Our Imposter Syndrome cancels out our Dunning-Kruger

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Elizabeth Sandifer

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

95 Comments

  1. Alex Antonijevic
    December 14, 2013 @ 12:06 am

    I wonder if it tried to repair itself and wood was the only material available for it. Or this Cyberman's sense of aesthetic was left intact and wanted a wooden finish.

    I'm curious as to how all the plotlines of the Matt Smith era apparently get their payoff and whether the episode will have time for everything it is advertised to do…

    Reply

  2. Bob Dillon
    December 14, 2013 @ 12:07 am

    Ok I'm wondering about "the fall of the eleventh".

    Since moffat has screwed around with the numbering of the Doctors, is it pointing to something else entirely, and if so, what?

    Bob

    Reply

  3. J Mairs
    December 14, 2013 @ 12:17 am

    The Leadworth Ducks, of course!

    Reply

  4. J Mairs
    December 14, 2013 @ 12:19 am

    "I'm curious as to how all the plotlines of the Matt Smith era apparently get their payoff and whether the episode will have time for everything it is advertised to do…"

    I'm confident it will wrap up all the threads it's supposed to wrap up. The problem is there is a large number of people out there ready to rake Moffat across the coals if Minor Points #2, #3 and #4 aren't resolved to their satisfaction.

    Reply

  5. Sean Case
    December 14, 2013 @ 12:25 am

    I kind of vaguely assumed that they were meant to be dealt with by the Big Bang 2.0, that the pond was one of those loose ends he told Amy about.

    Reply

  6. Spacewarp
    December 14, 2013 @ 12:27 am

    He seems to be including the 10th's non-regeneration, the one that introduced the half-human Doctor that ended up in the parallel universe (I can't believe I'm writing this shit), because he says Matt is now the 13th Doctor, which makes Peter Capaldi the 14th. So expect "Time of the Doctor" to be as complicated as "Day of the Doctor" only without the celebratory nods. In other words, speculate all we like, we'll never guess it.

    Expect some secretly studio-filmed surprises though. Maybe not past Doctors (been there, done that) but cameos from Rory & Amy perhaps? Regenerating Doctors seem to get a montage of their past companions and/or enemies.

    Can't see how the Daleks can be involved though, seeing as the last thing Clara/Oswin did was wipe the Doctor from their collective memory. At least it'll mean no more "It-Is-The-Doctor!-Exterminate-Him!" moments (although the Cybermen are in it, so we might get the odd "Excellent!")

    Reply

  7. Sean Case
    December 14, 2013 @ 12:27 am

    Doomsday established that Cybermen, unlike Daleks, have a sense of æsthetics, and can be quite catty about it.

    Reply

  8. Nick Smale
    December 14, 2013 @ 12:33 am

    We know that the Doctor dies on Trenzalore (we've seen his tomb); we also know that he doesn't (Capaldi is coming). Which suggests some sort of timey-wimey history-changing element in the story, with the events that lead to the future we saw in Name of the Doctor being somehow re-written.

    Reply

  9. J Mairs
    December 14, 2013 @ 12:34 am

    True – but I'm secretly hoping for a moment similar to A Good Man Goes to War.

    The Doctor, in full on wizardly garb, opening a fissure in time and out fly the Leadworth ducks to attack the Daleks. You wouldn't even have to explain it… but fans would know…

    Reply

  10. J Mairs
    December 14, 2013 @ 12:36 am

    "Can't see how the Daleks can be involved though, seeing as the last thing Clara/Oswin did was wipe the Doctor from their collective memory. At least it'll mean no more "It-Is-The-Doctor!-Exterminate-Him!" moments "

    The latest trailer has a Dalek screeching "The! Doctor! is! regenerating!" – but again, I imagine there is going to be something significant a play here reconciling both stories.

    Reply

  11. Spacewarp
    December 14, 2013 @ 12:57 am

    Ah that explains something that's been nagging at my brain. If the Doctor's death occurs in the far future (after his 293rd regeneration or whatever) then his time-stream would have included any Doctors after the 11th. But it didn't, implying that the 11th Doctor is the one who dies, so who's Capaldi?

    Reply

  12. Anton B
    December 14, 2013 @ 1:03 am

    I'm half expecting a surprise halfway-point cliffhanger regeneration with Capaldi in the second half in post-regenerative confusion having to sort out the whole mess while shouting his new catchphrase thst won't catch on – 'Creag an tuire!'

    Reply

  13. ferret
    December 14, 2013 @ 1:04 am

    Wooden Cyberman: a temporary upgrade to foil the Sonic Screwdriver perhaps?

    Reply

  14. Chicanery
    December 14, 2013 @ 1:32 am

    It can do wood now. It took 400 years, but it can do wood.

    Reply

  15. Steven Clubb
    December 14, 2013 @ 1:37 am

    Since they've never bothered to explain the crack in time (the TARDIS only blew up after a crack appeared inside it), I'm thinking his future selves are the result of him breaking time. Whether this is undoing the destruction of Gallifrey in the 50th or him figuring out a way to cheat death in the Christmas episode, I'm not sure.

    In previous stories, Moffat seems intent on reversing some of his (and Davies) excesses. Such as erasing knowledge of himself from databases to prevent him from pulling the "look me up" bluff or using the Cracks as a possible explanation for why no one (including Torchwood it seems) remembers any of the five billion alien invasions during the Davies run. So if the Doctor's rewriting of time leads to a big ol' crack, then that could signal an end to that kind of nonsense.

    Hopefully the 12th Doctor won't be involved in quite so many causality loops.

    Reply

  16. Steven Clubb
    December 14, 2013 @ 1:42 am

    I'd be surprised if Moffat ever mentions the 12 regeneration rule as he's already established that Smith knows he's the last incarnation and Trezelore is his final battle.

    And I imagine the Daleks are quite capable of figuring out the Doctor is significant and compiling a certain amount of evidence about him. I think Asylum was merely the end of them treating the Doctor as their arch-enemy and in the future we'll see the Doctor getting involves in their schemes instead of big reality altering events.

    Reply

  17. David Anderson
    December 14, 2013 @ 1:46 am

    I think I saw one clip or photo with the Doctor leading daleks into battle. Which would be beautifully wrong.

    Reply

  18. ferret
    December 14, 2013 @ 2:31 am

    Well, it can disintegrate that one door, and even then they didn't quite get the chance to test it out

    Reply

  19. J Mairs
    December 14, 2013 @ 3:07 am

    "I think I saw one clip or photo with the Doctor leading daleks into battle. Which would be beautifully wrong."

    The Doctor leads the Daleks into battle against the Cybermen, the Cybemen into battle against the Silence, and the Silence into battle against the Weeping Angels, who he leads into battle against the daleks?

    If even half of that is true, it would go along way to explaining how the Seige of Trenzalore can last as long as they say.

    Reply

  20. J Mairs
    December 14, 2013 @ 3:10 am

    ^ I hope, at some point in the future, the Doctor will be able to make use of that.

    Reply

  21. jane
    December 14, 2013 @ 4:12 am

    The Wood Cyberman (or Wood-man) was carved by the locals.

    Reply

  22. jane
    December 14, 2013 @ 4:15 am

    The fall of the eleventh dynasty of Trenzalore? Eleventh monster? Eleventh… watch tower? Two riders approach. The wind howls.

    Reply

  23. jane
    December 14, 2013 @ 4:18 am

    From an Androzani tree.

    Reply

  24. Spacewarp
    December 14, 2013 @ 5:55 am

    I could so imagine the 12th Doctor's catchphrase, spoken in an exasperated Scottish accent, as: "Oh fer Fuck's sake!"

    Reply

  25. Gareth Rees
    December 14, 2013 @ 5:58 am

    Wasn't the "fall of the eleventh" already resolved in The Name of the Doctor?

                CLARA
        So, how do we get down there? Jump?

                DOCTOR
        Don't be silly. We fall.

    Reply

  26. matt bracher
    December 14, 2013 @ 5:59 am

    Revisiting The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe.

    Reply

  27. Gareth Rees
    December 14, 2013 @ 6:01 am

    It's about time for the return of the Alpha Centaurans.

    Reply

  28. Gareth Rees
    December 14, 2013 @ 6:08 am

    If the Doctor's death occurs in the far future (after his 293rd regeneration or whatever) then his time-stream would have included any Doctors after the 11th. But it didn't.

    For obvious production reasons they couldn't include any footage or audio from future episodes of the program. But the script is careful to keep it ambiguous as to which regeneration is buried in this tomb:

                DOCTOR
        Time travel is damage. It's like a tear in the fabric of
        reality. That is the scar tissue of my journey through the
        universe. My path through time and space from Gallifrey to
        Trenzalore. My own personal time tunnel. All the days. Even the
        ones that I, er, even the ones that I haven't lived yet.

    Reply

  29. jane
    December 14, 2013 @ 6:18 am

    What about Clara wearing the same outfit she was wearing as seen in the bulletin-board pictures of her first visit to the Black Archive?

    Reply

  30. jane
    December 14, 2013 @ 7:22 am

    The Monoids

    Reply

  31. BerserkRL
    December 14, 2013 @ 7:37 am

    Which I suspect was a nod to the exchange in "City of Death":

    ROMANA
    Shall we take the lift or fly?

    DOCTOR
    Let's not be ostentatious.

    ROMANA
    All right. Let's fly then.

    DOCTOR
    That would look silly. We'll take the lift.

    Reply

  32. BerserkRL
    December 14, 2013 @ 7:42 am

    What do you think is up with the drawings?

    Reply

  33. jane
    December 14, 2013 @ 8:00 am

    They're children's drawings. Have the people of Trenzalore been watching Doctor Who on TV?

    Reply

  34. J Mairs
    December 14, 2013 @ 8:50 am

    I think it's a given that the Doctor will regenerate as the clock strikes twelve. Not just for the obvious reasons (the Eleventh hour is over now / the clock is striking Twelve's) — but as everyone knows, the fairytale ends at midnight.

    In terms of breaking the rules, I hope it isn't something so blase as "Time Lords hand over a new set of regenerations to the Doctor".

    Personally, I'd rather see a (wait for it) —- Reset Button. (xD)

    Capaldi's Doctor is "like Hartnell" because, well, technically he's the first Incarnation of the Doctor, with the possibility of another 12 incarnations to follow. They don't have to follow the pattern we've seen because they are entirely new incarnations. Have Capaldi and Clara steal the TARDIS with Trenzalore, and with bits and pieces of their memory missing, land in a junkyard in 2013 ready to start the story again. Imply this may have happened over and over many times before, each time, the Doctor's actions changing the cycle and what the universe is like when he starts.

    Reply

  35. Chris
    December 14, 2013 @ 9:11 am

    I just hope it's a reference to that wonderful Futurama episode wherein Bender downgrades to be eco-friendly.

    Reply

  36. Chris
    December 14, 2013 @ 9:14 am

    Ooh, this is interesting. I'd of course take it too far and imply that this has been done so many times that, in fact, EVERY Time Lord we've ever seen is actually from a different set of regenerations of The Doctor.

    Reply

  37. neroden@gmail
    December 14, 2013 @ 9:45 am

    There've been a gazillion hints that there's one more cameo from young Amelia waiting to happen. Maybe this'll be it.

    Reply

  38. neroden@gmail
    December 14, 2013 @ 9:47 am

    Only problem is that it feels like another BBC Books retread — Sometime Never, in this case.

    Reply

  39. Daibhid C
    December 14, 2013 @ 10:08 am

    I don't think the fact the Doctor is now on his thirteenth incarnation actually stops Matt being the Eleventh Doctor in practical terms.

    I know there are people who take the faces in Morbius seriously; do they refer to William Hartnell as the Ninth Doctor? I doubt it. Doctor-numbering is based on the sucession of actors who've starred in the series, not how many incarnations there might have been before or between.

    Reply

  40. Theonlyspiral
    December 14, 2013 @ 10:34 am

    I think the Doctor fights on Trenzelore so long that he becomes part of their history. The siege lasts long enough that the world itself changes around him.

    Reply

  41. Spacewarp
    December 14, 2013 @ 2:07 pm

    Ever since the Silence were introduced, I suddenly noticed a brief scene at the end of "The Eleventh Hour" that intrigued me. When Amy is in the TARDIS with the Doctor and he's about to set off, she's looking around the console room, and for a second she has what appeared to me to be a look of sudden horror on her face, as if she's noticed something, and then she turns around and says "Why me?"

    I always thought that there was going to be a later pay-off that she had seen a Silent in the TARDIS and instantly forgotten about it when she turned away, but nothing came of it, so I guess I was wrong. But check it out at about 1:00:09. See what I mean?

    Reply

  42. Iain Coleman
    December 14, 2013 @ 2:21 pm

    It would be fun if Tucker's Law – "If some cunt can fuck something up, that cunt will pick the worst possible time to fucking fuck it up, because that cunt's a cunt" – became this Doctor's version of "Harry Sullivan is an imbecile!"

    Reply

  43. Matthew Blanchette
    December 14, 2013 @ 3:17 pm

    Quite possibly; there's also pictures of a puppet show where the Doctor fights an apparent one-eyed monster.

    Reply

  44. encyclops
    December 14, 2013 @ 7:31 pm

    I'm curious about "Tasha Lem," a woman who is apparently only mostly human and somehow connected to the Doctor's past. I doubt she's anything to do with the Rani. Romans seems unlikely too. Is she maybe a great great great granddaughter of Susan Campbell? Or is her provenance more recent than that?

    Reply

  45. encyclops
    December 14, 2013 @ 7:32 pm

    That one-eyed monster is so familiar, and I know I'll feel dumb when I finally place it. A Monoid? A Jagaroth?

    Reply

  46. Froborr
    December 14, 2013 @ 9:11 pm

    The Wood Cyberman (or Wood-man) was carved by the locals.

    Uh-oh. The Doctor doesn't have Metal Blade, will he be able to beat it with just the arm cannon?

    Reply

  47. Froborr
    December 14, 2013 @ 9:16 pm

    Ugh, I hope not. The absolute worse thing that could happen is "Okay, you've got 13 new regenerations," because that says "Yes, the time limit on the series was real and we've delayed it." That guarantees it will be eventually reached. What we need is a declaration of no more regeneration limits, so that the stupid fan death wish can finally be taken out back and shot like it's always deserved to be.

    Reply

  48. Froborr
    December 14, 2013 @ 9:18 pm

    Lem is an interesting name for a character in a Cyberman story, recalling as it does the author Stanislaw Lem, who was rather famously skeptical of technological progress in general and information technology and robots in particular.

    Reply

  49. Nick Smale
    December 14, 2013 @ 10:45 pm

    "Tasha Lem" is an anagram of "Le Mashta". But then, what isn't?

    Reply

  50. Nick Smale
    December 14, 2013 @ 10:53 pm

    In terms of breaking the rules, I hope it isn't something so blase as "Time Lords hand over a new set of regenerations to the Doctor".

    That's pretty much what I'm expecting.

    As I imagine it, in the original version of history, Gallifrey is destroyed at the end of the Time War and the Doctor dies on Trenzalore at the end of his 13th "life" — which leads to the tomb world future we saw in "Name of the Doctor".

    In the new version of history, Gallifrey still exists and the Time Lords are able to grant the Doctor a new regeneration cycle.

    By changing history to save Gallifrey, the Doctor has also saved himself.

    Reply

  51. Anton B
    December 14, 2013 @ 11:54 pm

    There's also pictures of Prisoner Zero (as the lady and her two kids in the hospital) and the Silence's attempted TARDIS and yeah that monocular monster is bugging me too. There's another scene of The Doctor in a Punch and Judy type puppet show but I can't recall which episode it was in.

    Reply

  52. Anton B
    December 15, 2013 @ 12:10 am

    Hmm. Not enough to suspect the Master is it. the only other extant Time Lord/human who might be able to help with some regenerative energy could be suggested by the anagram – Mels a hat.

    Reply

  53. AuntyJack
    December 15, 2013 @ 1:17 am

    Sham Tale

    Reply

  54. Spacewarp
    December 15, 2013 @ 1:57 am

    @Froborr

    You do realise this means Doctor Who's viewing figures will now go into freefall, as we lose all those fans who swore they'd stop watching if the Doctor doesn't die after 12 regenerations.

    Reply

  55. Spacewarp
    December 15, 2013 @ 2:01 am

    I think it's a reference to her being the Doctor's final incarnation:

    Ahem… Last

    Reply

  56. Toby Brown
    December 15, 2013 @ 2:19 am

    I thought they might be to do with the Silence. It's revealed that they've been in the vast majority of Eleven's episode in the background observing, they then go back to Trenzalore and over times their recountings of the stories become part of the culture. Maybe not even 'over time', what with the Silents' hypnotic suggestion thing.
    Although the siege lasting so long it becomes history idea is much cooler.

    Reply

  57. encyclops
    December 15, 2013 @ 6:16 am

    On second look, the one eyed monster has Alpha Centauri's body and a Monoid's hair.

    Reply

  58. encyclops
    December 15, 2013 @ 6:18 am

    BBC America's photo set spoils it. If you look through them it's obvious what part of her isn't human. Oh well.

    Reply

  59. Bob Dillon
    December 15, 2013 @ 6:52 am

    I think you missed my point. The default assumption was that it was something to do with the numbering of the Doctors.

    So what could it be if it were nothing at all to do with that, but still have been hinted at during the recent past?

    Reply

  60. BerserkRL
    December 15, 2013 @ 8:09 am

    That shot and some other possible Silence sightings are rounded up here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6wczbYfip4

    Reply

  61. encyclops
    December 15, 2013 @ 8:12 am

    I think you missed Diabhid's point: he's still the Eleventh Doctor, if you ignore subtitles and accept that the War Doctor isn't "the Doctor," and if you assume Handy isn't a "Doctor" either. So the answer is probably straightforward: either Matt Smith's Doctor is defeated (loses a fight or loses his life) at Trenzalore, or it's a play on the TARDIS falling to the surface of Trenzalore, or both.

    On the other hand, even if the numbering is intact, it still could be something else. I can't think of anything else that's been hinted at strongly enough, though.

    Reply

  62. BerserkRL
    December 15, 2013 @ 8:13 am

    Gallifrey still exists and the Time Lords are able to grant the Doctor a new regeneration cycle

    That implies that he's going to find Gallifrey in the Christmas special. That seems unlikely to me.

    Reply

  63. BerserkRL
    December 15, 2013 @ 8:21 am

    TAMELASH. It's a tamer version of Timelash.

    Or ASH METAL.

    Or TEAL MASH.

    Or SLAM HATE.

    Or ALT.SHAME.

    Reply

  64. BerserkRL
    December 15, 2013 @ 8:25 am

    On the same note, VALEYARD = AA EVYL DR.

    (Sorry.)

    Reply

  65. Nyq Only
    December 15, 2013 @ 8:26 am

    The man who never wood

    Reply

  66. Anton B
    December 15, 2013 @ 8:26 am

    The Tin Woodsman or the Wood Tin Man? Might there be a an Oz vibe to this Xmas special? There's no place like home.

    Reply

  67. encyclops
    December 15, 2013 @ 8:31 am

    Yeah, what IS the loose literary basis going to be this time around? Or, because it's a regeneration story with a kitchen-sink monster roster, is there no room for one?

    Nyq Only: fantastic.

    Reply

  68. Anton B
    December 15, 2013 @ 8:31 am

    There's enough soldiers around and there is a war on, it could be the fall of the Eleventh brigade or battalion.

    Reply

  69. encyclops
    December 15, 2013 @ 8:32 am

    Anton B: are you talking about "Snakedance"?

    Reply

  70. Ross
    December 15, 2013 @ 8:35 am

    It's wearing a monoid collar.

    Reply

  71. Ross
    December 15, 2013 @ 8:48 am

    I'm wondering if the puppets (and the wood cyberman) are allusions to 'Night Terrors'

    Reply

  72. Steve O'Sullivan
    December 15, 2013 @ 8:51 am

    It would be great if, for once, a regeneration story had the regeneration happening during the action, and not at the end once everything is all cleared up

    Reply

  73. Anton B
    December 15, 2013 @ 8:59 am

    @encyclops
    No it's a Matt Smith episode. Could be Closing Time where he's working in the toy dept. Though I did think of the Mara when I saw the puppet picture.

    Reply

  74. Ross
    December 15, 2013 @ 9:02 am

    I want to go on record here: THe idea that Matt Smith's Doctor is the Last Incarnation because Handy counts is profoundly stupid. It is as profoundly stupid as "But it all cancels out because the first two were 'renewal' and 'changed his appearance', not 'regeneration'.

    Really profoundly stupid. Until this came up, I did not know of anything as profoundly stupid as "The first two regenerations aren't REAL regeneration because they didn't use the exact word". Now I do.

    Reply

  75. Anton B
    December 15, 2013 @ 9:06 am

    Though it would be typically audacious and fan baiting of Moffat to pay off what everyone is assuming is the next fifty year story arc straight away. I do think he's got something tricksy up his sleeve for introducing Capaldi though. Possibly Some Souffle Girll style surprise introduction.

    Reply

  76. Anton B
    December 15, 2013 @ 9:09 am

    Exactly. See my comments above.

    Reply

  77. Elizabeth Sandifer
    December 15, 2013 @ 9:18 am

    It's not the greatest idea, but I can see why you'd resort to it. Let's assume that Moffat intends to depart after Season 8, as any reasonable person would after putting up with fandom for that many years. Capaldi, meanwhile, may be around for only a year, but might stick around.

    There's an argument where, having added the War Doctor to the list, it would be rude to hand another showrunner the job of cleaning up the regeneration limit problem, and that Moffat, having broken it, ought to fix it so that whoever comes on next can have a reasonably clean narrative slate to work with.

    Reply

  78. Spacewarp
    December 15, 2013 @ 10:05 am

    The issue isn't that there's a problem with the regeneration limit, but that people even bother considering it a problem that Moffat has to fix . The majority of the current viewers of the show probably weren't even born the first time it was mentioned, and you could probably count on one hand the number of times it has been mentioned since. But yet the old "regeneration limit" keeps being passed down through the years, from old fans to new, like a bad urban legend, or an old wives tale. Correct me if I'm wrong but the last time it was mentioned on the air was 1996. In 1964 the Doctor had only one heart, in 1971 he said he was thousands of years old, in 1976 he had past lives prior to William Hartnell, and in 1996 he was half-human. The show (and fandom) has forgotten these and moved on, because they don't matter. The show wants to move on from the regeneration limit, but it can't because fandom and the media won't let it. It. Doesn't. Matter.

    Reply

  79. T. Hartwell
    December 15, 2013 @ 11:41 am

    ""Tasha Lem" is an anagram of "Le Mashta". But then, what isn't?"

    So the Master's gonna be played by Sean Connery now?

    Reply

  80. Sean Daugherty
    December 15, 2013 @ 11:48 am

    I think the reason we're now counting the "hand" regeneration towards the limit is precisely because of what Spacewarp has said. The regeneration limit thing is an irritation, not just to Moffat but to any prospective future showrunner. He wants it gone, and because of the way genre television has changed since the 1960s and 1970s, he doesn't have the luxury of just ignoring it until it goes away in the way that earlier showrunners ignored the idea that Susan named the TARDIS, or that the third Doctor was "thousands" of years old.

    And while I agree with Ross that the whole "hand" regeneration thing is a bit silly, otherwise I think this is actually a bit of a masterstroke on Moffat's part. Until this year, nobody thought that Matt Smith was anything other than the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor. We fully expected that he'd have two more lives left before we had to deal with the regeneration limit issue. The introduction of John Hurt's "missing" Doctor reduced that to one more life, of course, but it also ensured that when Peter Capaldi took over, he was going to be haunted by the idea that he was the "last" Doctor. If it didn't actually dominate the storytelling of his tenure, it was certainly going to dominate any discussion of the series throughout his tenure. I mean, sure, everyone knows they'll eventually find a way around it, but the question of how was going to drown out any other story Moffat or his successor wanted to tell.

    So Moffat solved that by basically cheating the audience. Until the last moments of series 7, no one was talking about the regeneration limit except as a matter of idle curiosity. Moffat slid in the regeneration limit question during the run-up to the 50th anniversary special, which is just about the only thing that would have been a bigger story than the Doctor "running out of lives." The result is that the show dispenses with the ridiculous navel gazing and debates of meaningless trivia like ripping off a Band-Aid. He has the potential to get rid of the issue once and for all and give Capaldi a relatively clean slate to work with.

    Reply

  81. Sean Daugherty
    December 15, 2013 @ 11:56 am

    I'm hoping that the explanation Moffat has offered about the "hand" regeneration from "The Stolen Earth" counting as the Doctor's 11th and penultimate regeneration remains off-screen. As Steven Clubb has said, we've already been told that the current Doctor is the "final" Doctor, and that's all we actually need to know. Have the Doctor talk a bit in the episode about how he can't regenerate again to bring the viewers up to speed, sure, but the exact number doesn't need to be brought up.

    Reply

  82. Sean Daugherty
    December 15, 2013 @ 11:58 am

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    Reply

  83. Elizabeth Sandifer
    December 15, 2013 @ 12:01 pm

    You can do it in three lines, though.

    The Doctor: You don't understand. This is it. My last life. I'm going to die tonight.
    Clara: But wait, I thought you got thirteen lives. You're only the twelfth.
    The Doctor: There was an accident with a Dalek. And my hand. It's complicated. Come on.

    Reply

  84. Monicker
    December 15, 2013 @ 12:02 pm

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    Reply

  85. encyclops
    December 15, 2013 @ 2:56 pm

    I hate counting Handy, and I hate having the War Doctor around. It's bad enough trying to answer when new fans and amused nonfans casually ask "so how many Doctors have there been?" without needing to add asterisks to the explanation.

    What gets me is that it's so, so easy to solve. This is all it would take:

    CLARA: (to Capaldi) So…you can just regenerate any time you get close to death?

    DOCTOR: Aye.

    CLARA: What, just…forever?

    DOCTOR: Aye, as long as there's a TARDIS somewhere about the place. Used to be the Time Lords put a cap on it…twelve times and yer out. But that got suspended in the Time War, with Time Lords gettin' nearly extairminated left and right, and, well…you won't catch 'em puttin' that genie back in the bottle now.

    Reply

  86. encyclops
    December 15, 2013 @ 3:00 pm

    If Handy counts against him, does whatever the heck River did in "Let's Kill Hitler" count in his favor?

    Reply

  87. ferret
    December 15, 2013 @ 6:09 pm

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    Reply

  88. Elizabeth Sandifer
    December 15, 2013 @ 6:15 pm

    Using Jack is cheating. Of course it's better with Jack.

    Also, the correct final line there is "Oh, you're one to talk."

    Reply

  89. ferret
    December 15, 2013 @ 6:18 pm

    sorry, deleted to edit after you replied (silly of me) and yes, Jack is like a trump card!

    Five lines is more fun:

    The Doctor: You don't understand. This is it. My last life. I'm going to die tonight.
    Clara: But wait, I thought you got thirteen lives. You're only the twelfth.
    The Doctor: There was an accident with a Dalek. And my hand. It's complicated. Come on.
    Jack Harkness: He was so vain he didn't want to change his face.
    The Doctor: Okay, apparently not that complicated. Now come on.

    Reply

  90. Ross
    December 15, 2013 @ 7:27 pm

    You can do it in three lines, though.

    Sure you can, but "THe major plot point of the most important episode of the year consists of a three line reference to a minor point back three seasons ago that's never been discussed since, even though there are at least three instances where it absolutely would have been relevant. " is pretty fucking anticlimactic.

    Reply

  91. J Mairs
    December 16, 2013 @ 2:18 am

    Guys, guys!

    "I've had many faces, many lives – but I don't admit to all of them"

    …implying there is more than one "forgotten" incarnation like Captain Grumpy. What if that business with the Dalek and the Tenth Doctor's hand is just a feint – a little bit of fan-abaiting ambiguity in the same way that Claire Bloom may not be the Doctor's mother after all.

    What if Tasha Lem is the earliest incarnation of the Doctor, before he became the Doctor?

    Reply

  92. J Mairs
    December 16, 2013 @ 9:52 am

    "Yeah, what IS the loose literary basis going to be this time around?"

    Cinderella.

    We start with Clara cooking for her family and the fairytale ends at the stroke of twelve.

    Reply

  93. What Happened To Robbie?
    December 19, 2013 @ 12:19 am

    I was thinking about the limit the other day. Has it ever been actually explained? As far as I remember we've just been told Time Lords can only regenerate a set number of times but there's never been a sensible reason given why. If it's not a part of their biology It's just an arbitrary number and may as well be 67 or 507. It certainly never stopped the Master did it?

    Reply

  94. What Happened To Robbie?
    December 19, 2013 @ 12:24 am

    Careful now, someone from Big Finish is reading this and getting ideas 🙂

    Reply

  95. What Happened To Robbie?
    December 19, 2013 @ 12:27 am

    I don't care how the regeneration happens as long as Capaldi doesn't spend half of his first story asleep. Mind you it didn't happen in Eleventh Hour so presumably Moffat won't do it this time either.

    Reply

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