The Looming Regeneration Conundrum of The Doctor

The Conundrum of The Doctor's Last Regeneration.

I will pose my thoughts on how to get past this in a moment. First I would like to say that Russel T. Davies and Steven Moffat most likely have an idea or two on how to get past this problem, otherwise, it would have been difficult to get the show started again, knowing how long the first series ran, and if it was wildly successful again, it would run for some time more. The fans are a finicky bunch. Details are not lost in an age where revisiting episodes from your childhood are so easily accessed, something you simply could not do in the 1960s with out your own television broadcast network.

*I will call the run from 1963 a 1989, the first series, and the 2005 - present will be the second series.

So, I start this off by referencing a popular episode from the first series, the 25th anniversary special, The Five Doctors. Early on in this episode, the High Council of Gallifrey has convened, summoning The Master to inquire about what is happening in the Death Zone, and retrieve The Doctor in all of his regenerations. The Master's reward, a complete new life cycle, or twelve more regenerations.

This informs us that the Timelords have a great deal of control over the regeneration cycle. This was a story device from Patrick Troughton's The War Games from the first series. Where at the end of the story, a regeneration was forced upon him for his renegade 'crimes'.

In the episode The Deadly Assassin, from the first series,The Master is plotting to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations, having used all of his up already.

In the episode Mawdryn Undead from the first series, a space ship on an eternal orbit of the sun, is carrying seven beings with rudimentary knowledge of the regeneration process. They ache for release from their mortal lives which have been extended well beyond their normal means. A mutation which effects Tegan and Nyssa, The Doctor's two female companions at the time. The Doctor's solution is to give up his remaining regenerations for Mawdryn and his fellow travelers. This is short circuited by two Brigadiers from different times meeting.

These two examples tells us that The Doctor's regenerations can be redistributed to others, either freely or in a conniving way.

Now, keeping in mind that when The Doctor resurfaced in 2005, he was a bit of a changed man, so-to-speak, for his home world of Gallifrey had been sucked into the time vortex with a large portion of the Dalek fleet that they had been fighting against. The exact reasons as to why The Doctor was not sucked in still remains a bit of a mystery. In doing battle with The Master in The End Of Time, parts one and two from the second series, we find that even though Gallifrey is in the void, it is not gone. With a startling revelation being that Rassilon, one of the most powerful and influential Timelords to have ever existed, had returned for the time war. The details of why and how, are also still a mystery.

As The Doctor travels now, his TARDIS is even more attached to him than it had previously been in the first series. Undergoing a couple of transformations itself. We have also learned how attached the TARDIS is to The Doctor in The Doctor's Wife, from the second series. Aside from being written by Neil Gamian, this wonderful story showed us for the first time just how alive the TARDIS actually is.

Now, to digress to the first series again. I need to point out that The Five Doctor's is not the first, nor was it the last time, The Doctor has had the opportunity to work with himself. The first time being The Three Doctors with Jon Pertwee as The Doctor. And again with Colin Baker for The Two Doctors. (Making Patrick Troughton the only actor to re-encounter himself three times as The Doctor.) Finally, in a surprise twist at the end of the Colin Baker episode, Trial of a Timelord, we discovered that the character of the Valyard was also The Doctor from his own future. Though I suspect this will be overlooked as the time for a final regeneration is upon us. As The Doctor was also on trial, his sentence would have been the loss of his remaining regenerations, showing us again that the Timelords have a great deal of control over how a fellow Timelord is able to use them.

Let us not forget Captain Jack Harkness, who in the second series, acquired the ability to live forever. Granted he does not do so in a continual time line, rather jumping back and forth through time, with The Doctor, on his own, or through other unknown ways. Captain Jack got this ability from Rose, the first companion of the second series. She inadvertently gave it to him when she looked into the heart of the TARDIS. That then tells us that the TARDIS has the ability to distribute life and /or life changing mutations to creatures.

So, with all of this floating around in your head now, let's take a quick look at a few of the possibilities that exist based on decades of Doctor Who lore.

1. A simple, yet rather boring way for The Doctor to get more regenerations is from the TARDIS. Its simplicity begs the question of, if it's that easy, why had The Master not done it with his TARDIS in the first series? Keep in mind The Master's TARDIS is not a Type 40, rather a type 45. If this is true at the moment... Hard to say, he has had several.

2. Rose, though in a separate universe, has some extraordinary properties that make her very different from the people around her. One might argue that the TARDIS has the ability to track down others that it has has it's internal power flow through. The two of them together can do great things, even to The Doctor. I say this is a bit far off, and too complex a variant from #1.

3. Rassilon pulls the Timelords out of the void through some amazing ability that he develops. The Timelords see all of the work that The Doctor has done in their absence, and reward him with more regeneration. To me, this is probable, but not "fun" enough for the clever Doctor Who writers.

4. As The Doctor continues to do battle with the forces that would run the universe as their own, he finds that he is in need of vast amounts of help. Either against the Daleks, the Silence(With more on them this season it would seem, season 7), or combinations of so many more that The Doctor has done battle with. In an effort to find the help he needs, he opens the time void, and finds a way to pull Gallifrey out. With Rassilon's help, the foe is defeated, and in return, the Timelords bestow a new regeneration cycle on The Doctor. I find this aspect a much more intriguing way to get more regenerations. I would like it even more if the writers hinted at a past relationship between The Doctor and Rassilon, putting The Doctor in a slightly different way with the universe/time/everything, also making him slightly different than the rest of the Timelords, even validating his 'renegade' lifestyle. (Granted, that lifestyle has been an excellent source of writing for the opportunities it allows for.)

5. This idea is only different from #4 insofar as other regenerations of The Doctor help. A multiple Doctor event. Using as many Doctors as possible, including Paul McGann from the Fox one off episode.

6. Harking back to The Doctor's time in the first series, the White and Black Guardians could resurface. For the Black Guardian holds a very hard grudge against The Doctor. With guidance from the White Guardian, The Doctor has been able to accomplish amazing tasks. In this context, pulling Gallifrey from the void could be one of those tasks.

These possibilities become more real as Neil Gaiman has chimed in this week on things he would love to do for the 50th anniversary of the show, now just over a year away. #5 would be an amazing thing to see, the technology exists to actually have each Doctor back, it would be costly and prohibitive on a tv budget. It would have to be a one off episode with it's own mini-movie budget, maybe, I am not in the know on BBC budgeting for tv movies. But, just recreating the missing actors would most likely eat up a very large chunk of change. And what would an adventure like the 50th anniversary be without more effects and sets.

So, I do look forward to what the writers do come up with, and hope that it is truly spectacular, and worthy of the fan base that has enjoyed the show for all these 50 years.

Thanks for reading!