Doctor Who: Just Be Kind, Fam

[Anonymouswizard]

The Morbius Doctors make as much sense as potential future Doctors (and given how multiDoctor stories work, Ruth arguably makes more sense as another future Doctor). Plus alternate timelines are basically an establshed thing.

But yes, the Timeless Child twist doesn't serve to explain anything better, and only serves to disconnect the Doctor (even early on they explicitly had a home they'd chosen to run away from where they were normal).

[Androgeus]

Considering the hassle the twleve regeneration limits gave Moffat,

Hassle? I don't think it really hassled him. More it gave him opportunities. Also I don't think a problem that took 35 years of production to need to be addressed really needs fixed.

[Anonymouswizard]

Hassle? I don't think it really hassled him. More it gave him opportunities. Also I don't think a problem that took 35 years of production to need to be addressed really needs fixed.

Assuming a full new cycle and three series per Doctor, we've got another 31 years for this cycle, which only makes the Timeless Child twist feel even more pointless. Really

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the Valeyard is the bigger problem looming over the series, ever other Doctor seems to be 'we're going to put the Doctor in more morally ambiguous situations' and it's certainly now time for one of them to declare themselves the Valeyard, Eleven was the earliest candidate unless we count the metacrisis Doctor.

Actually, now that I think about it, I like the idea that the metacrisis Doctor has a longer than human lifespan, and in like 100 years steals a TARDIS somehow, declares themselves the Valeyard, and goes to steal Six's regenerations.

[Fyraltari]

Hassle? I don't think it really hassled him. More it gave him opportunities. Also I don't think a problem that took 35 years of production to need to be addressed really needs fixed.

Hassle is perhaps too strong a word but it was a problem for him.

Assuming a full new cycle and three series per Doctor, we've got another 31 years for this cycle, which only makes the Timeless Child twist feel even more pointless. Really

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the Valeyard is the bigger problem looming over the series, ever other Doctor seems to be 'we're going to put the Doctor in more morally ambiguous situations' and it's certainly now time for one of them to declare themselves the Valeyard, Eleven was the earliest candidate unless we count the metacrisis Doctor.

Actually, now that I think about it, I like the idea that the metacrisis Doctor has a longer than human lifespan, and in like 100 years steals a TARDIS somehow, declares themselves the Valeyard, and goes to steal Six's regenerations.

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The needn't be a Doctor calling themselvs the Valeyard. The Master was vague enough that it could be some-kind of Time Lord technosorcery clone like Handy as you point out.

[Anonymouswizard]

Hassle is perhaps too strong a word but it was a problem for him.

Basically, he had to find a way around it or risk the show ending when Matt Smith left (and while unlikely it's not impossible that the BBC would have let the show die). Still, he had three years to work out a solution, and using the 50th anniversary was a perfect reason to delay it right until the end of Smith's Tenure. (I suspect the War Doctor partially was created so that the issue would come up in the middle of his run).

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The needn't be a Doctor calling themselvs the Valeyard. The Master was vague enough that it could be some-kind of Time Lord technosorcery clone like Handy as you point out.

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Of course not, the issue is pretty much that it's now at the point where any Doctor could create the Valeyard, and it would be nice to get a little bit of closure on that arc.

Also notably the Valeyard implies that the Doctor does have a regeneration limit, 'between his Twelfth and final incarnations' is not particularly ambiguous, there is a final incarnation somewhere. Although it could easily just mean he gets killed by a staser or something.

Man, I'm getting an urge to skip ahead to Colin Baker and finally watch the man as The Doctor.

[Fyraltari]

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Of course not, the issue is pretty much that it's now at the point where any Doctor could create the Valeyard, and it would be nice to get a little bit of closure on that arc.

Also notably the Valeyard implies that the Doctor does have a regeneration limit, 'between his Twelfth and final incarnations' is not particularly ambiguous, there is a final incarnation somewhere. Although it could easily just mean he gets killed by a staser or something.

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I mean, every time we've gotten a look at the end of the universe the doctor wasn't thenre so it's pretty firmly establsih they are going to die for good at some point. In battle at Trenzalore most likely since that wasn't retconned, therefore the Doctor will have a dfinal incarnation. There are many ways for them to die without leaving a possiblility to regenerate. Hell, apparently shooting them twice would do it.

Man, I'm getting an urge to skip ahead to Colin Baker and finally watch the man as The Doctor.

How far are you?

Also, I knwo it wasn't Baker's fault but is tenure is very much not the show's high point.

[Anonymouswizard]

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I mean, every time we've gotten a look at the end of the universe the doctor wasn't thenre so it's pretty firmly establsih they are going to die for good at some point. In battle at Trenzalore most likely since that wasn't retconned, therefore the Doctor will have a dfinal incarnation. There are many ways for them to die without leaving a possiblility to regenerate. Hell, apparently shooting them twice would do it.

How far are you?

Also, I knwo it wasn't Baker's fault but is tenure is very much not the show's high point.

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Oh certainly, it's very easy for the Doctor to die.

Actually, while we're on this, am I the only one who's annoyed with the 'the Doctor's been everywhere and everywhen and is famous the universe over' direction the new series has gone? I remember him being relatively unknown in the classic series, his enemies easily recognised him but other people wouldn't have heard of him. Plus with only thirteen(ish) lives and a tendency to die partway through them he didn't have the time to be every good wizard everywhere. He burned through what, five bodies in five hundred years?

Still back on One, The Romans just begins off so boringly for me and doesn't look like it's going to get to an actually engaging plot soon.

From what I've heard in a couple of the early Big Finish plays it feels like a case of 'good actor, okay Doctor, bad direction for the show'. The Sixth Doctor is more than acceptable if given good stories.

[Androgeus]

(I suspect the War Doctor partially was created so that the issue would come up in the middle of his run).

The War Doctor didn't exist until like a week or so before Hurt's scene in Name of the Doctor was filmed. Moffat's first plan was to have Eccleston in the role that Hurt's War Doctor ended up playing. Eccleston turned down reprising the role, leading Moffat to come up with the idea of a "secret regeneration" played by a famous actor. This interview goes into the details a bit better than me

[Anonymouswizard]

The War Doctor didn't exist until like a week or so before Hurt's scene in Name of the Doctor was filmed. Moffat's first plan was to have Eccleston in the role that Hurt's War Doctor ended up playing. Eccleston turned down reprising the role, leading Moffat to come up with the idea of a "secret regeneration" played by a famous actor. This interview goes into the details a bit better than me

Yes, let's all forget that Paul McGann was ignored up for the role (and, as a Time War focused 'classic meets new' story, as amazing as Hurt was it should have been McGann* in the special).

Although the story I heard was that Eccleston refused to come back for the regeneration scene, with nothing about him being planned to be the War Doctor. But it's been a while since I burshed up on my behind the scenes trivia.

* As an official classic series Doctor, instead of a new series Doctor pretending to be classic series.

[Androgeus]

Yes, let's all forget that Paul McGann was ignored up for the role (and, as a Time War focused 'classic meets new' story, as amazing as Hurt was it should have been McGann* in the special).

The most I can really find on not brining McGann back is comments by Moffat about not being able to see it being 8 that did the genocide. I'd take that with a grain of salt what with him having actually thought about having Eccleston in the role. I vaguely recall something about the BBC not wanting to use any classic Doctors, but I can't find anything to support that.

Although the story I heard was that Eccleston refused to come back for the regeneration scene, with nothing about him being planned to be the War Doctor. But it's been a while since I burshed up on my behind the scenes trivia.

Nah, they wrote some of the actual script with Eccleston in mind. Obviously not the whole thing, but enough so they could send it to Eccleston so he could make a decision. I also recall seeing story boards of some of it.

The regen thing is likely from the fact they didn't go all the way with the face morph out of respect of Eccleston's declining to be involved.

[Aedilred]

The most I can really find on not brining McGann back is comments by Moffat about not being able to see it being 8 that did the genocide. I'd take that with a grain of salt what with him having actually thought about having Eccleston in the role. I vaguely recall something about the BBC not wanting to use any classic Doctors, but I can't find anything to support that.

The idea that there was a flat refusal from on high to use classic Who actors seems to be given the lie by The Night of the Doctor. Even if it was only a webisode.

As to the Valeyard, I believe Chibnall is in the record as hating the concept so I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Rater202]

If we assume that the Master Wasn't lying about the Doctor being the Timeless Child, the Valyard could easily be a pre-Hartnel incarnation or an earlier metacrisis who learned of the Doctor's other lives at someppoint during his own existance.

The Valeyard is said to have been born sometime between the Doctor's 12th regeneration and their final one. If the Doctor is the Timeless Child, then their 12th Incarnation was a long, long time ago.

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I see some people thinking that Susan being the TImeless child and the Doctor finding out about her, taking her, and telling the amesiac child that she was his granddaughter would have been a better twist(though you'd have to explain how the doctor forgot about her secret...) But...

We don't know she isn't. There are examples of individual timelords not living in linear time, it's not just the Doctor's thing. It is entirely possible that two incarnations of The Child/Doctor existed at the same time, one was forced to regenerate into a child andhad their memories erased, and the Incarnation that became the Doctor found out about someone being forced to regenerate into a child and losing their memories for no apart reason and out of a combination of sympathy and subconsciously remembering being that child rescued her around the time he was planning to run off, making the Doctor his own adopted Grandpa.

Then, at some point after the Dotor Abandoned Susan in a possible future of earth (or after the season of the Big Finish Eighth Doctor stories about what happened to her after the doctor didn't come back, if those are canon,) Susan gets captured by the time Lords, taken aback to Gallifrey at a much earlier time than she departed it, and forced to regenerate having her memory erased in the process, after an unknown number of cycles becomes the Doctor who resued her in the first place.

[Hopeless]

Now I'm worried Chibs reads this and decided to employ that to make things worse!
Ever consider the universe the child originated from was Pete's World and that was their version of Ten's grandchild went somewhere they thought they would be safe?

[Psyren]

The regen thing is likely from the fact they didn't go all the way with the face morph out of respect of Eccleston's declining to be involved.

Besides, the fans took care of it anyway

[Eldan]

The best thing about Metacrisis is of course that I can now claim that the Curse of Fatal Death is canon.

[dps]

Yes, let's all forget that Paul McGann was ignored up for the role (and, as a Time War focused 'classic meets new' story, as amazing as Hurt was it should have been McGann* in the special).

Although the story I heard was that Eccleston refused to come back for the regeneration scene, with nothing about him being planned to be the War Doctor. But it's been a while since I burshed up on my behind the scenes trivia.

* As an official classic series Doctor, instead of a new series Doctor pretending to be classic series.

Yeah, any problem Moffat had with having to get around the regeneration limit was very much a problem of his own making. He invented the War Doctor instead of using McGann when Eccleston decided not to come back for the anniversary episode, and he also made the extremely questionable decision to count the Metacrisis Doctor as a regeneration.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yeah, any problem Moffat had with having to get around the regeneration limit was very much a problem of his own making. He invented the War Doctor instead of using McGann when Eccleston decided not to come back for the anniversary episode, and he also made the extremely questionable decision to count the Metacrisis Doctor as a regeneration.

Eh, the Metacrisis Doctor=regeneration thing is actually logical, Ten started regenerating and then threw the results of the rest of the process into the hand.

But yes, it happening at Eleven but not Twelve is him making his own bed to lie in. Forget that the big part of the fiftieth anniversary celebration wasn't s celebration of the series as a whole but new series fanauthorwank and always intended to be so.

Even if Moffat couldn't see Eight as the Doctor who destroyed Galifrey, well, guess what he also didn't see the War or Ninth Doctors as? Yeah, I'm not buying they as an excuse. He invited McGann back but decided not to bother showing him on the actual show.

Even that line from Night of the Doctor, 'I'm a Doctor, although probably not the one you were expecting' would have worked as tla line in Day off the Doctor's opening. But is McGann fans have to make do with eight minutes, if which five are dedicated to writing Eight out of the Time War.

[Rater202]

It's not so much the metacrisis doctor counting as, well, Ten did suffer a fatal injury that he did regenerate from.

The only reason he didn't change is because he vented the excess energy into the hand that became Ten-Two befeoe it could alter his DNA or restructure his body.

So yeah, that counts. He didn't fully regenerate but he used up a regeneration's worth of energy, so if the MAster is lying and the Doctor does naturally have finite regenerations that would have ate one up.

That, at most, means that if Moffat ended up using Eight as the War Doctor instead of an uncounted for Incarnation that he'd still have to deal with making up an excuse to have more regenerations, just later in his run.

You'll note that he had Capaldi's doctor cameo at the end f Day of the Doctor and established the Curator, who all but outright says that he's a future incarnation of the Doctor who has been through a lot of regenerations, as existing in the same episode where he introduced an unaccounted for life, thus establishing ahead of time at least that the War Doctor didn't really bring the number up to 12 and strongly implying that the 13 life limit was going to be removed at somepoint.

At the very least, the same episode that tacked on an extra life established for sure that the Doctor would have at least one additional regeneration.

[Androgeus]

he also made the extremely questionable decision to count the Metacrisis Doctor as a regeneration.

If the metacrisis didn't count as a regen, it then asks the question why Time Lords don't just lop of part of themselves as they regenerate and carry it around with them to get around the limit.

[Caledonian]

However you think the Ten hand-regen should count, there's no arguing against the point that the show went out of its way to include a potentially fatal injury and its healing with regen energy. They didn't need to throw that in. It's pretty clear they did so only to 'eliminate' a regeneration slot.

So if that creates problems for the writers and producers, they have no one to blame but themselves. More probably, they did it intentionally; the ones it creates problems for are the fans.

Star Trek and Star Wars have persuaded me that I should cherish what they were but abandon what they are. Now Doctor Who is following suit.

[Aedilred]

However you think the Ten hand-regen should count, there's no arguing against the point that the show went out of its way to include a potentially fatal injury and its healing with regen energy. They didn't need to throw that in. It's pretty clear they did so only to 'eliminate' a regeneration slot.

So if that creates problems for the writers and producers, they have no one to blame but themselves. More probably, they did it intentionally; the ones it creates problems for are the fans.

Well there was a changeover of personnel between the Metacrisis regen and the Matt Smith era. Moffat strikes me as the sort of person more likely to be concerned with adhering to rules set down in some classic Who episode than RTD. RTD might just not have considered that there was any limit on number of regenerations, and therefore that it would leave his successor with any issues to resolve.

Even during Moffat's run there were queries as to how many regens the Doctor had left, and he confirmed that he was holding to The Deadly Assassin (but would find a way round it). So it wasn't like it was set in stone; it was Moffat's decision to make a point of it. Had he just had Smith regenerate without bringing up the limit, some fanboys would doubtless have complained, but the history of Who is so inconsistent that it would have been easily justifiable.

Personally I quite like the regeneration caper in The Time of the Doctor and enjoyed the extravagant send-off for one of my favourite Doctors, so it never really bothered me anyway. In common with a lot of Moffat-era stuff, though, it wasn't the most accessible of plots. I watched it with my parents, who had watched Who of old, but hadn't kept up with the new series except the occasional series finale or Christmas special, and they had absolutely no idea what was going on.

It's not so much the metacrisis doctor counting as, well, Ten did suffer a fatal injury that he did regenerate from.

The only reason he didn't change is because he vented the excess energy into the hand that became Ten-Two befeoe it could alter his DNA or restructure his body.

So yeah, that counts. He didn't fully regenerate but he used up a regeneration's worth of energy, so if the MAster is lying and the Doctor does naturally have finite regenerations that would have ate one up.

And yes, this is it. As was indeed indicated in Time of the Doctor. He suffered a fatal injury, regenerated, and kept the same body. The metacrisis doctor was a side-effect of siphoning off the excess energy. The Metacrisis Doctor wasn't the eleventh regeneration; rather that was the Tenth Doctor from Journey's End to The End of Time.

The metacrisis Doctor was also a heap of inexplicable BS but that's a different issue. For all people complain about Moffat's deus ex machina resolutions (fairly or not) RTD's ass-pulls were much more egregious.

[Eldan]

RTDs asspulls were asspullier, but the didn't... feel as bad to me. There was less build up of the style that there was in Moffat's later seasons, where there were six episodes of the season spent going "This will be so awesome you guys" and then... nothing. And there were fewer completely abandoned plot lines that went nowhere. So overall, with RTD, the stories still felt complete at least, and somewhat emotionally satisfying. With Moffat, I just kept going "But what about the Silence. What about Trenzalore. But why did the Tardis explode."

[Caledonian]

Trenzalore is where Doctor Who started to become fairy-tale-level nonsensical. Nothing about that plot really makes sense.

[The Troubadour]

I'll be honest, I disliked a lot of Eleven's plots. Much more than any other era of nu!Who, it feels like those episodes are mostly carried by the actors, not the writing itself. (Which is funny, because I do think Moffat wrote some excellent episodes before, like the Empty Child duology and Blink.)

Anyway, while I completely respect Eccleston not wanting to return to the series in any capacity, I do hold out hope that will change at some point! A Ninth / Thirteenth crossover would be awesome, for instance.

ETA: I've said this before, but I don't think the Timeless Child twist is solely because of the Morbius Doctors, but rather, it seems also (more?) inspired by the Cartmel Plan.