I'm sure someone else must have picked up on this

Just watching 'The Wedding of River Song' on Watch

The whole crux of this storyline was he had to die, he's shot once and starts to regenerate, so they shoot him mid regeneration to kill him permanently dead.

But from what we've just found out in TTOTD, he had no regenerations left?

Because that was not The Doctor it was the Teselecta and he set it up to appear he was regenerating.

But why bother? He had no regenerations left, surely it was more believable just to keel over straight away?

Because only he knew he had none left as far as everybody else knew he had two left so had to keep up that illusion.

Nobody knew he had no regenerations left at that point. Only someone who had witnessed the metacrisis incident would have had a clue and I suspect even the 11th Doctor hadn't thought of it.

As long as people were expecting two shots to be needed to kill him he had to make the Teselector die that way in order to be convincing.

Because A) The Hurt Doctor hadn't been thought of yet, and B) To appear more convincing as dead. Nothing says a Time Lord is dead like being killed during regeneration.

Time Lords on their last life die in the process of regeneration, apparently.

Tasha Lem in TOTD seemed quite knowledgeable about the time war and the implications of the Doctor saying his name (and allowing the time lords back). Its possible she may have known that Matt was on his last incarnation too? If so, would/could the Kovarian faction have known as well before they went back in time?


As I've said before to myself mainly , this is just a TV show, but I'm just saying their maybe "some" truth in the original OP. Now we've seen the future events which led to the silence et al and the assassination of the 'Doctor' in Wedding of River Song.

The Tessalector wasn't regenerating as it couldn't regenerate so this whole thread is null and void. Just a light show to impress the watching who wanted to see him die.

'Null and void'? Have you actually heard yourself?

If you think that about the thread, don't participate, simple

It is a pretty big plot hole brought by Moffat's retconning.

As well as the Telselecta episode, in the episode where the Cybermen are trying to "convert" him with cybernetic implants, he makes reference to perhaps having to regenerate to get rid of their influence. I'm sure there was another episode as well where he refers to regenerating.

I think Moffat just created more questions here than anything else. If he still wanted to refer to the "13 lives" issue, he should have inserted something that makes reference to the fact that the Doctor didn't realise that the "Meta-crisis" regeneration counted as a life.

13th regeneration can be initiated at will by Time Lords on their final life - it just kills them. (Source: The Twin Dilemma)

It's no big deal...

Basically he just doesn't mention the metacrisis or the War Doctor to anyone who isn't already aware of them prior to TNOTD/TDOTD/TTOTD and he keeps up the pretense that he has not used up all his regenerations.

It makes complete sense that he wouldn't want his enemies to know that he had reached this vulnerable point and that he wouldn't want to upset his companions by telling them unless it was absolutely necessary.

... and of course "Rule #1 - The Doctor lies!"

If you go back to Let's Kill Hitler, which presumably was before Matt decided to leave, his Doctor is tolfd that regeneration has been disabled by the poison so he will die and appears to do without any glow starting. I guess that it wasn't until Matt's decision to leave and Eccleston wouldn't do the 50th, that Moffat created the War Dr and the regeneration crisis.