Using the term "full time" is a technicality, surely? You have to qualify things very specifically for him to be the 12th. Hence, it is a technicality that he is the 12th. It's all in the small print, so to speak!

Don't get me wrong, I have no objection for him to be called the 12th and I have never referred to him as the 13th and don't see any need to. I just thought that the objections to Airborae's post weren't explaining why he's the 12th and I was simply explaining the reasoning because everyone else was just asserting without explaining.

As has been mentioned, the term "12th Doctor" or "4th Doctor" etc. is not an in-Universe term. It can't be a line in the script because the naming convention doesn't apply to the Doctor Who universe, only to the real-world Universe.

In the real-world Universe where it is at all relevant, it has already been confirmed along with the reasoning for it so I don't see this issue as being left hanging or unresolved at all.

The numbering is an issue. The Doctor has mentioned this before in classic stories - Mawdryn Undead for example when faced with mutants wanting to take his remaining regenerations. The Five Doctors - Doctor 1 asked Doctor 5 - "Regeneration?" Doctor 5 - "Fourth". Doctor 1 - "Goodness me, so there's five of me now." Paul McGann mentioned in the TV movie about Time Lords having 13 lives. So it's not something that can be pushed under the carpet. Put it this way - Capaldi is officially the 12th Doctor, but unofficially he is the 13th. It can't be left unresolved though.

The problem has only arisen is that Ecclestone was unwilling to take part in the anniversary special, so Moffat wrote an unknown version. But this version does count as Paul McGann regenerated into him and we saw John Hurt regenerate into Chris Ecclestone. So the numbering is important. The confusion of the War Doctor is down to Moffat (but a good script nontheless) but you can't leave the numbering unresolved. What happens at the end of this second regeneration cycle? It would become vitally important then.

None of that actually involves referring to himself as the "xth Doctor". If he asked himself how many regenerations he was on now he would say 13th (if he's being truthful). It is true that he only had 13 lives due to the normal limit of 12 regenerations and nothing has contradicted that (in fact, it seems great lengths were gone to to address it).

So I don't understand what you mean by things being pushed under the carpet. Everything in-Universe is entirely consistent with previous continuity.

"12th Doctor" isn't supposed to mean 12th incarnation or 12th regeneration it is just a convenient way for us on the outside to refer to the role that the actor was playing. Tennant was playing the tenth Doctor because that was what it said in his script for the duration of his tenure. John Hurt got inserted in front of him, chronologically, but confusion was avoided by ensuring that the role John Hurt played was not that of the Doctor as neither he. not the being formerly or latterly known as the Doctor referred to that incarnation as performing that role.


I don't buy that Eccleston brought this about. A large aspect of the War Doctor's role was to fulfil the criteria of Matt reaching his maximum regenerations. How else could they have done that without an additional regeneration we didn't know about?

In any case, it would be far more confusing to start referring to the 9th Doctor as the 10th Doctor and the 10th Doctor as the 11th Doctor after we have spent years calling them something else. No way would that be desirable. The decision to avoid renumbering by the semantic trick of not counting John Hurt as a "Doctor" is a clever and necessary one. I have no problem with it and don't see any reason it needs to be addressed any more than it already has been.

But it hasn't been left unresolved. It was adressed pretty explicitly in Time of the Doctor. Pretty much the whole episode was about this... Did you watch it? That's a genuine question, as the episode takes time to explain what's happening with the regenerations during the episode. It was specifically for this...

If you have watched it, but genuinely don't remember/understand the parts that were specifically about the regeneration issue? If you get chance, watch it again and it might help. Or if you have questions, ask someone on here - most people would be willing to help explain.

But if you've watched it but refuse to either believe or understand it, I'm not sure anyone here can help you.

No it wasn't

1. Eccleston to Tennant
2. Tennant to Smith
3. Troughton to Pertwee
4. Hartnell to Troughton
5. Pertwee to T. Baker
6. Smith to Capaldi
7. McGann to Hurt
8. Davison to C. Baker
9. C. Baker to McCoy
10. T.Baker to Davison.
11. Hurt to Eccleston

For me:-

Hartnell to Troughton: My first experience of such a thing at 6 years old!!

In later years - the Baker to Davison swap (with all those flashbacks).

Nu-Who: Ecclestone > Tennant (that was different!)

NO-NO: Jon Pertwee > Tom Baker (what??? Just a fade into new actor??)
(and they spent all that money on CSO!!)

I think you malign the Pertwee to Baker regeneration. Yes, the effect was underwhelming. But the sequence itself was beautifully scripted and played. "A tear, Sarah Jane?" is one of the best lines in a regeneration for me, and Pertwee really did play it like the Doctor's body was completely worn out. In fact, the Doctor actually dies in front of our eyes and is then reborn. I love it. It's one of my favourite regenerations, although I wish the actual effect was better.

And the sky isn't blue.

I need a bit more than that if you're going to persuade me

1)Baker to Davison
2)Davision to Baker
3)Eccleston to Tennant
4)Pertwee to Baker
5)Smith to Capadi
6)Hartnell to Troughton
7)Tennant to Smith
8)McGann to Hurt
9)Hurt to Eccleston
10)Troughton to Pertwee
11)Baker to McCoy

I would say it's more like you have to provide a bit more in order to convince him!

It's pretty much known that the War Doctor only came into being as CE didn't want to be in the 50th.

My favourite is McCoy to McGann. You see an actual morph as opposed to fireworks or cheap camera dissolves.

Re. Smith to Capaldi, I liked it but I wasn't too keen on the 'cheat' that reset an elderly 11th Doctor back to a younger version just for the regeneration. I'm also not a fan of the now obligatory lines regarding checking that body parts are still there etc.

Baker to Davison was rubbish. I don't know what all that Watcher rubbish was about and some of the make-up effects during the regen made Davison look like a mime.

And then Davison to Baker was ruined by Baker's delivery of his post-regen lines. I enjoy his Doctor and his later performances (particularly Big Finish) but those lines are so delivered so am-dram it hurts, plus the cheesy breaking the 4th wall turn to the camera...

If I was writing a regeneration, I'd have one that is done stumbling back to the TARDIS, so a regen in motion. Lying down regens are for Classic WHO only and the Jesus Christ pose lightshow is wearing a bit thin.

Is this supported by any one on the production team saying so?

It's just that, it seems to me, that resolving the regeneration limit was one of two main threads of the finale. It would have needed the time lords to resolve it and it would need to be resolved, if not with Matt's regeneration then with Capaldi's. Given that his death on Trenzalore was what provided the means for Clara to be the impossible girl and given that he shouldn't have died unless he was on his last regneration I find it hard to believe that he wasn't planned to be on his last regeneration all along.

As a celebration of 50 years, climaxing with a new start and a new set of regenerations would seem to be the perfect goal for Matt's regeneration so it seems highly unlikely to me that this was just a plot point thrown in at the last minute. It was the resolution and climax of the episode, after all.

I don't see how having the 9th Doctor involved would have made any difference to that. He needed to reach the regeneration limit so we would have needed a new Doctor we didn't know about that for that to happen.

The plot of the Time War etc. and having a threesome of Doctors could have been just as easily managed by using Paul McGann instead of John Hurt (and we know he was available as he filmed Night of the Doctor). So I don't see any need for John Hurt other than to cause him to have reached the regeneration limit and the lack of Christopher Eccleston would have made no difference to that.

You're working on the basis that the event of Time of the Doctor were planned out before Day of the Doctor, which seems unlikely.

Besides, there are any number of ways that the Doctor's enemies could have killed him outright on Trenzalore, as there always are. He can always be killed before regeneration can kick in, and we've already seen ways in which regeneration can supposedly be suppressed. There's no reason the Time Lords even needed to be involved for the plot to work. The Doctor defending a planet until he's so old that he's forced to regenerate would work just as well.

Yes, by a Mr S Moffat.

Why is it unlikely? Surely the 50th would be something you'd want to plan for and it's pretty standard to plan the general path that a season is going to take from the start.

The whole business with the question that needed to be answered and his grave on Trenzalore was what Time of the Doctor was all about and the question and Trenzalore were on the cards since at least Name of the Doctor, never mind Day of the Doctor.



The Time Lords were there because the whole season (and before that season) had been leading up to it. The threat of the Time Lords coming back was the reason for all the attempts on his life by Madame Kovarian and the reason his TARDIS was exploded so that was definitely pre-meditated. It's true he could have died without being on his last regeneration but there would still have needed to be a reason why he didn't this time round when his death had previously been a fixed point. They even made the point in the episode that only something outside the Universe could alter a fixed point and, lo and behold, the Time Lords were outside the Universe when they bestowed a new set of regenerations on him.

To me, this suggests that everything, since season 6 had been leading up to Time of the Doctor being the way that he cheated his inevitable death and got past the regeneration limit.

Unless there's some interview or quote from Moffat somewhere I find it very hard to believe that the regeneration limit issue, and hence the necessity for a surprise extra Doctor was not on the cards from the start.

There is!

EDIT

I'm sure there is a better source than this, but I don't have the time to check too much.

http://www.zap2it.com/blogs/doctor_w...y_role-2013-12