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BongMong
Registered: 02/26/06
Posts: 46
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 Monday, July 07 2008 @ 08:13 AM EDT |
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An interesting poser. It would seem to be hard to deny to me. OK, so Tennant 2 is not quite the full thing, but the rest went in to Donna and then got erased (ish, if she remembers a bit it'll all come flooding back we are told so it must still be in her somewhere...) so the whole load of regen energy was accounted for.
A further question, does the Doctor have 13 regens in total or 13 bodies? If 13 regens then there would be 14 Doctors in total. If 13 bodies then there would be only 13 Doctors.
So we could have only two more to go... |
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BongMong :)~
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mad4plaid
Registered: 02/02/06
Posts: 880
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| Monday, July 07 2008 @ 08:21 PM EDT |
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| David actually alluded to this in the Confidential... I think he gave the cop out of that's for future generations to decide (or something like that). |
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supremacy is relative
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daveac
Registered: 04/12/06
Posts: 2636
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| Monday, July 07 2008 @ 08:49 PM EDT |
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[Quote by: BongMong] An interesting poser. It would seem to be hard to deny to me. OK, so Tennant 2 is not quite the full thing, but the rest went in to Donna and then got erased (ish, if she remembers a bit it'll all come flooding back we are told so it must still be in her somewhere...) so the whole load of regen energy was accounted for.
A further question, does the Doctor have 13 regens in total or 13 bodies? If 13 regens then there would be 14 Doctors in total. If 13 bodies then there would be only 13 Doctors.
So we could have only two more to go... |
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Well firstly it's always been 12 regenerations, 13 lives.
BUT we don't know if this 'event' counts as a regeneration since it didn't conclude.
AND we don't know if the number of regenerations was an artificial 'cap' imposed to stop Timelords thinking themselves 'gods'
We do know that 'extra' regenerations have been given/offered as rewards in the past.
EDIT - it's also possible that when the Doctor wiped Donna's mind he 'reclaimed' some of that regeneration 'energy'
Cheers, daveac
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daveac on blip.tv, TalkShoe, iTunes, LiveVideo, uStream, GE, Sci-Fi, DWO, DS & WTA, Dave C on WLP,
cooperda on AVF, dac100 on YouTube & PB, dac on Tiscali
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Will-I-Am
Registered: 06/26/06
Posts: 146
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| Monday, July 07 2008 @ 09:08 PM EDT |
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Despite my general displeasure with the whole particular element in question of this story, I'll have a go.
I think he's still all 10, all the way. Only a full transformation in its own right would've equalled his "true" 11th form and next life. Without the hand, he would have been forced to fully change form. From what can be gathered when the Doc himself explains the situation, just enough regen energy was brought forth to heal himself, casting the rest off into the hand as a retainer, of sorts. It likely would've just sat there, fermenting for some other use (like an accelerated full regen later, perhaps?) down the road - but Donna's strife as the TARDIS was coming to bits triggered the... god... do I have to say it... "human biological metacrisis." That split the remaining energy in the hand between her and the clone of 10, making him part human, and her part timelord. He was a combo straightaway - she needed a jumpstart from Davros to get her mind racing. The clone of 10 is like a bastard child, really - not human or timelord - a mixture of both. Donna remains purely human now, thanks to the Doctor's mindwipe, unless of course she somehow remembers everything, and then proceeds to burn up, due to sensory overload. If anything, since the regen didn't finish (argh), he likely didn't shave a full one off. Suppose it could equal a shorter 11th Doctor's lifespan, as a result?
Which actually begs the other question in regards to "ticking-timebomb Donna" - should that ever happen with her memory returning, where does that timelord energy/knowledge go then? Back to the actual Doctor himself? Or to the clone of 10 where it was technically split from, making him a complete new timelord after all? God - here we go again... I failed to explain anything, really. And I'm apparently more interested in that false regen/clone business than I'd initially thought. Darn it all.  |
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Human Biological Metacrisis = Bite Me, RTD.
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DarthSkeptical
Registered: 03/11/06
Posts: 1129
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| Monday, July 07 2008 @ 11:18 PM EDT |
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Sure. He's 10 and 11. Just that 11 is a split between Doctor-Donna and Pete's World Doctor. The one in the "Doctor's Universe" is still 10. The question, as DT says in the Confidential, is whether this has reduced the number of overall regenerations available.
We all know right now it hasn't, in the sense that some way will be found around it when the time comes. The only question remaining is whether they will ever address the limitation. If they do, then you've got to wonder when. Will it be after DT's successor's succesor or after his successor's successor's successor? Either way, it's likely a minimum of a decade before the matter comes up. By that time, the audience — and, likely, the production staff — will primarily be made of new fans, for whom this is an entire non-issue.
Honestly, though, the limitation is a much greater offender to the regeneration mythos than this week's "metacrisis". It was introduced only as a plot device to give the Master some dramatic motivation in "The Deadly Assassin". It could be totally ignored for all I care.
See, if you look at the serials in broadcast order, it was a moment of total discontinuity. Wedged between 15 previous years of Doctor Who and "Destiny of the Daleks", "Assassin" sets a limit where none appears to exist otherwise. If such a limitation existed, would Romana have burned through so many? Would the Second Doctor have cared more about what he looked like than the fact he was being forced to prematurely end one of his lives? Would we have seen so many faces of the Doctor in Morbius' screen? You could say that Romana's just in the first 15 hours of her regeneration cycle, so these other forms don't exist, but frankly the simpler explanation is just that there is no limitation.
We were fine with no limitation up until the 10-year anniversary of the first regeneration; it really added nothing of dramatic worth to suddenly put a stop sign on the process. Especially considering the Master — the very character who compelled the limitation in the first place — has subsequently gotten around it with ease. Seriously, one of the worst parts of the JNT era was the non-regenerative Master. How the hell did he keep coming back? Has anyone really got an explanation for how he got out of "Planet of Fire"'s ending? If he came back as someone else, you could easily stomach it. But to suddenly appear as an unscarred Anthony Ainley in "The Trial of a Timelord" is just damn stupid. Not to mention the fact that Anthony Ainley's portrayal was awful. Don't get me wrong, great actor, as his portrayal of Tremas makes clear. And it's not his fault he wasn't allowed to fully interpret the role on his own. But, c'mon, he was a walking cliché. Hardly the one body you want to be "stuck" on. It would've been far better to have had a true equal to the Doctor, and to have been treated to a variety of different Masters.
This 13-body limit is just a bad idea not worth dwelling on. I mean, just think how cheated you're going to feel if Doctor #13 comes to what we all think is "THE END" only to regenerate again. It'll be awful. Talk about feeling cheated by a regeneration moment! Far better to ignore it as one of the many ideas (like the First Doctor having one heart, the apparently mystical qualities of the Doctor's ring and many others) that have been forgotten in the mists of time. |
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"I think of myself as ambitious in casting terms, and I know that Bonnie [Langford] has the potential to make the part totally unirritating . . ." — JNT, 1986
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Omega
Registered: 07/14/05
Posts: 62
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| Monday, July 07 2008 @ 11:44 PM EDT |
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| I know its a stretch and almost certainly not what RTD or anyone on the production team had intended, but its interesting that the Doctor split and there is now another Doctor that is half human and may be more prone to doing morally ambiguous things. As far as we know he can't regenerate and that he'll age, but we don't really know for sure. DT didn't think his daughter could regenerate either and she did. Perhaps this is the later regeneration that split into two and created a Doctor that would eventually become the evil Valeyard? Just a thought. |
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"Hero! I should have been a God!"
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Smitty
Registered: 02/10/07
Posts: 477
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| Monday, July 07 2008 @ 11:57 PM EDT |
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Then there's Last of the Time Lords we had The Master (again!) refusing to regenerate.
So another clue that regeneration is not an involuntary process.
So if an old fart Timelord feels he's lived a full worthwhile life and/or lives they can choose to depart from the mortal coil.
-cs™ |
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http://twitter.com/Smittmaestro
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merlin_mccarley
Registered: 07/30/06
Posts: 733
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| Tuesday, July 08 2008 @ 07:30 AM EDT |
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According to the Doctor's own admission 10 (Tennant) is now on his 10th body and 10th regeneration. Though he did not use the energy to change his appearance it was used to heal him (which unless this is an option on starting the process seems a waste of energy, ie. healing the old version first).
For an example of where regen # has been used look to "The Five Doctors" where the Faux 1st. Doctor ask the 5th. Doctor "Regeneration?" and 5 replies "Fourth" and 1 says "Goodness me so there are 5 of me now". So now the numbers will have to be tracked diffrently. Oh well, there ye go.
Cheers,
Merlin |
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I'm a Time Traveler, I point and laugh at archaeologist.
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sgb1975
Registered: 06/19/06
Posts: 281
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| Tuesday, July 08 2008 @ 08:25 AM EDT |
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| Although it's fun to debate the exact status of The Doctor and his regenerations, it's probably all going to be a moot point. A few years from now, when we've got our 13th Doctor, and that actor is planning to leave the show, and assuming the show is still going strong in the TV ratings, the writers will undoubtedly find some way around the 12 regeneration limit. They've done it before with The Master in The Keeper of Traken, and then again when the Time Lords resurrected him during the Time War. Unfortunately, this tinkering removes any form of closure from things (*cough*Daleks*Rose*cough), but that's just the way it is... |
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BongMong
Registered: 02/26/06
Posts: 46
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| Tuesday, July 08 2008 @ 08:40 AM EDT |
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Another question, how long would one regen live for if not bumped off by random space nasties?
The reason I ask is, did the 1st Doctor ever announce how old he was? If so, it may be that there was a Doctor or two before him...
...also, the Doctor was told how he looked 'so young' by his mystery woman in the library. I wonder what that means? Perhaps, if the next regen has been reduced in life span, we will have a craggy old Doctor for one regen, like the first? Excellent! |
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BongMong :)~
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BongMong
Registered: 02/26/06
Posts: 46
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| Tuesday, July 08 2008 @ 08:44 AM EDT |
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| [Quote by: sgb1975] Although it's fun to debate the exact status of The Doctor and his regenerations, it's probably all going to be a moot point. A few years from now, when we've got our 13th Doctor, and that actor is planning to leave the show, and assuming the show is still going strong in the TV ratings, the writers will undoubtedly find some way around the 12 regeneration limit. They've done it before with The Master in The Keeper of Traken, and then again when the Time Lords resurrected him during the Time War. Unfortunately, this tinkering removes any form of closure from things (*cough*Daleks*Rose*cough), but that's just the way it is... |
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But it's not moot. We all know that it'll continue if the ratings are still good, but what if they're not? We'll want a suitable end. Also, if it does continue, we surely want to see the limitation defeated in a great plot as was the case with the Master. It would be disappointing if it was all just forgotten (or if the Doctor just reached for his 'regen reset button' under the console...). |
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BongMong :)~
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sgb1975
Registered: 06/19/06
Posts: 281
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| Tuesday, July 08 2008 @ 09:06 AM EDT |
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| [Quote by: BongMong]But it's not moot. We all know that it'll continue if the ratings are still good, but what if they're not? We'll want a suitable end. Also, if it does continue, we surely want to see the limitation defeated in a great plot as was the case with the Master. It would be disappointing if it was all just forgotten (or if the Doctor just reached for his 'regen reset button' under the console...). |
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I doubt it'll be forogtten, nor will it be brushed aside with a simple reset, but I firmly believe it will be worked around somehow. Which can be a good thing as long as they continue to pump out good stories. My point was that although everybody talks about the 12 regen/13 body Time Lord limit, recent events have shown that it doesn't really matter what people think because the writers can change the rules or find loopholes in them as they see fit. This doesn't solely apply to the regen argument. There have been several incidents in the new series: Daleks keep getting wiped out and coming back/People crossing the void to and from parallel universes/Master resurrected. There is no sense of finality. Nothing is written in stone anymore. |
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daveac
Registered: 04/12/06
Posts: 2636
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| Tuesday, July 08 2008 @ 09:15 AM EDT |
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[Quote by: merlin_mccarley]
According to the Doctor's own admission 10 (Tennant) is now on his 10th body and 10th regeneration.
Cheers,
Merlin |
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Well David's got that wrong surely.
The first Doctor into the Second Doctor was the first regeneration...and so on...
until we now have the Tenth Doctor....who has regenerated 9 times to get to this 'body'
If this 'cliff-hanger' event counts....then we now have the Tenth Doctor in his 10th body.
Cheers, daveac
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daveac on blip.tv, TalkShoe, iTunes, LiveVideo, uStream, GE, Sci-Fi, DWO, DS & WTA, Dave C on WLP,
cooperda on AVF, dac100 on YouTube & PB, dac on Tiscali
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merlin_mccarley
Registered: 07/30/06
Posts: 733
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| Tuesday, July 08 2008 @ 09:20 AM EDT |
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[Quote by: daveac] [Quote by: merlin_mccarley]
According to the Doctor's own admission 10 (Tennant) is now on his 10th body and 10th regeneration.
Cheers,
Merlin |
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Well David's got that wrong surely.
The first Doctor into the Second Doctor was the first regeneration...and so on...
until we now have the Tenth Doctor....who has regenerated 9 times to get to this 'body'
If this 'cliff-hanger' event counts....then we now have the Tenth Doctor in his 10th body.
Cheers, daveac
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When you take it out of context, of course it sounds wrong. He used the regeneration energy (from his 10th. regeneration) to heal himself, but he did not change his form. Therefore he is on both body and regeneration number 10, at this time. |
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I'm a Time Traveler, I point and laugh at archaeologist.
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tarashnat
Registered: 08/17/05
Posts: 3062
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| Tuesday, July 08 2008 @ 09:23 AM EDT |
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The Fourth Doctor also states that Timelords can live virtually forever, barring accidents, so it is possible that regenerations were not that common for normal timelords, but Last of the Timelords seems to throw a monkey wrench into this idea.
It was inferred from the classic series that the number is controlled by the timelords, so without the timelords, anything can happen. |
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Daleks don't accept apologies! YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!
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