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Renumber The Doctors?

intrinsical

intrinsical

Commodore
Commodore
I've been discussing this in some other forums and everybody seems split about the issue of John Hurt's character. Has he redeemed himself enough to be called The Doctor again? And if so, does that now make him the 9th Doctor, Eccelston the 10th, Tennant the 11th, Smith the 12th and Capaldi the 13th Doctor?

Or do we retain the current numbering of Doctors with Tennant as 10 and Smith as 11?
 
Hurt's Doctor absolutely redeemed himself, but I don't like the idea of renumbering. Why not just let him have a name to indicate his uniqueness, the War Doctor. The Medic? :p
 
The War Doctor. He did indeed reject the title, and spent most of his life as someone who he didn't consider worthy of the name. I wonder what he called himself?

No need to renumber. Eccleston played the tenth incarnation of the Time Lord we refer to as the Doctor, the ninth one to claim the title and keep the promise.
 
Not only did he redeem himself, he was forgiven by his future incarnations and they called him "Doctor."

That's enough for me to renumber The Doctors. However, I know this will be hotly debated for years to come and there will always be confusion when talking about The Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth, and upcoming Thirteenth Doctors (and all of the future incarnations).
 
Emh said:
Not only did he redeem himself, he was forgiven by his future incarnations and they called him "Doctor."

That's enough for me to renumber The Doctors. However, I know this will be hotly debated for years to come and there will always be confusion when talking about The Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth, and upcoming Thirteenth Doctors (and all of the future incarnations).
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I don't think there will be. Moffat has already stated that it doesn't change anything and that Smith still is the eleventh Doctor, so the point is moot and it's only really confusing for people who want it to be confusing.
 
The Mirrorball Man said:
I don't think there will be. Moffat has already stated that it doesn't change anything and that Smith still is the eleventh Doctor, so the point is moot and it's only really confusing for people who want it to be confusing.
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Agreed. I just don't see an issue here.

The fact Hurt's Doctor was acknowledged as a Doctor two minutes before his regeneration doesn't change the fact he still spent a lifetime being a warrior and acting in a very un-Doctorly kind of way (even if he is no longer responsible for the worst act of wiping out billions of people anymore).

People can quibble over the number of incarnations if they want, but as far as "true Doctors" go, it seems obvious that he shouldn't really qualify. Because he never truly acted like a Doctor.
 
davejames said:
The Mirrorball Man said:
I don't think there will be. Moffat has already stated that it doesn't change anything and that Smith still is the eleventh Doctor, so the point is moot and it's only really confusing for people who want it to be confusing.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I just don't see an issue here.

The fact Hurt's Doctor was acknowledged as a Doctor two minutes before his regeneration doesn't change the fact he still spent a lifetime being a warrior and acting in a very un-Doctorly kind of way (even if he is no longer responsible for the worst act of wiping out billions of people anymore).

People can quibble over the number of incarnations if they want, but as far as "true Doctors" go, it seems obvious that he shouldn't really qualify. Because he never truly acted hlike a Doctor.
Click to expand...

Horseshit. He acted exactly like The Doctor and performed an act of healing. Hurt is the Ninth, now and forever more.
 
davejames said:
People can quibble over the number of incarnations if they want, but as far as "true Doctors" go, it seems obvious that he shouldn't really qualify. Because he never truly acted like a Doctor.
Click to expand...
But isn't that just semantics? At the end of the day, Hurt is the ninth incarnation of the physical being known as The Doctor.
 
Emh said:
davejames said:
People can quibble over the number of incarnations if they want, but as far as "true Doctors" go, it seems obvious that he shouldn't really qualify. Because he never truly acted like a Doctor.
Click to expand...
But isn't that just semantics? At the end of the day, Hurt is the ninth incarnation of the physical being known as The Doctor.
Click to expand...

He is, but we're specifically talking about renumbering, and no, the War Doctor is not the ninth Doctor.
 
I always look at the Time Lord from a biological perspective. Basically regenerations limit who the Doctor is in my mind.

1 - Hartnell
2 - Troughton
3 - Pertwee
4 - Baker
5 - Davison
6 - Baker
7 - McCoy
8 - McGann
9 - Hurt
10 - Eccleston
11 - Tennant
12 - Smith
13 - Capaldi

Granted we never see who Hurt regenerates into - we assume Eccleston - but from a biological perspective he can only do it 12 times, we know Capaldi is right round the corner so it has to be him.

And yes, it's gonna balls up every conversation about the Doctors from now on.
 
Nah really it's not much of an issue. There's an official version, if people are keen to communicate with other people that's the one they're going to use, no matter what they may think about the merits of the War Doctor. If some people are willing to be obtuse about the whole thing, well, let's all be obtuse: from now on, I'm going to assume that whenever someone is talking about the eleventh Doctor, he's talking about the eleventh Doctor. :D
 
The issue will be is... who is Capaldi? Do we say 12 (cos there isn't one in the new sequence) or 13 (which he biologically is)?
 
For a moment there, I thought that the Hurt Doctor was going to chose not to use the moment, erase everything that has happened since 2005, and then himself after a supreme sacrifice regenerate into Capaldi who is the new 10... Which didn't happen.
 
I think its Eleven that accepts him as a Doctor, since Ten and obviously Nine don't remember him being anything but The Warrior who ended Gallifrey with the Moment. Eleven remembers both the original history and the changed one, and accepts the Warrior for what he truly is - a Doctor. A War Doctor, but a Doctor all the same.
 
Candlelight said:
The issue will be is... who is Capaldi? Do we say 12 (cos there isn't one in the new sequence) or 13 (which he biologically is)?
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The timelord general and his staff sort of answered it towards the end.

"All twelve of them"
"No sir, all thirteen!"

At least for the Time Lords, Capaldi is the 13th.
 
Emh said:
But isn't that just semantics? At the end of the day, Hurt is the ninth incarnation of the physical being known as The Doctor.
Click to expand...

Except that he specifically requested to be regenerated as something other than a Doctor, and the Sisters (using their somehow "elevated Time Lord science") granted him that request.

He might still be the same physical being, but it seems pretty obvious that (at least by Time Lord standards) he had become something slightly different and separate. Otherwise what was the point of the minisode? Just to have the Doctor delude himself into thinking he was becoming something different when he wasn't? I seriously doubt that was Moffat's intention behind the whole thing.

Clearly he wanted to use the Sisters and their magic to make this a very different kind of regeneration.
 
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