cast your minds back to the first NU who series.

I have just lent my friend this series and his point was this

The doctor having to regenerate because he absorbed the time vortex, when Rose had for a much longer period and did more with it an got off scott free

any ideas

think it was just a cop out. Chris Ecc quit at the last moment so they demanded he cam back to re film that last scene...

in short they did it the only way they could think off.. but yes, you are right. Rose should have died cos 'no one's meant to do that'...

I don't think there was a specific reason - i.e. nothing in the mythology or science of the series required it - just a cool way for the Doctor to "sacrifice" himself for Rose for Eccelstone's last episode.

If you want a possible "Dr Whoie" type answer - he was able to remove the energy from Rose before any permanent harm was done and could have survived in his current body for some length of time but not at his best so he either chose or his body instinctively regenerated.

Or how about - the act of absorbing the energy from Rose was the actual cause of the regeneration - rather than the presence of the energy in his body.

Or how about - Rose is human - he's not - so the energy would affect them differently.

I really liked the way they handled it - the Doctor wasn't in danger and if we hadn't already known that Eccles was leaving, there's no way we'd have seen that coming right up until the point where it actually happened.

I preferred that to the long-goodbye of DT's Doctor - I almost expected them to do a final shot of him with a tiny-weeny trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth - like the girl with dark hair who loves the cowboy but he really loves the fair-haired school-teacher so she dies taking the bullet to save his life in a thousand classic Westerns - or something

He didn't "quit at the last moment". It was written and filmed with his departure in mind.

The simplest answer is that the energy of the time vortex was building up and up and had *almost* reached the point where it would be lethal, when the Doctor extracted it from Rose and into himself.

Only quoting what I read at the time... whether it's accurate or not I wouldn't know

Can't remember the details of the scene - did he breathe the time vortex energy back into the TARDIS? If not, perhaps the regeneration was triggered because there was no other way of removing the energy?

Perhaps the energy degraded brain matter, hence why it was fatal to the Doctor, but had no effect on Rose.

My understanding was that the energy was killing Rose, but after or even as the Doctor transfered it to himself he was able to use it to save her. He then transfered the energy back to the Tardis, but was ofcourse unable to play 'god' at that point and save himself, so was forced to regenerate.

Oooh, I like that. I'd buy into that explanation.

Also there may have been something 'exceptional' about Rose. When the Master was belittling Martha on the Valiant he made a remark akin to 'Doctor, what are you travelling with these days? You once had companions who could absorb the time vortex.'

I think it was a case of the Doctor having removed it completely from Rose but because he was letting it go back to the TARDIS rather than having it removed from himself he could not let go of it all so there were still some reminants of it in his body. I mean it seems to me that the glowing hand before he regenerated was initially meant to be the energy from the vortex in his body. I think they then decided to keep that effect for future regenerations just so it would look familiar.

I totally agree! There was something so reassuring about the way Nine bowed out...almost joyful, really. No regrets, no mawkishness, and his main concern was to reassure Rose that he would still "go on" the same as before, just with a different face. (A reassurance that was beautifully continued in the Christmas Invasion, where all the other characters gradually came around to accepting that he was "Absolutely the same man", as Harriet Jones put it.)

What a contrast with Ten's long drawn out ending, where all the above seemed to have been forgotten, and suddenly it was all about the finality and the tragedy of it all. As much as I loved Ten (and I adore Eleven equally), I almost lost my enthusiasm at the end of the four Specials for that very reason: it was just too wallowing-in-self-pity (and I still think Ten should have had a better final line than the tearful "I don't want to go." Nine's last words were so triumphant and celebratory...why couldn't Ten have had something like that?)

....Sorry, wandered off at a tangent there! But I did like your post!

Well, Nine had had a pretty bleak life after the time war . And a lonely life. He didn't have a whole load of friends to say farewell to. But his life was improving, he had met Rose, and he could regenerate with a sense of optimism that good times were coming...
Whereas Ten had made a lot of friends, felt there was a lot more he could still do, he wasn't ready or willing to move on...

Good idea but the Doctor doesn't forget everything when he regenerates. I don't think that 10's small circle of friends would make that much difference to a 900 year old man - especially as they'd all moved on to other things since he met them.

Not ony that but there was no reason why any of those relationships needed to change - Rose, Mickey, Jack, Sarah Jane and Jackie had all seen him with previous incarnations and all but SJ knew him as Eccles (can't say for certain where River Song is concerned - for all we know she could have known a dozen Doctors that we haven't even seen yet). In fact, there was really only Martha, Donna and Wilf - that were 10's "new" friends. In many ways, Eccles made more friends than DT - and he have a bit of a flirt with a one or two others.

Even without that, we don't know how long the Doctor had had that body. He could have met huge numbers of people and we know that the Doctor rarely speaks of past companions or aquaintances - at least he didn't until he started talking about Rose to everyone within earshot.

Actually, now I've written that, it gives me another idea for the regeneration - that body could have been wearing out already and absorbing the vortex was just the last straw - Rose may have just been younger and more healthy (even in human V Time Lord terms) and therefore less likely to suffer serious damage.

Who knows how long the energy was in the Doctor's body? (Rhetorical). Prior to the regeneration, we see the TARDIS flying through the vortex and then Rose waking up and asking 'What happened?'...she could've been out cold for far longer than we thought, meaning Nine could've been carrying the energy inside him for a while...

The vortex was killing Rose but the Doctor took it out of her held off the energy untill he got into the tardis i don't think it kills you straight away.

Time Lords can regenerate whenever they want, maybe he knew he was dying and wanted to get it over and done with, rather than prolonging it too much?

Nines regeneration was pretty much a masterpiece. It is still one of my favourite scenes. Every line of it is just perfect. "Rose Tyler, I was going to take you so many places." just pulls on the heart strings for all the right reasons. And the way he makes jokes about Barcelona and having two heads is just the perfect mixture of trying to be calm and reassuring for Rose (and the audience) and maybe a little bit of hidden fear about what is about to happen. The "Before I go I just want to say one thing. Rose, you were fantastic. And you know what so was I," line should be as cheesy as hell but it wasnt it just broke the tension and made me want to crack a smile. It definitely had a show much go on feeling about it and at the same time honoured Nine contribution to the series. Tens regeneration I think suffered from trying to do too many things. I can understand that since DT had been there longer they realised the audience would want a big send off but I think it was also about a good bye to the whole production team. I think it is the perfect example of when sometimes more is less.

This. Bit hard to believe that Rose collapsed and then woke up a few seconds later, could have been a while

Always wondered how The Master knew that.

Thanks for this guys