't sense them in a pocket universe. However, it was illustrating the point that there are other reasons they can't be sensed. Your theory is a good one.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

I only hope he won't be as obsessed over his imminent regenerations from when he turns into Capaldi and onward.

If things play out as I think they will, he'll focus on "why am I still alive?" instead of "what happens if I die?"

 

[Kelso]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

I'll be pretty stoked if the rumors pan out. Not only would it add some consequence to that terrible regeneration fake out from season 4, but it will also tie up the regeneration limit baggage (or "milestone" if you prefer) during the 50th year and in the 800th episode (or so I'm told). It seems like a fitting way to end this chapter of the Doctor's life and start anew.

Also, it'll mean that one of my crazy fan theories turned out to be true... and that's always nice.

 

[DWF]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

But there's only one for the Doctor to get more lives and that's from the Time Lords

Well, that's unimaginative.

While other races in Doctor Who can regenerate like the Kastrians, so far only the Time Lords can grant oterh Time Lords new lives.

In Dalek the Doctor said that he could feel if there were any other Time Lords left, the Master became human in order to hide himself.

Except the Doctor can't sense River or Jenny. And he specifically said that, if Time Lords were in a pocket universe, he couldn't sense them either (The Doctor's Wife). It's entirely possible there are reasons they can't be sensed either.

Neither River nor Jenny are Time Lords though. And yes River did get her other lives from the TARDIS durin conception, if it were that easy all Time Lords would live well beyond their normal limit.

 

[Green Lantern]

Re: A thought on regenerations (spoilers for "Night/Day of the Doctor"

I for one would like a brutal and traumatic regeneration. Oh, and emotional.

Those regenerations are always best.

If you wan an original regeneration (me included), how about a stab wound. Killed in an explosion would be fun. I'd love a tear of two from the doctor and Clara. That's why the Third Doctors regeneration (apart from the actual regeneration scene itself) is so brilliant and I also love ten's regeneration in general. Maybe a good old fashioned betrayal would be great.

The funny thing about this year is that there have been three regenerations! 8-War, War-9, and 11-12. I think the reason Moffat didn't make the other two regenerations too epic (although I did enjoy Eight's regeneration a lot anyway) was so they didn't down-play the main regeneration.

If played right, this regeneration could definitely be another classic one like Caves of Androzani.