Are the powers that be / Moffat superstitious?

[Skellington]

But when did he visit the Titanic in Southampton? Or Krakatoa? Or Dallas in 1963? Do we just assume they are off-screen adventures he took with Rose during his only season?

Well, Rose has to sleep sometime. Cue an opportunity for him to be Santa Claus or go sightseeing.

Anyway, he could have done it during the final scene of Rose, when he goes off in the TARDIS for a few seconds. Maybe he tried getting back into being the Doctor on his own, then remembered that maybe he hadn't told Rose that the TARDIS was also a time machine...

 

[The Wormhole]

So, am I understanding things correctly? When Moffat says that Eccleston is a brand new Doctor in Rose, does that mean that the events of Rose are, from the Ninth's perspective a matter of hours or days at the most after the regeneration scene in Day of the Doctor? I don't know, that doesn't really fit well. According to my fanon anyway, I believe the Ninth spent years, possibly a couple of decades between his regeneration and meeting Rose.

The mirror scene is indeed problematic these days. Indeed, one wonders why it was even in the episode. It's actually pretty misleading, given that RTD at the time had intended it to be the Ninth Doctor that fought the Time War, and therefore he wouldn't have been a new Doctor in Rose.

Yes, I know, RTD's intents don't matter four years after he left the show. But still, considering the Ninth Doctor to be a new Doctor in his season seems to be a pretty dramatic re-writing of the character.

 

[DWF]

For that matter Eccleston's Doctor should've recognized Rose upon seeing and I certainly didn't get that impression. It's a rather dubious retconn at best.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Whereas I find it a very unlikely interpretation. It's not as if the regeneration limit was ever a real problem; it was always a given that some way would be found to extend the Doctor's life beyond the thirteenth incarnation so long as the show was still going strong. So it's not like there's any great prestige in it. And Moffat's "solution" was incredibly cursory -- Clara makes a brief speech to a crack in a wall, the Doctor inhales some pixie dust, and Bob's your uncle. I think if "solving the problem" had been so important to him that it shaped his whole storytelling agenda, he wouldn't have given us such a slapdash "solution." It seemed less like he had some personal ego stake in achieving this goal and more like he just wanted to get it out of the way and move on with more important stuff.

It's always been a source of speculation, if Moffat wasn't interested in it then why not leave it for someone else to tackle? Why did he feel he needed to handle it in a slapdash manner?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Having Chris doing it would have given the Bad Wolf appearance of the Moment much much more oomph, though.

He wouldn't have understood the Bad Wolf thing though. That still hadn't happened for him yet.

 

[Christopher]

No I'm talking about how the Doctors behaved post-Time War. Eccleston was damn near "proud" that he made it (the Moment) happen - his words from 'Dalek' - and Tennant wasn't far behind.

Smith on the other hand never really battered an eyelid about it (though with good reason, they rightly so shouldn't mention the Time War by then) but when he finally comes to face the Time War in The Name of the Doctor, it's shoved onto a hidden incarnation. All of a sudden it removes Smith's Doctor from the Time War in a way that made Eccleston's shell-shocked war torn incarnation so powerful.

But that's exactly the point. "The one who regrets and the one who forgets." The Doctor in his first two post-war incarnations (Eccleston and Tennant) was racked with guilt over his actions, but Smith's incarnation chose denial and avoidance, divorcing himself from that part of his history. The whole point is that his approach was different from that of his predecessors. It's not a continuity error, it's characterization.

But when did he visit the Titanic in Southampton? Or Krakatoa? Or Dallas in 1963? Do we just assume they are off-screen adventures he took with Rose during his only season?

I've never understood why everyone takes "new Doctor" so literally, as if he'd regenerated 30 minutes earlier. It just means that he hasn't been around for months or years, that he's still adjusting and finding himself.

Personally I think the mirror scene should've been dropped. He'd been running around chasing the Nestene for a bit after the war; you'd think he'd seen a mirror prior to that day.

But maybe didn't have the chance to stop and, err, reflect on it. And it didn't have to be literally the first time he'd seen his reflection. Sometimes when I get a new haircut or new frames for my glasses or something, I may react to my reflection with surprise or contemplation for days thereafter. It can take time to get used to a new appearance.

It's always been a source of speculation, if Moffat wasn't interested in it then why not leave it for someone else to tackle? Why did he feel he needed to handle it in a slapdash manner?

Because writing a story is not about making only one black-and-white decision. As I said, the "Journey's End" regeneration and the need to introduce the War Doctor, plus the need to give Smith a sendoff and resolve all his story arcs, created the situation, so he chose to deal with it. But it wasn't the single overriding reason he told this story or the ones before it.

This is how stories often happen. Different elements and circumstances come together to create needs or opportunities, ones that you didn't necessarily intend from the start, but that you deal with because they fit the needs of the story or are better than what you originally planned.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I've never understood why everyone takes "new Doctor" so literally, as if he'd regenerated 30 minutes earlier. It just means that he hasn't been around for months or years, that he's still adjusting and finding himself.

I think the problem is the part where Moffat says that Eccleston was "explicitly" a new Doctor. Leaving aside the fact that there's nothing explicit said anywhere, the only real point where it's even hinted at during his tenure was when he looked into the mirror (something that people have understandably if not correctly taken to mean that he had freshly regenerated).

The only other moment I can think of suggesting that Eccleston was a new Doctor (or, more accurately, a post-Time War Doctor) was the statement by Tennant to Rose that the metacrisis Doctor was like him when they first met - born in fire.

That being said, I agree with you that the mirror scene doesn't have to mean a matter of minutes, but years is a bit implausible. Weeks or days makes more sense (although I agree he doesn't have to have seen himself in the mirror for the first time).

 

[Sindatur]

Yea, I don't have a problem with the mirror thing, I can easily imagine, with The Doctor constantly being pushed along from one adventure/crisis to the next, that he could go a very long time without seeing a mirror (How many other times do we see him seeing a mirror?)

However, "Born in Fire", does suggest he was Regenerated into Eccelston body either after or at the most bloody/devastating part of The Time War, so, other than "personal Canon Bias" it is really hard to image Eccelston Doctor as Hurt Doctor's role in Fighting The Time War, for anything more than the Final Act.

 

[DWF]

It's exceptionally rare for a new Doctor not to see himself in a mirror not long after regenerating.

 

[Sindatur]

It's exceptionally rare for a new Doctor not to see himself in a mirror not long after regenerating.

True, but, it's also exceptionally rare for him to be so distraught due to commiting Genocide on his own people, that he wouldn't be worrying about checking to see what he ended up with this time.

 

[Christopher]

^And, again, there's no proof that the "Rose" scene is literally the first time he's seen his reflection. Like I said, it can take some time to get used to a new look. You can see yourself in the mirror a number of times and not like what you see, but then gradually start to realize that maybe it's not so bad.

Anyway, bottom line, it's poetic license. Fiction is full of instances where characters' reactions to certain things are delayed unrealistically simply because it had to wait until we get a chance to see them reacting. Like all those serialized/episodic TV shows where something important happens to the characters during one homicide investigation (for example), but then they don't talk about it until they're in the middle of the next homicide investigation a week or two later. That doesn't even make sense. Why would they wait to talk about it until they're busy again? Wouldn't it make more sense to have that conversation during the downtime between cases? But that never happens because we viewers don't get to see them between cases.

So there's always a degree of artificial time compression going on, where events and conversations that should be spaced out over days or weeks get postponed until the particular day or week when an adventure or investigation occurs, because that's the first chance we TV viewers have to see the characters again. So you just have to live with the fact that these things are artificially delayed, and not take the timing too literally.

The point of the mirror scene was to convey to the audience that the Doctor was new and unused to his appearance. No, it doesn't quite work if you take the timing absolutely literally, but the same goes for countless scenes in countless stories. Sometimes you have to be willing to suspend disbelief and forgive the narrative conceits of the story. The scene is perhaps best taken as symbolic of the Doctor's newness. Sure, realistically he would've seen his reflection already, but in story terms, this was the first opportunity to convey the idea of his newness to the audience, so that's why the scene happened then. Stories aren't real, so there's a point where realistic logic has to be set aside.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Nine in Rose wasn't acting like the confused newly-regenerated sort of Doctor we've seen in other post-regen stories. And he was largely in good spirits, not suffering from acute shock or trauma at having just committed genocide. Also, he'd been knocking around long enough to track down the Autons and see what they were up to on Earth. So I agree that the 'new ears' thing can be over-stated when considering how long he's been in that body.

 

[Christopher]

Nine in Rose wasn't acting like the confused newly-regenerated sort of Doctor we've seen in other post-regen stories.

Okay, for the fiftieth time, nobody is claiming that he'd regenerated just minutes or hours before. The intent is that it was recent on the scale of weeks, recent enough that the scars of the war were fresh and he still wasn't fully accustomed to his new appearance.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^Some people are! I was adding to the general discussion, not arguing with you. Cool your jets! I missed the memo where you own the thread.

 

[RoJoHen]

For all we know Eccleston's Doctor spent a week sleeping after the regeneration. Tennant spent most of his premiere episode in bed.

 

[Christopher]

^Some people are!

Not that I've heard. Please quote me a post where someone says they believe the Doctor had regenerated only hours or less before "Rose." Because I can't remember reading any such post. I've seen people arguing against that assertion, but I haven't seen anyone arguing in favor of it.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ You are as rude and arrogant as ever. I came in with a general observation about how I interpereted the Ninth Doctor's demeanour in Rose and the ears remark, my first comment on this topic, and you immediately jumped down my throat with a characteristically condescending 'for the fiftieth time...'

I have no intention of trawling through the thread to satisfy your inflated ego. I've seen it argued frequently on the Internet that Nine had just regenerated in Rose. I made no reference to hours or minutes and in fact I'm essentially in agreement with your post. Only someone as obnoxious and know-it-all as you would find a reason to turn it into a row.

 

[Christopher]

^I'm sorry I gave that impression. It wasn't my intent. I guess I took my frustration at other posters in the past out on you, and I apologize.

 

[sttngfan1701d]

C'mon guys, it's just Doctor Who. It's a show about a guy who travels around in a police box. Which flies through space. And spins for some reason while doing it. Yeah. *ahem*

Simmer down.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^I'm sorry I gave that impression. It wasn't my intent. I guess I took my frustration at other posters in the past out on you, and I apologize.

Apology accepted, I had a bad day at work and I was rude to you, for which I apologise. Lets move on.