The Day of The Doctor – The 50th Anniversary Special

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@whohar, @scaryb

Ten plus 11

Back on “The Name of the Doctor” thread at #9952 and #9953, it was @lbelanger17 and, well…me, who raised that.

Your attention is slipping!

 

[WhoHar @whohar]

@pedant.

Yes, that makes more sense and gives us one less thing to theorise about which, in this case, is a good thing.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@blenkinsopthebrave – apologies

And thanks @pedant for living up to your name once more 🙂

<does deep bow, and suggests nipping across to the pub where there’s some margeritas on the go 😉 >

[WhoHar @whohar]

@blenkinsothebrave

So many threads, so little time.  So what was your conclusion?

 

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@whohar

The predictable conclusion. 21 regenerations.

But with Moffat, who knows?

[WhoHar @whohar]

@blenkinsopthebrave

21 regenerations would kick the problem down the road until the 100th Anniversary I should think.

[janetteB @janetteb]

I am sure someone else has already noted this, but would take the better part of a week to trawl back looking so apologies, to @whoever We know that River has regenerated twice at least so the 10 could refer to her and the eleven to the Doctor’s who we now know has had a secret extra regeneration. I am certain that Moffat would want to erase the 12 regeneration limit from canon once and for all and as @whohar points out, this shelves the issue for at least another 50 or so years by which time dealing with outraged fans is no longer his concern. (Though I don’t think any sane fans would argue against giving the Doctor a few more regenerations.)

Cheers

Janette

 

[chickenelly @chickenelly]

Aaah the Bank Holiday is over, back to work and posting about Doctor Who.  Quick foray into Bonkers Theory™ territory.

Following on from @pufferfish‘s comments.  Clara deleted the Doctor from every database, but if the GI was chucked into the Doctor’s timestream would the Doctor have been in those databases anyway?  He might be, but as history is written by the winners, and the Doctor kept losing, then probably not.  It would be the GI who would be getting the reputation for all that stuff.

It’s unclear whether Clara did in fact manage to sort it all out, she does say she’s been trying to contact the Doctor for years but is only noticed a few times – by Eleven.

 

[Anonymous @]

@blenkinsopthebrave , @pedant, @whohar, @scaryb , et al  about ‘Ten plus 11 …’

My first thought upon reading that was simply ‘Tennant plus Smith gives you … a spectacular 50th anniversary show.’

If Moffat’s going to address the regeneration limit, would he really simply create a new limit?  I can see how that might be an gleeful gauntlet thrown down the years to whomever is show-runner when the new limit is nearing, kind of saying ‘I got out of the 12 regens limit cleverly, let’s see how you get out of the new limit!’

But it was always a throwaway line in one BG episode (correct me if I’m wrong); and one way to respect the show’s history, whilst moving it into an untethered future, is to confront that regen limit – and dispense with it.

There’s not really a point imo of having a regeneration limit if there’s no possibility of reaching it, no peril – so creating ’21’ doesn’t really add anything to the character or overall arc of the Doctor, I don’t think.

[Anonymous @]

Oh, and one more thought about regeneration limits –

Would Romana really have buzzed through multiple regenerations as if they were changes of clothing before an important night out, if she knew she had a fairly small number to use?

There is still peril in that a Time Lord can die.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

I think Ten plus 11 is just a reference to the thank you video which features Tennant and Smith talking about being the Doctor (the reward for fans for keeping schtum about spoilers)

Regeneration issue – I have absolutely no doubt this will be addressed in the 50th. Loads of options, starting from – the TimeLords don’t exist now so the old rules don’t apply (eg as in Waters of Mars). Anyone got any bonkers theories to get round the regeneration limit?

Of course the other way (as I mentioned above) could be to actually kill off our Dr at Trenzalore and have someone else eg Clara, or a new as yet unknown, possibly chameleon arched, Time Lord – go off as “The Doctor”. (He wants to “decontaminate” the line after it’s been sullied by HurtDr, or maybe it’s the only way to prevent the Valeyard’s incarnation).  A bit like Scottish TV detective institution Taggart, which has managed to run for 20years  (of its 30 year history) without its title character! Not my favourite option but would certainly fit in with @blenkinsopthebrave‘s complete gamechanger/clean sheet by end of the anniversary programme.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@scaryb I favour the ‘being reborn’ thing myself  – if only because it fits with the ‘Easter’/rebirth references that we keep getting.  Have been getting, in fact, since the Eleventh Hour, when little Amelia apologises to Santa for waking him because it’s Easter. 🙂

And it fits in with that meta theme; the Doctor’s story has been following a loose structure; which itself follows the timeline of the Before Gap series; that should mean that we’re coming up to the rebirth – the New, re-imagined Doctor Who.

But I don’t think the ‘new Doctor’ will be an entirely different person to the ‘old Doctor’, because Moffat’s been very strict about keeping the ‘new universe’ as one built from the memories of the ‘old universe’ (that was Big Bang II). Moffat’s ‘new universe’ has continuity with Before Gap Who – even though there’s a physical break, we see that mentally, there’s no break. Amy was going to marry Rory in the Old Universe and the New Universe restarts on the day of her wedding.

Equally, Moffat’s Doctor is in the direct line of regeneration-descent from the Before Gap Doctors. The Hurt Doctor represents the break. The Doctor, who isn’t the Doctor. But he is.

So I would say that – rather than a new ‘Doctor’ taking on the name – we’re either going to see a new body with the old memories (transference of soul), or the old body reborn – but without the old memories (transference of body) and without the regeneration limit.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

Oh, and a slightly cheeky thought that occurred to me last night – if there is a theme in the 50th where Eleven refuses to regenerate because he doesn’t want to be the Valeyard – doesn’t want to be that man…

… then one way of really changing the time-stream, without dying, is to make sure he isn’t that man.

😀

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@scaryb @whohar

Arf! Reformed hack – I know the style book is king.

[CraigNixon @craignixon]

I’m stil going with my theory that HurtDoc fought with the Daleks in the Time War. Somehow.

I wonder if they chose John Hurt (over say Ian Mckellen or I dunno, John Malkovich) because we’d refer to him as Hurt Doc or Doc Hurt etc and its a meta reference to his character?  Could they be that sneaky?

I want more Gallifrey. Memories are good but I want them.

And what was in that damn time war book?!

 

[budinacup @budinacup]

If i may i would like to back up to 10th doctors farewell. In The end of time we saw the Time Lords return. However 2 of these (female Time Lords) did not agree with what was happening and had to cover there faces. 1 of these came to Wilfred on several occasions. Will we ever discover who this was? and if so is the 50th the place for this to be answered?

My own theory, and i’m sure many will have been discussed since the episode first aired, is that she is The Doctors Mother. As such, she would be a powerful character to bring in if she were to influence the decisions made by Hurt doctor.

Any thoughts?

[Anonymous @]

@scaryb – My theory is that the regen limit will be dispensed with as per my previous comment – how, though, I’m still working on.  🙂

@bluesqueakpip – in your ‘reborn’ theory, is the Doctor reborn with the same 12 regens, or, without a limit at all?

And to both of you (and to everyone here) – will the Valeyard be put to rest in the 50th, by making that what the Hurt Doctor is, and incorporating what he has done into the history of ‘our’ Doctor so it is no longer an issue with respect to his ‘final’ regeneration?

@budinacup – In most of what I’ve read, the majority of theorisers believe that woman was indeed the Doctor’s mother.  That’s quite interesting that you would like to bring her back in context of the Hurt Doctor – not least because so many people have pointed out the ‘mother’ and ‘blood calls to blood’ themes of the latest season; and of course there’s Clara’s mother ‘who will always find her’.  My sentimental heart would really like to see the Doctor’s mother find a way to forgive (i.e., ‘find’) her errant son.

[Anonymous @]

Oh jeepers, based on @budinacup ‘s comment and further cogitation, I just had another ‘Most Insane Theory of Them All’ thought.  (I will have to find a crown more impressive than @chickenelly ‘s – and better Photoshop skills than I currently possess! – if I’m right.)

Is Clara the Doctor’s mum?  Is Clara’s own mum’s exhortation ‘I will always find you’ an echo of the Doctor’s mum, stuck in whatever timelock bubble 10 sent them to in The End of Time, reaching out to the Hurt Doctor and 11?  This assumes Clara is not a real girl – but that is a theory still bubbling away below the surface.

And a mother’s desire to save her child is certainly echoed in Clara’s repeated child-caring destinies.  (and imagine Clara’s dad as Rassilon – if he could be posited as the Doctor’s father – writing endless letters to the government in anger at their policies.  🙂 )

[Anonymous @]

Most insane theories of them all round-up:
1)  The Doctor’s [cloned] daughter, Jenny, is the Hurt Doctor
2)  Clara is the Doctor’s mum [will share the crown with the person(s) who originally posited this, if not original]

And, Most Insane Theory 3 coming up:

Was the Doctor’s mum – in a projection from that time bubble prison, similar to the projections she showed Wilf – the one who gave Clara the Doctor’s phone number in that shop?

As a Time Lord, the Doctor’s mum might have been able to guess the events set in motion by that act:  Clara would eventually get into the Doctor’s timestream, see the Hurt Doctor, and figure out a way to ease the pain of what he did and fold him back into ‘her child’ again.

[budinacup @budinacup]

@Shazzbot

I like the thought of Clara being The Doctors Mother. She certainly has had a lot of mothering  incarnations. And if this were so, its an arc that’s been in the pipeline for a while.

With ref to the re-gens, and the Doctor approaching is final re-gens. When River gave up all her regenerations was that not a plot device to give the Doctor extra regenerations? Therefore Hurt Doctor may be a previous Outcast doctor without damaging the limited remaining re-gens to much, but he could also be the Valeyard, and still leave plenty of space before he becomes the final Doctor. But the course of the 50th may end the Valeyards existence and reboot a new path for the Doctors life. But if we end what Hurt doctor did, and IF that was something to do with the Time War……………….. Will the Time Lords be saved and become part of the show once more?

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Sorry @Shazzbot – Clara as Dr’s mum (and specifically as the woman in the timelock) been on the long list of Clara theories for a while! (An outsider theory at the moment). As for her being in the shop – unlikely for same reason as not River – Clara says “a girl” not “a woman”

😆 at idea of his mum coming to give HurtDr a telling off 😆

@budinacup Only works for her to come back if the rest of the timelords come back too,

@bluesqueakpip I have a lot more faith in Moffat to keep the faith than I would in any previous showrunner except maybe RTD.  Was just letting thoughts go wandering 🙂  But rebirth – your Easter, eggs etc and @juniperfish‘s Isis/Osiris parallels – I’d def agree. I predict a very dark middle and a triumphant but emotional end to the 50th 🙂

 

[budinacup @budinacup]

As much as i like the ideas of Clara, i’m sure that the impossible girl arc is complete. She was an ordinary girl who split in the Doctors time line. However……………..The question of who gave Clara the number is unanswered! It cannot have been River or Clara would have recognized her. So it could have been.

1. The Doctors Mother.

2. Amy.

3. Rose.

4. An Old aged Clara

[budinacup @budinacup]

@scaryb If the 50th changes anything about the time war (many of the people think that Hurt Doctor ended it somehow) then the Time Lords must be returning. the only way for the 50th to not return the Time Lords is for the Doctor to end it again. But surely that’s what cast Hurt Doctor out. Sooooooo

1. 50th is not about the Time War.

2. The Time Lords are returning.

[Anonymous @]

@budinacup – but, did River give all her regenerations to save the Doctor?  This still implies that there is a limit, and I’m not convinced.  I don’t know more about Romana than I have read on this site, but she apparently quite flippantly went through several regenerations as if trying on new winter coats.  That is not the behaviour of someone who knows they have a limited number of regenerations before becoming the Valeyard and dying on Trenzalore.

It is, of course, how writers will write when the concept of ‘reaching the final regeneration in the TV programme we are writing for’ isn’t a worry, and when trying to visually explain to the viewer how a different actress could take over the part from the previous actress, with a bit of humour thrown in.

My personal hope for the 50th is that the rest of the Time Lords will indeed return.  They are a golden source of conflict with ‘our’ Doctor which allows for continual dramatic tension;  but even more importantly, they end this whole ‘lonely god’ meme that Doctor Who as a programme has sunk into.  The Doctor, in my opinion, needs more than just his human companions to keep him on the straight-and-narrow.  He needs his own people, too.

[Anonymous @]

@scaryb – But I’m sure the line was ‘that woman in the shop’ – not, ‘that girl in the shop’.  @bluesqueakpip , our Clara episode analyser par excellence, where are you in this confusion?!

[budinacup @budinacup]

@Shazzbot  @ScaryBn If the Time Lords return, and indeed Gallifrey too. Then all of the things the Doctor mentions at the end of time…. The Nightmare child and all the other horrors of Gallifrey will return too. This gives great room for story telling, and Adversaries.

Just a note………… when Gallifrey falls in Teot It looks exactly like Trenzalore!

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@Shazzbot – well, that depends on whether Moffat thinks ‘Doctor Who’ is better with a limit on regenerations. If we take it that River gave him her remaining regenerations, then he’s got another 21 or 22 lives to play with. Which would be fine. It’s taken thirty three series to use up the current set of twelve; we’d be well past the 100th Anniversary before we could use up another 20. But what a limit would give is a reason that the Doctor still wouldn’t be that keen on regenerating – there is a limit. 

Or, the rebirth could remove any time-lord-placed limit on regenerations. The Doctor will live forever, barring accidents. Which is exactly what Troughton’s Doctor once said. 

Yes, I think the Valeyard will be put to rest in the 50th. It seems to me very much as if Moffat’s taken a good hard look at the continuity problems remaining from the Before Gap series, and has decided to tackle them head-on. I wonder if all these ‘two timestreams’ stories are because we are in a world where the Eleventh Doctor’s future is flicking back and forth between the two possibilities. In one, he turns into the Valeyard, the Beast, the Storm – or dies in this incarnation, to prevent that ever happening. In the other, time is changed and he (or she) lives on – without ever becoming that Dark Doctor.

And Clara, it’s strongly implied, is from or is reflecting that other possibility. That’s what happened in Journey ttCotT, anyway. She ends up in one control room, the Eleventh Doctor in the other – and the Eleventh had to pull her into his timestream; just as later on she stops the final destruction of the TARDIS by the almost unnoticeable act of taking his hand. Just as, when she’s in his timestream, he has to send her the leaf to bring her back to a sense of who she is.

Which might explain why Clara faints on being told ‘He’s the one who broke the promise’. We’ve already seen that Clara’s sensitive to time; the Doctor nearly faints when close to the paradox of his own time-line. So maybe Clara fainted because that breaking of the promise is, to her, a time paradox. She’s from the time-line where the Doctor never broke the promise; was never anything other than ‘The Doctor’.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

It was ‘woman in the shop’. It could be a throwaway reference, you know. ‘Clara’ is named after Elisabeth Clara Sladen; the ‘woman in the shop’ could be an oblique indication that Sara Jane Smith didn’t die with the actress who played her.

If the Claricles have been appearing throughout the Doctor’s time-line, Sara Jane would have recognised ‘Clara’ as someone she’s seen in different time periods and therefore known that Clara was probably a future assistant.

 

[Anonymous @]

@bluesqueakpip – “she stops the final destruction of the TARDIS by the almost unnoticeable act of taking his hand..”

As always, you are the poet where I am the mechanic.  {sigh}

As one of the people here who know the BG Doctor well, can you remember where exactly does the ’12 regenerations’ comment fit against the ‘The Doctor will live forever, barring accidents’ Troughton comment?

[budinacup @budinacup]

@bluesqueakpip

Am i right in thinking that Regenerations are a rule imposed by the Time Lords?

And as there are NO Time Lords, who is there to police the rule?

As such, does our Doctor know that he can regenerate forever, or until he doesn’t want to regenerate anymore, after all The Master chose not to regenerate. If that is the case then the writers can still write with an “end game” in mind. They simply choose which incarnation does not regenerate and write the explanation of why into there story arc.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

‘woman in the shop’

Oops, my apologies.

@Shazzbot – Haha re the Timelords – it was usually more like the Dr keeping them in order. Our Dr is definitely one of the best of them, and he rejected their archaic authoritarian system. There were always at least a few with megalomaniac tendencies, not including the Master.

[Anonymous @]

@budinacup – “when Gallifrey falls in Teot It looks exactly like Trenzalore”

Yup, that’s exactly what many on this site have also posited.  ‘Trenzalore’ could easily be Gallifreyan for ‘graveyard’, ‘deathbed’, or otherwise ‘here be where you lay when you die; really die, without regeneration.’

And whether or not a regeneration limit is imposed by the Time Lords – here is where I miss our friend @htpbdet most keenly (other than simply and genuinely missing his towering presence, his affable openness to providing answers to questions, his encyclopaedic knowledge, and his warm personal stories intricately woven into Doctor Who memories which make me feel I am reading the greatest of literature).

[Anonymous @]

@scaryb – ahh, but there is my dual-purpose comment (in hommage to the dual-purpose dialogue which I have been arguing is a hallmark of the Moff reign).

‘Keeping the Doctor on the straight-and-narrow’ doesn’t mean, imo, that the Time Lords are some kind of Gallifreyan bobbies.  Instead, I’m thinking that the mere thought of what TLs can do when not influenced by a human perspective is what keeps our Doctor trying to be just that little bit better than the rest of his race.  🙂

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@budinacup

It’s a matter of much debate: which is why I think one of the things Moffat’s going to do is end the debate.

If the twelve regenerations limit was set by the Time Lords, has it already been set for the Doctor? The Master wasn’t exactly noted for abiding by Time Lord rules, but he had to go ask the Time Lords for another set of regenerations. It sounded like getting another set was a relatively easy process – but he couldn’t do it by himself.

So the Doctor could be in the opposite predicament to the one you suggest; it was a Time Lord rule – but without Time Lords, there’s no one to lift the already-imposed limit.

HTPBDET (who I hope is getting well soon) would be better able to brief you on the contradictions regarding the regenerations limit. On the one hand, a limit is implied by later stories, on the other, the Second Doctor sees his people as ‘living forever’. The explanation could simply be that the Doctor lives an extraordinarily dangerous life – and his people normally live a few millennia between each regeneration.

In The Eleventh Hour, the Doctor does say ‘multi-forms’ live for millennia. He is himself, of course, a multi-form. 🙂

[OsakaHatter @osakahatter]

Just a couple of thoughts on the HurtDoctor –

There’s been discussion of where he fits in the Doctors timeline, and what he did that wasn’t in the name of the Doctor, but has anyone considered it might be what he didn’t do that was not in the name of the Doctor?  Maybe, given his low regard for the TimeLords and antipathy towards the Daleks, he refused to fight at all for his own peace and sanity?  The Hippocratic Oath mentions protecting others from harm and injustice.  Perhaps by refusing to become involved, he failed to protect the innocent?

In RoA, the Doctor says to Clara, something along the lines of we always fight, we never run away, unless we are holding on to something precious in which case we run as far and as fast as we can.  Can’t remember the exact quote, sorry, but I took the running with something precious bit to be referring to his departure from Gallifrey with Susan – could the bit about always fighting be a dig at the HurtDoctor?

On the other hand (because I like to play my own devil’s advocate), @scaryb –

A lot depends on where the HurtDr fits in. I keep trying to have him as the one who’s really dead at Trenzalore but I end up with the literal dead end problem. He presumably has to regenerate into one of the Drs we already know.

Unless he is the 12th Doctor, but travelled back in his own timeline to end the time war/do whatever it was he did.  Would be recognisable to 8/9/10/11 because the current doctor at that time saw him do whatever he did and could also be used to explain the question that’s bugging me most at the moment –

Why was the HurtDoctor physically in the timeline when the other Doctors were ghosts?  The only other solid presences were Clara and Eleven – have not seen enough bonkers theorizing to explain this yet, so I’ll suggest this as an extension to my previous wittering:

Eleven falls and regenerates at Trenzalore, into the HurtDoctor.  Immediately recognising what he has become and knowing therefore what he has to do, he steps straight into his own timeline, and travels back to do whatever lost him the name of the Doctor, witnessed by his younger self who then has to live with knowing what he will eventually become/have to do (and increasingly fearing each regeneration as a consequence).  HurtDoctor cannot then find a way back out of the timeline, so is still physically there when eleven and Clara arrive.  50th Anniversary sees the Eleventh resolve whatever the HurtDoctor did in a different way, so that his future is no longer anchored to known future actions in his own past!

Anyway, thats me.  Any other thoughts on why the HurtDoctor has a more definite presence in the timestream than the other doctors?

[Anonymous @]

@osakahatter – but, this is like trying to find a Unified Theory of Everything!  😀

We seem to be chipping away at certain details, but you have an excellent point about the Hurt Doctor being more ‘corporeal’ than the previous Doctor incarnations, and as corporeal as Clara and 11, in the Doctor’s timestream.

I’m fifty yards behind you on the track, still trying to figure out how The Moff will throw away the regeneration limit problem!

“has anyone considered it might be what he didn’t do that was not in the name of the Doctor?  Maybe, given his low regard for the TimeLords and antipathy towards the Daleks, he refused to fight at all for his own peace and sanity?”

Nice inversion, there.  🙂  And an important question to ask in our 50th anniversary speculations.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Interesting thoughts @osakahatter (future Dr, what he didn’t do etc)

But I don’t know that he’s any more solid than any of the others. He is different though. He’s not running and he does interact with 11. Clara says she saw all 11 faces but not this one. Dr suggests that’s because HurtDr is his dark secret, he’s been blocked off somehow (presumably in the same bit as Clara, re the “wall” which the cyberplanner noted).

But it doesn’t rule out any of the possibilities for where he comes in the sequence – pre Hartnell, between 2 and 3, between 8 and 9, or older 8, or after 11 (inc the possibility of being the Valeyard)

And remember the timestream is decaying fast, collapsing in on itself, so all sorts of anomalies could be thrown up. The way Hurt plays him, the HurtDr seems more remorseful and guilt-stricken than evil.

[Anonymous @]

@scaryb – “the HurtDr seems more remorseful and guilt-stricken than evil”

Nail. Your. Hit. Hammer. The.  🙂

I’m completely with you on this; the Hurt Doctor is to-the-core certain that he did what was best in the circumstances.  And yet, still he’s stricken by the consequences; utterly torn apart by what he has done; whilst at the same time, sorrowfully sure that there was no other possible way to proceed.

THIS is what I think would be fantastic to see in the 50th:  a situation where any of us viewers could put ourselves in his place and think ‘that was surely the only way to go’ whilst simultaneously having massive doubts about our power, our ability to judge, our power to judge; and the conflict between our inner certainty and our grief over the consequences of our actions.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@scaryb – he looked as miserable as all hell. Uh, yeah, ‘remorseful’ is probably the better phrase.

I go for ‘past’, simply because of the way the Eleventh frequently mentions that he hates himself. And between Eight and Nine is the period when we not only don’t see the regeneration – there’s a huge personality change. Nine is traumatised. Ten’s egomania sometimes wobbles into meglomania. And Eleven hates himself.

Anyone think the GI might have attacked now because the Doctor was deleting himself from the databases? The GI is information – and the Doctor was attacking his very mode of being.

[Anonymous @]

@bluesqueakpip – there is still a continuity thread between the Silence and the GI:  the former wanted to ensure the Doctor never gets to Trenzalore, and the latter was hell-bent on ensuring he does get there.

And I’ll see your ‘Nine is traumatised’ and raise it with your own comment: ‘Ten’s egomania sometimes wobbles into megalomania.’   Was Nine’s trauma bound up with his own guilt?  Looking at it in solely human terms, guilt must change into certainty over one’s actions, or else the ‘ego’ will perish and the ‘id’ prevail.  We still, as humans, have the ‘id’ – but the ‘ego’ is what keeps our id in check.

I realised as I typed that, that I’m still arguing for the return of the Master [and the rest of the Time Lords] – the Master is the ultimate ‘id’ to the Doctor’s ‘ego’.  But I am mindful of Steven Moffat’s interview, where when asked about the Master’s return, he replied along the lines of ‘it’s not interesting to have an Ultimate Foe unless there are good stories still to be told.’  What could be more the ultimate foe – and ripe with interesting stories – than one’s own worst impulses, needed to be kept in check?

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@bluesqueakpip

I’m leaning more towards between 8 and 9 (or older version of 8), for the reasons you mention, plus it’s within the mythology created since 2005. And just because when we first saw him the first one I thought of was Eccleston, somethng about the way he was standing and the darkness – just the look.

I like the idea that he is blacklisted because of something he didn’t do eg save 1 person eg 10 gives his own “life” to save Wilf, maybe HurtDr wouldn’t have done that, or he makes a choice which he knows will result in (someone else’s) death but for benefit for a lot of others. (as @Shazzbot says that’s something we can all identify with)

Anyone think the GI might have attacked now because the Doctor was deleting himself from the databases? The GI is information – and the Doctor was attacking his very mode of being.

Now that’s really neat. @blenkinsopthebrave what are your thoughts on that?

@osakahatter LMAO at image of GI as Bagpuss (NotD thread)

[OsakaHatter @osakahatter]

@scaryb – I think the not running is relevant too, as the Doctor has mentioned ‘all my life I’ve been running’.  When he’s running he’s fulfilling the promise of the Doctor, but when he stops?
Good call on ‘more remorseful and guilt-stricken than evil.’  Almost appealing for confirmation that he was right.

@Shazzbot – but I want a unified theory of everything!  It’s why I tried studying physics.  However the world and me rapidly came to a unified conclusion that I wasn’t very good at it 😉 I’m drawing a blank on how Moff is gonna get rid of the regen limit.  To go to the bonkers degree, Eleven always regenerates into a new version of One, creating an infinite loop of Doctors who can have different adventures (and faces conveniently enough) before always eventually ending up at Trenzalore.  If he/she ever breaks this pattern, they’ll end up as 12/13 and the end.  Also avoids future writers having to come up with meta references to being the 37th Doctor or some such.  And a new level of confusing debates for us.  Before Gap vs After Gap?  Tennant vs Smith?  Old hat those.  First Doctor version 1 vs First Doctor version 2 vs First Doctor version 3 is gonna keep us going forever more.

[Anonymous @]

@osakahatter and @scaryb (and @bluesqueakpip and all the rest!) –

I had a chat today with the people at my local am-dram society (60-70-80-something  males, the lot of ’em; all with ‘Classic Who’ memories) during our set-striking day – we recently staged ‘Calendar Girls’ and were pulling down the set – and they proffered their viewpoint that a female Doctor Who is the ultimate glass ceiling for female scientist role models.  The consensus was that Helen Mirren (my vote) was “too old, as she couldn’t do the requisite ‘running and running’ ” required of The Doctor.

But ‘running and running’ is an RTD creation.  Being a boffin is definitely ‘Classic Who’.  Couldn’t Helen Mirren do that wonderfully?

I would champion Clara being the next Doctor if only the age range weren’t being pushed down piercingly of late – and yes, I know that they were looking for a 40-something when Matt Smith’s audition blew them out of the water.  All the more reason to have a more mature actor/actress in the role after Matt Smith chooses to leave.

[Anonymous @]

@Shazzbot — I don’t think it’s just an RTD thing and I suspect the days of the more sedate Doctor are over — and pretty much have been since possibly even Troughton vacated the role.

I can’t remember who suggested it above, but I do love the idea of Julia Davis as the Doctor, closely followed by ?Tilda Swinton, for me…

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

I would champion Clara being the next Doctor if only the age range weren’t being pushed down piercingly of late

@Shazzbot Another reason I’d go for a rebirth which actually was a rebirth – i.e. going back to a baby. You just can’t get any younger – after that, the only way to be different is to go older. 😈

But strategically, if you’re going to sneak in a female Doctor by playing her as ‘the latest Companion’, you have to pick an actress who could play the typical Companion. Catherine Tate, at 40, was one of the older ones in recent years. Billie Piper was 23, Freema Agyeman was 27, Karen Gillan was 22, Jenna-Louise Coleman is 27.

It’s not just the running and running. It’s the hours. Doctor Who is one of those shows where the lead actor is in almost every scene, delivering a vast number of lines. They’re working sixteen hour days in ten day blocks, three days off, holidays Christmas and Easter – for ten months at a time. It’s a killer – if you watch David Tennant at the beginning of his run, and then at the end, he looks ten years older, not three. Matt Smith is more naturally baby-faced, but even he looks a lot more than three years older than in The Eleventh Hour (mind you, he did look about nine!).

I think, realistically, forties is going to be about as old as you can go for a Doctor. Except for someone playing the Doctor in  only one or two episodes.

[Anonymous @]

@bluesqueakpip – “I think, realistically, forties is going to be about as old as you can go for a Doctor.”

@jimthefish too:  Forties, as in, they could play it; or, they are?  (Leaving out Suranne Jones and Leslie Sharpe who have already brilliantly played characters in DW episodes.)  For even more female possibilities:

Emma Thompson
Kristin Scott Thomas
Helena Bonham-Carter
Tamsin Grieg
Laura Linney  (Noooo!  Never an ‘American’ Doctor!  But she’s a wonderful actress and could surely pull off an RP accent.)
Toni Collette  (Noooo!  Never an ‘Australian’ Doctor!  But she’s a wonderful actress and could surely pull off an RP accent.)

I feel like I’m dissing JLC, because I’ve half a foot in the ‘Clara is a future Doctor’ camp.  But … but … my real dream is that the first female Doctor is an acting heavyweight in the league of the above, or Tilda Swinton …

[overunder @jamesunderscore]

@ JimTheFish – I think, and this may be a controversial one, that Sheridan Smith would do an excellent job as a female Doctor – I know she’s played one of Eight’s companions in some audio stuff, but that shouldn’t be a big issue.

[Anonymous @]

@jamesunderscore – yes, Sheridan Smith is equally impressive as an acting, singing, and dancing maestress.  (absolutely no snark there; hard to show in print)

I ‘met’ her in Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, and it was too easy to write her off for that.  But she has subsequently proved her acting chops on stage and on screen; and being a ‘Smithy’ from Gavin & Stacey could surely bring in the young’uns as Doctor Who audience members.

However, although she might be a decade older than JLC, I fear she doesn’t bring the gravitas implied in my plea for an ‘older’ actress.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@Shazzbot – I mean, actually in their forties. Early fifties if they were in top physical shape. It’s a very demanding role.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

I would favour Gina Bellman as a first female Doctor….sorry….mind wandered.

She would be splendidly otherworldly (and she is great mates with Moff, thanks to Coupling)

[Author]

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