We all know it isn't going to last forever. "Doctor Who" must come to an end - probably within five seasons.

But let's prepare for the moment. How would you give it a dignified ending?

What closure would you bring about on the series' mythos?
Last edited by ember1 : 12-02-2006 at 19:15

Have Doctor 13 shoot Doctor 12 due to a big misunderstanding followed by all his companions shot by guards in slow motion and a freeze frame as Doctor 13 smiles.

Or,

The TARDIS arrives in the Midlands only to mysteriously catch fire. The Doctor's companions (one with a woolly hat) crying that the Doctor is trapped inside.

Or,

The Doctor sips a restorative cup of tea, says 'My word, it's gone cold!' and drops dead.

Or more seriously,

The actor playing Doctor 13 is made up as an old man. He materialises the TARDIS in an old junk yard, sits down with a cup of tea and a copy of 'The Time Machine' but falls asleep after reading for only a few seconds.

Or,

He (again as an old man) materialises the TARDIS in a Cambridge university (having fixed the chameleon curcuit to mimic university lodgings) whereupon there is a knock at the door and a student has arrived to borrow a reference book (guess what I watched most recently).

Or Jane asher could wake up behind a checkout counter and realise it was all a dream.

I like the Jane Asher one ... dignified with a cakey spin.

My own suggestion would be to have the 7th Doctor wake up and realise he'd been dreaming about future incarnations...then have Ace trip over the console and spear him with an umbrella....thus leading to Paul McGann appearing once again in a show that's going nowhere fast.

Maybe Jane Asher could have a cameo in this particular version.

The Dr's last regeneration finds him becoming Davros

A massive inter-galactic war - far bigger than the time war - where every race is involved: Cybermen, Daleks, Ice Warriors, Autons... the lot!

In an heroic attempt to end the war, the Doctor sets off a chain of events that destroys the entire cosmos leaving nothing in existance, only void (and with it all attempts to bring the show back again).

Do you think a BBC budget can stretch to that.

Based on what reasoning, exactly?

I was thinking much the same. Why would the BBC even consider killing off the 'cash cow' at this stage of the game. It is winning awards, critical acclaim, sold well across the world and if DT stays for a few years and the actors who take over remain for the same amount of time, then there is no reason for it not to go on and on..unless it suffers the same fate as it did back in the 80's.

But then it will be revived many years later. Like Davros it will return from the dead...

Think we have seen the last of Davros as they had the ideal opportunity to bring him back in the Dalek stories last year but we got the Emperor instead.

Would rather be left with the memories of Genesis than his later appearances in Destiny, Resurrection, Revelation etc..

Why kill him off? It's possible to end a series without killing the main character you know...

(That's assuming Dr Who does end again.)

I agree. The BBC 'Rose' to the challenge of bringing the series back and I think (and hope) that they are in this for 'The Long Game' and that the series will run past many a 'Father's Day' and possibly even 'World War 3'. I think we'll see a 'Parting of the Ways' for many other programmes before the end of 'Doctor Who'.

Right, time for some 'Dalek' bread washed down with a bottle or two of 'Bad Wolf'!

'Dalek' bread!?

P.S. Although thinking it might go on to 'The End of the World' could be seen as a tad optimistic!

I'm afraid that I've got my kids calling garlic bread Dalek bread! As they say, you can't choose your parents!

Someone has bet me to this

Just what I was thinking last week, at sometime in the future Dr Who will come to an end thought hard and long on this, looking through classic stories, and the new episodes, looking for a base line for the Final series of doctor who when it comes.

Flaw of regenerating, is only 12 regenerations then your die, we all know the master cheated death?

How would the series end? There will come a time when it will have to end, the doctor uses up all his regenerations, story can no longer move on, does he die for ever or something else.

I think we could base the end of doctor who on series 1, when Rose looks into the tradis, and how it affects her. What if the doctor is forced to look into the tardis, or does it on purpose.

Basis of the story: New Gallifrey is threatened by a group of enemies; Cybermen, Daleks, Sontarans, and the Black Guardian. The doctor comes to the rescue, opening tardis consol, and absorbs time vortex.

Consumed with the all energy, all the enemies are wiped out, and New Gallifrey is saved. New Gallifrey is now cloaked to protect time lords. With that the doctor goes back into the tardis, set controls and leaves Gallifrey, the tardis get lost in a time vortex. The doctor is unable to regenerate, with the tardis being alive, it helps to regenerate new cells, but at a price, and part of the vortex is left in him, having a unwelcome effect

Regeneration starts, while the tardis, time vortex, sends the tardis way back to the beginning. He now begins to regenerate into the master, and because of how it affects him, he doesn’t remember that he was the doctor. His personality has changed, all because of the time vortex, he no longer is a coward, but ruthless time lord.

This would be the last episode, the Dr/master fiddles with the tardis controls, making the chameleon controls work, and then the tardis changes to ??????

Yes, that didn't come across very well when written! I was imagining a Peter Kay voice when I wrote it!

Anyway, to get back to the thread, why is everybody so keen to end the series / kill off the Doctor etc? Why can't we just enjoy it as it is?

I like the idea of the 13th becoming old, and landing in a junkyard.. maybe with the screen turning black and white - then saying something like "Here we go again" or something...

As far as i'm aware, davros isn't dead, cos if you look closely in Rememberance of the Dalek, when the ship blows up, a little light, have escaped from the ship. so in theory davros could be very much alive, unless he was killed in the Time War.

This is all very naive.

If Doctor Who is making money the "12 regenerations" limit will be reset by some gadget or Deux ex Machina plot device

I'm sure his sonic screwdriver has a function on it to allow unlimited regenerations

Remember. He's 'more then just a Time Lord'.

I think the Tardis gets a virus, It lands on itself in time loop and instead of it being larger on the inside it starts shrinking into itself and finally creates its own black hole claiming all the inhabitants as victims! they try to escape but it is contained within another tardis like russian dolls but each one is smaller than the last.

I agree with the others pointing out that there's no reason for DW to ever end... sure, this current resurgence may run out of steam at some point and be mothballed for a while, but the BBC would never "end" it - merely rest the show until the time was right to bring it back again.

As the longest running Sci-Fi show in existence, any attempt to officially kill it off once and for all would be incredibly stupid on the BBC's part.

As for the supposed limit of 12 regenerations - that was a fictional twist created by one writer which will be circumvented by another clever fiction by another writer - it is only a story after all...

I'm just trying to prepare you for the moment. I don't want you all blubbering like a whiney Tegan the day of the final DW broadcast.