The Regeneration Game

[Perpetual Man]

One of the main concerns with the announcement that 26 year old Matt Smith seems to be that the actor is just too young to play the Doctor, and this got me thinking.

Putting aside the issues of actors and age, just how do people see regeneration working?

As I always believed it, the Time Lords lived long lives in each body, when one became worn out or injured (being a very boring and none interventiona people the chance of injury must have been slim!), the Time Lord in question would regenerate into a new, fresh body. That being the case, surely it makes sense that the body would be a young fresh one, not a middle-aged or older one. To the Time Lord's this woud be a common happening, and they would be more than used to having young looking people who were older than others - the Doctor has always been recognised no matter what form he was in so recognition would not be a problem.

In the Doctor's case you can argue an exception to the rule - the first doctor kept his body for far too long, so when he regenerated it was unstable, lucky to regenerate at all , it was perhaps not a complete one.

When the second regenerated to the third it was part of a punishment, so perhaps he was not given a full 'life'; the third to fourth a body destroyed by radiation was again lucky to regenerate at all.

The fifth was an exceptional case, the watcher being on hand, the moment apparently prepared for, we had perhaps the most stable regeneration and gave us the youngest doctor so far. He (once again) nearly died from chronic poisoning leading to an unstable regeneration, and then after so many unstable regenerations he did it again after tapping his head on the central console.

The seventh was shot and operated on, the eighth is unknown, but with the the new glowly light effect and the Doctor being the last of the Time Lords, or perhaps just fater so much time his egenerations are stabalising the Doctor is starting to regenerate into a younger appearance.

So yes, Doctor number 11 may well seem to be a young man, but that is because we are human and only have one life; that someone appearing 26 could really have the wisdom of a near thousand year old s hard to comrehend, alien in fact. To the Time Lord's its just a natural occurance of regeneration.

The big question is whether Mr Smith can carry it off, not thta he is too young or not, and we can only wait and see...

So slightly meandering there, but that is what I think about regeneration, any other ideas?

[Contrary Mary]

Since "regeneration" has beenhandled by several different scriptwirters, it seems that they can porbably rationalize anything.

Also, in actual terms of the story, we have seen so few Time Lords besides the Doctor, we really can only sepculate about the process.

Also, interesting to ponder: if the show is still going big at the time of Dcotor 13, how will they hadle it regarding regenration?

[Moonbat]

if the show is still going big at the time of Dcotor 13, how will they hadle it regarding regenration?

That is an interesting question, and they seem to be getting through time lords fairly quickly, it won't be long before they either have to put it to bed (as if the beeb would stop if there a single penny of merchandising to be made) or find some way to blag their way round it.

I expect they'll come up with some simple explanation for more than 13 re-generations (or is that 12?)

[Tillane]

If the Beeb stick to DW canon, then there should be 12 regenerations (so 13 Doctors in all), however I suspect that you're right, Moonbat - if the series is still going strong when Doctor 13 decides to pack it in, they'll just find a loophole that allows the Doctor to regenerate some more. They have done it before, after all: the Master has used up his 12 regenerations at least once and is still going strong (or was until he "died" at the end of Season 3).

[HoopyFrood]

Maybe it's like as mentioned in Red Dwarf and that time actually runs the proper way for Time Lords, i.e they get younger as time goes on.

[Lenny]

Originally Posted by Tillane

If the Beeb stick to DW canon, then there should be 12 regenerations (so 13 Doctors in all), however I suspect that you're right, Moonbat - if the series is still going strong when Doctor 13 decides to pack it in, they'll just find a loophole that allows the Doctor to regenerate some more. They have done it before, after all: the Master has used up his 12 regenerations at least once and is still going strong (or was until he "died" at the end of Season 3).

After a day perusing the various Doctor Who wiki pages, I seemed to get it into my head that twelve regenerations is a limit imposed upon Time Lords by their council. The Master was granted more for helping the council in some way. He could also take over bodies (yeah?). So from that I can see two possible "choices" - if twelve regenerations is a limit, what's to stop the Doctor from carrying on? I'm sure that with his brains, and his TARDIS, he can find a way to cheat the system. If not, then why not pull a Master on whoever his companion is?

However, that's not what I think.

In the finale to New Who Series 4, we're re-introduced to Dalek Caan, albeit Dalek Caan with a few screws loose. The poor thing temporal shifted into the time-locked Time War to rescue Davros. Think of the implications of that!! If a Dalek can make it in and out, then it's not locked completely. As it's not locked completely, and if you take Caan's journey into account, then it stands to reason that the Doctor and his TARDIS could also make the journey into the Time War and, ultimately, to Gallifrey.

It may just be wishful thinking (I'd love for nothing more than to see properly see Gallifrey in New Who - I think we saw a short flashback in one of The Master episodes? I can definitely remember watching a young Doctor staring into the Vortex, which was something all Time Lords did), but I don't see why it's not possible.

EDIT: Yay! Bumpage!

[tangaloomababe]

Just slightly off the track but I note throughout David Tennants time as the Doctor he was often referred to as Doctor or Mr Smith, now they have a real Mr Smith to fill the role!

I have to admit my knowledge of Doctor Who history is limited, I knew the first four and lost touch somewhat after that, I rejoined the story properly after Christopher Eccelston took over,but I didn't realize that he only had 12 regenerations, that sucks but like Lenny has said they will probably find a way around it.
PM has done some homework on this and I like your theories, maybe the time lord should be getting younger.
Actually deviating again can someone explain as its been many years since I saw "The Three Doctors_ and I believe they did it again with "The Five Doctors" how
a. we can have more than one doctor at a time
b. where the "other" doctors are kept (ie cold storage)
c. why they are called up

I vaguely recall when Jon Pertwee, Patrick Throughton and William Hartnell all appeared together, although if I remember right Hartnell was stuck in a "cube" or something!

[Tillane]

With the Doctor being a time traveller, it would actually be pretty easy for him to naturally cross his own timeline (though he goes out of his way to avoid this and has explained the potential consequences of breaking the "First Law of Time" to more than one companion).

In terms of the Three/Five/Two Doctors episodes, there's usually been a McGuffin employed to get various versions of himself into one place: in the Three Doctors he is allowed to summon the earlier version of himself, in the Five Doctors the various incarnations are plucked out of time by a rogue Time Lord, etc...

[Lenny]

Originally Posted by Lenny

I'd love for nothing more than to see properly see Gallifrey in New Who - I think we saw a short flashback in one of The Master episodes? I can definitely remember watching a young Doctor staring into the Vortex, which was something all Time Lords did.

I feel the need to correct this slightly.

It was in The Sound of Drums (second Master episode) that we saw the Citadel of the Time Lords, and a young Master (not Doctor) looking into the Time Vortex.

Look, I've got a picture and everything!



---

On the subject of regeneration, I thought that every Doctor had a different regeneration animation... but Eccleston's, Tennant's (when he grew his severed hand in the finale of Series 4) and Jacobi's Master all had the exact same regeneration animation! You'd have thought that in this day and age, with computer generated imagery, RTD would have pulled his weight and got a different animation made... saying that, there's still time.

/gripe

[Perpetual Man]

Originally Posted by Lenny

On the subject of regeneration, I thought that every Doctor had a different regeneration animation... but Eccleston's, Tennant's (when he grew his severed hand in the finale of Series 4) and Jacobi's Master all had the exact same regeneration animation! You'd have thought that in this day and age, with computer generated imagery, RTD would have pulled his weight and got a different animation made... saying that, there's still time.

/gripe

I agree completly with Lenny on this, from Doctor to Doctor the regeneration has been different. Since New Who started it seems to have settled into the same format (a kind of modern spruced up version of the Hartnell/Troughton transformation).

Some variation would be fun!

[Tillane]

It would indeed, but we'll have to wait until RTD goes before we (possibly) get any variation. He stated in the Doctor Who Confidential for Utopia (in which the Master regenerates) that he wanted to keep it the same so people would know that "this is how Time Lords regenerate" (or words to that effect). Ergo, I suspect that the regeneration sequence from Tennant to Smith will be exactly the same. Whether Moffat or whoever succeeds him will follow a different tack...we'll have to see.