The Doctor Falls

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

 

[Cath Annabel @cathannabel]

Bill Potts. You’re a cyberman. You’re part of a neural net. Can you find her.

@mudlark – I’ve just realised how ambiguous that is.  I heard it at the time as addressing an anonymous cyberman, giving Bill’s name and asking it to find her.  But it’s also possible to hear it as knowingly addressing Bill herself, who is a cyberman and thus part of the neural net – and asking her to find herself, to find the humanity that is still intact.  And the response, either way is the tear, which links us to Heather and to hope.

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

Stewart Seyfried on youtube also has the srs 10 deleted scenes ripped off the TV.

WARNING: He just posted a video SPOILER.

[JimTheFish @jimthefish Time Lord]

OK, this is still slightly puzzling me — if the Doctor does indeed regenerate at Christmas, what exactly triggered it in the first place? There’s no suggestion now that the shooting in The Lie of the Land was anything other than false. Was it then the beating by the Masters that triggered it because there was that little inkling of it in the woods. Or was it being blasted point blank by the Cyberman in the woods?

[MissRori @missrori]

@jimthefish It could have been both the beating and the Cybermen zapping him on the roof that started wearing him down, and then the blast to the hearts serving as a “finishing move.”  This could be because he knew he couldn’t regenerate after the hospital because dealing with that would make things harder for everyone else.  After he gets blasted in the woods, he knows he doesn’t have to hold back anymore because the farmers are safe, but since he would rather go to his final rest he does.  It is pretty fuzzy.

[Nick @nick]

@jimthefish @missrori

I may be wrong (and would need a rewatch to remind me the exact order)  but didnt he show regen signs during the woodland walk with Bill, before the battle. This suggests the opening scene with the Master ? [but that seems to small to damage him that much, if a two or more cyber-blasts werent sufficient to either kill him or cause instant uncontrolled regeneration).

I think Moff has something particular in mind, which I think will go back to earlier in s10, but who knows  what Moff/Peter have in mind for this different regeneration.

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

Such a magnificent episode which leaves me on an end of series high. Just had a rewatch.

Hazran is clearly Mrs Cooper from ‘Night of the Hunter’ in her 1st scene with the Scarecrow Patient attack.

507 is a reference to RTD’s default exaggeration number: 57

‘Have you burnt?’ The Dr’s greatest fear in ‘The Mind of Evil’.

The clock on the hospital is seen ticking towards one o’clock (or thirteen), away from twelve.

Here’s the music Missy & the Master dance to:

‘Fed through a grinder & squeezed into a Cyberman…’  ‘Ripped out her heart, threw it into a bin & burnt it all the way.’  ‘Mr Volcano’ – Also a sly reference to ‘The Fires of Pompeii’

They (The Time Lords) cured the Master’s condition. He’s no longer mentally unwell, he’s just unempathetic.

Wheelchair Doctor recalls LOTTL & TEOT.

Planet 14 was Marinus & became Mondas in the comic strip The World Shapers. It was mentioned in ‘The Invasion’.

Parallel evolution  The parameter extension could explain the update in ‘Closing Time’ onwards…

Sonic Brolly! Cyber Headlamp weapon is from the Tenth Planet novelisation back cover!

Even though Bill’s appearance frightens ‘the Waltons’, they allow her to stay with them.

Remember The Alamo !  ‘What is that, Engine Oil?’  ‘I am not upset’ was a lie (thankfully).

I don’t want to live if I can’t be me any more…’  Mention of the Master’s TARDIS got a lot of hopes up!

The Doctor in the rocking chair with the rifle = Mrs Cooper from NOTH…

Shooting a person who looks dangerous…  Alit’s apple – The greatest gift in NOTH…    That speech!

Cybermen have no empathy, therefor they can’t be kind…

Nardole is a genius with insane computer skills (who has changed his face) – Is he the future Master?

‘Oh- Good-O!’ Bill’s arse is in Hospital!   Nardole will never be able to say the words.   Planet 14 (again)…  ‘I’m the Doctor – The original you might say!’  The Dr blows up the level (is this what kills him?)…

Wot no Rory in the flashback?   More facts here    Tears? No, this is just engine oil – Honest! (Blub!)

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@nick
I agree. I think the start of the regeneration goes back earlier. Knowing Moffat, he has probably planted the origins of the regeneration back in The Pilot (a re-watch needed) or conceivably, even earlier. I remember thinking, in Eaters of the Light, that his desire to sacrifice himself was not only reckless, but, as Bill pointed out, inappropriate. It was as if he was avoiding something. That something may well be his regeneration that he knew was coming. It would also tie into his underlying concern with wondering if he is a good man. This is a Doctor who wants to die rather than regenerate. I imagine this is what the 1st Doctor will help him resolve when we get to It’s a Wonderful Life…I mean, the Christmas special…

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

Midnight with the stars and you
Midnight and a rendez-vous

Your eyes held a message tender
Saying “I surrender all my love to you”

Midnight brought us sweet romance
I know all my whole life through

I’ll be remembering you
Whatever else I do

Midnight with the stars and you

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

Forgot to say,

Midnight, The Stars and You by Al Bowlly & Ray Noble was also in ‘The Shining’…

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

Oh yeah – ‘The End of Time’ was a gurney, not a wheelchair…

Someone suggested that Missy maybe handed the Master the spare demat’ circuit. How would he escape to become Missy, though? T’would create a paradox…

[Nick @nick]

@wolfweed

Oh I was certain Missy gave the Master the demat circuit when I watched the episode. Missy said he had enough time to get back to his Tardis and regenerate (into Missy or another Master or perhaps not at all).

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

@nick -Sorry – Human error! I meant ‘Missy maybe handed the Doctor the spare demat’ circuit’

Duh! (as opposed to The Master’s ring or just a weird handshake)

 

[Nick @nick]

@blenkinsopthebrave

The obvious possibilities are when the Doctor was exposed to the vacuum on the spaceship or when Bill shot him. I didnt notice anything before then, although, as you suggest, the scene in the Pilot during the Dalek/Movellan battle is also an obvious place where something might have happened.

As you suggest, S10 smacks of the Doctor trying avoid something (the regen). You can add the giving Bill his helmet in Oxygen and his reckless behaviour in Extremis (the timelord tech scene) to your Eaters of Light example.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nick @nick]

@wolfweed

🙂 I may be wrong, but I thought he pocketed after Missy said she remember a mad women (I forget the actual wording) telling him to always carry a spare demat circuit.

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

@nick

Another good reason why it’s not at all likely (though Missy could’ve pickpocketed it back I suppose)…

 

Right  – I have to go & eat food before I fall asleep. Laters!

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@nick @wolfweed

Missy grabbed the Master by the lapels and slammed him against a wall.  Her exact words then were, ‘A very long time ago a very scary lady threw me against a wall and made me promise always, always to carry a spare dematerialisation circuit.’ 

I thought she then picked his pocket to produce said spare circuit and held it up in front of him, and I assumed that for his own devious reasons he had been a little economical with the truth when he claimed that he couldn’t leave and had been stuck on the ship.  I’ll have to watch that bit again.

She did tell him that her stabbing had been very precise and that had time to get back to his Tardis before he regenerated.  I think that we were intended to infer that he would regenerate into her, thus creating another timey-wimey Moffaty loop.

@cathannabel

It is ambiguous, I agree.  My reading was that the Doctor didn’t, indeed couldn’t have known that the cyberman was Bill, though he must have realised immediately as soon as he saw and recognised what it was that this was how Bill had been ‘repaired’.  The long pause before she replied ‘I am Bill Potts’ looked significant, though, and I think you are right that it was his question and the memories it triggered which enabled her to recover a full sense of her own, human identity.  The process doesn’t appear to have been instant, though. There was evidently a period of confusion between that moment and the point at which she came round in the barn, having seemingly forgotten what had been done to her.

[Nick @nick]

@mudlark

Thanks. I remember she brandished it and I thought it then went into his pocket. I dont remember whether it came from her pocket or his. If she picked his pocket, then it implies she remembers quite a lot (contrary to the end of the first part, where she seemed she didnt realise where she was). Whilst watching I thought she remembered and she was carrying a spare (and hadnt realised she was remembering herself).

The nice thing about the stabbing and the creation of another timey-wimey Moffaty loop is that it is nicely ambiguous so both Simm and Gomez (pr even a mixture of both) can reappear as the Master should Chibnall and the actors want to.

[winston @winston]

@everyone  I am wondering if Missy gave the Doctor her confession dial when she held his hand?

[ichabod @ichabod]

@tardigrade  We did get the answer to the question “Missy, would it kill you to be kind for once?”. That answer appears to be yes :). It wasn’t only Bill who was unwilling to live if she couldn’t be herself. It seems the Master felt the same and didn’t want to become what Missy was becoming.

Indeed!  All that “things end because they have to” is being thrown at these characters (and at us) with a vengeance in this finale.  Xmas will be about acceptance.  Maybe.

@juniperfish  What if the TARDIS has taken Capaldi to visit Hartnell so they can defeat the Valeyard together?

Oh, that’s super — fighting off the Valeyard by — er — a thing happening!  Yes!

@jimthefish  . . . perhaps a Master trying to be evil and suffering constant pangs of conscience, of the influence of her past incarnation might be interesting.)

That is a delightfully twisted idea.  And I also like the stress on regeneration having its punishing side, too, that CapDoc is fighting.  This is his more characteristic final battle (although the fight with the cybermen was great) — an internal one, with the terms of his own existence.  He’s been an internal warrior at least as much as an external one.  Maybe One can be a Doctor to him on this subject, or the two of them Doctors to each other (in Clara’s sense, “Be a doctor!”

[ichabod @ichabod]

@miapatrick  I’ve wondered before if the twelve regenerations limit is for psychological reasons? We now know that more regenerations can be granted, why is the limit set at twelve? What is the effect of carrying so many sets of memories in your head?

For us, destruction.  For a TL, maybe not so much — big mind.  But it’s an interesting question.  Have we ever seen a Doctor plagued and confused by too much memory of his own pasts?

@nerys  How many times has he fought the Cybermen, but like the bird, keeps chipping away till he breaks through? I’m not sure if that was Moffat’s intended symbolism, but it resonated with me.

Oh, yeah, caught the “Heaven Sent” musical echo but I hadn’t linked it to the never-really-ended battle with the cybermen.  Gave me the chills.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@winston   I am wondering if Missy gave the Doctor her confession dial when she held his hand?

Great idea — a whiff of true feeling between them from the past — but I think the dial design is too big not to have been seen.  But there was a long beat, holding on that hand-clasp, so *something* was sure going on.

If Master Simm does achieve regeneration once he’s in his own Tardis, could he simply regenerate into Missy again, since in the Black Hole story that regeneration hasn’t happened yet?   Weird echo of CapDoc’s circle of (real or imaginary) regenerations in Heaven Sent.  I’m just having this — reaction to the idea of Simm going on with his timeline while our Missy becomes a sort of closed-off diversionary dead end immaterial to that timeline.  Damn.  If Simm regenerates into someone *else* now, Missy has been effectively obliterated.  Especially if she didn’t pass the Doctor her Confession Dial.  *She* gets no regeneration, but Simm does and Simm’s successor continues the line of Master regenerations as if Missy had never been.

I don’t like that.  Good god, I’m growling over injustice to an imaginary character, and a villainous one at that!  I want Missy back.  And I want the middle eight back, too, damn and blast and while I’m at it.

[tardigrade @tardigrade]

@ichabod

But there was a long beat, holding on that hand-clasp, so *something* was sure going on.

There have been several points, including earlier in this episode where holding hands affected Missy, so I don’t think that something beyond it likely being the last time they’d do it was necessarily implied.

Somehow I find it difficult to imagine Missy preparing a confession dial, but perhaps she may have, in the lonely hours in the vault, particularly towards the end, when she began to feel that she had something to confess.

If Master Simm does achieve regeneration once he’s in his own Tardis, could he simply regenerate into Missy again, since in the Black Hole story that regeneration hasn’t happened yet? …

I don’t think I understand what you’re suggesting here.

My expectation would be that the Simm Master regenerates into Missy (as Missy explains). If he doesn’t, I’d expect that Missy is a later regeneration. I don’t know if it’s possible for her existence to be erased (this potentially gets messy though, as her interacting with her past self is paradoxical). Are you suggesting that the Master might have enough control over his regeneration to avoid regenerating into the same form?

[janetteB @janetteb]

Was discussing Missy’s death with R.1 earlier today and I realised just how well written it was. Missy does “come good” thus rewarding the Doctor’s faith but he never knows because he has stressed that reward is not required, he does not need to know because he does “good” simply because it is the right thing to do. Missy’s death, turning to the Doctor when there is no-one except her sneering former self there to witness her final act is the perfect resolution to the Missy story line that has woven through this series. Neither Missy or the Doctor are rewarded for their actions and that is how it should be. Doing the right thing is not about the reward. That is the message that Moffat has really driven home this series with a kind of gloves off didacticism.

Also even the cybermen are not evil, just doing what they believe to be a service to humanity. So even the “big bad” of the series have altruistic motives. Only the Simm master, “this is the face that did not hear a word you said”, reminds us that there are some people who are cruel and cowardly. Not every being can be reclaimed or excused.

cheers
Janette

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@nick

re the dematerialisation circuit.  I have just watched that bit again and it looks as if I was mistaken and Missy does in fact produce the circuit from a pocket in her skirt and give it to Simm master.  If I had given more thought to the matter I would have realised by the end of the episode that this was the only logical explanation.

If the ‘very scary lady’ was Missy, as I think we are meant to assume, Simm Master would not have had time to profit from her advice before he regenerated, but his subsequent incarnation(s) would remember it. He did in fact point out the paradox; ‘You know you basically have me to thank for this’.

My only remaining query with regard to this matter is, did Missy have her own Tardis?  She had certainly been without one since her ‘execution’ and her imprisonment in the vault, and before that we only saw her using quick and dirty methods to travel in time and space.  Did she carry a spare anyway? or did she pinch the spare from the Doctor once she realised that there was another Tardis in play?  I doubt if it was handed over by him in that hand clasp because, like a confession dial (although I really liked that suggestion, @winston ), it is a bit to big to conceal in the palm of a hand, and he couldn’t have known at that point that she would need it.

Query: For that matter, did she remember being killed by her former self, or was that particular memory lost in the trauma of regeneration and/or because of the timey-wimey nature of the event?

Finally, what was up with the cloister bell sounding at the end of the episode as the Doctor left the Tardis? A warning against his attempt to stop the regeneration process?  Or a response to the presence of two different incarnations of the Doctor?  (My apologies to all concerned if this has already been discussed and I have somehow managed to overlook the fact)

[janetteB @janetteb]

@mudlark I assumed that the cloister bell was a warning against the Doctor’s refusal to regenerate and creation of a paradox. The Tardis does not approve of bending the laws of time. No doubt the Doctor refusing to regenerate will upset the fundamental laws of time and space that hold the universe together.. I also guess that the consequence of refusal to regenerate is death and the Tardis is not going to countenance that either.

Cheers
Janette

[Nick @nick]

@mudlark

If I recall my BG Who, I think either the Rani or the Master had a remote control device for their Tardis, so if Missy regenerates, its possible that she can escape in any case.

If the Simm Master regenerates into Missy (or another version, that later becomes Missy or is healed in his Tardis) then the Tardis the Master left Gallifrey in, must be out there somewhere. I have no idea where though.

[Brewski @brewski]

First off, congrats to everyone who predicted the return of Heather.  Well done!

And kudos to myself for maintaining my perfect record of Not Getting it Right. :p

Stand-out moments: Missy dying.  How did they manage to make that sad?!  But they did!

SimmMaster getting aroused by himself.  Gold!  As was the music.

And now on to Bonkers for Christmas…

Loving the It’s a Wonderful Ideas!  Only it will be “It’s a Wonderful Death”.  The story of why the Doctor dying and regenerating is a good thing after all!

We are on the South Pole, shortly after the first defeat of the Cybermen in “The Tenth Planet”.  The Doctor (One) has rushed off, leaving Ben and Polly behind.  He knows he is about to die and regenerate and is grumbling bitterly about it.

Twelve chastises him, telling him how selfish he’s being!  “After all, if you don’t regenerate there’ll never be a me!”

In order to prove his point to One, CapDoc takes him on a journey through what-if universes.  Inside the TARDIS, One remarks, “You’ve redecorated…!  I quite like like!”

In the what-if universes we meet iterations of the Doctor that would have been if he hadn’t died and regenerated.  Maybe ALL of them!  Older, maybe more cynical.  Unhappy because of all the things they didn’t accomplish by “renewing” themselves.

Also we get to see most of the original actors playing these roles.

For Two and Three you merely need actors in enough aging prosthetics that you can’t quite recognize them.

As a special treat, CapDoc takes One to 22nd Century London to reunite briefly with Susan and to fulfill his promise to come back.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@brewski
That is a neat theory! I suspect it may be the other way around (with the 1st Doctor in the role of Clarence the angel) but there is a certain appeal to your idea.

Your idea also made me wonder if the “difference” with this regeneration, that Moffat has been emphasizing, is that it involves 2 regenerations, with the 12th regenerating into the 13th and the 1st regenerating into the 2nd.

It would certainly reinforce the point about “there will always be Doctor Who” (also emphasized by Moffat) and it would be a brilliant bridge between BG Who and Chibnall Who.

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

MISSY: I was secretly on your side all along, you silly sausage.

The Doctor Falls transcript

Here this is again (Love it!):

[Brewski @brewski]

@<span class=”useratname”>blenkinsopthebrave</span> Thanks!  But sometimes I think I shouldn’t postulate what I actually want to see.  Since I am never right! lol.  I should theorize what I DON’T want to see.

Actually if Moff really wanted to give fans an out-going treat, he’d find a way to give us the missing Two-Into-Three regen!

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

@brewski

2 into 3! Yes, I actually wouldn’t put it past The Moffster…..

See two-into-three the comic way! Here on my old blog

Not sure how it fits in with ‘Devious’, though…

 

[Brewski @brewski]

Hey @wolfweed.  Thanks for the comics!  Very cool.

I always thought it would have been interesting to have Two killed by the Time Lords by aging him to death.  That way, he could have been teleported out in the middle of it and appear as a much older version of himself.  And then teleported back at the exact moment he was taken away.

Come to think of it, could do the same thing with Ten.  Pull him from the Master’s age-ifying laser screwdriver after he’s gotten on in years.  Let David Tenant be Ten again and explain why he’s older.

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

…that is the question…

Married with kids?! Come back, Missy! Come back!

[Anonymous @]

@mudlark

I think the Tardis was nervous of the Doctor’s ‘wish’? That he not regenerate? If he doesn’t then the Tardis sits and dies maybe?

@arbutus and I think others mentioned this probably but music from the Stolen Earth was used in the last 10 mins of the Doctor Falls and it was a  really nice hint all the way back to 2008? Made it sad but also hopeful.  Because Heather was the Pilot with her passenger but they were both in the Tardis with the Doctor so it made some musical sense. Although it would be hard to write whole new sections every week for an episode (well, over 12 episodes of a year anyway!)

Thank you, Thane

[winston @winston]

@thane15   You are always so good with the music, I read what you say and watch again and say “oh yeah” Thanks for that.

I am now wondering if Missy can feel that the Doctor is going to regenerate when she holds his hand on the roof and again on floor 507. Maybe knowing that he is dying is why she finally decided to stand with him. Or maybe she has known for even longer since she asks him in an earlier episode if he is alright. Then again sometimes a hand hold is just a hand hold.

[nerys @nerys]

@winston Well, at the end of “Empress of Mars,” Missy did asked the Doctor if he was all right. So maybe she has known all along that his regeneration was impending, and that’s part of why she decided to stand with him. Also, would she have somehow known that the Master would destroy her in the end? If so, then “without hope, without witness, without reward” is a lesson that finally came home to her.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

Thinking more about the idea that there might be two regenerations in the Christmas special–the 12th into the 13th and the 1st into the 2nd (neither “wants to go” but each convinces the other that they have to). OK, now since the 1st is to be played by David Bradley from “A Matter of Space and Time” then the 2nd Doctor could conceivably be played by Reece Shearsmith, who played the 2nd Doctor in the same show. Now, if indeed there are two regenerations, what if the 13th Doctor (because of the bonding that take place between 1 and 12 in the Christmas special), turns out to be…Reece Shearsmith…?

[pıtırcapaldi @pitircapaldi]

this season is really excellent but as much as sad because peter capaldi -ı think he is a great actor-leave series.Well,which actor/actrist will come in instead and which new comrade will be ?

[pıtırcapaldi @pitircapaldi]

Also doctor’s new hand ? Is it a lady hand ?

[Missy @missy]

There is an irony there.

Scottish writer, Doctor and Missy, yet Scotland has trouble with sound?

Missy

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

[Nick @nick]

@bluesqueakpip @thane15 (puro) @mudlark @ichabod @blenkinsopthebrave @jimthefish @all

Why was this scene included ? Or rather, while watching it, it seemed like a very oblique way of Bill saying she cared/loved the Doctor, but the more I think about, the more it seems quite a peculiar way to write that sentiment. Is there something more subtle going on ?

BILL: They’ll attack on both sides. I’ll take the back, yeah?
DOCTOR: Yeah. This is it, I’m afraid. So, if there’s anything we ought to be saying?
BILL: I can’t think of anything. Can you?
DOCTOR: (thinks) No.
BILL: But, hey er, you know how I’m usually all about women and, and kind of people my own age.
DOCTOR: Yeah?
BILL: Glad you knew that.
(She leaves.)
DOCTOR: Without hope. Without witness. Without reward.

When the Doctor says without reward, is he strictly right ? Whenever one does a “good deed”, up to including self sacrifice, then surely you shouldn’t need or most often don’t expect to receive any reward, except the one that you give yourself (rescue services and certain battlefield actions come to mind). The awards and accolades you might get afterwards certainly aren’t the primary motivation.

Is the Doctor therefore saying that he is going to this act of self sacrifice without being able to give himself even the reward that comes from the knowledge that he is saving the level 507 survivors, bitter sweet though that must be ?

[Nick @nick]

<span class=”useratname”>@pitircapaldi</span>

Hi. A number of us has discussed that (either above or on the spoiler thread). On balance we decided it wasnt, but we certainly agree that something was going on here.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@nick. I think maybe I commented on Bill’s last statement on the spoilers thread but it hints that the next Doctor will be female and her age which strikes me as too young.
cheers
Janette

[MissRori @missrori]

@nick wrote:

Is the Doctor therefore saying that he is going to this act of self sacrifice without being able to give himself even the reward that comes from the knowledge that he is saving the level 507 survivors, bitter sweet though that must be ?

It sure sounds like it to me, about as “pure” a sacrifice in extremis as he can make.  At the very least it doesn’t gain him any advantage, and he even admitted earlier he doesn’t even know how much time he’s bought the farmers.  But the point is that it’s the kindest thing he can do under the circumstances, and therefore the right choice, and therefore the one he will take.  (sniffle)

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@nick, @janetteb
Re:the final dialogue between Bill and the Doctor, I think this is one of the rare occasions that I would suggest we don’t need to see hidden meanings beyond what we hear. I think it simply is an oblique way of Bill letting the Doctor know that she cared for/loved him. With other companions the emotional feelings for the Doctor are clearer and at the point of loss, more raw. But with Bill, it has been different, partly because of her sexuality. So I think she is, in a hesitating, almost embarrassed sort of way, making it clear to the Doctor that she too, cares for him and that she wants him to be aware of that.

[MissRori @missrori]

@blenkinsopthebrave Well put, I think.  And a very sweet moment it is.  🙂

[Nick @nick]

@blenkinsopthebrave @janetteb @missrori

Blenkinsop I felt the same thing when I watched the scene. However, its rather clumsy writing if that is all Moff meant. I would expect Bill to say what she meant. On that basis, it just seems a bit strange. Bill hasnt been quiet about pointing out her sexuality, so using a form of words based on the idea she’s have an uncomfortable time expressing her non-romantic feeling for the Doctor, just doesn’t seem in character to me. We havent seen who her father is though, so perhaps it works better than I think.

That said, I didn’t think it was meant to be a secret hint that of who the next Doctor is likely to be. It could be taken (as in the Master/Missy inter-change) as a way of making a joke on a small minority of the audience, who wont accept a female/non-white Doctor until we get one. However, I don’t even think Moff was doing that in any case.

[Nick @nick]

@missrori

I don’t know what people who overcome their fear and place themselves into mortal danger in order to save someone else think about the act and themselves, but I think to do it without being able to think something positive about themselves is unlikely.

We know regeneration is a petite Death, in that the person who comes out on the other side, whilst still the Doctor (or Master) is no longer the same person. Wanting to avoid that change is understandable, especially for D12 – and D1 – I think for the reasons @bluesqueakpip has described.

However, this phrase suggests something deeper is troubling the Doctor. Not to be able to see any reward from an act of self-sacrifice for others well being, seems to suggest the Doctor also has a death wish.

[Author]

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