As far as I can remember the Minyans in Underworld had no such limit, kind of implies that it's a timelord imposed limitation one you'd expect them to lift during the timewar
This is the first one that sprang to mind when thinking of regeneration.
The Doctor (11th) alludes and points to his footabll shirt in the lodger that hes the 11th which makes me think that this one counts as a regeneration.
What is the possibility that during the time war, similar to what they did when they bought back the Master that they also gave all the timelords involved in the war an extra/booster set of regenerations?
It makes sense (well to me anyway) that if your fighting for your existance against the Daleks and various other beings, you would want to keep your "soldiers" in the fight for as long as possible.
this for me is the simplest way out. all that's needed is a flashback to a meeting of the high council at a point when the time war is being lost.. the order is given to remove the regeneration limit, some councillors argue that this means many time lords will die in torment hundreds of times, but the proposal is implemented despite theses misgivings.. job done.
I think that given that PM is the only classic Doctor who could get away with looking anything like his last televised appearance, and his ongoing enthusiasm for DW (audios, conventions etc.), plus that he said he'd play the role again if the BBC asked him to, there is absolutely no way they could recast him. I still reckon he'll be involved in the anniversary somewhere (other than the multi-Doctor audio).
As far as I can remember the Minyans in Underworld had no such limit, kind of implies that it's a timelord imposed limitation one you'd expect them to lift during the timewar
They didn't naturally regenerate. The regeneration was caused artificially by a machine.
If the limit was a natural thing The Master would never been farting about with the eye of harmony and the keepership of Traken. Which implies that to renew a regenerative cycle is no small task and requires vast amounts of warfare, meaning The Master's resurrection and new cycle wasn't commonplace and possibly a desperate attempt during the time war.
As I understand it Doctor Who have the same/similar levels of "cannon" that Star Wars has.
1) Anything seen on screen is considered set in stone (usually!..wibbly wobbly plot twists aside) with the addition that "New Who" over rides "Classic Who"...for some strange reason.( dont shoot the messenger, I dont agree with this stance)
2) In official books/audio is treated as cannon unless something on screen over rides in which case what is said / seen on TV is considered the over riding factor.
3) Unofficial / spin of material are the lowest level and only treated as cannon if confirmed via the above two levels.
I think Mawdryn Undead now sits between level 1 & 2 in terms of cannon and is treated as uncertain (wibbly wobbly rules apply) until confirmed in "New Who" (once again I dont agree with this)
I don't see it as a 'New Who' vs 'Classic Who' stance on this - more that anything written later either supercedes or confirms what was written before... The show has a tradition of that even during the classic years.
They didn't naturally regenerate. The regeneration was caused artificially by a machine.
If the limit was a natural thing The Master would never been farting about with the eye of harmony and the keepership of Traken. Which implies that to renew a regenerative cycle is no small task and requires vast amounts of warfare, meaning The Master's resurrection and new cycle wasn't commonplace and possibly a desperate attempt during the time war.
When the Master was messing about with the Eye of Harmony and the Keepership of Traken the Time Lords still existed to impose the limit, so he had to use other means, especially as he was a renegade.
We know from Troughton/Pertwee that the Time Lords can control when another regenerates, so now they are gone, who monitors regenerations?
They didn't naturally regenerate. The regeneration was caused artificially by a machine.
If the limit was a natural thing The Master would never been farting about with the eye of harmony and the keepership of Traken. Which implies that to renew a regenerative cycle is no small task and requires vast amounts of warfare, meaning The Master's resurrection and new cycle wasn't commonplace and possibly a desperate attempt during the time war.
??? I thought the new cycle was implied to have been granted during the "Five Doctors" story as payment for trolling off to rescue the Doctor? The High Council/President, in offering the Master the new cycle, didn't seem to act like it was going to be a huge thing in practice.
The 1st Doctor was "rejuvenated" - he did not "regenerate" into the 2nd Doctor.
The 2nd Doctor did not "regenerate" - some other process was imposed on him by and may have used a DIFFIERENT TimeLord tech/talent
The 7th Doctor did not regenerate - he was DEAD and only a LIVING Timelord can regenerate. Whatever process occured there, it was not "regeneration". (Stated more that once recently that death prevents regeneration - Turn Left, Astronaut, End of Time etc)
The 10th Doctor received a large dose of "regeneration energy" from River Song - that "may" have wound the clock back. (She is only known to have used two of whatever "quota" she may have had - and that is a huge unknown.)
The 11th Doctor CREATED THE UNIVERSE in Big Bang 2 - which actually makes him THE FIRST DOCTOR - so it's arguable that he has all twelve regens left as a point of logic.
NOTE - The current Doctor may call himself "the 11th Doctor" but that does NOT mean that he is counting REGENERATIONS. He may be referring to the number of people/personas/woteva to use/deserve that title but that does not NECESSARILY mean that ALL previous holders regenerated - we know it's an "honorary title".
PLUS....
Even if we say that every "rebirth" involved a regneration - and if moffat is being straight about there being a 12 regneration limit - his statement that the 12th Doctor is not the last still makes perfect sense. The "last" Doctor would be the 13th incarnation - not the 12th.
PLUS...
There have been numerous "work-arounds" throughout DW history - the Master "possessed" a human and "started again", the TimeLords, "ressurected" The Master during the Time War etc etc.
??? I thought the new cycle was implied to have been granted during the "Five Doctors" story as payment for trolling off to rescue the Doctor? The High Council/President, in offering the Master the new cycle, didn't seem to act like it was going to be a huge thing in practice.
If he was given the cycle in five doctors then he wouldnt have needed to steal another body and attempt to steal the eighth doctors remaining incarnations.
And if Hartnell to Troughton to Pertwee were rejuvenations and not regenerations that would mean all three were one incarnation and therefore at the least the three doctors should be renamed
Couldn't hurt be an older version of clone Tennant doctor given to rose? He killed, cant really be called 'doctor' and would age and die? Maybe hes become more 'human' as hes gone along and done terrible things
This would be the most obscure thing to pull back on from the show's past, but it's an option to get out of the imposed limit that's there.
However, the Fifth Doctor tells the First he's number Five, the Eighth Doctor does declare the Seventh Doctor his "seventh life", and Ten tells Sarah Jane he's regenerated half-a-dozen times since he's last seen her.
So, until Ten, the Doctor has been exact about where his lives were act, since 2005 he's never confirmed what life he's on.
Also, is there anything in the Timelords resurrecting the Master from death with a new cycle of regenerations...?
Actually he has confirmed it. When talking to Craig in The Lodger, he points at himself and says 'Eleven!'.
Maybe Moffat is retroactively fixing / retconing the horrible resolution to the cliffhanger in the stolen earth / journey's end and counting the faux-regeneration as using one up.
And then there is the Doctor "calling up" his regeneration "powers" during Season 7, which is somehow worse than the travesty of the Stolen Earth. RTD was positively conservative with his abuse of regeneration compared to Moffat.
Somehow I don't think that "we" have missed anything in the last 50 years of Doctor Who. He's got some cop-out trick up his sleeve and is being coy about it.
And then there is the Doctor "calling up" his regeneration "powers" during Season 7, which is somehow worse than the travesty of the Stolen Earth. RTD was positively conservative with his abuse of regeneration compared to Moffat.
There's nothing in the classic series suggesting that Time Lords can't regenerate voluntarily. In fact, Romana demonstrated that they can.
Hi everyone! First post here, been lurking, getting details about the missing episode find. Anywho...
Don't know how well this is known, but the second Doctor mentioned in The War Games that his people could live forever, barring accidents. Here's the clip:
Hi everyone! First post here, been lurking, getting details about the missing episode find. Anywho...
Don't know how well this is known, but the second Doctor mentioned in The War Games that his people could live forever, barring accidents. Here's the clip:
Yes, I remember that. Coupled with the regeneration limit, it suggests that they don't age. Or, at least, can't die of old age. We know they can age as we saw Doctor 10 getting aged by the Master (and I think Tom Baker got aged in one story too).
Of course, at the time, the show had no notion of a regeneration limit so the comment was probably meant to suggest that they could regenerate indefinitely whenever their bodies wore out.
Hi everyone! First post here, been lurking, getting details about the missing episode find. Anywho...
Don't know how well this is known, but the second Doctor mentioned in The War Games that his people could live forever, barring accidents. Here's the clip:
And then there is the Doctor "calling up" his regeneration "powers" during Season 7, which is somehow worse than the travesty of the Stolen Earth. RTD was positively conservative with his abuse of regeneration compared to Moffat.
Somehow I don't think that "we" have missed anything in the last 50 years of Doctor Who. He's got some cop-out trick up his sleeve and is being coy about it.
Pretty sure he gave away some regeneration energy in the same way in Rise of the Cybermen to re-power the TARDIS. He did say he lost ten years of his life! So Moffat's just re-using and reworking an RTD-era plot device.
There's nothing in the classic series suggesting that Time Lords can't regenerate voluntarily. In fact, Romana demonstrated that they can.
Indeed when the doctor was speaking with the cyber thingy in his head in the Nightmare and Silver episode, he mentioned triggering a regeneration to remove the threat to him
Indeed when the doctor was speaking with the cyber thingy in his head in the Nightmare and Silver episode, he mentioned triggering a regeneration to remove the threat to him
What we've missed IMO is in the last episode and that's the Doctor's grave at trenzelore. The Tardis at the Doctor's death is the current one and Cara says she sees no more doctors other than the 11 and the mysterious John Hurt incarnation. Eleven talks of JH in a past tense 'He was the one who broke the promise' this all suggests that Eleven is the last Doctor. The Doctor Dies and does't regenerate, there is no peter Capaldi in that time stream. it is plainly pointed out.
We know there is going to be a Peter capaldi doctor so His death at Trenzelore has to be avoided in the 50th or xmas special in order for that to happen.
The question is what brings the doctors death? it doesn't just need to be an end of his 13th life, we've seen in lets kill hitler etc he can be killed other ways but my thoughts are that Hurt is the 9th body (but not the 9th Doctor) and DT's regen in the stolen earth counts as the use of a regeneration
(I know many will disagree but to me he used regeneration power to avoid certain death, he managed to avoid the transformation by siphoning off some to the hand but it took a whole regeneration to renew DT's cells and create a whole new body. that can' be a freebie)
That would mean the 12 regens are up and Smith is the 13th body 11th Doctor (Hurt wasn't the Doctor and Tenent used two bodies)
We know Smith's Doctor dies at Trenzelore with no regeneration as the timeline goes now but why and how is it avoided. The theory above is just my own and to me seems possible and reasonable and I think the 50th will involve the Doctor trying to increase the limit.
What better point to dump the 12 regen limit and start afresh than the 50th Anniversary
The broken window of the TARDIS is very clearly in shot when they exit on Trenzalore, and appears very prominently in the 'Grave TARDIS' that's grown.
Also, currently, the Doctor has entered his own timestream, which should be fatal to him.
I've long-held the theory that NotD, DotD and Christmas 2013 are a trilogy of episodes for the 50th which will end up featuring every Doctor in some way, including 'Twelve'.
So, by counting Journey's End and adding a mystery (Hurt) Doctor, the 50th would leave the Eleventh Doctor the last incarnation, and the anniversary *could* be used to spring-board the series afresh past that, with a new First/Fourteenth/Twelfth Doctor into 2014.
This situation was always going to get messy when it happened, but Moffat might as well try and wrap it up around the convoluted continuity that already exists when most people are watching and expecting an introverted episode, and then get going again with a big-name star in the role to pick things all up once more in the eyes of the public...
Of course, the real question is, if Matt's Doctor is on his last life, how the Doctor gets past all that...
Comments
As far as I can remember the Minyans in Underworld had no such limit, kind of implies that it's a timelord imposed limitation one you'd expect them to lift during the timewar
this for me is the simplest way out. all that's needed is a flashback to a meeting of the high council at a point when the time war is being lost.. the order is given to remove the regeneration limit, some councillors argue that this means many time lords will die in torment hundreds of times, but the proposal is implemented despite theses misgivings.. job done.
But surely Paul McGann would also have been quite good as an older version of the McGann doctor.
Yes, I'd be a bit cross if they had effectively 're-cast' the 8th Doctor.
Really. I think he's playing a younger version of eccleston. Wibby, wobbly.....;)
They didn't naturally regenerate. The regeneration was caused artificially by a machine.
If the limit was a natural thing The Master would never been farting about with the eye of harmony and the keepership of Traken. Which implies that to renew a regenerative cycle is no small task and requires vast amounts of warfare, meaning The Master's resurrection and new cycle wasn't commonplace and possibly a desperate attempt during the time war.
I don't see it as a 'New Who' vs 'Classic Who' stance on this - more that anything written later either supercedes or confirms what was written before... The show has a tradition of that even during the classic years.
When the Master was messing about with the Eye of Harmony and the Keepership of Traken the Time Lords still existed to impose the limit, so he had to use other means, especially as he was a renegade.
We know from Troughton/Pertwee that the Time Lords can control when another regenerates, so now they are gone, who monitors regenerations?
??? I thought the new cycle was implied to have been granted during the "Five Doctors" story as payment for trolling off to rescue the Doctor? The High Council/President, in offering the Master the new cycle, didn't seem to act like it was going to be a huge thing in practice.
The 2nd Doctor did not "regenerate" - some other process was imposed on him by and may have used a DIFFIERENT TimeLord tech/talent
The 7th Doctor did not regenerate - he was DEAD and only a LIVING Timelord can regenerate. Whatever process occured there, it was not "regeneration". (Stated more that once recently that death prevents regeneration - Turn Left, Astronaut, End of Time etc)
The 10th Doctor received a large dose of "regeneration energy" from River Song - that "may" have wound the clock back. (She is only known to have used two of whatever "quota" she may have had - and that is a huge unknown.)
The 11th Doctor CREATED THE UNIVERSE in Big Bang 2 - which actually makes him THE FIRST DOCTOR - so it's arguable that he has all twelve regens left as a point of logic.
NOTE - The current Doctor may call himself "the 11th Doctor" but that does NOT mean that he is counting REGENERATIONS. He may be referring to the number of people/personas/woteva to use/deserve that title but that does not NECESSARILY mean that ALL previous holders regenerated - we know it's an "honorary title".
PLUS....
Even if we say that every "rebirth" involved a regneration - and if moffat is being straight about there being a 12 regneration limit - his statement that the 12th Doctor is not the last still makes perfect sense. The "last" Doctor would be the 13th incarnation - not the 12th.
PLUS...
There have been numerous "work-arounds" throughout DW history - the Master "possessed" a human and "started again", the TimeLords, "ressurected" The Master during the Time War etc etc.
If he was given the cycle in five doctors then he wouldnt have needed to steal another body and attempt to steal the eighth doctors remaining incarnations.
And if Hartnell to Troughton to Pertwee were rejuvenations and not regenerations that would mean all three were one incarnation and therefore at the least the three doctors should be renamed
Actually he has confirmed it. When talking to Craig in The Lodger, he points at himself and says 'Eleven!'.
And then there is the Doctor "calling up" his regeneration "powers" during Season 7, which is somehow worse than the travesty of the Stolen Earth. RTD was positively conservative with his abuse of regeneration compared to Moffat.
Somehow I don't think that "we" have missed anything in the last 50 years of Doctor Who. He's got some cop-out trick up his sleeve and is being coy about it.
There's nothing in the classic series suggesting that Time Lords can't regenerate voluntarily. In fact, Romana demonstrated that they can.
Don't know how well this is known, but the second Doctor mentioned in The War Games that his people could live forever, barring accidents. Here's the clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYXp3YshsQg
Yes, I remember that. Coupled with the regeneration limit, it suggests that they don't age. Or, at least, can't die of old age. We know they can age as we saw Doctor 10 getting aged by the Master (and I think Tom Baker got aged in one story too).
Of course, at the time, the show had no notion of a regeneration limit so the comment was probably meant to suggest that they could regenerate indefinitely whenever their bodies wore out.
Welcome to the forum, by the way!
Welcome to this corner of the innerwebs.
Pretty sure he gave away some regeneration energy in the same way in Rise of the Cybermen to re-power the TARDIS. He did say he lost ten years of his life! So Moffat's just re-using and reworking an RTD-era plot device.
Indeed when the doctor was speaking with the cyber thingy in his head in the Nightmare and Silver episode, he mentioned triggering a regeneration to remove the threat to him
Perfect username for this thread. Hat's off sir!
We know there is going to be a Peter capaldi doctor so His death at Trenzelore has to be avoided in the 50th or xmas special in order for that to happen.
The question is what brings the doctors death? it doesn't just need to be an end of his 13th life, we've seen in lets kill hitler etc he can be killed other ways but my thoughts are that Hurt is the 9th body (but not the 9th Doctor) and DT's regen in the stolen earth counts as the use of a regeneration
(I know many will disagree but to me he used regeneration power to avoid certain death, he managed to avoid the transformation by siphoning off some to the hand but it took a whole regeneration to renew DT's cells and create a whole new body. that can' be a freebie)
so he has 12 regenerations
1. hartnell-Troughton
2. Troughton-Pertwee
3. Pertwee- Baker
4. baker- Davidson
5. Davidson- C.Baker
6. C.Baker-McCoy
7. McCoy-McGann
8. McGann-Hurt (IMO)
9. Hurt-Ecclesone (IMO)
10. Ecclestone- Tenent
11. Tenent -Tenent (IMO)
12. Tenent-Smith
That would mean the 12 regens are up and Smith is the 13th body 11th Doctor (Hurt wasn't the Doctor and Tenent used two bodies)
We know Smith's Doctor dies at Trenzelore with no regeneration as the timeline goes now but why and how is it avoided. The theory above is just my own and to me seems possible and reasonable and I think the 50th will involve the Doctor trying to increase the limit.
What better point to dump the 12 regen limit and start afresh than the 50th Anniversary
Also, currently, the Doctor has entered his own timestream, which should be fatal to him.
I've long-held the theory that NotD, DotD and Christmas 2013 are a trilogy of episodes for the 50th which will end up featuring every Doctor in some way, including 'Twelve'.
So, by counting Journey's End and adding a mystery (Hurt) Doctor, the 50th would leave the Eleventh Doctor the last incarnation, and the anniversary *could* be used to spring-board the series afresh past that, with a new First/Fourteenth/Twelfth Doctor into 2014.
This situation was always going to get messy when it happened, but Moffat might as well try and wrap it up around the convoluted continuity that already exists when most people are watching and expecting an introverted episode, and then get going again with a big-name star in the role to pick things all up once more in the eyes of the public...
Of course, the real question is, if Matt's Doctor is on his last life, how the Doctor gets past all that...