Also Jo in Sarah Jane Adventures who he hadn't seen since before he met Sarah Jane
Big Finish get River Song (and lots more!)
- Thread starter StCoop
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Actually, he was only without the TARDIS for 300 years. After it returned dragging Clara with it the Doctor deposited her back in the 21st century and then returned to Trenzalore where he kept the TARDIS with him on Trenzalore for the rest of of the 900 years, but kept living in the clock tower.
The regeneration wasn't even part of the story, originally. Originally, in addition to the truth field, the Time Lords did something that would prevent regeneration on Trenzalore, and at the end lifted their anti-regeneration effect to allow the Doctor to regenerate. It was after Day of the Doctor and the introduction of the War Doctor that Moffat decided to re-write Time as the Doctor not having regenerations left until the Time Lords grant him a new cycle at the end.
Yeah, Matt Smith will be 81 for the 100th anniversary, only two years older than Tom Baker was in Day.
Well, he had seen her more recently than that, though she hadn't seen him. That episode revealed that on Tennant's "farewell tour" in "The End of Time," he didn't just revisit the modern companions as we saw, but revisited every companion he'd ever had. So from his perspective, he'd last seen Jo only about a year before, give or take.
Ah, I must've forgotten that part
You just pinpointed why I don't like series 8 all that much. So much potential to play with a Doctor who's practically exploring the universe anew, again - like his first incarnation, as an old man out to see the universe after centuries of confinement. But fuck that - out for some coffee!
That said, he did have some memory gaps, and subconsciously choosing to be an old man in his regeneration seems to have been a reaction to how old he feels as the Doctor at this point. But Moffat didn't really go anywhere further with it.
Maybe Big Finish can realize that gap with the potential you mentioned, some day....
EDIT: Christopher and Wormhole offered some good explanations for this, though... so I guess it was not a complete waste.
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You just pinpointed why I don't like series 8 all that much. So much potential to play with a Doctor who's practically exploring the universe anew, again - like his first incarnation, as an old man out to see the universe after centuries of confinement. But fuck that - out for some coffee!
That said, he did have some memory gaps, and subconsciously choosing to be an old man in his regeneration seems to have been a reaction to how old he feels as the Doctor at this point. But Moffat didn't really go anywhere further with it.
Maybe Big Finish can realize that gap with the potential you mentioned, some day....
EDIT: Christopher and Wormhole offered some good explanations for this, though... so I guess it was not a complete waste.
Some good points raised here to be sure. But I thought the biggest missed opportunity was having at least a season or two where the Doctor was out of regenerations. How does the Doctor travel through time and space now knowing his next death will be his last one? That had a lot of intereting potential but Moffat stupidily blew through that in the space of a single episode.
Of course, as long as the Doctor keeps generating money for the BBC, he'll keep regenerating. But a long-term storyline where he's literally on his last legs? Biggest missed opportunity I felt.
Right, good point. He checked up on her, found out about her life, but couldn't actually locate her.
http://www.chakoteya.net/SJA/406.htm
I think he always intended to sort it out once and for all before he went, just not quite so soon.
It's interesting and ironic considering he's never written a full book or audio (he was at the original meeting - but not interested, unless they had McGann - who only joined later) he's filled his era with gaps Big Finish can use if they ever get later Doctors to play with. So much happens off screen, between stories. You could have Amy, Amy/Rory, just Rory (between The Rebel Flesh and Good Man), solo, the Dinosaurs in a Spaceship companions, Clara.
I've not seen that ep (or any SJA). I should.
Tennant 2 Parter ... The Wedding of Sarah Jane
Matt Smith 2 Parter ... The Death of The Doctor
I believe you can find them on Youtube or Dailymotion
Yeah, they're basically the length of a NuWho episode each.
Personally, Death of the Doctor was the better story, easily. I kinda count it as a DW story, really.
The entire Sarah Jane Adventures is available on Hulu with a subscription. It's well worth seeing.
Not only is it worth seeing, I often found Sarah Jane Adventures as a more of a continuation to the spirit of classic Doctor Who than the current Doctor Who (at the time of the show's run and now).
And the Doctor's not in it, but don't forget Enemy of the Bane, as it features the last appearance of Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, as played by the late great Nicholas Courtney!
But in retrospect, that's exactly what Smith's entire era was. I'm not sure at what point in Eleven's life he figured out he was the last one - it might have been right away, it might have been later. But every season with Smith addressed the death of the Doctor in some way. Season 5 ended with the apparent destruction of the Tardis. Season 6 was all about a long-form assassination attempt. And season 7 ended with his grave.
To be fair it probably wasn't intended that way, but in retrospect you can see the knowledge that he was the last incarnation in his motivation to first accept his death, then to try to stave it off as long as possible, then to hide away so people wouldn't want to kill him anymore.
I haven't seen a huge amount of SJA, but what I have seen left me with the impression that, despite it being designed for children, it was often more mature than the made-for-adults Torchwood, which in practise was very juvenile at times.
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That's a fair assessment. Certainly the kids on SJA often seemed to know what they were doing better than the Torchwood gang did, and were less prone to screwing things up through their own actions.
Having flawed characters is a bad thing?
If he hadn't figured it out before then, 'Let's Kill Hitler' would have spelled it out for him. First having to be told by Amelia-as-TARDIS-avatar 'Regeneration has been disabled,' and then having River's regen energy (enough for 10 full regenerations) pumped into him - and he didn't then change - would have clinched it.
Looking back, I'm a little ashamed none of us saw it then. When Moffat first hinted that Smith was the last, and said 'Look again, there's something you've forgot,' we all went "Huh?"
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