Well, they ARE all the same person. (Technically speaking...though I do totally dispute the absurd claim that the Sixth Doctor has ANYTHING TO DO WITH, say, my beloved Tenth. Yup, I guess I don't really BELIEVE in regeneration. So sue me.) Anyway...they should have a general section of their own. Especially now I need to ask...

Who is the scariest Doctor? Cos I always thought Nine had the darkness down PERFECTLY and no one could really get darker without ceasing to be a True Doctor (the way Colin did) but now I've seen the Season 6/32 trailer and our baby-faced Bow Tie Boy (of all people!) has gone and trumped him...

...minor SPOILERS, obviously:

BAD GUY: Fear me. I've killed hundreds of Time Lords.

ELEVENTH DOCTOR: Fear me. I've killed all of them.

Dear Emily,

Please consider this posting as notice that you are being sued for ONE BILLION Pounds, for your lack of belief in regeneration.

Thank you,

Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe, Esqs., Attorneys at Law

No, Eccleston is still the king of scary. Smith just looks really, really serious.

Then there was David Tennent when he went all "Time Lord Victorious"!

Overall I'd say Hartnell was the scariest. At first he seems like a harmless old man then he's kidnapping school teachers and tricking them into exploring Dalek-filled cities.

I'd say Troughton was the goofiest, Pertwee was the most action-minded, Tom Baker was the most unpredictable, Davison the most amiable, Colin Baker the most egotistical, McCoy the most mysterious, McGann the most adventurous, Eccleston the most melancholy, Tennant the most playful, and I'm not sure about Smith.

Tennant was too moody to be tied down to one mood, His moodswings were his defining trait.

Dear Emily,

Please consider this posting as notice that you are being sued for ONE BILLION Pounds, for your lack of belief in regeneration.

Thank you,

Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe, Esqs., Attorneys at Law

Noooo problem. It's QUITE obvious who the jury will be granting the billion pounds to, once I've played 'em a clip of Colin 'accidentally' getting people to fall in acid baths, followed by a clip of Tennant clutching a small beribboned kitten...

No, Eccleston is still the king of scary. Smith just looks really, really serious.

I will reconsider with this in mind...once I can watch the clip without running round the room screaming with excitement.

Then there was David Tennent when he went all "Time Lord Victorious"!

God, wasn't that BLISS...if ONLY we'd had a full episode or two of this instead of him repenting of his scary ways in two minutes flat...

Overall I'd say Hartnell was the scariest. At first he seems like a harmless old man then he's kidnapping school teachers and tricking them into exploring Dalek-filled cities.

Fair enough. Early Hartnell didn't even realise his vocation was planet-saving, which makes him a SERIOUSLY weird Doctor.

I'd say Troughton was the goofiest, Pertwee was the most action-minded, Tom Baker was the most unpredictable, Davison the most amiable, Colin Baker the most egotistical, McCoy the most mysterious, McGann the most adventurous, Eccleston the most melancholy, Tennant the most playful, and I'm not sure about Smith.

'Amiable' and 'egotistical' are very tactful ways of saying 'boring' and 'raving homicidal lunatic'. I'm not sure about 'adventurous' for McGann, but then not sure about ANYTHING for McGann, his entire TV existence was spent in post-regenerative trauma. (The most human, perhaps...?) And I'm not sure about Smith either. 'Clumsy' is the only thing that springs to mind, but that's mainly off-screen.

Tennant was too moody to be tied down to one mood, His moodswings were his defining trait.

Nicely put.

Also, re: the regeneration issue...the Tenth Doctor says HIMSELF that 'Even if I change it still feels like dying. Everything I am dies. Some new man goes sauntering away...and I'm dead.'

Mind you, Bambera said it first and more succinctly: 'If he has a new face and a new personality...how can he be the same man?'

To give some perspective, William Hartnell was four years old the year the Titanic sank and Matt Smith was four years old the year the Challenger exploded. That's an incredible span of time!

Wow. Was anyone 4-yrs-old when the Bismark sank?

Any particular reason for the Bismarck?

But Tom Baker was 7, is that close enough?

For the record, the doctors years of birth were:
Hartnell: 1908
Troughton: 1920
Pertwee: 1919
Tom Baker: 1934
Davison: 1951
Colin Baker: 1943
McCoy: 1943
McGann: 1959
Ecclestone: 1964
Tennant: 1971
Smith: 1982

Of the older companions, Carole Ann Ford was born in 1940 (so barely even 1), Peter Purves in 1939 (he'd have been 2), Jean Marsh in 1934, Nicolas Courtney and Jacqueline Hill both in 1929, Bernard Cribbins in 1928 and William Russell was born in 1924.

Looks like everyone else was born after (Anneke Wilks only a few months after).

---
No, Eccleston is still the king of scary. Smith just looks really, really serious.
---
Agree, he's not being scary, just matter of fact. He could be reading the phone book.

Although in the context of that clip, I think it needs matter of fact, not scary.

Andrew (in Christmas Invasion thread): I don't know how much of a right he has to object; he is the same man that chucked the entire Ice Warrior fleet into the sun, and, well, we've already spoken on that business with the Macra... ;-)

Me: It's an interesting philosophical question: how much is each Doctor morally responsible for the sins of his predecessor?

Andrew: Hmmmmm... good question. If Tennant's angsty declarations of "I die, a new man walks away" are true, then it rather seems like each incarnation is different enough that their sins die with them- and indeed, each does have a separate state of mind and set of motivations; they can truly claim "I'm not the same man I was when I did that." :-) One could almost say that they were like different people who recieve memory grafts of the predecessors- bearing knowledge, but not culpable for actions. On the other hand... we have seen opinions and feellings carry through between incarnations, and the Doctor does always insist that he's the same man...

Well, not always. He does also come up with lines like I'm definitely not the man I used to be. Thank goodness!'

And the emotions don't usually carry through THAT strongly. Nine-to-Ten being the obvious exception - the love for Rose endured, but then she CAUSED the regeneration, she was RIGHT THERE when it happened...but I don't get the impression that Eleven is in love with Rose - or that he's anything like as affected by the Time War as his last two predecessors. And, for instance, Six didn't have Five's protective instincts towards Peri (to put it mildly).

Things change. From Five and Eight's pathological soft-heartedness to One and Six's homicidal egotisticalness, from Seven's convoluted masterplanning to most other Doc's haphazard interfering, from Two-to-Seven's asexuality to Eight-to-Ten's enthusiasm for 'dancing'.

About the only thing that's consistent across all eleven lifetimes is that he likes playing with Earth girls...

SPOILERS for The Impossible Astronaut (and Alien Bodies):

THAT'S not how he goes.

There is NO WAY he just gets a bit of petrol sloshed over him and barbecued. At HIS funeral there's gonna be Raston Cybernetic Lap-Dancers and Daleks getting peeled like bananas and dead Russian space-dogs and Faction Paradox and the whole future of the universe at stake. Thank you very much.

Danny in The Doctor's Wife thread:

And we really didn't need to hear that Time Lords can be women

Well, obviously SOME people needed to hear it because SOME people were still in denial.

now we're going to have people screaming sexism every time he doesn't turn into a woman.

Of course not. The Doctor's default state is obviously male and it would take a highly unusual regeneration to turn him female.

Or he will and it will be rubbish.

Or he will and she will be utterly brilliant, the fourth-best Doctor EVER!

The doc regenerating into a woman is best left in Moffat's parodies.

Well, hopefully one day we'll be in a position to see...

I know it's not been stated explicitly but there's never been the slightest hint Time Lords could change sex.

What, other than Tennant saying 'I can be anything'? Eccy saying 'I could have two heads'? Eldrad thinking a Time Lord should take a sex-change in his stride?

What species would want that?

A species that lives for thousands and thousands of years and has thirteen different really boring lives in desperate need of a bit of a shake-up?

Tim in The Doctor's Wife thread: The Moff just HAD to do it, he couldn't leave well enough alone. He had to throw a bone to those that yammer about a female Doctor.

Ah yes, that would be me. *Gnaws happily on bone* THANK you, Moffat!

Kate in New Series: Season Six: A Good Man Goes to War:

"Doctor" has only recently and informally come to mean physician or healer, and the Doctor's been fairly clear from the start that he's not a medical man. The earliest formal doctors were doctors of divinity; is this episode arguing that we get our word for priests from him?

a) Don't you DARE spoil it! I LOVE the thought that we get the word 'Doctor' from HIM! Even though the Master did claim in Sound of Drums that the Doc originally chose it because it ALREADY meant 'person who makes things better'...still, timey-wimey, I suppose...

b) The hell he's made ANYTHING clear! Tom may have claimed not to be (generally to get out of sawing people's arms off) but Troughton said he went through medical training with, um, Pasteur or someone?

c) OF COURSE priests have learnt NOTHING from our Doctor, certainly not his name! People were obviously only taking 'Doctor' in its 'Sainted Physician' sense (see End of Time).

It was Joseph Lister, Emily. Not to be confused with Dave Lister of course.

Thanks! Though what he was doing taking lessons from such a primitive when there are planets to be saved is another question, of course...and how, in all conscience, he could have restrained himself from dropping a few helpful hints *shakes head in disbelief*...I suppose it might have been Hartnell who got the medical training, it would make a bit more sense...

Let's give the Doctor a Welsh accent!

Or make him a Brummie, or Yorkie, or Geordie!

Of course, if you count Rowan Atkinson then there *has* been a Geordie Doctor,
not that you'd know it to hear him speak. Perhaps that's just as
well:

'How man Davros yer big puff. If ye look at wor lass lyke that agen
a'am gonna fix it so yer need a bigger Dalek-case.'

I still feel cheated that Tennant wasn't allowed to use his Scottish accent. Nothing wrong with the cockney one of course, but my GOD in real life he sounds...well, I don't want to use the word 'sexy'...oh, what the hell...he sounds sexy.

To continue the female-Doctor argument in a slightly more appropriate place than Let's Kill Hitler:

"I think a female doctor might work, you never know. The audience might not like that. I know there's a lot of young girls and women who would love that. I think that maybe they should go out on a limb next time and try it. That always stirs things up a little bit and makes things exciting and it's nice to see different things and challenges happen like that. Listen, if Captain Jack can be an omni-sexual time agent and an assistant to the doctor, why can't we have a female doctor?"

I ADORE John Barrowman.

But haven't we already seen a female Doctor in the form of Romana, Doctor-Donna, and River Song?

Strong-willed, quirky, wise-cracking female Time Lady (or similar) fighting evil...been there done that.

Steve: No. We haven't had a female Doctor.

We have had, as you pointed out, Romana, DoctorDonna (very, very briefly), and River.

None of whom are the Doctor and only one of whom is a Time Lord.

So it's settled: the Doctor HAS got a degree in medicine.

And another degree in cheese-making.

OK, it's not really settled at all, is it...

And he combined the two in his youth to create a race of cheese monsters that he will have to fight in a future episode! ;-)

>A race of cheese monsters>

I can hardly wait for that episode.

Bah! None of those villians could match Kitchen Utensil Man!

Moderator's Note: moved from New Series: Season Six: The God Complex:

Boy, those people who kept insisting that the Morbius faces were previous Doctors must be feeling REALLY silly.

Eleven lives with his beloved Tardis is pretty significant, even if he had other regenerations before hand. It's as if you counted your age from that shining moment when you first saw 'Doctor Who', and tried to forget there was ever a time beforehand, when you watched lesser programmes.

Eleven lives with his beloved Tardis is pretty significant, even if he had other regenerations before hand.

NONSENSE! For his first three lives at least he regarded poor old Sexy as some sort of substandard MACHINERY.

It's as if you counted your age from that shining moment when you first saw 'Doctor Who', and tried to forget there was ever a time beforehand, when you watched lesser programmes.

I most certainly did NOT watch lesser programmes! (Well, I MIGHT have done, but as Hand of Fear is actually my earliest memory, I wouldn't know.) And though OF COURSE I emotionally date my life from that glorious-if-terrifying moment, I don't actually go round subtracting three years from my age whenever I have to give it.

For his first three lives at least he regarded poor old Sexy as some sort of substandard MACHINERY.

Not relevant. It's Eleven who's counting the regenerations since he met her, not Three - though I don't recall ever hearing Pertwee say what number he was. Eleven's memories of his Hartnell days probably don't much resemble what we saw on TV, and not just because they'll be in colour. He'll tell himself he loved his Tardis from the very first moment, and he always liked having humans around.

though OF COURSE I emotionally date my life from that glorious-if-terrifying moment, I don't actually go round subtracting three years from my age whenever I have to give it.

And you call yourself a fan! I can just about understand using your biological age when dealing with officialdom, but the rest of the time you shouldn't count those empty years when you weren't watching the Doctor. If anyone asks why you've suddenly got three years younger, it'll be an excellent opportunity to explain exactly what they're missing. With modern laptops, you can show them an episode on DVD even if you're in the middle of the pub.

though I don't recall ever hearing Pertwee say what number he was.

That's a point. Was the Five Doctors' 'Regeneration?' 'Fourth' 'Goodness me, so there are five of me now' the first official statement that (HELLO!) the numbers start with, er, the First Doctor?

Eleven's memories of his Hartnell days probably don't much resemble what we saw on TV, and not just because they'll be in colour.

Don't be ridiculous. OF COURSE his Hartnell memories will be in black-and-white!

He'll tell himself he loved his Tardis from the very first moment, and he always liked having humans around.

Hmm. That's...quite possible. Why do modern Doctors never reminisce about the Good Old Days enough for us to KNOW?

And you call yourself a fan! I can just about understand using your biological age when dealing with officialdom, but the rest of the time you shouldn't count those empty years when you weren't watching the Doctor.

But the years weren't EMPTY. I was learning to think and talk and all that stuff that made me appreciate Who when I FINALLY discovered WHY I'd bothered to come into this world.

If anyone asks why you've suddenly got three years younger, it'll be an excellent opportunity to explain exactly what they're missing. With modern laptops, you can show them an episode on DVD even if you're in the middle of the pub.

Believe ME, no one who has had two minutes' contact with me is left in ignorance of the fact that Doctor Who not only exists, it's the sole reason for my, and indeed THEIR, miserable existence. I don't need to lie about my age in order to convert the Not We. (Actually when I say 'convert', my rapturous paeans usually result in them backing hastily away, but I'm sure I've, um, improved brand recognition. Or something.)

Has it occurred to you that maybe it was your mythical pre-Hartnell Doctors who had loads of sex and sprogs and ran across the Master's dad's estate - obviously none of these experiences can compare with a first sight of that TARDIS (even though, come to think of it, it wouldn't even be in its police box shape, making this love-at-first-sight considerably less legendary) but all the same they MIGHT count for SOMETHING - enough not to wipe those centuries and lives and experiences COMPLETELY off the record...

Of course, I can hardly deny that the Doctor has been known to knock a few centuries off his age. Every now and then. But if he was gonna deny entire LIVES surely half-human, Gallifrey-destroying McGann would be first on the list...?

I believe that there can only be one pre-Hartnell Doctor. Timelords only have 12 possible regenerations. Matt Smith's Doctor being the 11th one we are sure of, he has already used at least 10 of those regenerations. When River shoots him on the shore of lake Silencio, he starts to regenerate, meaning he still had at least one available to him, for a known total of 11. Nowhere is it shown or said that the Doctor acquired more regenerations in the past, quite the contrary in fact. That leaves only one potential regeneration that we are not sure about, meaning that there could only have been one version of the Doctor before Hartnell.

We might, just might extend that to two versions, if we surmise that River using up her own regenerations to save the Doctor's life somehow transfered those regenerations to the Doctor. That would allow the regeneration that lead to Matt Smith's Doctor to be the 12th original one, and the aborted one at lake Silencio to be the first of his new ones (yes I know, it wasn't really the Doctor being shot, but he had to make it look real since the Silence would undoubtedly have known how many regeneration cycles he had gone through), leaving two possible pre-Hartnell versions of the Doctor. However, since the Doctor never expressed any worry about having run out of regenerations in his Matt Smith incarnation, I will stand by my first conclusion.

And speaking of which, just how long can a Timelord live between those regenerations anyway?

Don't forget Tennant's regeneration-that-wasn't. If you count the Lake Silencio regeneration, then Matt could well be the last Doctor.

Didn't Hartnell say he was 400 yrs old? I always assumed each iteration wasn't as robust as its predecessors, but that may be just because they don't last long on-screen.

Emily - That's a point. Was the Five Doctors' 'Regeneration?' 'Fourth' 'Goodness me, so there are five of me now' the first official statement that (HELLO!) the numbers start with, er, the First Doctor?
Didn't the Time Lords count them in The Three Doctors? Also I think there's a scene where Jo (or somebody) wondered why Pertwee & Hartnell were being subservient to Hartnell & one of them explains that he was the original or something.

obviously none of these experiences can compare with a first sight of that TARDIS (even though, come to think of it, it wouldn't even be in its police box shape
The second episode of Unearthly Child has Susan explaining the earlier shapes it took.

so there are five of me now' the first official statement that (HELLO!) the numbers start with, er, the First Doctor?

Certainly one of the earliest, though that and any others could just mean he considers his pre-Hartnell selves a different person - not unheard of, when people radically reinvent themselves.

but all the same they MIGHT count for SOMETHING - enough not to wipe those centuries and lives and experiences COMPLETELY off the record...

For the Doctor, a thousand years without the Tardis aren't worth one year with her, just as with us and 'Doctor Who'.

Matt Smith's Doctor being the 11th one we are sure of,

Actually, neither One to Two, nor Two to Three were called regenerations. One was a rejuvenation, the other was advanced plastic surgery (the personality changes could be due to the Time Lords tampering with his memories.) When talking about them later, the Doctor may well have simplified.

I don't think that's likely, and I'd be surprised if any pre-Hartnell Doctors turned up, but there's enough wriggle room in the canon to insert any number of extra Doctors before Hartnell.

The 12 regenerations limit isn't concrete either. The Time Lords were willing to give the Master an extra cycle of regenerations, so it's entirely plausible that they did give the Doctor just that. He certainly deserves it.

The only real constraint is what will make a good story. Announcing out of nowhere that he got extra regenerations during the Time War would be pretty bad writing, but crossing paths with his pre-Tardis selves could be interesting, showing out much he's changed. Just imagine it: Theta Sigma I, Theta Sigma II, Koschei, River Song, and Amy drinking Henry VIII under the table, while Eleven awkwardly explains to Rory he used to be two of those people.

I believe that there can only be one pre-Hartnell Doctor.

Thus rendering all those Morbius faces NOT the Doctor's...and therefore destroying ALL the 'evidence' that there were ANY pre-Hartnell Docs.

the Silence would undoubtedly have known how many regeneration cycles he had gone through

Wouldn't bet on it. The Silence can't possibly be more devoted to obsessing over every detail of the Doctor's lives than we are, but here WE are arguing about how many lives he's had, not to mention being rather unsure how many he's got left after Matt CLAIMED he could regenerate 507 times...

Plus the Doctor obviously doesn't think they're know-alls, if he's hoping to pass off ALL his future lives as past ones...

just how long can a Timelord live between those regenerations anyway?

Judging by some of those geriatrics we saw in Deadly Assassin...a REALLY LONG TIME.

Even the First Doc managed to chalk up nearly 450 years, and he had a WAY more strenuous lifestyle than most of 'em.

Don't forget Tennant's regeneration-that-wasn't. If you count the Lake Silencio regeneration, then Matt could well be the last Doctor.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Didn't Hartnell say he was 400 yrs old?

No, I don't think age was ever mentioned until Troughton in Tomb.

Didn't the Time Lords count them in The Three Doctors?

Quite possibly, but then I never watch Three Docs if I can help it. Plus I'm not sure I'd trust a Time Lord to count up to three, even using his fingers.

Also I think there's a scene where Jo (or somebody) wondered why Pertwee & Hartnell were being subservient to Hartnell & one of them explains that he was the original or something.

And yet people STILL pretend to believe in Morbius faces...

could just mean he considers his pre-Hartnell selves a different person - not unheard of, when people radically reinvent themselves.

Well he's radically bloody reinvented himself plenty of times before (Five-to-Six is springing to mind) but he's never pretended they didn't happen (though in the case of Colin I certainly do).

For the Doctor, a thousand years without the Tardis aren't worth one year with her, just as with us and 'Doctor Who'.

You need to rewatch that scene where the Daleks are burning the TARDIS alive and the Doc's not giving a ••••.

Actually, neither One to Two, nor Two to Three were called regenerations.

None the less, THEY WERE REGENERATIONS.

Just as the Doctor WAS A TIME LORD long before he mentioned the actual NAME.

The 12 regenerations limit isn't concrete either. The Time Lords were willing to give the Master an extra cycle of regenerations, so it's entirely plausible that they did give the Doctor just that. He certainly deserves it.

He certainly does, and they'd've been imbeciles to send him off to fight on the front line of the Time War without a shiny new set of regenerations. (Of course...they WERE imbeciles.) But I don't see them previously thinking the Doctor's services saving their miserable planet were worth more than a grudging 'Nine out of Ten'.

>Just imagine it: Theta Sigma I, Theta Sigma II,
>Koschei, River Song, and Amy drinking Henry VIII
>under the table, while Eleven awkwardly
>explains to Rory he used to be two of those people.

I'd pay good money to see that one.

=8)

>The 12 regenerations limit isn't concrete
>either. The Time Lords were willing to give the
>Master an extra cycle of regenerations, so it's
>entirely plausible that they did give the
>Doctor just that. He certainly deserves it.

Or maybe it's all a moot point because Moffat decided to do away with that very inconvenient 12 regenerations limit.

>Just imagine it: Theta Sigma I, Theta Sigma II,
>Koschei, River Song, and Amy drinking Henry VIII
>under the table, while Eleven awkwardly
>explains to Rory he used to be two of those people.

I'd pay good money to see that one.

Whereas I'd pay good money NOT to see it.

People calling the Doctor Theta Sigma (aka 'Feet') always get on my nerves.

And presumably would get EVEN MORE on River's nerves, as SHE'S supposed to be the only person in the universe to know his real name...

Come to think of it, Ten was the first Doctor to encounter Ms Hell in High Heels, and the LAST thing River's history needs is more retconning.

Or maybe it's all a moot point because Moffat decided to do away with that very inconvenient 12 regenerations limit.

He'd bloody well BETTER have decided to do so...but the only on-screen indication we've had was from RTG, in the SJA.

You need to rewatch that scene where the Daleks are burning the TARDIS alive

As River says, the Doctor lies. He may have said the Tardis was in real danger, but he also said the crashing Titanic would destroy the world. If we judge by the Doctor's actions, not his slippery claims, he knew the Tardis would only suffer minor scratches.

Come to think of it, Ten was the first Doctor to encounter Ms Hell in High Heels, and the LAST thing River's history needs is more retconning.

But it could be done. Ten is the first one who remembers her, but memories can be wiped. She could also have been in heavy disguise - she's obsessed enough with him to start wearing rubber masks, like the Master's disguises, and stalking his early regenerations. For that matter, she's not the first Mel the Doctor has known.

He may have said the Tardis was in real danger, but he also said the crashing Titanic would destroy the world.

To be fair, a nuclear-powered giant spaceship like that crashing into the Earth SHOULD have had more effect than just wiping out London.

If we judge by the Doctor's actions, not his slippery claims, he knew the Tardis would only suffer minor scratches.

But he OBVIOUSLY thought the TARDIS WAS just a wooden box to the Daleks, or he'd never have encouraged Rose, Jack, and Donna to leave its 'safety' and hurl themselves on Davros's non-existent mercy. He GENUINELY thought that the Daleks could destroy it in their furnace (never mind it signally failed to so much as singe Captain Jack's coat) and he was blissfully unaware that his amputated Hand was about to flourish a Get Out Of Jail Free card. Because even the DOCTOR couldn't see THAT one coming.

Ten is the first one who remembers her, but memories can be wiped. She could also have been in heavy disguise - she's obsessed enough with him to start wearing rubber masks, like the Master's disguises, and stalking his early regenerations.

But this is the woman who thinks it'll KILL her to meet a Doctor who doesn't recognise her. (And, as it happens...she's right.) And who, if she manages not to lie for once in her life, isn't lying when she gazes into Tennant's eyes and says she has never seen him so young. Plus if she heaps scorn on TENNANT for not being a proper Doctor, how the hell would she cope with Hartnell or Colin...?

For that matter, she's not the first Mel the Doctor has known.

Oh. My. GOD.

That's...just...SICK.

I mean, it never even crossed my MIND.

A 'bush' is TOTALLY different from ANY body of water, can we get that QUITE CLEAR???

To be fair, a nuclear-powered giant spaceship like that crashing into the Earth SHOULD have had more effect than just wiping out London.

But planets are big places. To completely destroy the earth, leaving not even rubble behind, would take the sun's entire energy output for a week, a colossal amount of energy the Titanic didn't seem anywhere near close to.

But he OBVIOUSLY thought the TARDIS WAS just a wooden box to the Daleks, or he'd never have encouraged Rose, Jack, and Donna to leave its 'safety' a ... blissfully unaware that his amputated Hand was about to flourish a Get Out Of Jail Free card. Because even the DOCTOR couldn't see THAT one coming.

The Tardis could though, and she'd want to make sure it turned out well. Jack fused with the Doctor's hand could get messy,given his immortality, and Rose doesn't have Donna's strong personality. Clearly, the Tardis nudged her thief into getting the unusuitable pets out of the way.

But this is the woman who thinks it'll KILL her to meet a Doctor who doesn't recognise her.

People in love are well known for doing crazy things, sometimes even suicidal, just to get a glimpse of their beloved.

A 'bush' is TOTALLY different from ANY body of water, can we get that QUITE CLEAR???

What surname did Mels give herself? Lake? Stream? Fjord? None of them really sound plausible for late twentieth century England.

Remember, River only calls herself that because the Doctor told her she would. Until then, she may have kept calling herself Mel, or similar, and picked any old family name.

Besides the names, Mel does also have the same non-linear relationship with the Doctor. Like River, she's met him out of order, the only other companion to have done so. Coincidence? Well, probably, but just imagine the Doctor's face if it turned out River was once Mel.

how the hell would she cope with Hartnell or Colin...?

Naturally, she's try to teach them how to be like Eleven, without letting on she knew them. In other words, we're looking for smart proactive women who egg the Doctor on, and have a yearning look in their eyes. They wouldn't necessarily be companions though, and they might not all look female, or even human.

Considering how many people the Doctor has met, there are probably dozens of plausible candidates.

>To be fair, a nuclear-powered giant spaceship like that crashing into the Earth
>SHOULD have had more effect than just wiping out London.

Maybe it would have, but the bridge was supposed to be deserted and Alonzo was at the helm. Maybe he made enough of a difference, even without the Doctor present, to limit the damage to "only" England.

But planets are big places. To completely destroy the earth, leaving not even rubble behind, would take the sun's entire energy output for a week, a colossal amount of energy the Titanic didn't seem anywhere near close to.

Interesting. Though in the Titanic's case all the Doctor thought it would do was wipe out all six [sic] billion people on the planet below. He no doubt thought that the initial crash would be followed by a years-long winter as the ash from the explosion hung around in the atmosphere (or something) so we'd all die like the dinosaurs after Adric's freighter crashed into them.

Rose doesn't have Donna's strong personality.

She had a strong enough personality to convince everyone that smashing two universes to bits so that she could get back to her ex-boyfriend was a really great idea.

Clearly, the Tardis nudged her thief into getting the unusuitable pets out of the way.

But it was Donna hearing the heartbeat that held her back. And that wasn't the TARDIS, it was, um, the metacrisis itself rippling back in time. (Or something.)

People in love are well known for doing crazy things, sometimes even suicidal, just to get a glimpse of their beloved.

River, on the other hand, is quite happy to rot in jail for decades for a crime she didn't commit instead of travelling through space and time with said beloved.

A 'bush' is TOTALLY different from ANY body of water, can we get that QUITE CLEAR???

What surname did Mels give herself? Lake? Stream? Fjord? None of them really sound plausible for late twentieth century England.

Drop? Puddle? Lac?

Remember, River only calls herself that because the Doctor told her she would. Until then, she may have kept calling herself Mel, or similar, and picked any old family name.

Though she DID have a very strong attachment to her parents. For a psycho. Hanging around all that time so that they could 'raise' her. It's not as if she even did it so she'd be there when the Doctor materialised, cos she managed to miss him every time.

Besides the names, Mel does also have the same non-linear relationship with the Doctor. Like River, she's met him out of order, the only other companion to have done so. Coincidence? Well, probably, but just imagine the Doctor's face if it turned out River was once Mel.

Never mind the DOCTOR'S face, what about MINE???

how the hell would she cope with Hartnell or Colin...?

Naturally, she's try to teach them how to be like Eleven, without letting on she knew them.

River's just not that subtle. She took about two minutes flat to inform TENNANTDOC in no uncertain terms that he was No True Doctor, not good enough for HER...can you IMAGINE what she'd've done to COLIN?

In other words, we're looking for smart proactive women who egg the Doctor on, and have a yearning look in their eyes. They wouldn't necessarily be companions though, and they might not all look female, or even human.

But they WOULD all say 'Hello Sweetie', which would narrow the field a bit.

the bridge was supposed to be deserted and Alonzo was at the helm. Maybe he made enough of a difference, even without the Doctor present, to limit the damage to "only" England.

Maybe...but would Alonso even have known to lock the doors to save himself from the Host if the Doctor hadn't told him to?

The Edge Of Charing Cross Road

"Great. Now I'm stuck here on the pavement and have lost all my
companions to the addictive world of books. It shouldn't be too
hard to persuade Nyssa out of the science book store, especially
if I buy her that new book on telebiogenesis, and I might survive
with only a few bruises in getting Tegan out of the women's book
store before she's browsed through the feminist section, but
dragging *Adric* away from the lesbian fiction shelf is the
task I'm worried about..."

The Brain Of Adric

Nyssa: "Doctor, really, you should clean the kitchen more often.
Now look at that little raisin on the floor, I better put it in
the bin..."

Adric: "NNNNOOOOOO!!!" *slumps dead*

The Power Of Broccoli

Wasn't this done already as a serious story? ;)

Vengeance On Bad Ratings

The whole world is doomed to die of brain hemorrhage as the BBC
promptly decide to hire Pip and Jane to script all their soaps.

The Nightclubs On Androzani

Sharaz Jek (in a camp voice and grooving to gritty industrial):
"Oh, Doctor, *pleaaaase*. The cricket thing is so passé. You of all
people should know that black leather *never* goes out of fashion."

Black Orchid: Warrior Princess

The crowd gasped at the costume Ann had given Nyssa. She wielded
her new sword with surprising strength, with a wicked glint in her
eyes. Adric swallowed loudly.

The Finity Doctors

This reminds me of the Terry Gilliam animation where all the
figures from famous paintings step out and leave... "I'm off!"

The Greatest Show In The Pub

The 4th Doctor's hair started to curl all by itself and his eyes
flew wide as the first chords of a heavy disco beat filled the pub.
He turned away from the bar to face the stage.

It was worse than anything he'd ever encountered in his life.

Yes, even worse than the Prydonian Academy's Amateur Poetry Festival.

It was Karaoke night.

He turned quickly back to his double Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster,
shuddering with fear and wanting to die, when Ben and Harry
strutted proudly on stage and started bellowing "IN THE NA-VYYY..."

Invasion Of The Pimples

Tegan: "Doctor! The mirror is covered in this yellowish-green muck
again! You *promised* to get that Zolfa-Thuran radioactive lotion
for Adric's spots a *month* ago!"

The Enemy Of The Coffee Machine

Brigadier: "YATES! BENTON! Why are you nodding off at your desks?
We can't have this sort of laziness on a military base! BELL!
Asleep at the typewriter again? Don't lie to me, I can see the ink
stains on your forehead!"

Doctor: "Now Brigadier, what on earth is all this shouting about?"

Brigadier (waving his swagger stick): "Just look at them!
Completely lazy and drowsy! What has gone into them?"

The Doctor nudged the snoring figure of Jo away from the coffee
machine. "My dear Brigadier, I think the question is of what
*hasn't* gone into them."

Brigadier: "What do you mean?"

Doctor: "I suspect the Master's behind all of this again." *sniffs
the air* "No... it CAN'T be! Not even *he* could be that cruel!"

As the Doctor started ripping the coffee machine into pieces, the
Brigadier sighed again. It had been a long day... "Doctor, would
you kindly explain what this is all about?"

"Yes. As it happens, The Master, in his endless cruelty, has
fiendishly changed all of the coffee in this machine into... DECAF."

that wasn't the TARDIS, it was, um, the metacrisis itself rippling back in time.

Inside the Tardis? That wouldn't happen without her approval.

River, on the other hand, is quite happy to rot in jail for decades

The Doctor visits her every night, and she pops out in the day to see other versions of him - not exactly rotting.

But they WOULD all say 'Hello Sweetie', which would narrow the field a bit.

In what language, 50th century English? Tardis translation means what she says isn't necessarily what we hear. I can well imagine the Tardis deliberating making the Doctor hear 'Hello Sweetie' as 'Humble Greetings, Doctor', so Hartnell doesn't get shocked by the familiarity.

Never mind the DOCTOR'S face, what about MINE???

A beam of joy, surely? It'd mean watching all Mel's episodes again and again, in an attempt to find evidence River was lieing, a project which would nicely full up the empty months when 'Doctor Who' isn't on TV

that wasn't the TARDIS, it was, um, the metacrisis itself rippling back in time.

Inside the Tardis? That wouldn't happen without her approval.

But LOADS of things happen inside the TARDIS without her approval! Turlough messing around with her innards! The Doctor hitting her with a hammer! A chronic hysteresis! The Doctor taking in STRAYS!

River, on the other hand, is quite happy to rot in jail for decades

The Doctor visits her every night

I doubt it's EVERY night. He's not a sex-every-night-or-even-every-century kinda guy.

Plus, wouldn't it be suspicious that he never asked River what she was in jail FOR? Or that she was having constant sex with a man who pissed her off so much she'd KILLED him?

and she pops out in the day to see other versions of him

But not THAT often - her jailers always act as if her every escape is a big deal.

I can well imagine the Tardis deliberating making the Doctor hear 'Hello Sweetie' as 'Humble Greetings, Doctor', so Hartnell doesn't get shocked by the familiarity.

Hmm, that's possible. Though River would soon get round it, probably by making Hartnell a nice cup of cocoa and then claiming they're engaged...

Never mind the DOCTOR'S face, what about MINE???

A beam of joy, surely? It'd mean watching all Mel's episodes again and again, in an attempt to find evidence River was lieing, a project which would nicely full up the empty months when 'Doctor Who' isn't on TV

My GOD I've finally encountered something EVEN MORE EVIL than the Master dancing around to Scissor Sisters while the Doctor eats from a dog-bowl...

But LOADS of things happen inside the TARDIS without her approval!

I meant time related stuff. She's a time machine; she should have a say in any temporal weirdness insdie herself. She might let the occasional chronic hysteris through, to keep her thief from getting bored, and she can

I doubt it's EVERY night. He's not a sex-every-night-or-even-every-century kinda guy.

Every night for her needn't be every night for him.

Though River would soon get round it, probably by making Hartnell a nice cup of cocoa and then claiming they're engaged...

Exactly. Since Hartnell is the youngest and most naive of the Doctors, he's the obvious target. Six would also be pretty easy for her. He's egocentric enough to accept her praise at face value - and River would certainly want to do soemthing about his weight - but Four or Seven would be much harder to fool.

My GOD I've finally encountered something EVEN MORE EVIL than the Master dancing around to Scissor Sisters while the Doctor eats from a dog-bowl...

Which was hardly evil at all - remember, the Doctor volunteered for that fate. He may even have thought he deserved it, what with all the Time War guilt. Similarly, while Colin's episodes weren't the best, they're still better than all the non-Doctor Who junk they put on the rest of the year round. Which would you rather watch, Trial of a Time Lord, or the Olympic football tournament?

Anybody seen this yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyRVW8IXscg

Now, I find the concept of Julian Richings as the 12th Doctor intriguing. He would certainly be a departure from the current trend in actors playing the Doctor, older, darker, a logical tranformation for a character harboring such an obvious death wish. Amy and especially River might have some reservations about it though.

Apparently, we can't put more than one link in any given post, so I had to split them up. In this second video, some of the suggested actors made me laugh, some made me go "Nooooooooo!", and some made me say:"Mmmmm, that one has potential". My personal favorite among them? Robert Carlyle, but that's just me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=uYBNo1U2GRo

The notion of the next incarnation of the Doctor being a woman seems to be back on the table, at least among some of the fandom. I have no personal objection to it, and I even imagined a reason why it could happen. It would be caused by those regenerations that River used up when she saved the Doctor's life in Let's kill Hitler. It's marginally possible that they were transfered to the Doctor, and since River is a woman, they may cause the 12th doctor to be female. Well, weirdest things have happened in that show.

=8)

But, of course, lets not get ahead of ourselves. Matt Smith is still going strong and I wouldn't mind seeing him carry the torch for a few more seasons.

She's a time machine; she should have a say in any temporal weirdness insdie herself. She might let the occasional chronic hysteris through, to keep her thief from getting bored

To STOP him getting bored?! That chronic hysteresis was BLOODY BORING! Don't tell me it was a deliberate move by Sexy!

Every night for her needn't be every night for him.

Hmm, that'd be a risk. Alright, so IF the '200 years' thing is true, Matt isn't QUITE the lightweight, keel-over-as-soon-as-you-look-at-'em that recent Doctors have been, but if he nipped off for a few adventures between conjugal visits he would stand a good chance of regenerating. Which would make anyone who's watching this little charade even MORE suspicious.

Exactly. Since Hartnell is the youngest and most naive of the Doctors, he's the obvious target.

Didn't River say she has pictures of all the Doctors? One look at her snap of Hartnell and he won't be quite such an obvious target.

Six would also be pretty easy for her. He's egocentric enough to accept her praise at face value - and River would certainly want to do soemthing about his weight

STOP IT! I can spot you pushing your evil Mel-is-River agenda, what with her carrot juice and exercise bike...

My GOD I've finally encountered something EVEN MORE EVIL than the Master dancing around to Scissor Sisters while the Doctor eats from a dog-bowl...

Which was hardly evil at all - remember, the Doctor volunteered for that fate.

He most certainly did NOT!

And it might not have been quite so evil if it had been a cat bowl, but a DAWG...

He may even have thought he deserved it, what with all the Time War guilt.

The Doctor preferred flaying HIMSELF with Time War Guilt, he didn't want anyone else to do it.

Which would you rather watch, Trial of a Time Lord, or the Olympic football tournament?

To be absolutely honest, I'm really not sure. It's the very fact Trial has 'Doctor Who' in the title that makes watching such rubbish a thousand times more painful than watching equal rubbish of the non-Who variety. How LONG is an Olympic football tournament?

Now, I find the concept of Julian Richings as the 12th Doctor intriguing

He looks like a walking cadaver!

Mind you, he DOES have the ears for it...

Apparently, we can't put more than one link in any given post

Yeah, sorry about that.

so I had to split them up. In this second video, some of the suggested actors made me laugh, some made me go "Nooooooooo!", and some made me say:"Mmmmm, that one has potential".

Well, I actually RECOGNISED some of 'em, which was surprising. I think the two obvious contenders were omitted, though: Benedict Cumberbatch and Joanna Lumley.

The notion of the next incarnation of the Doctor being a woman seems to be back on the table, at least among some of the fandom.

Though of course the creator of that video felt the need to put 'A Woman?' as if a Who fan might not be expected to recognise a female of the species when her picture appeared.

I have no personal objection to it

Ah, the (rare) voice of sanity...

It would be caused by those regenerations that River used up when she saved the Doctor's life in Let's kill Hitler. It's marginally possible that they were transfered to the Doctor, and since River is a woman, they may cause the 12th doctor to be female.

It's a lot more than marginally possible - given that they've gotta come up with an excuse for more regenerations pretty fast, and here's a ready-made excuse.

Matt Smith is still going strong and I wouldn't mind seeing him carry the torch for a few more seasons.

Yeah, just because the last few Doctors were TOTAL WIMPS and Matt is talking about Hollywood is no reason to suppose that he'll betray n'abandon us in record time TOO...

That chronic hysteresis was BLOODY BORING! Don't tell me it was a deliberate move by Sexy!

She's fundamentally alien. As demonstrated in Edge of Destruction, she doesn't quite understand how humans, or Time Lords, think.

Which would make anyone who's watching this little charade even MORE suspicious.

That doesn't matter if the guards are on the Doctor's side. A bit of twinkly charm, a splash of the old 'air of authority', and the prison staff will turn a blind eye to everything the Doctor does.

One look at her snap of Hartnell and he won't be quite such an obvious target.

Remember when she lived, Captain Jack's home era near enough, a time when people are apparently a lot less fussy about their partners. A few wrinkles aren't going to put off people who will happily eye up poodles.

what with her carrot juice and exercise bike...

Which, of course, is exactly the kind of thing many wives do, to whip their husbands into shape.

"remember, the Doctor volunteered for that fate." - He most certainly did NOT!

Not explicitly, but he could have escaped if he wanted to. Instead, he deliberately let Martha go free, knowing it would mean be subject to the Master's mad whims. He may not have expected to be shrunk, or forced to feed from a dog bowl, but he must have known it would be a year of gross humiliations.

How LONG is an Olympic football tournament?

Two weeks, I believe. It'll be on next summer, when we ought to be watching new 'Doctor Who'. Admittedly, we ought to be doing that 52 weeks a year, but it still shows the BBC have the wrong priorities.

they've gotta come up with an excuse for more regenerations pretty fast, and here's a ready-made excuse.

That would be bad writing, unless they keep mentioning it between now and the thirteenth regeneration. Imagine the scene, the Doctor lies dying at the end of his thirteenth and final life, his deathbed surrounded by all the companions, gathered from across time, and he suddenly turn into a woman, saying: "Forgot about those extra regenerations I picked up from young River. Sorry about all the fuss."

Viewers across the country would be throwing their cushions at the TV and shouting 'Cheat!" and quite rightly. Using something from a ten year old episode to save the day is too arbitrary.

Most likely, the Doctor will get his extra regenerations at the last moment. E,g, the Master finds a derelict Time War Tardis, with a properly equipped medical bay, and tries to give himself infinite regnerations. The Doctor intervenes, and ends up getting the extra regenerations instead - fortunate, since he dies in the process.

Yeah, just because the last few Doctors were TOTAL WIMPS

Three or four years is the right length of reign for a Doctor. After that, it needs a fresh approach to avoid getting into a rut.

She's fundamentally alien. As demonstrated in Edge of Destruction, she doesn't quite understand how humans, or Time Lords, think.

True, but one thing that comes across VERY CLEARLY throughout Who is that she always takes him where he needs to go. Allowing the Doc to be trapped for all eternity inside her, tripping over a hatstand, is the sort of thing I might be prepared to do were I the TARDIS (to hell with the universe! I want my Doccy SAFE!) but Sexy is WAY more selfless.

That doesn't matter if the guards are on the Doctor's side. A bit of twinkly charm, a splash of the old 'air of authority', and the prison staff will turn a blind eye to everything the Doctor does.

But the guards aren't the only ones they need to worry about. If the Silence doesn't have agents watching, the whole River-in-prison thing would be pointless in the first place.

Remember when she lived, Captain Jack's home era near enough, a time when people are apparently a lot less fussy about their partners. A few wrinkles aren't going to put off people who will happily eye up poodles.

THAT is a BLOODY GOOD POINT.

what with her carrot juice and exercise bike...

Which, of course, is exactly the kind of thing many wives do, to whip their husbands into shape.

Handcuffing Colin to the bed for a few weeks without food seems more River's style. IF she ever had ANYTHING to do with Colin, which OF COURSE she wouldn't.

he could have escaped if he wanted to. Instead, he deliberately let Martha go free, knowing it would mean be subject to the Master's mad whims.

I suspect the Master was keeping a VERY sharp eye on him at the time. Plus he'd probably designed the means of tracking down the Doctor wherever he was on Earth.

He may not have expected to be shrunk, or forced to feed from a dog bowl, but he must have known it would be a year of gross humiliations.

Oh, I don't know...previous Masters weren't big on the 'gross humiliation' side of things. They seemed to think that the epitome of shame was being put on trial by the Time Lords. How was the Doc to know that Simm was so much more...imaginative?

How LONG is an Olympic football tournament?

Two weeks, I believe.

OK, I'll take Trial.

That would be bad writing, unless they keep mentioning it between now and the thirteenth regeneration. Imagine the scene, the Doctor lies dying at the end of his thirteenth and final life, his deathbed surrounded by all the companions, gathered from across time, and he suddenly turn into a woman, saying: "Forgot about those extra regenerations I picked up from young River. Sorry about all the fuss."

Viewers across the country would be throwing their cushions at the TV and shouting 'Cheat!" and quite rightly. Using something from a ten year old episode to save the day is too arbitrary.

Nonsense, it sounds fantastic, copyright this idea immediately! I for one would be CHEERING. And I think you're being over-optimistic, thinking it'll be in ten years' time. Alright, so you're right about it being poor writing to reference something the majority of the audience won't remember, but frankly that's never stopped Moffat in the past.

Most likely, the Doctor will get his extra regenerations at the last moment. E,g, the Master finds a derelict Time War Tardis, with a properly equipped medical bay, and tries to give himself infinite regnerations. The Doctor intervenes, and ends up getting the extra regenerations instead - fortunate, since he dies in the process.

You're GOOD at this.

Three or four years is the right length of reign for a Doctor. After that, it needs a fresh approach to avoid getting into a rut.

The HELL it does!

Which bit of ANYWHERE IN TIME AND SPACE are you failing to comprehend...? If it needs a fresh approach every three or four years then FINE, juggle around the writers, producers, directors, Companions, etc...but there's no need to mess around with what THE DOCTOR looks like any more than with what THE TARDIS looks like.

Allowing the Doc to be trapped for all eternity inside her, tripping over a hatstand,

The Tardis knew it wouldn't be eternity; the Doctor was bound to find a way out of the trap within a few minutes, and he gets a pleasant ego boost out of the experience.

If the Silence doesn't have agents watching

If the Doctor was worried about that, he wouldn't be visiting River at all, after his fake death, but he said he would.

Handcuffing Colin to the bed for a few weeks without food seems more River's style.

As if handcuffs would hold the Doctor, Houdini's greatest student. Not even the Master could keep him chained up, if the Doctor didn't want it.

f it needs a fresh approach every three or four years then FINE, juggle around the writers, producers, directors, Companions, etc...

The problem comes when an actor lets being the Doctor go to their heads, and starts meddling with the script to reflect their vision of the Doctor, diminishing all the other characters to allow room for the actor's swollen ego. Producers and directors ought to stop this, of course, but when the actor's been there longer than they have, it gets difficult to say no - slim chance of a fresh approach now.

Some actors can keep their feet on the ground longer than others, but unlike the Doctor, they're all human. Fifty million fans hanging adoringly on their every word and gesture is bound to have an effect eventually, so it's best to play it safe and cut them off after a few years.

The Tardis knew it wouldn't be eternity; the Doctor was bound to find a way out of the trap within a few minutes, and he gets a pleasant ego boost out of the experience.

The TARDIS of all people should know that the Fourth Doctor wasn't in particular need of an ego boost.

If the Silence doesn't have agents watching

If the Doctor was worried about that, he wouldn't be visiting River at all, after his fake death, but he said he would.

Ah, but he'll apparently be visiting her while pretending to be his younger, pre-murdered, self. Hence River's lies about him getting younger in strict order of meeting her.

Anyway, even the Doctor isn't quite hard-heartsed enough to leave someone to ROT after locking 'em up for a crime they didn't commit, in a COMPLETELY VAIN effort for HIM to become a bit less noticeable.

Plus, he may actually be...in love.

As if handcuffs would hold the Doctor, Houdini's greatest student. Not even the Master could keep him chained up, if the Doctor didn't want it.

With all OTHER Doctors this might actually be true. I am unfortunately forced to draw your attention to the fact that all the other Doctors are considerably slimmer than Colin Baker.

The problem comes when an actor lets being the Doctor go to their heads, and starts meddling with the script to reflect their vision of the Doctor, diminishing all the other characters to allow room for the actor's swollen ego.

That only happened with Tom, right? I don't remember any reports of Pertwee, WHO LASTED FIVE YEARS, doing this? And if you ask me Tom's ad-libs were sheer genius. And at least he HAD a vision of the Doctor. And besides, this is unlikely to happen to any other actor, none of whom are likely to delude themselves that they'll EVER be as mind-bogglingly fantastic and popular as Tom OR Tennant.

Producers and directors ought to stop this, of course, but when the actor's been there longer than they have, it gets difficult to say no - slim chance of a fresh approach now.

Ah, but THAT was in the days before the existence of an Executive Producer And Head Writer every bit as important as the Doctor Himself.

Some actors can keep their feet on the ground longer than others, but unlike the Doctor, they're all human. Fifty million fans hanging adoringly on their every word and gesture is bound to have an effect eventually, so it's best to play it safe and cut them off after a few years.

No, it's best to play it safe by KEEPING someone who actually ENJOYS the adulation instead of running screaming in the opposite direction like a certain Ecclestraitor I could mention.

The TARDIS of all people should know that the Fourth Doctor wasn't in particular need of an ego boost.

You don't stroke cats because they need it; you stroke them to hear them purr. It's the same with the Tardis and her thief.

With all OTHER Doctors this might actually be true.

Including 10 escaping from the Valiant, of course. Being stout wouldn't be an obstacle either; he'd just use it to lull Mel Pond into complacency.

That only happened with Tom, right? I don't remember any reports of Pertwee, WHO LASTED FIVE YEARS, doing this?

I understand it was because Pertwee liked the fancy vehicles so much that we got the prolonged chase in 'Planet of the Spiders'. Give him another year, and we could have ended up with much more of that sort of thing.

I've also heard of actors on lesser shows going the same way.

And then there's Matt Smith, who apparently now thinks he can make it big in Hollywood, after just two years of adulation. Give him another three years, and he may well convince himself that he's better than Tom and Tennant put together. These things happen, when the actors enjoy the applause too much.

>He looks like a walking cadaver!

Funny you should say that, because he actually plays Death Himself in those borrowed scenes.

>It's a lot more than marginally possible - given that they've gotta come up with an
>excuse for more regenerations pretty fast, and here's a ready-made excuse.

They may have to find more regenerations even sooner than that, because as Mandy pointed out, Tennant's Doctor used one up in Journey's End. This means the Doctor only has one more of his original regenerations to go.

And then there's Matt Smith, who apparently now thinks he can make it big in Hollywood, after just two years of adulation

Matt should just look how Torchwood crashed and burned once it crossed the Atlantic and stay right where he is.

>Matt should just look how Torchwood crashed and
>burned once it crossed the Atlantic and stay
>right where he is.

Ouch!

Another ouch.

Hey, I'm just telling it like it is. Torchwood Miracle Day (or as I call it, The Big Mistake) was a ratings bomb.

Any Who writer or actor should take a good look at this before they consider crossing the Atlantic.

I'll have to agree with the thought, he should stick around for a couple more seasons.

With his looks I'd expect his career to vanish as fast as Brent Spiner's has.

The TARDIS of all people should know that the Fourth Doctor wasn't in particular need of an ego boost.

You don't stroke cats because they need it; you stroke them to hear them purr. It's the same with the Tardis and her thief.

Huh. If she was THAT keen on hearing him purr, she'd actually LAND WHERE HE TOLD HER TO once in a while...

Being stout wouldn't be an obstacle either; he'd just use it to lull Mel Pond into complacency.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MEL POND!

I understand it was because Pertwee liked the fancy vehicles so much that we got the prolonged chase in 'Planet of the Spiders'.

That is indeed a black mark against his memory, but there's a massive difference between the Doctor becoming a power-crazed megalomaniac, and the production team affectionately WANTING to indulge their Doctor's foolish ambitions, as with the *shudders* Spiders chases, OR with Matt's bow tie...

I've also heard of actors on lesser shows going the same way.

Why ON EARTH would they - ah. Compensation for not being the Doctor...?

And then there's Matt Smith, who apparently now thinks he can make it big in Hollywood, after just two years of adulation.

Now you mention it, that IS pretty damning.

Give him another three years, and he may well convince himself that he's better than Tom and Tennant put together. These things happen, when the actors enjoy the applause too much.

As long as he sticks it out as the Doctor, he's welcome to labour under any crazy delusion he wishes.

Funny you should say that, because he actually plays Death Himself in those borrowed scenes.

Oh!

Yeah, that WOULD explain it.

They may have to find more regenerations even sooner than that, because as Mandy pointed out, Tennant's Doctor used one up in Journey's End.

Not necessarily.

The Eleventh Doctor is UNDOUBTEDLY the Eleventh Doctor.

Matt should just look how Torchwood crashed and burned once it crossed the Atlantic and stay right where he is.

Hear, hear.

I'll have to agree with the thought, he should stick around for a couple more seasons.

AT LEAST.

With his looks I'd expect his career to vanish as fast as Brent Spiner's has.

I dunno what a Brent Spiner is, but yeah, what the HELL makes him think HE could succeed where TENNANT failed?

Huh. If she was THAT keen on hearing him purr, she'd actually LAND WHERE HE TOLD HER TO once in a while...
.
She does, occasionally. He got to Metebelis III in the end. However, she knows the Doctor likes the excitement she gives him, so she mostly ignores his unconvincing protests.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MEL POND!

What's wrong with shortening Melody Pond, her real name, to Mel Pond? It's only if she admits to calling herself Bush that you'll have a problem.

the production team affectionately WANTING to indulge their Doctor's foolish ambitions, as with the *shudders* Spiders chases, OR with Matt's bow tie...

Affectionate indulgence is how it starts. It's not how it ends. Give Pertwee another two years, and we could have seen a car chase every episode, with the Master driving a flying Rolls-Royce, and lots of spectacular crashes.

Why ON EARTH would they - ah. Compensation for not being the Doctor...?

many American actors have sadly never heard of Doctor Who, so they don't realise they're in a lesser show.

Now you mention it, that IS pretty damning. ... As long as he sticks it out as the Doctor, he's welcome to labour under any crazy delusion he wishes.

That's fine, as long as he sticks to acting. We've seen what happens when actors try writing; it seldom ends well. Remember Ian Marter's attempt. Even if Matt Smith, like Tom Baker, has an excellent vision of what the Doctor should be like, he can't put it into practice without rewriting half his lines, which requires a special kind of talent.

If the fame goes to Matt's head (and thinking he can triumph in Hollywood is definitely suggestive) odds are he won't stick to acting. How, precisely, his growing arrogance would manifest isn't predictable, but it's not likely to be pretty.

>many American actors have sadly never heard of
>Doctor Who, so they don't realise they're in a
>lesser show.

Ignorance is bliss.

Like Marco Polo believing Venice to be the summit of civilization and then discovering Kublai Khan's empire.

=8)

However, she knows the Doctor likes the excitement she gives him, so she mostly ignores his unconvincing protests.

No doubt he thoroughly enjoyed, say, the excitement of defeating all four Terileptils. But you know what he'd've enjoyed EVEN MORE? Getting rid of Tegan Jovanka. Without giving her the chance to shriek that a broken clock kept better time than he did...

What's wrong with shortening Melody Pond, her real name, to Mel Pond?

Don't think I can't spot you advancing your Evil 'River=Mel' Agenda! She was NEVER Mel Pond. Melody Pond, River Song, or Mels whatever-surname-she-adopted, but NOT Mel Pond.

(OK, maybe I'm just being paranoid. Perhaps in a few years I'll relax and find it amusing that YET AGAIN the Doctor has managed to acquire two Companions with identical names which sound completely different - Mel/River, Ace/Dodo, Yates/Mickey-the-idiot, Liz/Bessie, etc...)

It's only if she admits to calling herself Bush that you'll have a problem.

'A problem' wouldn't even BEGIN to describe it...

Affectionate indulgence is how it starts. It's not how it ends. Give Pertwee another two years, and we could have seen a car chase every episode, with the Master driving a flying Rolls-Royce, and lots of spectacular crashes.

I'm not convinced. I think the Doctor SHOULD get a BIT of a say. If only Colin (and I can't BELIEVE I'm using HIM as an example) had been listened to, we'd never have got That Coat (mind you, if ANY sentient being IN THE UNIVERSE had been listened to, we'd never have got That Coat) AND they'd've done a bit more work on his Trial of a Time Lord motivation.

many American actors have sadly never heard of Doctor Who

Don't be ridiculous.

Have they not heard of this thing called OXYGEN either?

We've seen what happens when actors try writing; it seldom ends well. Remember Ian Marter's attempt.

*Shudders* attempts plural. More's the pity.

Hasn't John Barrowman done some comic strip thing? Anyone actually SEEN it?

Even if Matt Smith, like Tom Baker, has an excellent vision of what the Doctor should be like, he can't put it into practice without rewriting half his lines, which requires a special kind of talent.

Hardly HALF his lines. But the odd tweak wouldn't cause universal collapse (probably).

If the fame goes to Matt's head (and thinking he can triumph in Hollywood is definitely suggestive)

The only interview I've seen is Matt saying he wanted to have a go, in a "why not?" kind of way. Didn't sound very arrogant.

Well, it sounded arrogant to ME! 'Why not' - BECAUSE THIS WILL KILL THE ELEVENTH DOCTOR, THAT'S WHY NOT, YOU MORON!

>Well, it sounded arrogant to ME! 'Why not' -
>BECAUSE THIS WILL KILL THE ELEVENTH DOCTOR,
>THAT'S WHY NOT, YOU MORON!

But that means you would get a brand new 12th Doctor to worship, very possibly one who does NOT wear a bowtie. How could that be a bad thing?

But you know what he'd've enjoyed EVEN MORE? Getting rid of Tegan Jovanka.

If the Doctor didn't like Tegan, he could have just dumped her at the next place he landed, as he later did with Mel. Face facts, Five secretly enjoyed Tegan's attitude.

Don't think I can't spot you advancing your Evil 'River=Mel' Agenda!

Evil how? It can't make your opinion of Mel any worse, and it'd mean Seven palmed River off on Glitz.

River has claimed to know all the Doctor's faces, even if Ten is the first she'll admit to seeing close up. I can't really see the Doctor sitting down and showing her the photo album, so River must have gone looking for the earlier Doctors herself.

I'm not convinced. I think the Doctor SHOULD get a BIT of a say.

That's fine, as long as it stops there. With a long-serving Doctor, it probably wouldn't.

Have they not heard of this thing called OXYGEN either?

Quite possibly not. Some of them simply don't care about anything except acting; others are brainless idiots whose only talent is looking pretty.

*Shudders* attempts plural. More's the pity.

So take that as a warning. If Matt Smith tried writing his own scripts, they might turn out just as dire. The odd tweak would be fine, but a rampant ego won't stop with odd tweaks.

>River has claimed to know all the Doctor's faces

Well of course she does, she studied every available bit of information about the man, up to and including the date of his "death"

>I can't really see the Doctor sitting down and showing her the photo album

Why not? They are married after all.

But that means you would get a brand new 12th Doctor to worship, very possibly one who does NOT wear a bowtie. How could that be a bad thing?

Oh.

Hadn't thought of that.

That WOULD be...rather nice.

Plus...TWELVE of 'em! After we spent DECADES thinking we'd be stuck with a pathetic seven or eight...

If the Doctor didn't like Tegan, he could have just dumped her at the next place he landed, as he later did with Mel.

Mel VOLUNTEERED to elope with a slave-trader (albeit because the Doctor hynotised her, according to the NAs anyway). Tegan isn't QUITE that stupid.

And the Doctor DID dump Tegan and scarper without so much as a goodbye, at the first possible opportunity. (Well, the first where she wouldn't be stranded in an utterly alien environment. Not so much for HER sake, I suspect, as out of consideration for what Tegan would DO to the Kinda planet/1920s/1660s etc.)

Face facts, Five secretly enjoyed Tegan's attitude.

It's possible. Though personally I've always taken his pained expression at face value.

Don't think I can't spot you advancing your Evil 'River=Mel' Agenda!

Evil how? It can't make your opinion of Mel any worse

My opinion of RIVER, however...

I can't really see the Doctor sitting down and showing her the photo album

Why not? They are married after all.

Yeah, and what ELSE will they have to do in that prison cell, every night?

And I just don't understand how EVERY Companion, once they grasp the 'regeneration' thing, doesn't demand PICTURES.

Not so much for HER sake, I suspect, as out of consideration for what Tegan would DO to the Kinda planet/1920s/1660s etc.)

Make them better places, naturally. That's what all the Doctor's ex-companions do, judging by what Sarah Jane said.

Though personally I've always taken his pained expression at face value.

But consider the Doctor and Master's long relationship - suggestive phone calls, making excuses not to kill each other, looking forwards to the next encounter despite the death toll of the last. Time Lords aren't humans; they see things differently, as their dress sense also demonstrates. Maybe the Doctor enjoys being harangued.

My opinion of RIVER, however...

She's had the effrontery to marry the Doctor, putting her happiness above the fate of the entire universe. How can your opinion of her get worse?

And I just don't understand how EVERY Companion, once they grasp the 'regeneration' thing, doesn't demand PICTURES.

They can demand all they like; the Doctor need not oblige them. We know how glad he is not to be the man he was, so I wouldn't expect him to be willing to talk much about his past selves, and his companions would be in those photos too. I doubt he''d enjoy explaining to Amy who all those attractive young women were; she might get the wrong idea about him.

I doubt he'd enjoy explaining to Amy who all those attractive young women were; she might get the wrong idea about him.

But he isn't in love with Amy the way he was with Rose. He probably wouldn't even realize Amy was steaming in the background as he casually skipped over all his various dolly girls.

Not so much for HER sake, I suspect, as out of consideration for what Tegan would DO to the Kinda planet/1920s/1660s etc.)

Make them better places, naturally. That's what all the Doctor's ex-companions do, judging by what Sarah Jane said.

Yeah, but even Sarah didn't mention TEGAN on her list of do-gooders...

(Actually now the fannish joy has died down I'm a bit annoyed about that list...did RTG have the RIGHT to retcon all those useless old Companions? Give or take Steven, Romana II and Nyssa (and Sarah herself, but only after she'd met TennantDoc), I'm not convinced that ANY of 'em did much good. The MA portrayal of Dodo's mental breakdown is WAY more plausible.)

But consider the Doctor and Master's long relationship - suggestive phone calls, making excuses not to kill each other, looking forwards to the next encounter despite the death toll of the last.

Yes...I'm thinking about how the Doctor cheerily admitted to looking forward to his next Master-encounter in Terror of the Autons, but NEVER ONCE said he'd like to see TEGAN again...

Time Lords aren't humans; they see things differently, as their dress sense also demonstrates. Maybe the Doctor enjoys being harangued.

SOME Doctors might. Hartnell would probably enjoy his own spluttering indignation at the upstart female, Pertwee relishes his rows with the Brig, Colin spends his entire life trying to provoke yelling-matches, and Eccy would no doubt like the chance to go all tough and Northern.

Davison, however, gives the impression of just wanting a quiet life. The wuss.

My opinion of RIVER, however...

She's had the effrontery to marry the Doctor, putting her happiness above the fate of the entire universe. How can your opinion of her get worse?

The marriage doesn't count! Its timestream was promptly deleted, it was bigamous (the groom was already married to Marilyn Monroe!) and wasn't a legal ceremony ON EARTH.

And, OK, I don't THINK I'd put my feelings for the Doctor above the future of the entire universe but to be honest I'm not ENTIRELY in a position to criticise River for doing so.

And I just don't understand how EVERY Companion, once they grasp the 'regeneration' thing, doesn't demand PICTURES.

They can demand all they like; the Doctor need not oblige them. We know how glad he is not to be the man he was, so I wouldn't expect him to be willing to talk much about his past selves, and his companions would be in those photos too. I doubt he''d enjoy explaining to Amy who all those attractive young women were; she might get the wrong idea about him.

You have GOT to watch that extra scene that comes with the Season 5 box set.

But he isn't in love with Amy the way he was with Rose. He probably wouldn't even realize Amy was steaming in the background as he casually skipped over all his various dolly girls.

Actually said scene makes it QUITE clear that THESE days a Companion finding out about her young, female, scantily-clad predecessors is a bit of an embarrassment.

even Sarah didn't mention TEGAN on her list of do-gooders...

She was there, described as fighting for aboriginal rights.

NEVER ONCE said he'd like to see TEGAN again...

And yet she was the only companion he picked up twice. Actions speak louder than words.

Davison, however, gives the impression of just wanting a quiet life.

While round him the corpses pile up. I'm not sure which Doctor's stories have the highest average death toll, but 'Resurrection of the Daleks' is top of the list in 'About Time'. Five didn't actively enjoy the experience, but it certainly didn't put him off getting into trouble, so he can't have been that keen on a quiet life.

THESE days a Companion finding out about her young, female, scantily-clad predecessors is a bit of an embarrassment.

Reason enough not to show them the photo album. If it's got pictures of Six and Peri, he should probably lock it up in a safe, just to be sure, which brings us back to the question of River. She knows what Six looks like, but the Doctor himself wouldn't show her those photos. She might find old pictures in the archives, but would she really believe he'd worn that coat if she didn't go see it with her own eyes.

And yet she was the only companion he picked up twice. Actions speak louder than words.

Hmm, what does that say about Donna?

even Sarah didn't mention TEGAN on her list of do-gooders...

She was there, described as fighting for aboriginal rights.

How UTTERLY WEIRD that I should completely forget that. Well, I've sure as hell lost THAT part of the argument. Ah well, my consolation is that it's obviously past time I watched Death of the Doctor again. Joy! Joy! Joy!

And yet she was the only companion he picked up twice. Actions speak louder than words.

But meeting Tegan again was a TOTAL COINCIDENCE. Usually said 'coincidence' would occur because Sexy brought him there (and you could argue was following his subconscious desires) but that simply isn't the case in Arc.

And look again at the expression on the Doctor's face when Tegan informs him he's stuck with her now. I'm no good at reading faces (even of cats, never mind humanoids) but even I can see it's DRASTICALLY at odds with the novelisation's claim that 'Curiously enough, he found he didn't mind at all'.

Davison, however, gives the impression of just wanting a quiet life.

While round him the corpses pile up.

Well, OK, but...he strikes me as the kind of Doctor who likes his peace and quiet between the corpses. And as the only Doctor bar Hartnell who'd be quite happy if Sexy stopped dumping him in all those trouble-spots. Can't you just picture him whiling away the centuries playing cricket instead of saving the universe?

but would she really believe he'd worn that coat if she didn't go see it with her own eyes.

No. But then I can't believe he wore that coat even though I HAVE seen it with my own eyes. Repeatedly.

And yet she was the only companion he picked up twice. Actions speak louder than words.

Hmm, what does that say about Donna?

AT FIRST he seemed as appalled at Donna re-inviting herself aboard as he did with Tegan doing so...but UNLIKE WITH TEGAN a few moments' thought convinced him that he'd love it. And he did.

Oh, and he DELIBERATELY gave Rose a second chance...

But meeting Tegan again was a TOTAL COINCIDENCE.

As far as we know. It's possible the Silence told Tegan to go to Amsterdam, so she'd be out of their way. However, it doesn't really matter why the Doctor met up with her again; he wasn't forced to take her with him. If he'd really wanted to, he could have tricked her into staying on Earth despite all the complications. He is a genius, after all, and outsmarting Tegan is no great challenge.

Can't you just picture him whiling away the centuries playing cricket instead of saving the universe?

Not really, no. If he wanted centuries of peace, he'd have stayed on Gallifrey, when Flavia offered him the presidency. He might enjoy cricket for a few weeks, but then he'd go looking for adventure.

then I can't believe he wore that coat even though I HAVE seen it with my own eyes. Repeatedly.

Which give River a motive to hang round the Sixth Doctor. She's trying to come to terms with the fact that her beloved really once was this strangely dressed creature - not exactly sane behaviour, but it's probably healthier than denial.

Letting Donna come back shows the Doctor appreciates people with plenty of personality, like Tegan. Inviting Rose back just showed his hormones were acting up.

he wasn't forced to take her with him. If he'd really wanted to, he could have tricked her into staying on Earth despite all the complications. He is a genius, after all, and outsmarting Tegan is no great challenge.

Look, this is DAVISON we're talking about. Sure, TENNANT could have lopped off a hand and talked Tegan into settling down with it in two minutes flat, but Davison would just get all flustered as he tried to come up with an excuse for betraying n'abandoning Tegan YET AGAIN without mentioning how much he disliked her and/or wanted some alone time with Nyssa...

If he wanted centuries of peace, he'd have stayed on Gallifrey, when Flavia offered him the presidency. He might enjoy cricket for a few weeks, but then he'd go looking for adventure.

Gallifrey wasn't peaceful! It was always being invaded and having revolutions and suchlike. And being President would involve loads of contact with the High Council, and there's only one word for the High Council...TRAITOR-RIDDEN! (Alright...TWO words.)

Which give River a motive to hang round the Sixth Doctor. She's trying to come to terms with the fact that her beloved really once was this strangely dressed creature

River isn't one for coming to terms with things. Tennant had to bloody well RESURRECT HER FROM THE DEAD AND GIVE HER ETERNAL LIFE before River grudgingly admitted that, yeah, he might be pretty wonderful after all. What would COLIN have to do...?

- not exactly sane behaviour, but it's probably healthier than denial.

Hey - when it comes to Colin, denial works just fine for ME, thanks.

Letting Donna come back shows the Doctor appreciates people with plenty of personality, like Tegan.

DONNA had personality. TEGAN had...really loud vocal cords.

Inviting Rose back just showed his hormones were acting up.

HORMONES? When even a DALEK says it was LOVE...?

TENNANT could have lopped off a hand and talked Tegan into settling down with it in two minutes flat, but Davison would just get all flustered

There are whole graveyards full of people who have underestimated the Doctor. He may look soft, but underneath the velvet mask, he's diamond hard, and always has been.

Gallifrey wasn't peaceful! It was always being invaded and having revolutions and suchlike

It just looks that way because the Tardis didn't take him there during the peaceful times. Besides, as President, he could have introduced cricket to Gallifrey.

What would COLIN have to do...?

There's nothing he could do which would work, a situation that would drive River to desperate measures, such as being Mel Bush.

Hey - when it comes to Colin, denial works just fine for ME, thanks.

So far, perhaps. What will you do if Twelve comes out of the wardrobe room wearing an outfit that makes Six look restrained? He might, for example, choose to wear clown face paint, complete with red nose, a purple and green striped jacket covered in constantly flashing fairy lights, a tartan kilt exposing yellow and black striped leggings, and lime green clogs. Those of us who accept Six's little eccentricities are already half prepared for that possibility; denial leaves you defenceless against it. While you're having a heart attack we'll be looking forward to seeing if the new Doctor has a strong enough personality to carry that ensemble off.

DONNA had personality. TEGAN had...really loud vocal cords.

And a attitude. No one could mistake her for a doormat.

HORMONES? When even a DALEK says it was LOVE...?

What would a Dalek know of love? Can you imagine Daleks quoting sappy poetry to one another, feeding each other titbits by the light of a burning moon? "Look, Darling, I've arranged the corpses to spell out an ode to your plunger."

Anyway, before you can feel proper romantic love, your hormones have to switch the right bits of your brains on. In humans, this usually happens during puberty. With the Doctor, those hormones only seem to have kicked in after his eighth regeneration

There are whole graveyards full of people who have underestimated the Doctor. He may look soft, but underneath the velvet mask, he's diamond hard, and always has been.

True, true, and I'd never underestimate even Davison when it comes to saving the universe or whatever, but when it comes to interacting on a long-term basis with his fellow humanoids...HE SUCKS.

He 'ran' a TARDIS full of squabbling stupid KIDS and he couldn't manage to control them for two minutes flat. Where's Uncle Tewwance when you need him? Where's the authority in the Doctor's voice???

Gallifrey wasn't peaceful! It was always being invaded and having revolutions and suchlike

It just looks that way because the Tardis didn't take him there during the peaceful times.

Hmmm. Gallifrey-time passes at the same speed as time-for-the-Doctor (apparently) so even discounting the books n'audios that's an awful lot of assassinations, earthquakes, revolutions, near-destructions, alien invasions and, above all, traitors-on-the-High-Council for one planet in a few mere centuries.

Besides, as President, he could have introduced cricket to Gallifrey.

The Time Lords may have been a bunch of excruciatingly boring spineless geriatric male chauvinist cretins but even THEY wouldn't be dull enough to take to CRICKET.

Plus, could they even PLAY it in those high collars?

There's nothing he could do which would work, a situation that would drive River to desperate measures, such as being Mel Bush.

Stuff n'nonsense. River would take a FAR more straightforward route - she was PROGRAMMED to kill the Doctor, here's her wonderful, guilt-free, doing-the-universe-AND-the-Doctor-a-favour chance...just smash his head against the console already!

What will you do if Twelve comes out of the wardrobe room wearing an outfit that makes Six look restrained?

He - or she - won't.

New Who is, simply, better than Old Who. Humanity (and Gallifreyans, well the one surviving one anyway) have EVOLVED.

NEVER. AGAIN.

He might, for example, choose to wear clown face paint, complete with red nose, a purple and green striped jacket covered in constantly flashing fairy lights, a tartan kilt exposing yellow and black striped leggings, and lime green clogs.

Wow.

You certainly anticipated - and obliterated - my next objection (along the lines that NOTHING could be worse etc etc).

Those of us who accept Six's little eccentricities

You wouldn't be saying 'little eccentricities' if it was YOU in that acid bath.

are already half prepared for that possibility

Boy, it's lucky suicide is still so taboo.

denial leaves you defenceless against it. While you're having a heart attack we'll be looking forward to seeing if the new Doctor has a strong enough personality to carry that ensemble off.

Yeah, good luck with THAT, Sunshine. I'll take the heart-attack.

DONNA had personality. TEGAN had...really loud vocal cords.

And a attitude. No one could mistake her for a doormat.

Well, maybe if doormats had REALLY ANNOYING Australian accents...

Anyway, before you can feel proper romantic love, your hormones have to switch the right bits of your brains on. In humans, this usually happens during puberty. With the Doctor, those hormones only seem to have kicked in after his eighth regeneration

Though don't forget Susan.

>Though don't forget Susan.

Why not? The Doctor has.

He 'ran' a TARDIS full of squabbling stupid KIDS and he couldn't manage to control them for two minutes flat.

Couldn't or wouldn't. He might have quietly enjoyed being surrounded by such vibrant youth.

Hmmm. Gallifrey-time passes at the same speed as time-for-the-Doctor (apparently)

But since the Doctor lies about his age, we have no idea how fast that is.

The Time Lords may have been a bunch of excruciatingly boring spineless geriatric male chauvinist cretins but even THEY wouldn't be dull enough to take to CRICKET.

That's the nice thing about being President. You get to give orders. Besides, I suspect half the Time Lords would find cricket more excitement than they could stand.

It'd also give the High Council an alternative hobby to plotting treason, which some of them probably only do to relieve the boredom. You work in an office; I'm sure you've fantasised about running the place at some point, perhaps on a particularly dull afternoon. Now imagine spending 3000 years in the same office, with no prospect of promotion, and you'll have an idea what's its like on Gallifrey.

New Who is, simply, better than Old Who.

And one of the ways in which it's better is turning dross into gold. If Twelve wears something truly hideous, we can trust that the producers have a plan which will make it all worthwhile.

You certainly anticipated - and obliterated - my next objection (along the lines that NOTHING could be worse etc etc).

Just remember things can always get worse, always. It'll keep you smiling when all hope seems lost.

Well, maybe if doormats had REALLY ANNOYING Australian accents...

Doormats do whatever they're told, without argument. Did Tegan?

Though don't forget Susan.

Just as bits of the brain can be switched on when the time is right, so they can be switched off. Clearly, the Doctor's sex drive was switched on for a few decades in his first regeneration, switched off once his genes felt he'd had enough children, then accidentally switched on again in a later regeneration - maybe because of the stresses of the Time War, maybe because he could tell all his biological heirs were dead.

Though don't forget Susan.

Why not? The Doctor has.

Ouch.

Look, she's just...sleeping in his mind. And I'm sure she'll wake up. Any millennium now.

He might have quietly enjoyed being surrounded by such vibrant youth.

Has ANYTHING in the Doctor's 900 (or whatever) years indicated he's QUITE so alien as to actually ENJOY the company of Adders and co?

Hmmm. Gallifrey-time passes at the same speed as time-for-the-Doctor (apparently)

But since the Doctor lies about his age, we have no idea how fast that is.

True. But most of the time the existence of his not-particularly-ageing Companions indicates he hasn't been away from home TOO long. I can't see how the Doc would have fitted in more than a few years between War Games and Deadly Assassin, for instance.

That's the nice thing about being President. You get to give orders.

Albeit with Borusa at your shoulder, sneeringly ensuring that no one actually OBEYS you.

Besides, I suspect half the Time Lords would find cricket more excitement than they could stand.

Would cricket make a Gallifrey a less or more boring place? That's actually a fascinating philosophical question.

It'd also give the High Council an alternative hobby to plotting treason

Don't you believe it. I'm plotting treason just at the THOUGHT of cricket contaminating some innocent (OK, in Gallifrey's case guilty-as-hell) planet.

You work in an office; I'm sure you've fantasised about running the place at some point, perhaps on a particularly dull afternoon. Now imagine spending 3000 years in the same office, with no prospect of promotion, and you'll have an idea what's its like on Gallifrey.

The House of Lords IS kinda like Gallifrey. Only minus the fun hats. Frankly I'm not that bothered, as long as I can go home to Who. If only the Time Lords had a similar programme they wouldn't have gone bonkers and tried to wipe out the universe.

If Twelve wears something truly hideous, we can trust that the producers have a plan which will make it all worthwhile.

YOU may have faith that it'll all be worthwhile, I still occasionally have bow-tie-related problems.

Doormats do whatever they're told, without argument. Did Tegan?

My dictionary defines it as 'a person easily mistreated, imposed on, exploited, etc.' Tegan was certainly mistreated, imposed on, and exploited...admittedly she didn't exactly make it EASY, but her bark was DEFINITELY worse than her bite. She never ONCE slapped or punched the Doctor round the face (Jackie, Donna, Rory), locked him up as a traitor (the Brig), killed him (River), attempted to smash a rock over his head (Turlough) OR tried to have him executed as a male chauvinist wizard (Sarah Jane).

Clearly, the Doctor's sex drive was switched on for a few decades in his first regeneration, switched off once his genes felt he'd had enough children, then accidentally switched on again in a later regeneration - maybe because of the stresses of the Time War, maybe because he could tell all his biological heirs were dead.

That WOULD be the PERFECT excuse if only McGann hadn't spent his entire on-screen existence sticking his tongue down the throat of the woman who'd just murdered him. Well, we can always put it down to post-regenerative trauma, I suppose.

Has ANYTHING in the Doctor's 900 (or whatever) years indicated he's QUITE so alien as to actually ENJOY the company of Adders and co?

Well, there's Six's fashion sense. Besides, the Tardis wants her thief to be happy, which is why she keeps dropping him in such interesting places. If his current collection of strays weren't keeping him amused, she'd land somewhere he could kick the lot of them out of the door without bothering his conscience.

Albeit with Borusa at your shoulder, sneeringly ensuring that no one actually OBEYS you.

If the Doctor accepted the presidency from Flavia, Borusa would have been too busy decorating Rassilon's tomb to sneer.

If only the Time Lords had a similar programme they wouldn't have gone bonkers and tried to wipe out the universe.

And I'm sure the Doctor can arrange something like that for them. Considering the Master's fondness for children's TV, broadcasts of 'Thomas the Tank Engine' might have kept Gallifrey safely amused for millions of years, and put a stop to people plotting treason just to end the tedium.

admittedly she didn't exactly make it EASY, but her bark was DEFINITELY worse than her bite.

That's still enough to make her no doormat.

Well, we can always put it down to post-regenerative trauma, I suppose.

The perfect excuse. If Twelve does come out of the wardrobe room wearing some hideous concoction, we can hope that's the reason why, and save the letters of complaint until it's clear if he's going to keep on wearing it.

Has ANYTHING in the Doctor's 900 (or whatever) years indicated he's QUITE so alien as to actually ENJOY the company of Adders and co?

Well, there's Six's fashion sense.

Fair point. Still, there's a possibility that Six might just be colour-blind, or trying to put Flavia off dragging him back to Gallifrey if she catches him, or he lost a hitherto unuspected bet or something.

Whereas there is just NO WAY Five derived ANY enjoyment from being screeched at by Tegan and whined at by Adric while Nyssa stood around like a wet dishrag. (Maybe if Nyssa had taken to removing her skirt SOONER...)

Besides, the Tardis wants her thief to be happy, which is why she keeps dropping him in such interesting places.

Yeah, but as was clearly established in Edge of Destruction, she has a SERIOUSLY alien way of looking at things. She thinks dropping him in the middle of a half-a-million-strong Dalek army is his idea of a good time; well no wonder she mistakenly thinks Tegan is too.

If his current collection of strays weren't keeping him amused, she'd land somewhere he could kick the lot of them out of the door without bothering his conscience.

Four HAD just tried to drown her. This could be REVENGE.

If the Doctor accepted the presidency from Flavia, Borusa would have been too busy decorating Rassilon's tomb to sneer.

Ah, that's true. Still, he'd have Flavia's bossiness to contend with instead, which might be even worse for the Doctor. At least he RESPECTED Borusa.

If only the Time Lords had a similar programme they wouldn't have gone bonkers and tried to wipe out the universe.

And I'm sure the Doctor can arrange something like that for them. Considering the Master's fondness for children's TV, broadcasts of 'Thomas the Tank Engine' might have kept Gallifrey safely amused for millions of years, and put a stop to people plotting treason just to end the tedium.

God. Isn't the tragedy of Gallifrey just SO MUCH MORE TRAGIC when you realise how easily it could have been averted...

Well, we can always put it down to post-regenerative trauma, I suppose.

The perfect excuse. If Twelve does come out of the wardrobe room wearing some hideous concoction, we can hope that's the reason why, and save the letters of complaint until it's clear if he's going to keep on wearing it.

LETTERS of complaint? I was thinking along the lines of FIREBOMBS of complaint.

(Maybe if Nyssa had taken to removing her skirt SOONER...)

Five had no interest in such matters, though it might have made Adric or Turlough more pleasant.

She thinks dropping him in the middle of a half-a-million-strong Dalek army is his idea of a good time

Because it is. She's not very good with language, but she's inside his head. She'll know if he's unhappy.

Four HAD just tried to drown her. This could be REVENGE.

After Ten apparently wrote her off to save Donna, the Tardis introduced him to Amy. She's clearly too alien to take revenge like that.

Still, he'd have Flavia's bossiness to contend with instead

She didn't want to be in charge though; that's why she tried to land the Doctor with the job. She'd be happy just carping from the sidelines.

LETTERS of complaint? I was thinking along the lines of FIREBOMBS of complaint.

Save those for if the letters don't work, or if something considerably worse happens. Similar, we'd give the firebombs of complaint a fair chance to work before moving on to hanging the guilty parties from the nearest lamppost.

Alternatively, we could just have a whip round. A few thousand pounds from every Who fan would raise several billion for the kitty, which should be enough to buy the copyrights, and take over the running of the show. Naturally, I'd be the executive producer, since the scheme is my idea, but you, Emily, can be my cat secretary, responsible for pampering the new Doctor's three dozen pet cats off-stage, and making sure they look adorably cute every time they're on screen.

(Maybe if Nyssa had taken to removing her skirt SOONER...)

Five had no interest in such matters

Don't you believe it. Time War excuses or no Time War excuses, ALL Doctors are under suspicion ever since 9-11 turned out to be sex maniacs.

She thinks dropping him in the middle of a half-a-million-strong Dalek army is his idea of a good time

Because it is.

Take another look at Eccy's face in Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways. 'Unhappy' is the understatement of the millennium.

She's not very good with language, but she's inside his head. She'll know if he's unhappy.

She SAID she took him where he NEEDED to go. His own feelings were of lesser importance than the preservation of various planets.

Four HAD just tried to drown her. This could be REVENGE.

After Ten apparently wrote her off to save Donna, the Tardis introduced him to Amy. She's clearly too alien to take revenge like that.

The TARDIS may not have had a choice: River on a beach shooting at a Doctor-shaped object was a fixed point in time. Ergo, the TARDIS HAD to get Eleven together with Amy in precisely the right ways to screw the poor girl up for life, to such an extent that she was ready to make babies with Rory.

And to be fair to the Tenth Doctor (which is slightly easier if you're not the TARDIS) HER life was forfeit either way - 'The TARDIS is a weapon and must be destroyed.' He was just trying to salvage what he could from her immolation, viz, his latest stray.

She didn't want to be in charge though; that's why she tried to land the Doctor with the job. She'd be happy just carping from the sidelines.

We don't KNOW that. Flavia might have YEARNED for the Top Job but STILL have been one of those rare people who are prepared to step aside when someone infinitely superior materialises.

Alternatively, we could just have a whip round. A few thousand pounds from every Who fan would raise several billion for the kitty, which should be enough to buy the copyrights, and take over the running of the show. Naturally, I'd be the executive producer, since the scheme is my idea, but you, Emily, can be my cat secretary, responsible for pampering the new Doctor's three dozen pet cats off-stage, and making sure they look adorably cute every time they're on screen.

We have a deal.

Though my new kitties might find it amusing if we hung a few people from the nearest lamppost AS WELL.

>The TARDIS may not have had a choice: River on a beach shooting at a Doctor-shaped object was a fixed point in time.
>Ergo, the TARDIS HAD to get Eleven together with Amy in precisely the right ways to screw the poor girl up for life, to such
>an extent that she was ready to make babies with Rory.

This demonstrates an interesting point. If there are fixed points in time, then ALL of time must be fixed because every such fixed point demands a precise sequence of events to come about, as illustrated in this example. The entire history of the Universe in its most minute details would be ordained from the first moment of the Big Bang onward. Talk about Destiny!

But obviously, some parts of history can be changed because the Doctor has changed many of them. Therefore, fixed points in time are not as "fixed" as they appear to be.

This demonstrates an interesting point. If there are fixed points in time, then ALL of time must be fixed because every such fixed point demands a precise sequence of events to come about, as illustrated in this example. The entire history of the Universe in its most minute details would be ordained from the first moment of the Big Bang onward. Talk about Destiny!

You're exaggerating. When first expounding on this 'fixed point' thing, Tennant also mentioned that some points were in flux. Fixed points must be SERIOUSLY rare and there'll be thousands of years for history to go one way or another before having its date with destiny. Eccy was, for example, supremely confident that human history in 200,000 would just speed up to get where it was SUPPOSED to be. (Alright so he was SPECTACULARLY wrong, but that's beside the point.)

What REALLY gets on my nerves (almost as much as the Silurian redesign) is when Matt blithely announces that because the early twenty-first century is one of the 'flux' times, it's possible to bring the green freaks out of hibernation to share the Earth RIGHT NOW. Ignoring not just established (alright, maybe not FIXED but definitely ESTABLISHED) history AND no doubt messing up many FUTURE Fixed Points. (We only really know about three specific Fixed Points - Pompeii, Bowie Base One and Lake Silencio - and having the Myrka-loving nutters on Mars would have affected things no end.)

But obviously, some parts of history can be changed because the Doctor has changed many of them.

Ah, but HAS he?

Or is he trapped in the Web of Time no less than Anat and her fellow rebels?

He was almost certainly DESTINED to save all those planets...

Therefore, fixed points in time are not as "fixed" as they appear to be.

Yeah, I'm thinking there are VERY FEW that are QUITE so Fixed as to cause the whole of history to happen at once if some idiot messes with 'em. (Obviously The Moff thought of this as He considerately gave us the 'Fixed Point Plus Still Point' stuff. Gee, thanks.) Adelaide topping herself in London rather than nuking herself on Mars is quite a big difference - when it comes to her granddaughter going further than ever into space 'Like she was trying to meet you' - but history coped just fine with it.

She SAID she took him where he NEEDED to go. His own feelings were of lesser importance than the preservation of various planets.

He likes being needed. He might prefer it the Tardis asked him nicely before dumping him in trouble, but he still enjoys the experience. That look on Eccy's face in 'Bad Wolf', that was anticipation, Time Lord style. Remember, he's not human, so why should his body language be?

The TARDIS may not have had a choice: River on a beach shooting at a Doctor-shaped object was a fixed point in time.

Doesn't mean River's parents were fixed. She could equally well have turned out to be Clyde and Rani's child, or Sarah Jane and Jamie's. Amy did not have to be involved.

We don't KNOW that. Flavia might have YEARNED for the Top Job but STILL have been one of those rare people who are prepared to step aside when someone infinitely superior materialises.

In which case, she wouldn't get in the way when the Doctor introduced Gallfrey to the delights of cricket and Bagpuss.

Though my new kitties might find it amusing if we hung a few people from the nearest lamppost AS WELL.

Whatever it takes to keep the cats happy. You can even bury the BBC executives alive under 500 tons of fresh fish, if you think the cats will enjoy it. I'm sure you'll have no trouble explaining why it was necessary to our marvellous police.

He likes being needed.

Sure he does, but...how can I put this tactfully...he's probably HAPPIER if he's needed to deal with Krotons or Ambassadors or Adipose or Taran Beasts - or an army that'll turn tail and flee at the SIGHT of him - rather than half-a-million Daleks or Cybermen.

That look on Eccy's face in 'Bad Wolf', that was anticipation, Time Lord style.

Funny, cos I thought it was the look of someone who'd just realised he'd wiped out his own species FOR NOTHING. (Don't ask how this fits in with End of Time's deliberate destruction of crazy Time Lords.) And who can think of no way to save Earth or indeed his own skin. And RTG's Script Book backs me up: 'CU THE DOCTOR, as he closes the door, leans against it. All his defiance gone. He's terrified.'

And I suppose you're gonna claim he was foaming at the mouth WITH JOY in Dalek?

Remember, he's not human, so why should his body language be?

It shouldn't be, but it is. He's been hanging around with his strays too long.

Doesn't mean River's parents were fixed.

Course it does. They're where she got her genes from. Admittedly, what with the regenerations and all, she doesn't necessarily take after 'em in looks, but somewhere deep down there's Pond DNA.

Flavia might have YEARNED for the Top Job but STILL have been one of those rare people who are prepared to step aside when someone infinitely superior materialises.

In which case, she wouldn't get in the way when the Doctor introduced Gallfrey to the delights of cricket and Bagpuss.

Well, NO ONE could get in the way of Bagpuss, but she'd definitely have seen it as her Donna-like duty to slap the superior being round the face if he tried contaminating the planet with cricket-related nonsense.

Whatever it takes to keep the cats happy. You can even bury the BBC executives alive under 500 tons of fresh fish, if you think the cats will enjoy it. I'm sure you'll have no trouble explaining why it was necessary to our marvellous police.

Our marvellous police wouldn't DREAM of depriving my three dozen oochies of their mummy by putting me in prison or anything.

how can I put this tactfully...he's probably HAPPIER if he's needed to deal with Krotons or Ambassadors or Adipose or Taran Beasts

If that was all he ever faced, he'd get bored.

'CU THE DOCTOR, as he closes the door, leans against it. All his defiance gone. He's terrified.'

People riding a roller coaster often look terrified, and genuinely are, but most of them enjoy the terror. That's why they pay to get on it, again and again.

It's the same with the Doctor and his adventures. He may have moments of blind terror, but that doesn't stop him enjoying the experience, or looking forwards to the next time.

Course it does. They're where she got her genes from.

But she could have got the same genes from someone else. River's appearance and actions are fixed, fixing the responsible genes. Her blood group isn't, because no one could see that, and there are many different combinations of parent that could have led to that. After all, you can't tell exactly what people's parent will look like just by looking at them.

Suppose, for example, Jack Jones is a white left-handed red-head who went bald at 30. He could have inherited left-handedness and early baldness from his mother, and the red hair from his father, or vice versa, or any of 6 other combinations - and if he got the baldness gene from his mother, she won't be bald herself. If she also dyes her hair black, and the father was beaten into being right-handed, the parents won't appear to have any of their child's three traits. All you can safely say is that both Jack Jones's parent were probably white.

In the same way, it's possible that Donna and Luke could have had a child who looked exactly like River, after regenerating. Until she was actually conceived, her parents were changeable.

she'd definitely have seen it as her Donna-like duty to slap the superior being round the face if he tried contaminating the planet with cricket-related nonsense.

Flavia wouldn't know what cricket was, until it was too late. Once she'd seen the game played, she might object, but by then it'd be too popular with Time Lords, looking for a little safe excitement - driven by the same urge that makes humans get onto roller coasters.

how can I put this tactfully...he's probably HAPPIER if he's needed to deal with Krotons or Ambassadors or Adipose or Taran Beasts

If that was all he ever faced, he'd get bored.

River certainly didn't give me the impression he was bored during his everyone-fleeing-at-the-sight-of-him period. (Come to think of it...his plans for keeping a low profile in future are DOOMED, aren't they.) And he's never given me the impression he prefers the big universe-saving adventures to the little ones. And going by the Hartnell era a part of him just wants to wander round human history hmm-ing at it. Another part of him just wants to settle down and stop ALL the adventuring (Last of the Time Lords, Doomsday).

He may have moments of blind terror, but that doesn't stop him enjoying the experience, or looking forwards to the next time.

Not when it comes to Daleks - not since the Time War.

But she could have got the same genes from someone else.

Someone who actually knows something about biology tell me he's wrong!

Flavia wouldn't know what cricket was, until it was too late. Once she'd seen the game played, she might object, but by then it'd be too popular with Time Lords, looking for a little safe excitement - driven by the same urge that makes humans get onto roller coasters.

Aren't you rather over-optimistically assuming that the Time Lords will be capable of catching balls, hitting them with lumps of wood, and, er, whatever else cricket entails?

>Someone who actually knows something about biology tell me he's wrong!

He's wrong!

^_^

Every sperm and every egg is genetically unique. Not only could River only be born to Amy and Rory, but even they could not repeat the feat if they tried for a billion years.

If you want numbers, human cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes. One member of each pair is selected at random to go in the sperms and the eggs. That's 8,388,608 possible combinations for each sex cell and 70,368,744,177,664 possible combinations of egg and sperm for any given couple. And that's a minimum. The process of making eggs and sperms breaks up and reassembles the chromosomes themselves at random, creating astronomically more possibilities.

I don't think River has to have the same genes to fulfill her fixed-pointness. Regeneration could make her look the same. All she has to do is marry and shoot the Doctor.

>I don't think River has to have the same genes to fulfill her fixed-pointness. Regeneration could make her look the same.

I suppose the actual genes are not what's important. It's what happens to them during conception in the Time Vortex that counts.

>All she has to do is marry and shoot the Doctor.

And not necessarily in that order

=8)

Every sperm and every egg is genetically unique. Not only could River only be born to Amy and Rory, but even they could not repeat the feat if they tried for a billion years.

If you want numbers, human cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes. One member of each pair is selected at random to go in the sperms and the eggs. That's 8,388,608 possible combinations for each sex cell and 70,368,744,177,664 possible combinations of egg and sperm for any given couple. And that's a minimum. The process of making eggs and sperms breaks up and reassembles the chromosomes themselves at random, creating astronomically more possibilities.

True, but irrelevant. If children were uniquely determined by their parents, so it was impossible for their genes to have been produced by any other pair of people, that would imply you cold work out what the parents' genes must be by looking at the children, but if a parent only has one copy of the gene, there's a 50% chance the child won't have it at all, making this impossible.

What you're overlooking is that every couple has an astronomically large number of possible children, all of whom must be considered when calculating the odds of overlap.

Looking at it another way, humans have about 23,000 genes, at the latest estimate. Most of those genes don't affect surface appearance, and some of them are identical in all humans, but to keep it simple I'll ignore that; we get the same result either way. Look at those genes one by one.If River has two identical copies, her parents must have contributed one each, but their other copy of that gene could have been any of the potentially dozens of alleles floating round in the human gene pool. If River has two different copies, one came from each parent, but there's no saying which copy came from which parent, and again the parent's other copies could have been anything.

Multiply the possibilities up, and you find an astronomical number of possibilities for the genes of River's parents.

River certainly didn't give me the impression he was bored during his everyone-fleeing-at-the-sight-of-him period.

She's blinded by her deranged love, hardly a reliable judge.

And he's never given me the impression he prefers the big universe-saving adventures to the little ones.

Not prefers. He enjoys them both, in due proportion. He doesn't want to have to save the universe every single time, but he likes to have a big challenge once in a while, though he also enjoys the small stuff. Variety keeps things more interesting.

Aren't you rather over-optimistically assuming that the Time Lords will be capable of catching balls, hitting them with lumps of wood, and, er, whatever else cricket entails?

By human standards, they'd be comically inept, but that just stops the match getting too exciting for them.

Rumors of the Doctor one day regenerating as a woman have been going around the fandom since at least the Tennant's times. Understandably, the notion is not too popular, although I suppose Moffat could find an acceptable way to bring it about. In fact, maybe he already has, in a way. I submit that there's already a female Doctor in the Whoniverse, and that her name is Jenny.

Two bits of evidence make me think this. First, after Jenny dies in the Doctor's arms, he says that she was too much like him. Well, she is pure Timelord, and the Doctor is her sole progenitor, so how could she be anything but too much like him?

And then, at the end of the episode, there's this little bit of dialogue:

----------------------

CLINE (over intercom)
Jenny? What're you doing? Come back!

JENNY
Sorry. Can't stop. What you gonna do, tell my dad?

CLINE
But where are you going?!

JENNY
Oh, I've got the whole universe! Planets to save, civilizations to rescue, creatures to defeat... and an awful lot of running to do!

----------------------

This is EXACTLY what the Doctor does, day in, day out. And he can't stop himself either, as made plainly obvious in Closing Time. It's in his genes, and therefore it's in hers too because her genes are his genes. Somewhere, out there, there's a young, happy, guilt free Doctor named Jenny travelling, making friends, helping people, defeating evil and undoubtedly wreaking havoc everywhere she goes. The Silence thought they had a problem with the Doctor? Wait until they get a load of Jenny! Bless her little hearts, I really, really hope we see her again someday.

I would think it was in her genes, if our own Doctor had started out that way. Hartnell was an antisocial old misogynist. He learned his altruistic ways from his companions.

Jenny is just like all the other people the Doctor made brilliant, just by knowing him.

Hartnell's Doctor was significantly older than all his other incarnations, personality wise. We don't know what he was like when he was younger.

Hartnell was an antisocial old misogynist. He learned his altruistic ways from his companions.

True, but Jenny was created from Tennant's DNA. By that time the Doc's genes were probably saturated with altruism. He'd been trying to top himself for a bunch of Sontarans half an hour earlier.

(Look, I'm not just talking gibberish? I am right in thinking scientists recently discovered that experiences actually affect your DNA?)

Jenny is just like all the other people the Doctor made brilliant, just by knowing him.

Though sadly in Jenny's case the Doctor's lectures on not being a genocidal maniac and shooting General Nutjob resulted in her being DEAD. (Luckily only temporarily, but still...)

Hartnell's Doctor was significantly older than all his other incarnations, personality wise. We don't know what he was like when he was younger.

We nearly did, though. The BBC asked RTG to do a Young Doctor on Gallifrey series. RTG, worship Him!, said no.

(Look, I'm not just talking gibberish? I am right in thinking scientists recently discovered that experiences actually affect your DNA?)

Yes, it does, to some degree. I'm not sure how much of an influence that would have on one's personnality, but since the Doctor is a Timelord and not a human, the process could work differently in his case.

Also, Hartnell may have been an antisocial old misogynist, but that may just have been the result of putting up with centuries of Timelordy bullsh*t from his own kind. Maybe his companions simply reminded him of the kinder, more altruistic Doctor he used to be.

Hartnell was an antisocial old misogynist.

That was after spending 400 years on Gallifrey, the most tedious inhabited place in the galaxy. It's not surprising he was feeling anti-social considering the kind of people he'd have had to talk to there. We've no idea what happened to his first partner, Susan's grandmother, but that could easily have left him with a low opinion of women.

Most of Hartnell's fluffs were real, but when he got a script he could sink his teeth into, he brought a lot to it -- watch him in "The Daleks", and see what he gets up to when he's not the centre of attention. Troughton also throws in a lot of details when he's on form, though unfortunately he's at his most tired in season 6 (which means most of the surviving episodes). Early Tom Baker has quite a few moments -- check the byplay between him and Harry in "Ark In Space", or his improvised "Is it?" in response to Sarah's "It's good to see you" in "Revenge". And then there's Sylvester, who struck in touches ranging from his self-satisfied smile in the background as Ace talks to the spambot in "Greatest Show" to the hillside banter between him and Ace in "Silver Nemesis". Even McGann adds a lot of business of his own -- the way he gets into Grace's personal space in the lift isn't scripted, to say nothing of the McGannish Repetition. :-)

I really couldn't get McCoy for the longest time, but you have to know that our local channel stopped showing Doctor Who without purchasing his last season. Other than his Dalek story, I never saw him in a good script until many years after the show ended. Even then, Fenric, Ghostlight and Survival took a while to grow on me.

I've come to appreciate Paradise Towers and Delta more since their DVD releases when I watched them for the first time in years. Time and the Rani is beyond redemption and I don't have high hopes for Happiness Patrol redeeming itself. The Candy Man is the monster equivalent of Colin Baker's coat (which at least didn't speak or was supposed to be threatening).

But Hartnel was great when in top form. I just watched Unnearthly Child episode 1, which, by itself, is a near masterpiece. If there's some parallel universe where all the B&W episodes were destroyed and only the pilot remains, its people must be convinced that Hartnel is a contender for greatest Doctor ever.

Ok, here is a twisted little idea.

The Doctor and River are now married.

Sometime in the future, they have a child, a bouncing half timelord half human baby boy.

Somehow, the baby ends up in the past on Gallifrey where he grows up to become the Doctor.

Wouldn't the TARDIS need to reconfigured into a paradox machine again for that to happen?

I don't think so. This situation is more like a causality loop than a paradox. It's an event that causes its own occurence.

The eleven Doctors.

Wow! What a reunion that would be! The space-time continuum would never recover.

FRANCOIS in Ghost Light thread: Had the "Sixteen Long And Barren Years" not happened, we would never have had McGann, Eccy, Tennant and Matt Smith Doctors. Other actors would have played those incarnations. Think about that.

OF COURSE we would have had them! They may have been different-numbered Doctors, they may have been older or younger (well, MATT could hardly have been MUCH younger), they may have stayed longer (or shorter, not that that's particularly plausible in Eccy or McGann's cases) but Eccy n'Tennant were BORN to be the Doctor! It's DESTINY! Have you ever heard a BETTER reason for us bothering to crawl out of all that lovely primordial slime? Plus, don't forget that the Doctor's big-chinned, big-haired, nine-year-old-looking, bow-tied appearance at a certain lakeside was a fixed point in time and space!

Ten-Eleven regeneration, from the other side of the camera. Even when they show you how it's done, this show is still magic!

We-ell, not so much. I worked in the film industry very briefly as a camera assistant (the one who loads film and works the clapper) and for about a year afterwards, I couldn't take dramatic scenes very seriously, because I imagined all the people standing behind the camera watching the star screaming or crying or whatever. Spoiled it for me.

Oops. Sorry if I spoiled it again for you. The magic I see here is how they can take the apparent chaos of those shoots and turn it into the final product we watch on tv. You need vision to do that, and a kind of alchemy I never quite understood.

That's okay. I've already seen this special and thought it was great.

KYLE in New Series: The Doctor's Wife section:

A question for the most dedicate Whovians: are we sure this is the 11th Doctor, that Hartnell was the first? Because the math doesn't make sense. The Doctor is over 900 years old, and has traveled in the TARDIS for 700 of them. He's regenerated 10 times in the last 50 years. So has he lived 850 years without regenerating? (which would mean Timelords have the potential to live close to 14,000 years)

It bugs me from a practical standpoint that this Timelord was able to bang about the universe for 650 years (850 years in all) unscathed and only in the last 50 years has gone through regenerations like you and I go through cell/mobile phones. Not a nit; just a grump.


Dialogue from The Five Doctors:

TEGAN: And I'm Tegan Jovanka. Who might you be?

DOCTOR 1: I might be any number of things, young lady. As it happens, I am the Doctor. The original, you might say.

This conclusively indicates that Hartnell's Doctor was the first. TPTB always refer to Matt Smith's Doctor as the 11th, and so does Dorium in The Wedding of River Song, when he speaks of the fields of Trenzalore prophecy and the fall of the Eleventh. Yes, We can be pretty sure that Hartnell was the first Doctor and Matt Smith is the eleventh one.

Didn't Hartnell die of old age at 400 yrs? That would make the typical, non-dangerous-bicycle-owning Time Lord around 5,200 yrs.

Graham Williams, in a DWM interview:

'I think a lot of Doctor Who is rooted in our own Victorian mythology, with the Doctor very much like the old gentleman explorer. There is that crusading zeal in the British which we're afflicted with more than most countries' - good point. The Doc is certainly pretty paternalistic.

Williams, is, however, utterly in the wrong when he attempts to justify his creation of those stupid Guardians by claiming: 'I was just rather offended that the Doctor was roaming the Universe with absolute authority, in that he always won, but without any responsibility, because he wasn't answerable to anyone. I thought that was pretty awful' - What the HELL is WRONG with THAT?

He's regenerated 10 times in the last 50 years.

Fifty of OUR years. And yes, in New Who our years match up remarkably well with the Doctor's years (well, until Matt suddenly claimed he'd vamoosed for a couple of centuries) but in Old Who Troughton was 450, Tom 750 and McCoy 950 (let's just ignore Pertwee being 'several thousand years old', shall we?).

Dialogue from The Five Doctors:

TEGAN: And I'm Tegan Jovanka. Who might you be?

DOCTOR 1: I might be any number of things, young lady. As it happens, I am the Doctor. The original, you might say.

This conclusively indicates that Hartnell's Doctor was the first. TPTB always refer to Matt Smith's Doctor as the 11th, and so does Dorium in The Wedding of River Song, when he speaks of the fields of Trenzalore prophecy and the fall of the Eleventh.

There's also Matt pointing to himself and saying 'Eleven' to Craig, the Fifth Doctor saying he'd have to sacrifice all eight of his remaining regenerations to save Mawdryn and his seven chums, and the 'Regeneration?' 'Fourth' 'So there are five of me now' dialogue from Five Docs.

Didn't Hartnell die of old age at 400 yrs? That would make the typical, non-dangerous-bicycle-owning Time Lord around 5,200 yrs.

Ah, but I'm pretty sure it was all those exciting adventures that did for poor Hartnell - a Time Lord who remained on Gallifrey could be expected to live a MUCH longer life of tedium.

Ah, but I'm pretty sure it was all those exciting adventures that did for poor Hartnell

Wasn't he exposed to some nasty radiation in that episode, which drained his life energy and aged him much faster than he should, or something? I'm not sure, I'm going with what I read about it instead of having watched the actual episode, something I probably should remedy.

I just finished watching The Tenth Planet (too bad the fourth episode is one of the missing ones, but someone did a credible job of recreating it with still pictures, short clips and the original soundtrack), and no actual reason is given for the Doctor dying and regenerating. He does complain, at one point, that his old body is wearing a bit thin, and he seriously passes out a couple of times, but that's it. Maybe he'll explain in more detail in the next story, The Power Of The Daleks. I'll watch that one later.

no actual reason is given for the Doctor dying and regenerating.

Yeah - I don't remember anything about him being affected by radiation from the Z-Bomb (or whatever it was) - maybe you were thinking of Dalek Masterplan, in which Sara aged to death and the Doctor - even if he didn't show it - must have aged a good century too.

DWM mentions the BBC's notes on Troughton saying that 'He wants [the people he's just saved] to think for themselves and stand on their own two feet, instead of putting a statue to their deliverer in the market place and making the same mistakes again'. Surely their 'mistakes' often involved being invaded by aliens, hardly their own fault?

Still, it's a nicely charitable excuse for the Doctor's 'Yes I can, here I am, swanning off' attitude leaving everyone in the lurch two seconds after the 'excitment' is over. I still think POINTING OUT any mistakes they've made, and how to avoid slipping straight into dictatorship, would be immensely helpful, though.

DWM (again): 'The Doctor...is...a character to whom nothing really happens...soap operas revolve around the traumas and developments of the personal lives of the characters. Doctor Who is the opposite: a wealth of different societies, times and planets are the backdrop for the adventures of an essentially unchanging hero...the programme's ongoing ethos, its moral and psychological stability...The Doctor can't fall in love with his companions and he can't undergo tremendous internal traumas; if he did, Doctor Who would become a soap opera...' Interesting. The Doctor DID fall in love; even before he did, the Time War had changed him drastically. And yeah, OK, maybe it became a bit soap-opera-ish, but IT'S STILL DOCTOR WHO! Just...BETTER.

I think I've changed my mind about wanting a multi-Doctor special for our fiftieth anniversary or, indeed, for ANYTHING:

https://twitter.com/edwardrussell/status/209605143728107520/photo/1

I'm sure they can come up with some way of including the older Doctors without them actually looking old.

For instance, some mad scientist might decide to pull the greatest minds in history through time, so he can stick them in his robots, without realising that all four of the people he's picked are previous regenerations of the Doctor. The net result, Doctors 4,5,6 & 7 in robot bodies, looking under 30, by human standards, but speaking with the unmistakable voices of our hero.

That's not the only option, of course. There are many ways of explaining why the previous Doctor's aren't in their usual bodies - or the BBC could just show them as in the twitter photo, and blame the white hairs on some temporal mishap, as in Time Crash.

Maybe they could cast Michael Cera as the fourth Doctor:

http://cheezburger.com/5378900992

Having said that Cera is a big Hollywood star who can command a fee of millions, while Tom will work for whisky these days, so it might be more impractical to go for the cheaper option and some hair dye.

It's funny how I've been saying that a multi-doc special involving docs 4-6 would be silly and everyone scoffed at me but it takes a picture of them all to prove my point.

Don't want to say I told you so, but....

I think McCoy could just about pull it off...with the same degree of success that Davison did, which isn't exactly considerable. Hat required, of course.

McGann, well it's not as if we ever saw him regenerate or know how much he aged before doing so.

The Bakers, however...

For instance, some mad scientist might decide to pull the greatest minds in history through time, so he can stick them in his robots, without realising that all four of the people he's picked are previous regenerations of the Doctor. The net result, Doctors 4,5,6 & 7 in robot bodies, looking under 30, by human standards, but speaking with the unmistakable voices of our hero

And not just Docs 4-7! 9 can be a robot too, whether he likes it or not! All it would have to do is sprout ALREADY-RECORDED lines like 'Lots of planets have a North!', 'Stupid ape!' and of course 'Fantastic!'

Don't want to say I told you so, but....

Say it, say it *sigh*. SOMEONE might as well get some satisfction from that picture...

The Bakers, however...

Quite.

Colin needs to go on a diet and Ronald Reagan his hair.
I wonder what Tom thinks of Colin and Sylvester, the two cr@p actors that killed his show.

Colin needs to go on a diet and Ronald Reagan his hair

I volunteer to lock Colin up without food for several months! Dunno what Ronald Reaganing his hair entails, though...

Something struck me about the latest quotes posted on the 'Favorite quotes' board, namely these two segments:

1- There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior. A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos.

2- I hate good wizards in fairy tales. They always turn out to be him.

Notice the contrast between those two descriptions. Both apply to the Doctor, yet they seem to describe two completely different beings, one benevolent, the other monstruous. Is it just the difference you would expect when friends and ennemies describe the same person, or could there actually be two versions of our favorite Timelord roaming the universe, The good Doctor on one side, and the evil Valeyard or Dreamlord on the other? The Lodger TARDIS has to belong to someone.

I'm sure they're both just referring to the Doctor we know and love. It's not like he'd be POPULAR with the bad guys, though come to think of it they should be doing a bit more Cleric-style sneaking admiration.

I'm almost sure that in a few year's time Moffat might possibly drop us a hint about that bloody Lodger TARDIS.

If Tennant is part of a multi-Doctor special, Moffat could have a bit of the ol' 'previous Doctor dislikes new Doctor' scenario, like Two and Three did. Ten could feel threatened or just not like Eleven's appearance, which would explain his famous last words, "I don't want to go!"
He didn't want to go, because it meant he'd turn into that skinny guy with the hair and the bow tie!

I still say they just need to CGI Our Hero inside previous stories in the background or in previously unseen scenes, and perhaps loop some dialogue in by the actors today, to create a conversation. They did it in 1996 with Deep Space 9 with the Tribble episode, and you can see some creative stuff on Youtibe, so it'll be ten times easier and realistic now.

I still say they just need to CGI Our Hero inside previous stories in the background or in previously unseen scenes, and perhaps loop some dialogue in by the actors today, to create a conversation.

In Terminator Salvation, they used CGI to recreate a VERY convincing Arnold Schwarzenegger terminator, young and buff as he was in the original 1984 movie. I have no doubt that the technology exists today to make totally convincing CGI stand-ins of all the past Doctors. I also have no doubts that this technology is very expensive, and that doing a Deep Space Nine style episode would be their only viable option, in which case I wish they wouldn't do it.

'How does anything get there, I've given up asking' - Eleven, re a book in his coat pocket. Interesting. While Eight-in-the-novels understood the process perfectly ('There was nothing a sentient being couldn't achieve, if he were at one with the lining of his jacket') and Ten blamed larger-on-the-inside pockets, and the other Doctors didn't seem to START (let alone give up) asking, Eleven is actually admitting DEFEAT on this issue.

'You bad boy, you could burn New York' - didn't the Doctor say he could destroy the PLANET? And on a scale of 1-to-10, exactly how happy ARE we that the Doc is happy to take this particular risk in order to meet up with a couple of Companions? One thing's for sure, poor old Adders wouldn't have been left in that freighter if it had been up to a New Who Doctor.

And since when has the Doc been worried that his breath smelled?

'Stupid waste of regeneration energy' - when River cured the Doctor (of BEING DEAD!) it cost her ALL her remaining regenerations. Did Eleven sacrifice one of his lives to heal her wrist? How did he switch it off without a handy-Hand to pour the energy into? Does this (and/or Journey's End) cost him another life? Does it really matter if he HAS got 507 of 'em?

'Stupid waste of regeneration energy' - when River cured the Doctor (of BEING DEAD!) it cost her ALL her remaining regenerations. Did Eleven sacrifice one of his lives to heal her wrist?

Maybe he just paid her back some of what she had given him. Anyway, he's the Doctor. He's allowed to do stupid things, who usually turn out to have been NOT so stupid after all.

Maybe he just paid her back some of what she had given him.

If it was THAT easy surely River and/or the Doctor would have thought of returning some of her lost regenerations to her by now?

Anyway, he's the Doctor. He's allowed to do stupid things, who usually turn out to have been NOT so stupid after all.

Yeah, even GETTING EXTERMINATED and GETTING HIS HAND CHOPPED OFF always work out for this guy. 'Lucky' isn't IN it...

Im not that familiar with the workings of regeneration

can the Doctor regenerate into a teenager or young child?

To expand my question, if it is possible within the show is it also possible to be cross-gender - i.e. in one body the Doctor is a middle aged man but in the next he's a five year old girl?

I don't think the Doctor could regenerate to a state before adulthood. There have never been any indication of that happeneing to any Time Lord. It is however possible for a Time Lord to regenerate into the other gender, switching from male to female, and vice versa. It does not happen often, but it does happen, the Doctor explicitely says so in The Doctor's Wife. Which, now that I think about it, may have been said to prepare the way for the Doctor switching gender at his next regeneration

I don't think the Doctor could regenerate to a state before adulthood. There have never been any indication of that happeneing to any Time Lord.

Though Ancestor Cell had the Castellan regenerate into a spotty teenager and not be taken seriously any more...And Mels DID say she regenerated into a toddler, admittedly from a pretty young body in the first place. While Eccy said that he could regenerate with two heads or none at all, and Tennant that 'I could be anything' so I suspect that becoming a kid, while very rare and a sign that the regeneration process has gone a bit wrong, can happen.

It is however possible for a Time Lord to regenerate into the other gender, switching from male to female, and vice versa. It does not happen often, but it does happen, the Doctor explicitely says so in The Doctor's Wife.

Though of course, SOME of us were arguing that it was PERFECTLY POSSIBLE for DECADES before Doctor's Wife.

Which, now that I think about it, may have been said to prepare the way for the Doctor switching gender at his next regeneration

Fingers crossesd!

Moderator's Note: Moved from 'New Series: Season Three: Smith and Jones' thread:

other times they EXECUTE the Doctor for fighting evil (War Games).

Only because he was worried about being recognised.

A suggestion from 'About Time' I like is that the Time Lords have firm ideas what the proper cause of history ought to be. As long as it stays on track, they don't much care what evils are done, but if some incident threatens to disrupt the approved history, and especially if a fixed point is at risk, they discreetly intervene. Quite often, this intervention is by diverting the Tardis to put the Doctor where they need him, without telling him a thing.

In the Earth's case, any successful 20th century invasion would stop our rise to galactic dominion, and wreck vast swathes of history, intolerable. Hence the choice of England for Three's exile: he was being used to keep history on its desired track.

other times they EXECUTE the Doctor for fighting evil (War Games).

Only because he was worried about being recognised.

Oh, come ON! Not even the TIME LORDS would slaughter someone cos they were worried about being recognised! Judicial murder was always going to be part of the punishment.

Oh, come ON! Not even the TIME LORDS would slaughter someone cos they were worried about being recognised! Judicial murder was always going to be part of the punishment.

Then why did the Doctor complain about being recognised on Earth? It makes no sense, unless he genuinely thought he might be exiled there with his current face.

Because Troughton's the kind of over-optimistic imbecile who actually thinks that when the Time Lords accept his 'evil must be fought' argument they're gonna let him go...

If he thought they were going to let him go, he wouldn't be worried about being sent to the Earth, a place he visits often enough anyway. No, his behaviour only makes sense if he thought they'd exile him without a regeneration.

If he thought they were going to let him go, he wouldn't be worried about being sent to the Earth, a place he visits often enough anyway.

He only thought they'd let him go for a moment - just after they said they accepted his plea that evil must be fought and he still had a part to play in that battle.

No, his behaviour only makes sense if he thought they'd exile him without a regeneration.

I'm not so sure. This is Old Who, where being sentenced to one primitive planet in one time-period is AT LEAST as bad as regenerating, which for some bizarre reason they don't seem to regard as 'everything I am dies, and another man goes sauntering off in my place...' So Troughton, in his panic over what could mean CENTURIES stuck with stupid apes and their beans on toast, gabbled the first stupid excuse to get out of it that sprang to mind ('Besides, I'm known on the Earth. It might be very awkward for me' - THAT doesn't make sense under ANY circumstances).

Which, of course, gave the Time Gits the cue they were obviously waiting for. I've just rewatched the scene and the SMUG SMIRK on that *******'s face when he announces 'Your appearance has changed before, it will change again, that is part of the sentence' has to be seen to be believed.

Of course, Troughton totally misses the WE'RE GONNA MURDER YOU message and starts wittering on about how they can't change his appearance without consulting him. Extraordinary. I'd've sworn he was the Doctor who LEAST cared about his appearance.

The Rani was exiled, without a forced regeneration. Of course, she was allowed to take over a planet too, and her Tardis wasn't grounded.

Obviously, killing the Lord President's cat is much worse than anything the Doctor did - I suspect she used underhand methods to get such a light sentence - but this is still enough to confirm Time Lords can be exiled without a forced regeneration.

My guess is that the court was annoyed at Two trying to talk his way out of exile - as you say, not wanting to be recognised was a pretty poor objection - so they increased his sentence. It'd be like the way our judges can fine or imprison you for contempt of court if you get cheeky with them.

Thus, the Time Lords didn't kill Two for fighting evil; they killed him for not being respectful enough of their authority.

Obviously, killing the Lord President's cat is much worse than anything the Doctor did

YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN.

this is still enough to confirm Time Lords can be exiled without a forced regeneration.

Oh, sure. Time Lord law means whatever Time Lords want it to mean. One minute there's no defence to genocide, the next the Inquisitor is blithely waving the genocidal maniac on his merry way.

My guess is that the court was annoyed at Two trying to talk his way out of exile - as you say, not wanting to be recognised was a pretty poor objection - so they increased his sentence.

I didn't get that impression. More that 'Oh and by the way...WE'RE GONNA KILL YOU!' was being saved up for the punchline.

Also, if TROUGHTON thought that a sentence or two of stuttered objections cost him his life, he wouldn't have been so hyper-critical when it came to all those badly-drawn faces he was offered. It might have got him executed SEVERAL TIMES OVER.

More that 'Oh and by the way...WE'RE GONNA KILL YOU!' was being saved up for the punchline.

Not the impression I got. They seemed pretty reasonable really, no worse than some human judges.

It might have got him executed SEVERAL TIMES OVER.

Two could only die once. The other deaths would be of new men wearing his corpse, as Ten so nearly said, and why should Two care about them?

About Time makes a decent case that ideas about regeneration hadn't gelled at this point. The script writers weren't thinking of it as equivalent to death, but as extreme cosmetic surgery, with relatively minor psychological side effects. One and Two don't have absolutely identical personalities, but they're no more different from each other than you at 15 is different from you at 45.

They seemed pretty reasonable really, no worse than some human judges.

YOU were the one who thought they MURDERED Troughton in a fit of pique because he was insufficiently respectful!

Plus, don't forget...it's the future CHANCELLOR GOTH we're talking about. A genocidal nutcase if ever there was one.

Two could only die once. The other deaths would be of new men wearing his corpse, as Ten so nearly said, and why should Two care about them?

Well, I'd SAY becuase he's only got thirteen lives, but actually he seems to be labouring under the delusion that he'll live forever barring accidents...

About Time makes a decent case that ideas about regeneration hadn't gelled at this point. The script writers weren't thinking of it as equivalent to death, but as extreme cosmetic surgery, with relatively minor psychological side effects.

Yeah, but that just goes to show how pig-ignorant the script writers were.

One and Two don't have absolutely identical personalities, but they're no more different from each other than you at 15 is different from you at 45.

I completely disagree. ALL the Old Who Doctors went out of their way to be drastically different to their predecessors.

YOU were the one who thought they MURDERED Troughton in a fit of pique because he was insufficiently respectful!

It's not exactly murder if someone still remembers being you afterwards - continuity of identity is what counts - and plenty of human judges give the impression they'd love to execute people for severe contempt of court.

Plus, don't forget...it's the future CHANCELLOR GOTH we're talking about.

Are you sure? Six copied the face of Commander Maxil, so just looking the same doesn't prove anything. Goth and the judge might both have just been copying the face of some past president.

ALL the Old Who Doctors went out of their way to be drastically different to their predecessors.

The later ones did, while still recognisably being the Doctor; the earlier ones, less so. I can imagine a younger One, only a century old, acting just like Two. The difference between them is no greater than the difference will be between me at 20 and 60, should I live so long.

It's not exactly murder if someone still remembers being you afterwards - continuity of identity is what counts

That's...a good point, but TENNANT says otherwise and he should know.

Anyway, how much time DOES each Doctor spend remembering being his predecessors? How sharp are the memories? How much continuity of FEELING? The Doctor seemed to get over Rose from the moment he regenerated into Matt.

Goth and the judge might both have just been copying the face of some past president.

TWO identical faces-and-voices of TWO high-ranking Time Lords within three hundred years? I'd be surprised.

I can imagine a younger One, only a century old, acting just like Two. The difference between them is no greater than the difference will be between me at 20 and 60, should I live so long.

I don't see that for ONE MOMENT. Two is panic-prone, sweet, slightly manipulative, and utterly determined to fight for justice*. A young One (or even an old-but-pre-Barbara-and-Ian One) is undoubtedly an unbelievably selfish, arrogant, unpleasant, uncaring, murderous individual.

But then I was exactly the same aged four as I am aged almost-forty. It's ALWAYS been books, cats and Doctor Who with me, and it always will be.

*Except in the case of THE MACRA, obviously.

That's...a good point, but TENNANT says otherwise and he should know.

Ten was feeling depressed.

Four remembered Sarah Jane and the Brigadier, Five remembered his three companions, Seven remembered where he'd left the Hand of Omega, back when he was One.

TWO identical faces-and-voices of TWO high-ranking Time Lords within three hundred years? I'd be surprised.

Why? If our UK politicians could choose their faces, I bet most Conservative MPs would copy Winston Churchill, including some of the women, while most of the Labour MPs would wear Tony Blair's face.

I don't see that for ONE MOMENT. Two is panic-prone, sweet, slightly manipulative, and utterly determined to fight for justice*. A young One (or even an old-but-pre-Barbara-and-Ian One) is undoubtedly an unbelievably selfish, arrogant, unpleasant, uncaring, murderous individual.

Surely it must have been One who got the Time Lords to ban the miniscopes, on ethical grounds. Neither Two nor Three had the opportunity.

One was a little more prickly than too, but age alone can have that effect - if all your joints ache, you can be excused a little short temper. One was also slightly manipulative, tricking his companions into exploring the Dalek city, and he demonstrated a firm moral code.

He did sometimes lash out at people, metaphorically and literally, but that's just another manifestation of being a little panicky. Two was fit enough to run when he got nervous; One wasn't, so he got tetchy instead.

It's ALWAYS been books, cats and Doctor Who with me, and it always will be.

But not the exact same books, and presumably these days you hand feed the cats lightly diced salmon chunks, rather than letting your parents feed them on tinned cat food, so much less than they deserve.

Four remembered Sarah Jane and the Brigadier,

Only when they were RIGHT UNDER HIS NOSE. Or he was about to regenerate. He couldn't be bothered to GO BACK AND SEE 'EM or anything. Would any subsequent Companion of Four's have even heard the NAME 'Sarah Jane Smith'...? Rose certainly hadn't.

Five remembered his three companions

Again, only on his deathbed. He was TOTALLY resentful at being made to talk about Adric FIVE MINUTES after poor old Adders did the noble self-sacrifice thing.

Seven remembered where he'd left the Hand of Omega, back when he was One.

Two-to-Six-inclusive, however, DIDN'T.

If our UK politicians could choose their faces, I bet most Conservative MPs would copy Winston Churchill, including some of the women, while most of the Labour MPs would wear Tony Blair's face.

Surely there'd be laws or customs against that sort of thing? Or someone with the President's face could stage a secret coup quite easily.

Sure, the Doctor had the extreme misfortune to turn out looking like Maxil, but most Time Lords have a lot more control over the process, and that particular regeneration went drastically wrong even by the Doctor's standards.

Surely it must have been One who got the Time Lords to ban the miniscopes, on ethical grounds. Neither Two nor Three had the opportunity.

Just because it would be SERIOUSLY timey-wimey for Two or Three (or indeed Four-to-Eleven) to have had anything to do with the Miniscope business doesn't mean it was Hartnell. THAT would be EVEN MORE ridiculous.

One was a little more prickly than too

A LITTLE MORE PRICKLY!!! You wouldn't be saying that if it was YOUR head he tried to smash in with a rock!

One was also slightly manipulative, tricking his companions into exploring the Dalek city,

Two occasionally kept his Companions in the dark for the greater good. One deliberately sabotaged his own Ship in order to force the innocent civilians he'd kidnapped, and his own teenaged granddaughter, to explore a deadly alien world against their will.

and he demonstrated a firm moral code.

Ooh, when?

Two was fit enough to run when he got nervous; One wasn't, so he got tetchy instead.

I can't run either, but NEVER ONCE have I tried to smash someone's skull in to express my feelings.

Five remembered his three companions

Again, only on his deathbed.

I meant immediately after his regeneration from Four. He could have said 'I'm not the one who picked you three up. Get lost,' and left Adric in the dust, but he didn't.

Two-to-Six-inclusive, however, DIDN'T.

They didn't act on it, but that doesn't mean they didn't remember it. Most of them couldn't steer the Tardis well enough to do anything about it, and if Three tried using it, he'd found he'd already done so.

Surely there'd be laws or customs against that sort of thing? Or someone with the President's face could stage a secret coup quite easily.

Do you really think the Time Lords would be that sensible? Besides, they could use biodata to guard against coups.

Just because it would be SERIOUSLY timey-wimey for Two or Three (or indeed Four-to-Eleven) to have had anything to do with the Miniscope business doesn't mean it was Hartnell. THAT would be EVEN MORE ridiculous.

So which Doctor did it then? Three remembered doing it, which rules out all the later ones.

A LITTLE MORE PRICKLY!!! You wouldn't be saying that if it was YOUR head he tried to smash in with a rock!

That was a form of panic, not prickliness. He'd not a 1-dimensional character.

Two occasionally kept his Companions in the dark for the greater good. One deliberately sabotaged his own Ship in order to force the innocent civilians he'd kidnapped

So essentially similar, differing only in degree. I'm not claiming One and Two are identical, after all, just that One could have been much more like Two when he was the same physical age.

He demonstrated a firm moral code every time he chose to stay and fight evil despite being able to get back in the Tardis and hope he landed somewhere nicer.

I can't run either, but NEVER ONCE have I tried to smash someone's skull in to express my feelings.

But you've never been stuck in the stone age with a bunch of idiotic cavemen, nor is your body racked by the ravages of age. Besides, that whole tribe would have died if the Doctor hadn't been there, so it was really his duty as a Time Lord to keep history on course, and make sure they all died. The surprising thing isn't that he thought about killing one of them, but that he left any of them alive.

Would any subsequent Companion of Four's have even heard the NAME 'Sarah Jane Smith'...? Rose certainly hadn't.

And yet Peri could identify Jo Grant by name from a painting.

I meant immediately after his regeneration from Four. He could have said 'I'm not the one who picked you three up. Get lost,' and left Adric in the dust, but he didn't.

But then, he HAD kinda DONE that as Four. In Logopolis. 'I didn't ASK for you total losers to tag along, you BEGGED me' (I paraphrase slightly).

Plus Five really NEEDED them to get him through his regeneration, the weakling scum.

Two-to-Six-inclusive, however, DIDN'T.

They didn't act on it, but that doesn't mean they didn't remember it. Most of them couldn't steer the Tardis well enough to do anything about it

They wouldn't have HAD to steer the TARDIS. They all (possibly bar Two) spent enough time in modern-ish-day London to have picked the Hand of Omega up if they'd felt like it.

and if Three tried using it, he'd found he'd already done so.

But he wouldn't have KNOWN it was his Seventh self who'd picked the wretched thing up, so if Three HAD gone looking for the Hand of Omega, you'd expect a bit of panic. A LOT of panic, in fact.

Besides, they could use biodata to guard against coups.

They COULD but, let's face it, they aren't GOING to. Their technology is operated by HUMAN EYEBALLS, for heaven's sake.

So which Doctor did it then? Three remembered doing it, which rules out all the later ones.

If I HAD to venture a guess, I'd say that early-Three sent a telepathic message to the Time Lords saying 'OK, I've done your dirty work saving the universe from a Doomsday Weapon/getting Peladon to join the Federation/getting the Solonians to devlop into super-beings...if you don't want me to spill the beans about your ultra-interventionist policies (WHICH APPARENTLY JUSTIFY A DEATH PENALTY) do me a favour and ban Miniscopes, will you?'

I'm not saying it's particularly PLAUSIBLE. I'm just saying it's MORE plausible than a Gallifrey-based Hartnell suddenly getting a zoo-related crisis of conscience.

Two occasionally kept his Companions in the dark for the greater good. One deliberately sabotaged his own Ship in order to force the innocent civilians he'd kidnapped

So essentially similar, differing only in degree.

Um...No.

I'm not claiming One and Two are identical, after all, just that One could have been much more like Two when he was the same physical age.

Whereas I'm denying Hartnell'd've borne ANY RESEMBLANCE WHATSOEVER to our beloved Troughton at ANY age.

He demonstrated a firm moral code every time he chose to stay and fight evil despite being able to get back in the Tardis and hope he landed somewhere nicer.

I.e. AFTER he'd been infected with Barbara and Ian's humanness.

But you've never been stuck in the stone age with a bunch of idiotic cavemen

Surviving The Sixteen Long And Barren Years Of Despair was TOTALLY IDENTICAL to being stuck in the Stone Age with a bunch of idiotic cavemen.

nor is your body racked by the ravages of age.

No, but congenitally dislocated hips do a MARVELLOUS imitation of useless old age.

Besides, that whole tribe would have died if the Doctor hadn't been there

Oh, nonsense. They'd survived up till now, hadn't they? They could always have wrapped up warmly or joined another, fire-creating tribe, or learned to rub two sticks together or something...

so it was really his duty as a Time Lord to keep history on course, and make sure they all died. The surprising thing isn't that he thought about killing one of them, but that he left any of them alive.

How ON EARTH do you deduce that that sad bunch of losers was supposed to DIE rather than LIVE TO BECOME OUR ANCESTORS? Some things (like the radiation that sparked off Earth's primordial slime) are meant to be even if they ARE alien-related.

Plus, Hartnell never showed ANY of Tennant/Matt's skill in spotting what was a Fixed Point, what was in flux, etc etc.

And yet Peri could identify Jo Grant by name from a painting.

Oh. Yeah. Good point.

BLOODY Timelash.

But he wouldn't have KNOWN it was his Seventh self who'd picked the wretched thing up, so if Three HAD gone looking for the Hand of Omega, you'd expect a bit of panic. A LOT of panic, in fact.

Seven could just have left a signed note, the same way as some future regeneration did for him. Three would recognise his own handwriting, and be reassured.

I'm not saying it's particularly PLAUSIBLE. I'm just saying it's MORE plausible than a Gallifrey-based Hartnell suddenly getting a zoo-related crisis of conscience.

It's pretty common for humans to be liberal at 20 and conservative at 80 - the young see the advantages of change; the old like things as they used to be. It seems plausible enough the Time Lords follow the same pattern, starting afresh in each regeneration. The young Hartnell, fresh out of the academy, would have been a radical reformer. Four centuries later, when the Tardis stole him, he'd grown stodgy.

I.e. AFTER he'd been infected with Barbara and Ian's humanness.

And regained his youthful idealism.

Surviving The Sixteen Long And Barren Years Of Despair was TOTALLY IDENTICAL to being stuck in the Stone Age with a bunch of idiotic cavemen.

Not quite. Your cats were never in danger of being hurt by the idiots around you. Susan was in danger of getting hurt because of those cavemen.

They could always have wrapped up warmly or joined another, fire-creating tribe, or learned to rub two sticks together or something...

Not the impression I got. They didn't seem competent enough for that. Any fire-making tribe would have turned the idiots away.

Plus, Hartnell never showed ANY of Tennant/Matt's skill in spotting what was a Fixed Point, what was in flux, etc etc.

He didn't show it, but he was a lot less open about his alienness. It's a time lord gift, so he must have been able to do it: he just didn't like talking about it, the same way as he never admitted to being a Time Lord.

Seven could just have left a signed note, the same way as some future regeneration did for him.

He COULD have done, but I don't recall SEEING him do it...

It's pretty common for humans to be liberal at 20 and conservative at 80 - the young see the advantages of change; the old like things as they used to be. It seems plausible enough the Time Lords follow the same pattern, starting afresh in each regeneration.

It certainly does. Until you meet the First Doctor.

The young Hartnell, fresh out of the academy, would have been a radical reformer. Four centuries later, when the Tardis stole him, he'd grown stodgy.

Why the hell would Sexy have bothered to steal a STODGY Time Lord?

And if he was THAT stodgy, he'd've been perfectly happy to stay on Gallifrey...

I.e. AFTER he'd been infected with Barbara and Ian's humanness.

And regained his youthful idealism.

There WAS no youthful idealism!

Surviving The Sixteen Long And Barren Years Of Despair was TOTALLY IDENTICAL to being stuck in the Stone Age with a bunch of idiotic cavemen.

Not quite. Your cats were never in danger of being hurt by the idiots around you. Susan was in danger of getting hurt because of those cavemen.

But OF COURSE I care more about cats than Hartnell does about his granddaughter. I'd NEVER have dragged any fluffy darlings into a Dalek city on the pretext of needing some mercury.

They didn't seem competent enough for that. Any fire-making tribe would have turned the idiots away.

Not necessarily. There was at least ONE bright female amongst them, plus even a fire-making tribe wouldn't exactly have consisted of geniuses.

He didn't show it, but he was a lot less open about his alienness.

Actually I think Hartnell was a lot MORE open about his alienness. His vision of us as a bunch of stupid apes was so obvious that unlike Eccy he didn't even need to spell it out.

It's a time lord gift, so he must have been able to do it

I'm not convinced. Some Doctors were better at some things (running, Venusian Akido, controlling the TARDIS, saving universes, telepathy, hypnotism etc) than other Doctors. Hartnell could have been blind-as-a-bat regarding Fixed Points ('You can't change history, not one line' my ****) and Tennant would hardly have felt the need to explain this fact to Donna, in the circumstances.

he just didn't like talking about it, the same way as he never admitted to being a Time Lord.

He - AND Troughton - were obviously suffering from a pathetic superstitious fear that saying the words 'Time Lord' would result in said species materialising. Losers.

He COULD have done, but I don't recall SEEING him do it...

He wouldn't have wanted anyone to see him doing it, and he was pretty good at sleight of hand.

Why the hell would Sexy have bothered to steal a STODGY Time Lord?

In 'The Doctor's Wife', she demonstrated the ability to see the future, so she'd have known just what heroic potential he had.

And if he was THAT stodgy, he'd've been perfectly happy to stay on Gallifrey...

Stodgy, by human standards, but he hadn't entirely forgotten his childhood dreams.

There WAS no youthful idealism!

Unprovable. Unless the Doctor starts telling us about his politics in adolescence, we'll never have definite knowledge of what he was like at 50.

All we have to go on is plausibility, and I find a bout of youthful idealism a lot more plausible than Three managing to convince the Time Lords to ban miniscopes in the middle of his exile.

But OF COURSE I care more about cats than Hartnell does about his granddaughter. I'd NEVER have dragged any fluffy darlings into a Dalek city on the pretext of needing some mercury.

Hartnell didn't know it was a Dalek city. Presumably, he thought Susan would enjoy meeting a new alien culture, and it'd stop her inexplicable obsession with 60's UK culture - like the way some people try to trick their cats into eating a new brand of cat-food rather than the old favourite.


Actually I think Hartnell was a lot MORE open about his alienness.

He never once mentioned his superior biology.

He - AND Troughton - were obviously suffering from a pathetic superstitious fear that saying the words 'Time Lord' would result in said species materialising. Losers.

Which would be a good reason for them not to talk about their Time Lord senses. Hartnell may have known most of history was fluid; he could have just told Barbara it was all fixed so he wouldn't have to explain how he could recognise a fixed point if they ran into one.

He wouldn't have wanted anyone to see him doing it, and he was pretty good at sleight of hand.

Nonsense, Seven LOVES an audience when writing letters! We SAW him do it in Remembrance AND Fenric.

Why the hell would Sexy have bothered to steal a STODGY Time Lord?

In 'The Doctor's Wife', she demonstrated the ability to see the future, so she'd have known just what heroic potential he had.

Oh. Yeah, that's true.

Stodgy, by human standards, but he hadn't entirely forgotten his childhood dreams.

Well, he certainly managed to entirely forget his childhood Best Friend.

Unless the Doctor starts telling us about his politics in adolescence, we'll never have definite knowledge of what he was like at 50.

True - Divided Loyalties is canon only over my dead body - so it's more reasonable to guess 'like Hartnell only able to move a bit faster' rather than 'youthfully idealistic'.

I find a bout of youthful idealism a lot more plausible than Three managing to convince the Time Lords to ban miniscopes in the middle of his exile.

What about Troughton during Season 6b? Alright, so I don't particularly BELIEVE in Season 6b but Two Doctors unfortunately makes it clear that SOMETHING really weird was going on. And Troughton is - unlike One OR Three - the sort of muddle-headed nice guy who WOULD hassle the CIA to release some poor zoo animals in return for his illicit services. As long as they weren't Macra.

Hartnell didn't know it was a Dalek city.

Hartnell REALLY OUGHT to have spent FIVE MINUTES looking up 'Universe, Most Evil Species In' before hauling his granddaughter off to explore said universe.

Presumably, he thought Susan would enjoy meeting a new alien culture

Despite the fact Susan had categorically informed him that she wanted nothing more than to remain with jeering schoolmates, nosy schoolteachers, and inaccurate and childishly inane lessons for eternity? Hartnell never struck me as the over-optimistic type.

and it'd stop her inexplicable obsession with 60's UK culture

But the entire UNIVERSE was obsessed by 60's UK culture in the Hartnell, and indeed Troughton, eras!

Actually I think Hartnell was a lot MORE open about his alienness.

He never once mentioned his superior biology.

Yeah, definitely not about his biology - well, by THIS stage this old body of his was wearing a bit thin and was DEFINITELY nothing to write home about - but his attitude to humanity was unrivaled until Eccy came along. And Eccy was no doubt exaggerating his contempt - HE never once tried to smash a stupid ape's head in because it was in his way. And he DID fall in love with a peroxide-blonde ape.

Hartnell may have known most of history was fluid; he could have just told Barbara it was all fixed so he wouldn't have to explain how he could recognise a fixed point if they ran into one.

But wouldn't it have been more CONVINCING for him to explain that 'some things are fixed, some things are in flux'? If Barbara - or Ian - had had the brains of a lobotomised Ogron they'd be asking how come they've altered the destinies of several other worlds.

Nonsense, Seven LOVES an audience when writing letters! We SAW him do it in Remembrance AND Fenric.

He loves the right kind of audience, but there was a dalek ship in orbit, with excellent surveillance equipment. If they saw him write the note he'd found a few regenerations earlier, they might steal it, accidentally causing a paradox.

so it's more reasonable to guess 'like Hartnell only able to move a bit faster' rather than 'youthfully idealistic'.

When he was just 20? Romana didn't act like an old woman, and she was over 100, so why would the Doctor be acting like an old man at 20?

What about Troughton during Season 6b?

That's a satisfactory alternate explanation.

Despite the fact Susan had categorically informed him that she wanted nothing more than to remain with jeering schoolmates, nosy schoolteachers, and inaccurate and childishly inane lessons for eternity?

Of course. It's pretty common for desperate parents to drag their children round museums in the forlorn hope they'll acquire a bit of respectable culture. From the First Doctor, who firmly believed he knew best about almost everything, such behaviour is only to be expected.

But the entire UNIVERSE was obsessed by 60's UK culture in the Hartnell, and indeed Troughton, eras!

The Doctor wasn't, or he'd have worn 60s fashions. He wouldn't have thought his grandchild should be.

but his attitude to humanity was unrivaled until Eccy came along.

True, but there's no shortage of humans with that attitude to humanity. Thinking everyone around you is an idiot doesn't make you seem alien, just conceited. (Even if everyone really does look like an idiot next to you, rubbing their noses in their folly is not exactly wise.)

But wouldn't it have been more CONVINCING for him to explain that 'some things are fixed, some things are in flux'?

He probably thought that was too complicated for Barbara, who was only human.

When he was just 20? Romana didn't act like an old woman, and she was over 100, so why would the Doctor be acting like an old man at 20?

Because he's the HARTNELL Doctor.

Admittedly the sight of the Doctor's cradle in A Good Man Goes To War slightly shook my assumption that Hartnell ALWAYS looked and behaved just like that from the moment he was...born. Loomed. Whatever.

It's pretty common for desperate parents to drag their children round museums in the forlorn hope they'll acquire a bit of respectable culture.

Certainly it is. It's considerably less common, however, to KIDNAP, BLACKMAIL, or FORCE IN A LIFE-ENDANGERING MANNER said cultural experiences.

The Doctor wasn't, or he'd have worn 60s fashions.

He might have been obsessed/intriged by 60s fab gear without actually personally availing himself of it. Like the way he's always playing with Earth girls, but never actually SLEPT with one till she had a good chunk of Time Lord DNA.

(Even if everyone really does look like an idiot next to you, rubbing their noses in their folly is not exactly wise.)

Well, it's fine for THE DOCTOR, he's away in his blue box without a second thought as to the plebs he's leaving fuming behind him (I THINK I'm correct in saying he's never actually been attacked/imprisoned because someone finds him an unbearably arrogant self-centred git?) but I take your point and will strive harder not to show my contempt for my fellow humanity the next time one of 'em reveals they haven't heard of Mauritania or the Macra or something.

He probably thought that was too complicated for Barbara, who was only human.

I think by THIS stage he's been forced to have a great deal of respect for Barbara's brains, courage AND determination.

my assumption that Hartnell ALWAYS looked and behaved just like that from the moment he was...born. Loomed. Whatever.

An assumption I've never found plausible. If Romana acted as old as we see Hartnell do, I could have believed all Time Lords acted like that even when young, but she didn't.

More recently, we saw both the Doctor and the Master as children. Neither of them acted much like their later selves.

It's considerably less common, however, to KIDNAP, BLACKMAIL, or FORCE IN A LIFE-ENDANGERING MANNER said cultural experiences.

Bribery and emotional blackmail are pretty common, when parents are trying to get their unruly children to cooperate, and the Doctor didn't know it was going to be life endangering.

Why not is a good question. One theory is that the Daleks would have never left Skaro if the Doctor hadn't gone there, but it's more likely because of timey-wimeyness.

When the Time Lords looked at Dalek history, they'll have seen the Doctor threaded through it, even before he existed, part of their own future. That's reason enough not to tell the Time Tots about the Daleks, considering they don't know yet which of them is going to be so involved in their history.

He might have been obsessed/intriged by 60s fab gear

If he liked 60s culture, he kept it pretty quiet. He never once admitted wanting to visit the era. The way he talked, it seemed the only reason he wanted to get back there was to dispose of Ian and Barbara.

I think by THIS stage he's been forced to have a great deal of respect for Barbara's brains, courage AND determination.

Remember the old quote: "The amazing thing isn't how well the bear dances, but that it can dance at all."

That was One's general attitude to his pet humans. He recognised that they were amazing, by human standards, but that didn't stop him from considering himself intellectually superior, nor would it stop him from giving Barbara a simple but false explanation rather than a complicated accurate account of when history can and can't be changed.

An assumption I've never found plausible. If Romana acted as old as we see Hartnell do, I could have believed all Time Lords acted like that even when young, but she didn't.

But they're completely different people, why SHOULD they act the same? Even Hartnell's OTHER SELVES don't act much like him...

More recently, we saw both the Doctor and the Master as children. Neither of them acted much like their later selves.

We saw a ten-second clip of Master-brat, during which time, granted, he TOTALLY failed to attempt to destroy any planets. Whenever did we see a Doctor-brat?

Bribery and emotional blackmail are pretty common, when parents are trying to get their unruly children to cooperate

What's the MATTER with these people?! What's wrong with a BIG STICK?

and the Doctor didn't know it was going to be life endangering.

It was already crystal clear this wasn't a nice cosy planet. It was also obvious that if he dropped the mercury they'd be stranded here for life, surely a WORSE risk than merely a bit of life-endangering. (Though obviously there was plenty of THAT too. How could he not have NOTICED that Sexy's radiation-dial was a bit slow??)

One theory is that the Daleks would have never left Skaro if the Doctor hadn't gone there

That's just MEAN!

When the Time Lords looked at Dalek history, they'll have seen the Doctor threaded through it, even before he existed, part of their own future.

If those losers had had a CLUE about their future they wouldn't have ended up going splat in a Dalek War.

With miserable cowardice they forbade themselves a glimpse of their own future. They relied on guesses from DEAD Time Lords who hadn't been that bright even when they were alive and, let's face it, the ONLY time the Matrix foresaw anything remotely useful no one except the Master even NOTICED...

If he liked 60s culture, he kept it pretty quiet.

Yeah, and if I liked 60s culture, I would too.

He never once admitted wanting to visit the era.

Well, he didn't HAVE to, did he. His universe was FULL of mini-skirts and sexism and psychedelic wallpaper.

The way he talked, it seemed the only reason he wanted to get back there was to dispose of Ian and Barbara.

And, given that he was DEVASTATED by their defection (well, for five minutes anyway, the maximum amount of time any Old Who Doctor was permitted to show emotion) it's obvious that THE DOCTOR LIES.

Remember the old quote: "The amazing thing isn't how well the bear dances, but that it can dance at all."

That was One's general attitude to his pet humans. He recognised that they were amazing, by human standards

Not JUST by human standards. Barbara worked out what the TARDIS was getting at long before HE did, though admittedly her explanation was TOTALLY INSANE (if irritatingly correct).

nor would it stop him from giving Barbara a simple but false explanation rather than a complicated accurate account of when history can and can't be changed.

'Some things are in flux, some are fixed, I can see which is which, you can't' isn't really COMPLICATED.* Quite WHY it took the Doc over 900 years to admit this to a Companion is beyond me. Like I said, taking a gamble on Barbara being too stupid to ask some pretty obvious questions was an insane and unnecessary risk, even if it totally paid off.

*He needn't go into details like seeing every atom of the universe all the time. That WOULD confuse the poor human pets, the way it's been confusing ME every day since Parting of the Ways.

Hartnell did change after landing on Earth, so he wasn't completely stuck in his ways. If he changed once, he could have changed twice, and been quite different when he was young.

Whenever did we see a Doctor-brat?

Wasn't there a clip of him, remembering running through the grass?

It was already crystal clear this wasn't a nice cosy planet. It was also obvious that if he dropped the mercury they'd be stranded here for life, surely a WORSE risk than merely a bit of life-endangering.

At that point, the Doctor was arrogant enough to believe he couldn't possibly drop the mercury, and hardship builds character.

With miserable cowardice they forbade themselves a glimpse of their own future.

Which would have made it pretty difficult for them to teach the young Doctor about the Daleks, since as part of his future they were entwined with the future of Gallifrey.

the ONLY time the Matrix foresaw anything remotely useful no one except the Master even NOTICED...

It did eventually notice the Daleks might become a problem. That's why the Time Lords asked the Doctor to commit pre-emptive genocide, though it'd have been more sensible to send the Master.

Well, he didn't HAVE to, did he. His universe was FULL of mini-skirts and sexism and psychedelic wallpaper.

The sexism wasn't just a 60s thing, unfortunately. Did he ever look like he approved of mini-skirts and psychedelic wallpaper?

'Some things are in flux, some are fixed, I can see which is which, you can't' isn't really COMPLICATED

He might be patronisingly sexist enough to think it's too complicated for Barbara, a mere woman, and even if he doesn't, he'd be worried it'd lead to Barbara constantly asking "Is this a fixed point? Is this? Is this?

That's why the Time Lords asked the Doctor to commit pre-emptive genocide, though it'd have been more sensible to send the Master.

Sending the Master on that errand would have been a disaster. He would have formed an alliance with Davros, and then betrayed him right after he took control of the newly created Daleks from him.

The Doctor's never visited Ireland has he?

"Ireland is my kind of place! Only... is this a Catholic neighbourhood or Protestant?"

Whenever did we see a Doctor-brat?

Wasn't there a clip of him, remembering running through the grass?

Not unless my subconscious has suppressed it.

At that point, the Doctor was arrogant enough to believe he couldn't possibly drop the mercury

I'm not so sure. He wasn't exactly striding round arrogantly proclaiming that he could, say, STEER THE TARDIS. Or even mend its chameleon circuit.

With miserable cowardice they forbade themselves a glimpse of their own future.

Which would have made it pretty difficult for them to teach the young Doctor about the Daleks, since as part of his future they were entwined with the future of Gallifrey.

They could have compiled a Top Ten Monsters Of the Universe list to pass the endless, barren millennia whilst studiously avoiding any times the Oncoming Storm pops up. I mean, did they know ANYTHING AT ALL about the outside universe?

the ONLY time the Matrix foresaw anything remotely useful no one except the Master even NOTICED...

It did eventually notice the Daleks might become a problem. That's why the Time Lords asked the Doctor to commit pre-emptive genocide

But the Daleks only became a problem TO THE TIME LORDS because they sent the Doctor back to avert their creation, and the Daleks' feelings got REALLY REALLY HURT when they belatedly discovered this. For all we know the Matrix projection that sent the Fourth Doctor to Skaro was totally made-up by a bunch of Time Lord braincells who were going even crazier due to being dead than they had been alive. Maybe they were keen to see another Doctor Who In An Exciting Adventure With The Daleks. Or maybe they wanted revenge on the idiot who, in trespassing on THEIR territory, had led Spandrel and Engin to casually slaughter thousands of their pals on the grounds 'better them than darling Tom Baker'.

Did he ever look like he approved of mini-skirts and psychedelic wallpaper?

Of course not. Hartnell never looked as if he approved of ANYTHING.* But we all know (now) that Sexy took him places for a REASON, and she'd hardly have repeatedly inflicted the aforementioned fashion disasters if he HADN'T secretly enjoyed 'em.

He might be patronisingly sexist enough to think it's too complicated for Barbara, a mere woman

Oh, I think the fact he NEVER ONCE threatened to smack her bottom means Hartnell thought of Babs as a honorary man.

and even if he doesn't, he'd be worried it'd lead to Barbara constantly asking "Is this a fixed point? Is this? Is this?

Why would that be a problem? He could just say 'Yes' every time he didn't want her risking HIS neck by interfering.

Sending the Master on that errand would have been a disaster. He would have formed an alliance with Davros, and then betrayed him right after he took control of the newly created Daleks from him.

Though to be fair to the Master, he genuinely looked as if he was out to help the Doctors in Five Docs before they started being REALLY MEAN to him. Of course, in Genesis the Time Lords weren't in a position to offer him an entire new regeneration cycle (but then I'm not convinced they were in Five Docs either). Plus there's a remote possibility he'd learned the error of his Dalek-allying ways in Frontier in Space. On the other hand, he was in pizza-faced incarnation at this point and not particularly sane even by his own low standards.

*OK, I exaggerate slightly. Occasionally he'd let out a high-pitched giggle, which MIGHT indicate approval or, alternatively, senile dementia.

'Over a thousand years of saving the universe, Strax, there is one thing I learned: the universe doesn't care' - wow. That's an unusual message from the Doctor, particularly since his life has been saved by so many insane coincidences that the universe MUST be lending a hand.

But I digress. What I'm asking is...OVER a thousand years of saving the universe? That almost fits in with the Doctor's Wife claim - when he was 900-and-something years old - that he'd spent 700 years in the TARDIS (since he spent 200+ years on his Farewell Tour after that) but does it fit in with William Hartnell? HE only saved PLANETS, usually pretty grudgingly, and AFTER Ian and Barbara had gradually transformed him into something remotely resembling a human. And didn't Susan claim somewhere that they NEVER met with this sort of trouble pre-Unearthly Child?

'Do you think I'm going to start investigating just became some bird smiles at me' - well, YEAH. Are we to believe that the Doctor would have left humanity to perish cos he found Strax, Vastra and Jenny insufficiently attractive? Cos that's certainly the impression The Snowmen gave me.

Oh, great. Now he's promising to save the world...if Clara promises to come away with him. What a git.

For those of us who get BBC America:



http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/scifi/bbc-america-airing-classic-doctor-episodes-saturday-nights.html

A discussion of the Doctor's real age.

Very good effort, I like the switching-to-Earth-years-post-Time-War explanation a lot...though it doesn't quite get away with just dismissing Pertwee as joking.

Pertwee, strikes me as the kind of person who would exagerate to impress people and focus attention on himself. In one episode, he is asked by someone "Are you some kind of scientist?" to which he replies "I am EVERY kind of scientist" likely another exageration. And there's also the rather flamboyant way he dresses. You might think of him as the Baron Von Munchausen version of the Doctor. Claiming to have been a scientist for "several thousand years", even if he had not, would be in perfect character for him.

Moffat in online interview http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/07/10/doctor-who-matt-smith-steven-moffat/:

'If you're a Doctor Who fan, as I have been all my life, you've been doing fantasy casting for this part for as long as you can remember.' - Well, I don't do fantasy casting. I find it pretty unimaginable to think of some ACTOR being the Doctor until AT LEAST he's been announced as the Doctor, if not until he's actually being all Doctorish on-screen.

'But when you're suddenly faced with the reality that you are going to sit there and you are going to make that decision it does feel absolutely chilling. There's a very big range of people who could play it and different ways you could go with it. We must get this right. One false move and the show's over.' - I don't think that's quite true. One false move and the Doctor can bang his head on the TARDIS console and regenerate into someone else sooner than anticipated...

I wouldn't mind a Northern Irish Doctor. "We have left behind the days of the gun and the bomb!"

Interesting:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/aug/08/doctor-who-role-black-actor

Of course, after Nightmare in Silver one just can't TRUST Gaiman...

An article about the 50th anniversary and other stuff. What I want to direct your attention to is the result of a poll asking 'Who is your favorite Doctor'

OK, these are hilariously weird (except Eccy. I'd know him ANYWHERE).

Colin Baker looks quite dashing.

And Matt Smith reminds me of me at that age, well, the ears anyway

If the page title & captions hadn't of given it away Hartnell, Colin Baker & Eccleston's pics would have had me going, "He looks familiar..."

Troughton & McCoy were recognizable.

Pertwee & Tom Baker might have taken me a minute or two to figure out.

Yee, gods & little fishies, where did they get that embarrassing photo of Davison from? (Guess he didn't play the blackmailers to keep it secret. ;-)

Wouldn't have guessed McGann, Tennant, Smith or Capaldi.

Although with his long floppy hair Tennant did remind me of Matt Smith after he had been announced as the new Doctor.

Yee, gods & little fishies, where did they get that embarrassing photo of Davison from?

This one would have been even more embarrassing.

Here's my suggestion for the Doctor following Capaldi

We can't possibly have an Australian Doctor!

Strange thing that connects Rebecca Smart with "young Melody" actress Sydney Wade - in Smart's latest showreel of her roles that her agency posted online she has a clip from one of her film works as a child actress in which Smart's young daughter character and her character's mother are shown naked having a shower together on-screen. One of Sydney Wade's productions - in which Wade's little girl character - daughter to Alex Kingston's character - was supposed to have Wade and Kingston shown in the bath together but it was felt to be too "intimate" to be beamed into people's lounge rooms.

Can't see why you'd pic her of all the actresses around Judi. I'm sure she's a perfectly fine actress- but I can't see them picking her to be our first female Doctor.

Now if we continue with the usual white male way of casting Doctors, I'd LOVE to see Geoffrey Rush or Hugh Jackman. Watch the ratings SOAR if the latter happened....

BTW- if anyone wants to see the actress Judi is talking about, then watch her showreel here. (The first extract is the shower scene with a few wobbly boobies. Be warned)

Geoffrey Rush actually deigned to remember that Australia was his home a while back - joined with Barry Humphries to protest the proposals for development around Camberwell in Melbourne.

Slightly harsh Judi. He frequently heads home to do shows and workshops with young actors. I believe he is also a financial benefactor for the Melbourne Theatre Company.

Unlike, say, Nicole Kidman who only comes home when plugging a new film.

Nicole Kidman was born in Hawaii. America can keep her.

cf Mel Gibson

Nicole Kidman has dual Australian/American citizenship because of her being born in Hawaii. Her parents were Aussie nationals there on student visas when she was born.

Not sure about Mel Gibson (who was born just outside of New York City).

Day of the Doctor:

'We change history all the time' - you DO?! Since WHEN! (Or at least, since when have you bloody ADMITTED it...?)

'My journey is the same as yours, the same as anyone's. It's taken me so many years, so many lifetimes, but at last I know where I'm going, where I've always been going. Home...the long way round.' - the HELL you are! Aren't you forgetting that we've SEEN Arc of Infinity and Invasion of Time and suchlike? Our Hero has been RUNNING AWAY from that godawful place since he was Hartnell. (Mentally, an eight-year-old Untempered-Schism-ed-out Hartnell. Physically a 400-and-something-ish Hartnell.)

I wondered how one might explain the way the Doctor reacts to time fields.

In at least two episodes, namely "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" and "City of Death," the Doctor (and in the latter case, Romana) is exposed to time fields produced by others tinkering with time.

In both episodes, the Doctor is affected differently than the nearby humans. In both episodes it is stated that it's because he's (and she's) a Time Lord.

If we call this difference "resistance" (for lack of a better word), then my question is, "Why are Time Lords resistant to time fields?"

What is the source of the ability?

It can hardly be energy coming
from Gallifrey...

I wondered how one might explain the way the Doctor reacts to time fields.

I just assumed it was a natural ability (though by 'natural' I think I mean 'genetically engineered by Rassilon' or something). Fish can cope with water better than we can - Time Lords can cope with time.

Moffat in DWM:

'If you take someone like the Doctor and really •••• him off, if you set yourself up to go to war with the Doctor, what would happen? Obviously you'd lose, it would be a massive, crushing defeat, but what side of the Doctor does it bring out? He's actually quite capable of being really unpleasant to people. Of course he is. He's a man like anyone else. If you treated Amy with extraordinary cruelty, how long would you live after that?' - quite a long time, judging by Colonel Runaway and Madame Kovarian. (Who is, incidentally, quite sure the Doctor would disapprove of Amy's eyepatch-related murder of her...as is Amy.)

'He's such a law unto himself, the Doctor. No-one's policing him, no-one's checking if he's killing anyone or ever bringing him to book with "Why did you blow up that planet?" - so he must have this tremendous set of rules...based on the fact that if he ever misbehaves, it could be apocalyptic.' - I'm sorry, isn't Moffat forgetting that, for most of his lives, the Doctor has had TIME LORDS and COMPANIONS to say such things?

Since we know from The Mark of the Rani that male Time Lords have a "soft, dangly, collection of objects" in their trousers, why hasn't anyone tried to stop the Doctor by kicking or kneeing him in the crotch?

Trax's field report on all of the Doctor's past incarnations.

It's STRAX, you...you...putrescent alien scum!

Well, call me Colonel Runaway. I deserve no better.

Okay, Colonel Runway!

'You sometimes think, "Hang on, have we just turned him into God? Let's just pull him back from being God and send him back to being the man in the box." I think the truth is right in the middle. We all know that he's just an idiot with a time machine, who isn't very reliable and hasn't got a plan - but what we're playing at is, how does he look to other people? And then does he start exploiting how they think he is...? But yes, I do think it's a danger. I think there was a moment when the show came back and the Doctor was very much the disregarded loner, and as the show became more and more successful, we all got quite carried away with the fact that he was becoming as famous in the show as he was outside the show.' - Moffat in DWM. He doesn't seem to be addressing the fact that the Doctor's attempts to dial down on his fame - including wiping himself from the databases of the entire universe and leaving Amy broken-hearted for years by faking death - were an absolute and dismal failure that resulted in every monster in the universe queuing up outside Trenzalore for A MILLENNIUM just to gawk at him and take the occasional poke.

Moffat said handsome actors did not fit the bill for the Time Lord, preferring people who were "utterly compelling, attractive in a very odd way".

Yeah, and that's what I'd've said too...BEFORE DAVID TENNANT BECAME THE MOST SUCCESSFUL DOCTOR EVER.

None of the doctors are conventionally attractive

Whaaaaaaaat! YOU were the one who christened Tennant 'Pretty Boy'!

Moffat Interview

Moffat, when asked in DWM about the 13-regeneration rule: 'Let's be honest, this problem will only arise long after I've been stretchered out of Cardiff. [Yeah, RIGHT.] But fear not! A protocol is in place. A brilliant, audacious protocol passed from showrunner to showrunner in hushed tones, by torchlight. In the event of the Doctor running out of his allotted number of regenerations...the incumbent showrunner will...........................make something up.'

OK, fair enough.

I guess we all expected that, just not so soon, thankyoustevenmoffattandjohnhurt.

John Hurt was one thing, claiming Tennant was two different Doctors is quite another...(He sure as hell isn't getting two entries in the Nitcentral Doctor section, I can tell you...)

10th Doctor prior to Journey's End aborted regeneration

10th Doctor after Journey's End aborted regeneration

Hand Doctor, presumably living marital bliss with Rose in a parallel universe

Metacrisis 10th Doctor, looks and sounds a lot like Donna Noble.

Jenny, 10th Doctor's female clone.

Did I miss any?

Wow.

He's not getting FIVE entires in the Doctors section either...

...Hang on, Hand Doctor and Metacrisis Doctor are the same thing, aren't they.

On the other hand just imagine the fun of a multi-Doctor story featuring the two 10th Doctors & the Hand Doctor. ;-)

Hang on, Hand Doctor and Metacrisis Doctor are the same thing, aren't they.

They are both created from the metacrisis. Hand Doctor looks like the tenth Doctor, and the one I call Metacrisis Doctor looks like Donna, and is a mixture of the Doctor's and Donna's personalities.

On the other hand just imagine the fun of a multi-Doctor story featuring the two 10th Doctors & the Hand Doctor. ;-)

I think the universe might implode at the sight of quite THAT much sex-appeal on one screen.

Oh, stuff the universe - let's risk it...

the one I call Metacrisis Doctor looks like Donna, and is a mixture of the Doctor's and Donna's personalities.

Sorry, my stupid brain just skipped over the 'looks and' bit of 'looks and sounds a lot like Donna Noble' and went straight into a reverie about how adorably Donna-ish Rose's new chew toy sounds...let's hope this doesn't affect the aforementioned marital bliss TOO much...

Weird thing about staggering to the end of a Season 7/33 rewatch so LATE is that I strongly felt...Matt Smith is no longer the Doctor. I don't mean it in an insulting way - he's still A Doctor, a •••• GOOD Doctor, a cherished part of my life, I'll never forget when he was the Doctor (and not just cos I've got the DVDs), but THE Doctor...isn't him any more and, marvellous as those eyebrows and kidney-comments were, it's not Peter Capaldi either...YET...so I'm increasingly finding myself picturing Tom Baker whenever I'm thinking DOCTOR. Good to know I haven't ENTIRELY betrayed n'abandoned him just cos I accidentally fell in love with a couple of mayfly New Who WIMPS.

ROBERT in Original Series: Season Eleven: Invasion of the Dinosaurs:

Most Doctors would give up their life to save a child they'd met two minutes earlier

I'm not so sure. Only two Doctors have intentionally sacrificed their lives for one person (Davison and Tennant - after all, Eccy had every reason to believe he could cope with the Vortex energy for the couple of seconds it would take to blow it back into the TARDIS). And Tennant was REALLY pissed off about it EVEN THOUGH IT WAS DARLING WILF and Davison was the one who moronically dropped the bats-milk so pretty much HAD to top himself for the poor innocent teenaged girl he'd dragged into a warzone.

they simply wouldn't be able to live with the thought of having passed by, leaving the child to die.

They lived with the knowledge they'd blown their own planet sky-high with all those millions of children. If they didn't fancy doing the noble self-sacrifice thing for some snot-nosed rug-rat I suspect they'd've learned to cope.

They lived with the knowledge they'd blown their own planet sky-high with all those millions of children.

They existed with that knowledge haunting them, but they were only living in the literal sense. Basically, it's a way of saying they were haunted by the tragedy, near permanently depressed, constantly wishing it had never happened.

None of the classic Doctors seemed to be consumed by regrets, probably because they didn't think they had much to regret, which suggests he never knowing left a child to die. I suppose it's vaguely possible that One or Six could have done that without feeling guilty, but pretty unlikely, and the others would all have been deeply troubled by the experience.

they were haunted by the tragedy, near permanently depressed, constantly wishing it had never happened.

The HELL they were! No one is as full of joie de vivre as our New Who Doctors. Even Eccy, who one THINKS of as the War-ravaged one, was joyously dancing around more than his eight (nine. Whatever.) predecessors put together. AND they bizarrely all became capable of falling in love into the bargain.

Not to mention Eleven being specifically charged by his other selves with COMPLETELY FORGETTING he'd once spent a night counting the dead children of Gallifrey.

None of the classic Doctors seemed to be consumed by regrets, probably because they didn't think they had much to regret, which suggests he never knowing left a child to die.

Davison - the softest of all the Doctors - did, however, knowingly leave one Companion to die and personally execute another one. He didn't bat an eyelid over Kamelion and his 'mourning' for poor dear heroic Adric consisted of gritting his teeth for five minutes as Nyssa and Tegan wailed before suggesting they shut up and have a nice holiday.

The Face of Evil: http://www.avclub.com/article/someone-merged-all-doctors-together-find-doctor-wh-208124

The Doctor was never ginger!

Oh, is that abomination ginger? *peers through fingers*

No, but the article itself states that the Doctor was once ginger, which is false, false, FALSE!

Ah. I forgot to read the article, I was busy screaming and running away.

Do we know that Hurt-Doc WASN'T ginger before he got all...old?

In Night of the Doctor, his hair looks black when we see his reflection in the mirror.

Unexpected hair colour can be caused by a recessive gene. Perhaps 'The Other' was ginger :-)

In Night of the Doctor, his hair looks black when we see his reflection in the mirror.

Ah. I can never tell ANYTHING from that stupid reflection.

Perhaps 'The Other' was ginger :-)

I think we can safely say that The Other and his Looms are well and truly history. History that NEVER HAPPENED.

Well, um, I suppose this is ONE way of looking at it:

What Does Doctor Who Say About British Men

But let's get one thing straight: Tenannt NEVER gets tiring.

Eccleston remains the last very famous person to be cast as The Doctor, followed by Davison and Pertwee, neither of whom were stars on the level of Eccleston (though one should take into account the different eras they were cast in). Hartnell was pretty well-known but I'm not sure he counts as he was the First.

Surely Capaldi was at least as famous as Eccy?

If even *I'd* heard of Capaldi before he was cast then he must be famous. ('Local Hero' - his first movie role - is one of my favourite films).

What I think might be rather intriguing is an examination of whether or not the Doctor always qualifies as a "man" in the traditional sense. From 1963 - 89, I think there are several occasions when he is presented so asexually he does not (oddly enough, the Sylvester McCoy era comes particularly to mind). And that throws the Bechdel test out of whack in a potentially very interesting way.

You can be extremely asexual and STILL very much of one particular gender. I know whereof I speak.

For Halloween I say we all use ouija boards to contact William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, and Jon Pertwee. Whoever gets the raunchiest reply wins.

- the Doctor is in his first incarnation of a cycle and being played by an older man

- two coal hill school teachers

- and a kid who’s a problem in school

am I talking about 1963 or 2014?

The next Doctor after Capaldi is going to play a phallic instrument and cling to a Scotsman, aren’t they?

The parallels between the Hartnell and Capaldi Doctors are obviously intentional.

Yeah, he was even clutching his lapels in a Hartnell-style manner when he was announced to the world as the next Doctor.

The parallels I find tend to be:

* older actor than before
* famous for playing a bit of a git
* been in Doctor Who before in a guest role
* playing a much more abrasive/contrived-agressive version of the character that's described as Hartnell-like by people who've never seen Hartnell
* joins the show just after a huge anniversary special proves its more popular than ever
* brunette companion who joined with his predecessor but has no discernible character

I'm thinking the next Doctor will be someone you've never heard of from children's TV and ends up filming the regeneration scene in Capaldi's coat and a frightwig.

Oh, and his early stories feature lots of pointless references to 'An Unearthly Child', including a visit to a site that's obviously meant to be 76 Totter's Lane but looks nothing like it...

also: *Has quite a •••• costume

Capaldi's costume is lovely!

There are dozens of "the Doctor visits Narnia" stories but they are never as good as CS Lewis would have written it. How would the Doctor really cope facing judgement by Aslan?

It depends which Doctor. Some of them are better with cats than others. None of them, however, would permit some furry Christ-figure to sit in judgement over THEM.

KEVIN in New Series: Season Eight: Flatline: Davison never seemed to get out from under Baker's shadow, regarding the lines he was given.

Interesting. I can't imagine ANY of his lines being said by Tom. None of them were funny, for starters.

Pertwee might be the only Doctor who really hit the ground running, and in terms of characterization I think his first season was his best.

Interesting. I recently read about how Pertwee was cast because the Production Team wanted a comedian and a magic-performer and everyone was rather put out when he refused to do either. (Apparently that godawful transmigration-of-object thing in Ambassadors was a hang-over from early scripts reflecting this.)

McCoy was given lines clearly different than any of his predecessors, and they were disastrous.

McCoy was JUST FINE once he escaped Pip n'Jane...

Ever since I was a teen and read Colony in Space (er, the Doomsday Weapon) picturing Tom Baker, who was the only Doctor I knew at the time, I sometimes imagine established stories with different Doctors.

Bless!

Smith could maybe do Blink, but not as well as Tennant, but Capaldi's pretty hard to imagine doing the Easter Egg bit.

It was pretty hard to imagine Capaldi doing a dance of joy...before last Saturday.

I suspect he can do ANYTHING.

CHRIS: And in a way, we do need that transition for the Doctor to stop being the previous incarnation and move to being the next one.

Unless Who's had, er, a bit of a break. Eccy arrived fully-fledged and perfect in every way and not remotely McGanny...sorry, Hurty.

There are dozens of "the Doctor visits Narnia" stories but they are never as good as CS Lewis would have written it. How would the Doctor really cope facing judgement by Aslan?

They'd probably have to work together, when the Master arrives and partners up with Jadis, the White Witch

Interesting. I can't imagine ANY of his lines being said by Tom. None of them were funny, for starters.

I'll come up with some better examples later, but for now, from Four to Doomsaday.
I am Monarch.
Doctor: Yes, you look as if might be.

Not funny on the page nor in Davison's delivery, but I can imagine Tom pulling it off.

And while the humour is undeniably lame, Davison's 'You must be having a ball' to the round camera has the feel of Tom's lesser lines.

Pertwee might be the only Doctor who really hit the ground running, and in terms of characterization I think his first season was his best.

Interesting. I recently read about how Pertwee was cast because the Production Team wanted a comedian and a magic-performer and everyone was rather put out when he refused to do either.

He was really quite edgy in his first season, quick-tempered and resentful. Although overall I like UNIT and Jo, by time the UNIT family emerged at the start of his second season, he had a vaguely more domesticated air and the tone of the show became more lighthearted.


McCoy was JUST FINE once he escaped Pip n'Jane...
Most people would be. But his character was imagined before they ever started filming as someone who would also mix up cliches: a miss is as good as a smile, time and tide melts the snowman, etc. I'm very grateful they dropped that.

McCoy was JUST FINE once he escaped Pip n'Jane...

Pip and Jane Baker just can't catch a break, can them. Mind you, they only wrote one McCoy story (which was originally written with Colin Baker in mind).

Seems to be that Pip and Jane get a lot of flak for their ending bit to Trial (which was a mess long before they showed up). Bear in mind, that Pip and Jane wrote that last minute, under a deadline. Robert Holmes keeled over before he could finish it, JNT and Eric Saward had their big blow up, which resulted in Saward leaving the show and taking his own ending with him, it was a mess. Pip and Jane were just flung into the ring with little time to prepare.

Okay, their scripts were not perfect, but I liked Mark Of The Rani and Terror Of The Vervoids (which would have been an excellent standalone story without the Trial rubbish).

Jane Baker died not too long ago. My thoughts go out to Philip (Pip's real name) on the loss of his wife.

Mind you, they only wrote one McCoy story

For which mercy I daily thank non-existent deities.

Seems to be that Pip and Jane get a lot of flak for their ending bit to Trial (which was a mess long before they showed up).

True, I hold their godawful ending to Trial against them less than most of the rest of their work, owing to the unfortunate beyond-their-control circumstances.

Plus the fact that Trial didn't DESERVE a decent ending.

(Of course, at this point I suddenly remember that CITY OF DEATH was the result of a last-minute panic too...)

Okay, their scripts were not perfect, but I liked Mark Of The Rani and Terror Of The Vervoids (which would have been an excellent standalone story without the Trial rubbish).

I loathe Mark of the Rani. Admittedly Vervoids is far and away the best part of Trial of a Time Lord. (And no line in the history of the human race is gonna challenge THAT for being the epitome of 'damned with faint praise'.)

Of course, at this point I suddenly remember that CITY OF DEATH was the result of a last-minute panic too...

Except it wasn't really. They had a perfectly workable script but decided to rewrite it at the last minute when they realised it would be a lot cheaper to shoot present day material in Paris than they'd previously imagined.

Interestingly, Sydney Newman suggested Troughton return as the Doctor c.1986, and Troughton basically indicated "No. No matter what the fee you throw at me". Troughton's death made such a thing impossible anyway and it's doubtful the BBC management would've wanted to risk doing anything that might revive the series' fortunes, either.

Do the JNT Doctors have multiple sets of the same clothes? What happens if there's an urgent crisis in the Universe while his outfit is in the laundry? Does he have to wait for the spin cycle to finish?

Of course not. Those clothes are obviously the product of advanced alien technology and cannot get dirty, or wrinkled, or damaged in any way.

I'm not so sure. Matt's mention of regarding 'Dry Clean Only' as a suggestion rather than an order does imply that the Doctors have had more to do with laundry than hitherto suspected.

And Doc5's outfit got awfully muddy at the end.

Tom/Peter/Colin/Sylv must have gotten a bit wiffy if he didn't use the laundry. A new way to defeat the Daleks - the Doctor's strong body odour!

I just heard a great description of the Doctor by Steven Moffat:

The Doctor is the kind of person who'd fling himself out of a window, and then work out what to do about it on the way down. And if he had a sandwich in hand at the time, he'd just finish eating it.

THAT'S MY DOCTOR!

Of course, Our Hero does fling himself out of a window and then work out what to do about it on the way down EXTRAORDINARILY seldom.

In Alien Bodies he was well-prepared with anti-grav stuff; in Trading Futures he was physically hurled out of said window. Dying Days fits the bill only if you substitute 'window' for 'Ice Warrior spaceship'.

Actually the only people I can think of who DO fling themselves out of windows are Ace in Remembrance and Leela in Talons.

Well Doc10 does fling himself out of a spaceship in EoT.....

Fair point, well made.

Tennant obviously had SOMETHING about his person enabling him to defy the laws of physics/gravity/whatever, but alas he died and turned into Matt Smith before he could let faithful viewers in on his secret...

---
The Doctor is the kind of person who'd fling himself out of a window, and then work out what to do about it on the way down. And if he had a sandwich in hand at the time, he'd just finish eating it.
---
Reminds me of Davison-Doctor's comments about his sprig of celery in Caves of Androzani.

Of course, the arch-manipulator 7th Doctor would have already set up his "get out of plummeting to his death" plan in advance, the 4th Doctor would just use his scarf as a bungee rope and the 3rd would reverse the polarity of the neutron flow of something to cushion his fall, but anyone got any ideas about the others?

---
Actually the only people I can think of who DO fling themselves out of windows are Ace in Remembrance and Leela in Talons.
---
River Song spaces herself from an airlock in Time of Angels, does that count?

Of course, the arch-manipulator 7th Doctor would have already set up his "get out of plummeting to his death" plan in advance, the 4th Doctor would just use his scarf as a bungee rope and the 3rd would reverse the polarity of the neutron flow of something to cushion his fall, but anyone got any ideas about the others?

One would have used his magic ring, Six would have been cushioned by all those layers of fat, Five would probably have landed on a Companion and squished them dead.

River Song spaces herself from an airlock in Time of Angels, does that count?

Of course, I knew I was forgetting someone! Plus an actual window, in Day of the Moon.

Six would have been cushioned by all those layers of fat

I wonder if Six ever borrows Peri or Mel's bras?

However many layers of fat we're talking here, if he could fit into Peri's I'd like him a whole lot more than I do.

Not quite sure how to take that last comment Kevin.....

The transcript from 'Terror of the Autons' marking the first appearance of the Master. Available here...

http://www.chakoteya.net/doctorwho/8-1.htm

Quote:
TIME LORD: I came to warn you. An old acquaintance has arrived on this planet.
DOCTOR: Oh? One of our people?
TIME LORD: The Master.
DOCTOR: That jackanapes! All he ever does is cause trouble.
TIME LORD: He'll certainly try to kill you, Doctor. The tribunal thought that you ought to be made aware of your danger.
DOCTOR: How very kind of them.
TIME LORD: You are incorrigibly meddlesome, Doctor, but we've always felt that your hearts are in the right places. But be careful. The Master has learnt a great deal since you last met him.
DOCTOR: I refuse to be worried by a renegade like the Master. He's a, he's an unimaginative plodder.
TIME LORD: His degree in cosmic science was of a higher class than yours.
DOCTOR: Yes, well, er, yes, well, I, I was a late developer.
TIME LORD: Would you call that little surprise unimaginative?
DOCTOR: What?

So... this clearly demonstrates some previous association or involvement. Note the Doctor's comment that the Master is a plodder, and the rejoinder that he's learned quite a bit since then. Perhaps they were both criminals, with the Doctor being the leader. It's only after the partnership breaks up that the Master comes fully into his own? Admittedly, its thin. But I think that there's an arguable case that the Doctor wasn't just a typical expatriate, but an out and out criminal.

I think that there's an arguable case that the Doctor wasn't just a typical expatriate, but an out and out criminal.

What ON EARTH about 'incorrigibly meddlesome but his hearts are in the right places' makes you think CRIMINAL?!

If the DOCTOR had been some kind of master-criminal with the Master as his sidekick I hardly think the Time Lords would bother WARNING him that said ex-sidekick was on the loose. They certainly didn't think it was worth the hassle when it came to, say, Morbius/the Sisterhood/the Solos Marshall/Arcturus etc.

What I want to know is, if the Timelords can track the Master and know about him being on Earth, why don't they capture him right there and then?

The TARDIS Eruditorum suggests that they were going with that ghastly idea intended for the final Doctor/Master showdown - that they were different parts of one psyche, with the Master being the Id and the Doctor the Ego: 'The Master, being a part of the Doctor as opposed to an individual in his own right, isn't the Time Lords' to deal with. The Doctor is the only one who can fix this problem.'

As the season is over, I'd like to ask a question:

What scene/line of dialogue/action/etc sums The Doctor up for you?

The reason I ask is because I have a certain scene that I always think of as the most Doctor-ish. So wondered if you do too?

For me it's Enlightenment (I think ep 2). The Doctor, Tegan, Striker, Marriner et al are sat having a meal. All apart from the Doctor leave the room, with Tegan asking the Doctor if he's coming. He acknowledges he is as he's still eating some sort of mousse. Everyone gone now and the Doctor finishes eating with a look of contentment on his face. He rises from his chair, walks out into the corridor, looks in the direction the others have walked, does an about turn and goes the opposite way!

That sums up the Doctor for me

Bah, humbug. That Davison would never make ANY Top Fifty List Of Doctorish Moments for ME.*

If you want an about-turn, see Tennant in Army of Ghosts or Tom n'Sarah in Pyramids of Mars.

I'm not sure whether Eccy-in-front-of-the-London-Eye is REALLY the most Doctorish moment (he is, let's face it, being unDoctorishly thick-as-two-planks) but it is, of course, the moment I fell in love with the treacherous sonuvadalek.

There's also something about Tom's one-word conversation with Count Scarlioni...and Tom's 'What a wonderful butler, he's so violent'...and Tom's 'You're a beautiful woman, probably'...and Tom's 'If there's one thing I can't stand it's being tortured by a man with cold hands'...um, can I just have City of Death for my 'moment'?

*OK, I'm probably exaggerating. He was pretty good in the Caves of Androzani episode 3 cliffhanger. Of course, discovering that you're actually THE DOCTOR instead of some wimpish interloper TWENTY-THREE MINUTES before you die is...REALLY bad timing.

Doctorish-moment. Smith in The Pandorica Opens with the "I AM TALKING!!!" speech!

One of the most Doctorish moment for me is Tennant's little pre-recorded dialogue through time with Sally in Blink.

Ah, got it!

Eccy, Bad Wolf, he's just got THE most enormous gun and is storming the lair of the mass-murderers who've just slaughtered the Love Of His Lives...and then he tosses them the gun ('Like I was ever gonna use it') and carries on interrogating them.

Bliss.

TIM in Original Series: Season Twenty-Two: The Two Doctors:

Define "acting like the Doctor".

There's a wide variety of behaviours that can be shoehorned into my extremely wide definition of 'acting like the Doctor.' (Practically everything from our thirty-four onscreen years except a couple of Colin-Baker-related incidents and Hartnell-with-rock, frankly.) Even the things one assumes are totally unDoctorish can be got away with if you do 'em with style. It's not necessarily what you do, it's how you do it.

For example: a) Beating people up

Beating people up is generally not accepted as a particularly Doctorish trait, but a lot depends on circumstances. Hartnell giggling wildly after rediscovering the joys of the noble art of fisticuffs: Doctorish. Colin sneering that a policeman (I'm assuming not a real one, but I can never remember anything about Attack) is 'having a lie-down' after beating the •••• out of him...Behaviour Unbefitting To A Doctor.

b) Carrying a gun

General default Doctor-mode is, of course, to refuse to carry a gun, even if the most adorable old man in the universe is shoving one at you while sobbing that he doesn't want you to die.

However, there are scenarios in which Himself can be INCREDIBLY Doctorish while carrying a gun, viz, the aforementioned Eccy-in-lift-with-enormous-••••-you weaponry. Which he then chucks to a bunch of mass murderers while carrying on interrogating them.

Considerably less Doctorish, but still remaining within acceptable parameters due to good writing and acting, is Matt pointing a gun while giving a 'Gods, I'm so totally the toughest guy EVER' speech.

Pertwee/Tennant smugly refusing to carry a gun whilst allowing UNIT to do the shooting for them: Doctorishly self-righteous.

c) Not giving a •••• when people die

Actually this IS a Doctorish trait - you don't GET much more Doctorish than Tom-in-Pyramids-re-Scarman or Eccy-in-Rose-re-Mickey-the-idiot - and it's a very necessary survival trait for a man whose daily life involves oodles of death. However it can be taken to extremes: one does like one's hero to be distinguishable from the Master.

Tom not batting an eyelid when he was indirectly responsible for the destruction of half the universe in Logopolis: acceptable only because it's entirely possible he deliberately let go of that radio telescope and KILLED himself to atone.

Eccy's icy 'Not my problem' re dragging Blon home to be stewed in acid: brilliantly Dark-Doctorish (plus you just KNOW he'll find another way).

Colin GLOATING over fruit-soft flesh peeling from white bones: disgustingly unDoctorish.

d) Killing people

Davison wiping out the Silurians and Sea Devils: Doctorish, cos he said 'There should have been another way'. And obviously meant it. And there equally obviously WASN'T another way to save the human race.

Tom attempting to gas Solon and Morbius to death: probably within the parameters of Dark-but-recognisable-Doctor. He was out of other options to stop those genocidal maniacs unleashing a galactic war. Just as importantly, he didn't treat it as one big joke.

Colin brutally chloroforming Shockeye to death and sneering 'Your just desserts' at the corpse: Just Not Doctorish. I don't expect him not to kill Shockeye (it was probably kill or be killed, though I bet any OTHER Doctor would have been able to give Shockeye just enough chloroform to render him unconscious), I'm not even expecting him to show REMORSE (though it would really really help), I'd just like him to convey his terror/desperation/relief instead of MAKING STUPID PUNS.

(Still, at least it was a genuine pun. What the HELL was 'You'll forgive me if I don't join you' on Varos all about? Was it supposed to be FUNNY??)

Of course, things get quite complicated when you definite 'people'. It never counts, morally, when the Doctor genocides a bunch of Cybermen or Daleks (except in Journey's End and presumably the Doc was just looking for any old excuse to dump his clingy ex and clone together as far away from him as possible).

It never USED to count when he slaughtered any Sontarans, even though they actually have names and individual characters (well, characteristics shared with a few million others from their clone-batch, anyway). Till Tennant tried to top himself to give them a second chance - speaking of which, UNDOCTORISH. Our Hero is prepared to die to save worlds or even individuals, he's occasionally briefly suicidal when he's lost a world or individual, but he does NOT top himself in what he KNOWS is an entirely futile gesture to give some genocidal invading monsters a second chance that he knows they won't take. One can only assume his Cunning Plan is to manipulate Rattigan into taking his place. (Is manipulating a teenager into suicide Doctorish? When it's Luke Rattigan, HELL yeah.)

Pertwee vaporising an Ogron: jury's still out. Personally I'd say an Ogron was a lot less vicious, dangerous and unable-to-ever-see-the-error-of-his-homicidal-ways than an Androgum. Maybe it's Pertwee's lack of puns that makes me want to let him off the hook. Though come to think of it, when the Brig shot dead a human right in front of him, Pertwee's only reaction was to tell him off for not doing so sooner, so what with his cosy establishment gentleman's-club/military-loving-while-pretending-not-to ways, Pertwee is sailing dangerously close to Not Acting Like The Doctor on a regular basis. If he'd worn a coat like Colin's we'd've had trouble RECOGNISING him as the Doctor sometimes.

e) Snogging

McGann sticking his tongue down the throat of the crazy American moron who'd just killed his previous self: unDoctorish.

New Who Doctors snogging anything that moved: I really wish he wouldn't. But regardless of my personal feelings, most of them scrape by through being bodyswaps/lifesaving/not initiated by the Doctor/not sexual...And if one is feeling generous one MIGHT give a free pass to Matt sexually assaulting a married lesbian on the grounds that he WAS just recovering from being a gormless red monster. (In the way that I don't hold the Peri-strangulation against Colin. Well, obviously I DO, it ruined his chances of me ever accepting him as the Doctor, but technically speaking it was the post-regenerative trauma and not Colin that was the problem.)

Obviously everyone's mileage will vary. We haven't discovered a foolproof method of determining what constitutes a COMPANION, we don't stand much chance with everyone's favourite Complex Space-Time Event.

But The Beast Below and Day of the Doctor prove that there are just some things you can't do and remain the Doctor. (Even though, ironically, it turns out he didn't DO 'em in Beast or Day.)

Emily - "Tom not batting an eyelid when he was indirectly responsible for the destruction of half the universe in Logopolis: acceptable only because it's entirely possible he deliberately let go of that radio telescope and KILLED himself to atone. "

Wow. I never considered that! Always thought he just didn't have the strength to hold on, but atonement? That's a new one and makes sense to me. He pondered putting those two wires together in 'Genesis of the Daleks' to stop the Daleks from continuing, and it really bothered him once the reality of the choice hit him, so a whole universe?

For me, some of the Doctor-ish moments are;

'The Three Doctors' - Everyone is in the Doctor's lab as they try to figure out what happened to Mr.Olis, when the Doctor asks for a stir stick or mixer (I don't know what it's called). Everyone thinks he needs it for an experiment, passes it down the line to him, and then he simply stirs his tea with it! Talk about keeping his priorities straight!

'The Eleventh Hour' - "Basically...run!" Two words from the new Doctor, who has never been seen by alien eyes before, is untested and a big unknown, and yet the aliens turn tail and RUN!

'The Eleventh Hour" - "I'm STILL NOT ginger!" The TARDIS is careening towards Earth, on fire on the INSIDE, and the Doctor cares more about his new hair than his safety! Amazing!

'The Christmas Vacation' - "This planet is DEFENDED!" The Tenth Doctor warns an ARMY with a gigantic spaceship that he, a single alien that killed their leader, will protect Earth...and WIN! Guts and bravado, with the ability to back it up and not come off as a blowhard! Cool!

Very un-Doctor-ish behavior...'42' - I'm scared! I'm so scared!" he cries out as he becomes possessed..
No.
NONONONONO!
The Doctor is NEVER scared...or at least NEVER blurts it out to his companion and US!

It was "pass me that silicone rod" in T3D.

"I'm, STILL NOT ginger!" is actually from End of Time part two....

pick pick pick.
Correcto-mundo, Rodney.

The ACTUAL phrase is "And still not ginger!"

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Always thought he just didn't have the strength to hold on, but atonement? That's a new one and makes sense to me.

More sense than just not being bothered to hold on a bit longer, anyway.

Of course, that still leaves the question of why DAVISON didn't give a •••• that he'd just wiped out half the universe. Sure, he's a whole new(ish) person with new perspectives but so was Eccy and HE was still totally traumatised by his previous self (apparently) wiping out Gallifrey.

Very un-Doctor-ish behavior...'42' - I'm scared! I'm so scared!" he cries out as he becomes possessed..
No.
NONONONONO!
The Doctor is NEVER scared...or at least NEVER blurts it out to his companion and US!

Seconded. We've SEEN Tennant scared - when he realises the Master's back, when he realises the Time Lords are back, when he's leaving the TARDIS to face Davros and his Daleks, when Donna playfully repeats what he's said in Midnight - and what he NEVER EVER DOES is whimper 'I'm scared, I'm so scared.'

And neither does any other Doctor.

In fact, Pertwee TOPS himself rather than admit to being scared.

pick pick pick.

Speaking of which...Christmas Invasion not Vacation...

Christmas Vacation is a 1989 Chevy Chase movie.

and what he NEVER EVER DOES is whimper 'I'm scared, I'm so scared.'

And neither does any other Doctor.

Didn't he say it in Hide, or something very close to it? Of course, there was nobody around to hear him say it, but still...

Oh.

Yeah.

I have a tendency to forget all about Hide.

OK, it can go along with 42 as something TOTALLY UnDoctorish that a substandard writer is using in a vain attempt to persuade us that his story is actually scary.

Jodi - "Christmas Vacation is a 1989 Chevy Chase movie."

Okay, I'm going to have a lie down right now.
Maybe I'll get my facts in order after that !

in a vain attempt to persuade us that his story is actually scary.

He may have been trying to show just how dangerous the monster was. Imagine, something that actually CAN scare the Doctor. Fell a bit flat though.

Made a nit yourself, Steve. It's "Judi", not "Jodi".

Fell a bit flat though.

A BIT flat?

It was flatter than those monsters in Flatline!

Made a nit yourself, Steve. It's "Judi", not "Jodi".

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

'The Doctor only needs a light squeeze on his shoulders to be incapacitated in agony' claims About Time, listing Sea Devils, Revenge of the Cybermen, Terror of the Zygons, Rose, Attack of the Cybermen and claiming there are 'several others'. I always just assumed the bad guys were squeezing really, really hard... ?

Sounds to me like the villains watched Star Trek and figured out how to do the Vulcan Nerve Pinch. ;-)

I know they're evil, but would they REALLY watch STAR TREK...?

Come to think of it, Rose is always grabbing the Doc round the shoulders with no ill-effects.

Had a bit of free time on my hands and checked the statistics on imdb.com, and found out the number of episodes each actor has accumulated in their role of the Doctor.
Some of the numbers may surprise you.
Here's the list from most episodes to least....

Tom Baker...178

William Hartnell...132

Jon Pertwee...132

Patrick Troughton...131

Peter Davison...70

David Tennant...52

Matt Smith...48

Sylvester McCoy...42

Colin Baker...35

Christopher Eccleston...13

Peter Capaldi...14

Paul McGann...1

Haaang on, if you're including that GLIMPSE of Capaldi's eyebrows in Day of the Doctor, how come you're not including all the equally-brief appearances by all the OTHER Doctors...?

And shouldn't every 45-min episode be counted as two, just to be fair?

IIRC, Colin had the most 45 minute stories, so he'd be at least above Sylvester - maybe it's best to count minutes.

And what about Richard Hurndall's appearance in The Five Doctors? And the Clara-inserts from Name of The Doctor?

Maybe we also need to include things like Night of The Doctor (so Paul McGann gets a second appearance), and the mental images from Brain of Morbius as well.

I'd leave Curse... out though.

Any thoughts on why Tom Baker is so many people's favourite Doctor? Is it that he played the role the longest? Is there something special about how he played the character, that others haven't managed to match? Are there any Whovians who simply can't stand him (or at least think he's heavily overrated)?? LOL It'd be interesting to find out.

And shouldn't every 45-min episode be counted as two, just to be fair?

Not really, because a) 45 minute episodes are still just one episode, and you'd also have to take other variations into account (e.g. does the last episode of 'Trial' count as 1.2 episodes?) and b) that's what the BBC and DWM did in the late 1980s to make it appear like Colin had done more Doctor Who than he'd actually had just after his sacking.

And on a more pedantic note, there are lots of anomalies: e.g. Hartnell and Troughton are absent from several episodes on which they're credited during their runs, but which of any do you count of 'The Screaming Jungle' (Hartnell credited, doesn't appear), 'The Search' (Hartnell credited, appears but only in the cliffhanger reprise) and 'The Hall of Dolls' (Hartnell credited, but is heard only in a specially-recorded voiceover)?

Plus, there's all the dead people or Shadaified people credited on 'The Five Doctors' and 'The Day of the Doctor'. And regeneration stories - do we count Troughton's (uncredited) appearance in 'The Tenth Planet' Episode 4 and/or Colin's (top-billed) appearance in 'The Caves of Androzani' Part Four.

And what about John Hurt?

Any thoughts on why Tom Baker is so many people's favourite Doctor?

Hartnell and Troughton were in the black and white era, a time when televison was not the entertainment juggernaut it later became. Pertwee spent most of his tenure as a Doctor on Earth, battling invasion after invasion, and he was rather aristocartic in his demeanor, not features that would endear him to many people not already fans of the show.

Tom Baker was probably the Doctor many current fans were first exposed to. This is actually my case. His Doctor has a touch of silliness that makes him very approachable, and he actually traveled though space and time a lot more than Pertwee ever could. His episodes, at least in the first few years, showed a great level of creativity. He also traveled a long time with who is arguably the most popular companion, Sarah Jane.

After Tom, the show kinda labored to come up with original material. Peter Davison was rather bland for most of his tenure, really coming into the role only at the very end. Colin Baker's tenure was never given a proper chance, he had to work against the BBC looking for a way to cancel the show. Sylvester McCoy was a very good Doctor, but by the time he took over the role Doctor Who had overstayed its welcome on television and most casual fans of the series had moved on to percieved greener pastures.

McGann's Doctor came in time to remind everyone that the Whoniverse is a thing, possibly worth revisiting.

Eccleston, Davies and Moffat ressurected Doctor Who with a vengeance and gave it the modern tone that attracted a whole new crowd of fans, while pleasing a lot of the older ones. Eccleston tenure was sadly short lived, but Tennant's portayal of the Doctor carried the show along and gave it the tone and creativity we are now familiar with. This is probably the reason Tennant's Doctor is pretty much on par with Baker's in popularity. Smith's doctor sufferd form Moffat's inhability to deal with the many loose ends he generously sprinkles his scripts with, as well as his over reliance on previously visited themes.

This brings us to Capaldi's Doctor. It is, perhaps, the best Doctor of all. The actor is incredibly good, he is a long time fan who understands the role, and he dialed back the silliness that was threatening to drown the show and allianate the fans. What he needs now is his own companion. Osgood would have been perfect for him, but we sadly know what happened to her. Perkins would also have been an outstanding companion, but he declined the invitation. So Capaldi' Doctor is still waiting for his own compainion. We should meet him, or her, in season nine.

That's about all I have to say on the matter.

Emily - 'Haaang on, if you're including that GLIMPSE of Capaldi's eyebrows in Day of the Doctor, how come you're not including all the equally-brief appearances by all the OTHER Doctors...? '

Oh, well. So much for my (minimal) research at imdb.com . Anyways, my post was really about the actor showing up and filming an episode or cameo-- not anything where we see him in flashback (ie 'Mawdryn Undead', 'Earthshock', etc.). That being said, hmmm, I'm kinda on the fence about seeing just Capaldi's eyes in 'Day of the Doctor' as counting.

Emily - "And shouldn't every 45-min episode be counted as two, just to be fair?'

Kate - 'Not really, because a) 45 minute episodes are still just one episode.'

Yea, what she said! 'Just to be fair'? If ol' Tom or Peter or Jon never made a 45-minute episode, too bad for them.

[Capaldi] is a long time fan who understands the role, and he dialed back the silliness that was threatening to drown the show and allianate the fans

If there's anything sillier than the Doctor duelling Robin Hood with a spoon I've yet to see it.

And Capaldi has the dubious honour of having both the silliest - oh, let's not be euphemistic about it - STUPIDEST stories EVER. Even WHEEL IN SPACE can only gawp in astonishment at how utterly its world record has been smashed.

Why is Tom the best? Cos he was born to be the Doctor and cos, well, he didn't have much competition. Troughton was the only other Old Who Doctor worthy to so much as kiss his feet, and three black-and-white years of an adorable clown-with-an-occasional-dark-manipulative-side isn't gonna beat the guy blessed with THAT voice and a robot dog and hair that curls like the ram and City of Death and the Sacred Scarf.

As soon as something better came along - that would be Eccleston and Tennant, •••• them - then, much as my own treachery appals me, Tom was no longer Top Dog, simple as that.

If ol' Tom or Peter or Jon never made a 45-minute episode, too bad for them.

Um, the figures are actually misleading (duration-wise) in their favour, since 26 episodes of Tom is basically about the same in terms of screen time as 13 episodes of Capaldi, but make the former look far more prolific.

If there's anything sillier than the Doctor duelling Robin Hood with a spoon I've yet to see it.

The Doctor, with a dog whistle in his mouth, herding a bunch of men of in terrible costumes down a corridor. (see "Nightmare of Eden" or "Horns of Nimon"- can't remember which, it's all a pile of rubbish to me)

It's "Eden" and it's about as good as a pubic louse.

Why are you people SAYING these things!

Nightmare of Eden is tremendous fun and there is NOTHING silly about the Doctor herding monsters with a dog-whistle.

And the Mandrels have ADORABLE costumes. Why the hell SHOULDN'T they have flared legs?

Nightmare of Eden is tremendous fun
So is "Robot of Sherwood"

there is NOTHING silly about the Doctor herding monsters with a dog-whistle.
or The Doctor having a life or death battle using a spoon.

And the Mandrels have ADORABLE costumes.
So do Robin and his merry men

I'll take "Robot of SHerwood" any day over the rubbish that was "Nightmare of Eden"...

Nightmare of Eden is tremendous fun
So is "Robot of Sherwood"

Of course it is!

there is NOTHING silly about the Doctor herding monsters with a dog-whistle.
or The Doctor having a life or death battle using a spoon.

Actually I find the Doctor doing a bit of monster-herding utterly within the Who tradition whilst the spoon thing is incredibly (and delightfully, I'm not COMPLAINING), blatantly, deliberately SILLY. Like the comedy robots in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, it's DESIGNED to be ridiculous and get kids giggling their heads off and re-enacting it for WEEKS.

And the Mandrels have ADORABLE costumes.
So do Robin and his merry men

Yeah, but unlike you PICKING on the poor dear Mandrels, no one's complaining about 'em.

I'll take "Robot of SHerwood" any day over the rubbish that was "Nightmare of Eden"...

I think I prefer Robot too, but that doesn't make Nightmare rubbish.

'Nightmare of Eden' is a decent enough story that suffers from some questionable production/acting decisions and the limitations of cheap production line TV of the late 1970s.

'Robot of Sherwood', on the other hand, is inherently rubbish. 'Eden' is still watchable after 35 years. 'Sherwood' was barely watchable on first broadcast.

Whereas I found Robot thoroughly enjoyable - the memory of Capaldi-Doc's 'or in your case six months' plasters a grin all over my face every time I think of it - but unlike Eden it definitely had something missing. And I don't just mean an actual PLOT. For some reason it (well, most of Season 8/34 actually) leaves me with - as Matt put it in Closing Time - 'a persistent nagging feeling of spiritual emptiness' that you JUST DON'T GET from dear old Nightmare of Eden.

It's a year after the 50th anniversary, but I thought I'd share n anniversary trailer I found on the net.

http://youtu.be/rrSaTHsHNsc

Clara-pretending-to-be-the-Doctor:

'I've been married four times, all deceased. My children and grandchildren are missing, and assumed dead.' - and...er...you never bothered to check?

Tennant gave Donna the DISTINCT impression that his ickle kiddies were goners.

Of course, not even the Oncoming Storm would have the guts to tell DONNA NOBLE 'Yeah, had a few kids, not sure what happened to 'em, really...'

So are the four wives Susan's Granny, River Song, Marilyn Monroe and Liz One? Or what?

'Glasgow University, but I accidentally graduated in the wrong century' - say what you like about The Moff, HE'S A FAN. Bless him.

How does Clara know all this, anyway? Her trips through the Doctor's timestream (that she doesn't seem to remember, going by her continual state of amazement after he REGENERATED)? Sitting down for a cosy chat with Matt (who gave her the impression River was male!) or Capaldi (who'd be even less keen on cosy chats about FEELINGS and ex-wives than he would be on hugs, one would imagine)?

who was this "Mister Pastry" bloke that Barry Letts approached to play the Fourth Doctor? a living croissant?

I've been wondering that ever since reading A Celebration thirty years ago...

They really did scrape the bottom of the barrel before having their blinding revelation about the One True Fourth Doctor, didn't they.

Actually it was Richard Hearne, the actor who played popular 50s comedy character 'Mr Pastry', whom Barry Letts approached to replace Jon Pertwee. However, Hearne was a bit confused himself and thought that Letts wanted to him to play Mr Pastry playing the Doctor, so that didn't work out...

Imagine Benny Hill playing the Doctor? Every time he confronted the Daleks, there'd be Benny Hill chase music on the soundtrack and he'd say about his companions "I'm not against naked girls - well, not as often as i'd like to be".

JUDI in Ask the Matrix: Calling the Moderator:

Tom's Doctor hasn't aged well.

Do you mean watching him in his 70s stories or watching him be the Curator?

Either way you're wrong, of course.

The only people that *acted* the part, rather than just play it as an extension of their own personality, were Hartnell and Troughton.

You say that like it's a GOOD thing to merely ACT the Doctor instead of BEING the Doctor.

(Of course, if you're Peter Davison or Colin Baker then leavening your bland/abrasive personality with a bit of quality acting would NOT have come amiss...)

Well, on a personal, subjective level, some of the Doctor's defining qualities that I see, ever since Hartnell and Susan took off in their old TT 40 Mk I, are...

...that he's ultimately a rather ordinary man. A tramp with a possibly not-that-rosy past, who is nevertheless a decent, kind person, and rather brilliant when forced to get off his lazy behind and really flex his mental muscles.

Another defining trait is that he hardly ever gets his wishes fulfilled that easily, and his adventures are often antithetical in an ironic way to what his current incarnation is supposed to (outwardly) represent. E.g., the Fourth was "the wacky bohemian Doctor", but dealt with grim and often insane themes, the Fifth was the quietest and nicest of the whole bunch, but near-constantly ran into suffering and betrayal and bad luck, the Eighth seemed like a dashing, sharply-dressed, lady-wooing adventurer out of a Verne novel, but as his life went on, he dealth with loss, bitter experiences and personal pain like few other incarnations did, instead of romantic travels (and even his ending wasn't exactly some sort of release from suffering), etc., etc.

I always go "Bleh !" whenever someone in-universe or out-of-universe describes the Doc as "a hero" or even "a lonely god" and other such schmaltzy bull.* He's hardly more of a hero than you or me. Owning some tech with downright fantastic capabilities and being from a fairly privileged background even by the standards of your homeworld... that's not exactly something hard-earned. What is hard-earned, in contrast, are the Doctor's experiences and the ethical issues he's had to grapple with throughout his life.

The funny thing with the Doctor, recurring in pretty much all incarnations, is that he doesn't so much embody any sort of greatness, but that he has "greatness thrust upon him" and is just generally good at playing the suave and competent leader who others look up to. This is part of the reason why I always like every incarnation being occassionally taken out of its depth and exposed for what it really is. Just a fun-loving renegade who can't be arsed to be truly, incorruptibly heroic as the average person expects it, but knows he still has to try, for his own sake and the sake of others.

When you have a time machine (even such an old jallopy by Time Lord standards) and you're that fiercely independent, you nevertheless eventually develop a certain sense that the universe and time will always be greater than you. Whether you like it or not, your ongoing life and the travels you have will sooner or later affect you in many different ways, and force some crucial decisions upon you that will dog you if you just keep ignoring them. You'll have to become a decision maker par excellence, above and beyond mundane decisions. And that carries some heft you originally couldn't even fathom.

All of the above might generally turn out for the better, provided that you have at least somewhat of a good base to start on. Looking at the Master or the Rani, the overall experience of being renegades shapes them in the exact same way - but it's the starting foundation and the details of their travels that differ enough to form them in a different way. Ultimately, the journey and the life choice you made with the decision of being a renegade will catch up with you and you won't ever be the same again, but at the same time, you still have plenty of room left to steer yourself in whatever direction you choose.

The Twelfth's recent remark about "...still having to choose" didn't just reflect the whole "saving the innocent people of the week" trope/dilemma, IMHO. He was also pointing to him (and by extension, others) needing to make decisions, because the universe doesn't wait for that. Either you decide one way or the other while there's still time, still an opportunity, or you might lose both, never to regain that specific moment when these things were at their most pressing or most relevant. Maybe the greatest overall fear of the Doctor is... simply deciding. Especially if it's about deciding things for others or in the name of others.

I like the way Capaldi Doctor defines himself in Death in Heaven.

I am not a good man! I am not a bad man. I am not a hero. And I'm definitely not a president. And no, I'm not an officer. Do you know what I am? I am an idiot, with a box and a screwdriver. Just passing through, helping out, learning.

But he's NOT an idiot.

And he KNOWS he's not an idiot.

Modesty is NEVER a Doctorish characteristic.

TV Tropes on what divides the fans about the Doctors:

The First Doctor; tormented and loveable Trickster Archetype who started this wonderful journey or a violent, line-flubbing and unfinished character who needed to die for the show to Grow The Beard?
The Second Doctor; avuncular, mercurial, adorable, psychedelic and perfectly performed codifier of all future Doctors in the show's tightest Monster of the Week era, or a panicking Man Child in a Strictly Formula 'base under siege' show who flaps about for attention when he's bored with the scripts?
The Third Doctor; charmingly anti-establishment gentleman hero or arrogant, bigoted, militaristic tool of the Man?
The Fourth Doctor; the magnetic, complicated, loveable and swashbuckling 'definite article' whose insane performance will never be bettered for raw, genuine personality, or an inconsistently-written Boring Invincible Hero performed by a rather unhealthy Large Ham playing the character as himself?
The Fifth Doctor; a subtle and rather fanciable character with an indomitable streak who brings emotion and vulnerability back to the role, or a boring, wet, sexless hypocrite who isn't as much fun as that one with the scarf?
The Sixth Doctor; a layered, metatextual, darkly sexy Jerk with a Heart of Gold whose dysfunctional nature gave the character his edge back and who deserved more time in the role, or a bellowing, misogynistic sociopath dressed in terrible clothing and no better than the monsters he kills, who should never have been cast?
The Seventh Doctor; a brilliant and mysterious figure who presided over one of the series' highest points and brought out the character's depths and dark side, or a shouty fascist with a god complex in a cheap panto show that deserved to be cancelled?
The Eighth Doctor; a fun and dashing adventurer who bought romance to the character and has most of the greatest and most creative Who stories ever in his extensive Expanded Universe, or a cynical American-baiting character from that one terrible movie who started all that awful kissing stuff?
The Ninth Doctor; fascinatingly tragic hero or borderline thug?
The Tenth Doctor; greatest Doctor ever or irritating git with an inconsistent and hypocritical moral code?
The Eleventh Doctor; worthy (or even superior) replacement to Ten or irritating git not fit to wear his sneakers?
The idea of the War Doctor. Some say John Hurt was fantastic in the role, others believe that the character could've been filled with either Paul McGann (as number 8) or Christopher Eccleston (as number 9). Though it's likely the War Doctor was only created because Eccleston declined to return. While the Ninth Doctor does appear in the story in a brief but crucial role, since there isn't new footage of Eccleston we never get to dwell on his Doctor finding out he never really destroyed his own planet and people, though he's going to forget anyway. It would have been fitting because he's the first post-Time War Doctor to bear that guilt. The Ninth Doctor was implied to have recently regenerated way back in Series 1 (surprised to see his big ears), so it was naturally assumed the Eighth Doctor ended the Time War. It's not really Eccleston but McGann who gets shafted by the creation of the War Doctor. Regardless, Moffat was having trouble picturing the Eighth Doctor fighting in a war because of what his character was like, even when Eight started turning darker. Which led to a regeneration scene for his Doctor to explain away the War Doctor's existence, so it's still a win in the end for fans who wanted to see McGann again, along with making his Big Finish Doctor Who adventures canon. And Hurt's Doctor even goes out on a line that links back to Nine's ears comment.
The Twelfth Doctor; a deep and complex but still lovable Doctor who no longer hides behind a youthful facade or too cold, bitter and insensitive?

Moffat in DWM: 'In A Good Man Goes to War, he completely screws up because...he tries to be the traditional movie hero, rescuing his lady, and it blows up in his face. I think that one of the most interesting things about the Doctor is that he's obliged to play the hero, and frequently plays that card, but that's not really why he set off from Gallifrey...He's not actually flying around the universe looking for trouble to sort out....He's larking about.' - I disagree. He's been looking for trouble for a VERY LONG TIME - cos it's fun - even if Eccy was the first to openly admit it.

'I don't think he's ever that frightened of dying...He would accept his end if his end was coming up' - I disagree. Matt spent two hundred years desperately avoiding his Lake Silencio date. Other Doctors (particularly Eccy n'Tennant) weren't exactly over the Moon about just REGENERATING.

'His Doctorate is, by all Earth standards, non-existent...Even his very body turns out to be a forgery of the human form, and he continually reveals, thorough odd ticks or turns of phrase, his lack of authenticity. From day one, when he turned out to be a fake grandfather in a fake police box living in a junkyard and sending Susan to school under a fake identity, the Doctor has been a forgery' - TARDIS Eruditorum. That's a bit mean, surely? He IS a real grandfather. Unfortunately.

Even his very body turns out to be a forgery of the human form

HIS body is not a forgery of OURS, it's the other way around, Time Lords came first.

If he doesn't TELL you he can regenerate, though, each individual body is a kind of forgery. You go and fall in love with it and THEN, to quote Rose, he goes and does something like THIS...

RTG: 'One of the things I was determined to get rid of was that archaic speech pattern for the Doctor..."My dear", all of that Jon Pertwee stuff that haunts the Doctor....Right at the end of my five years of Doctor Who, people were still having the Doctor say "My dear", and stuff like that. You're thinking, "Do you watch this show?!" The shadow of the past is very strong!' - I never noticed any archaic speech patterns! They were just being (admittedly patriarchal) Doctors...

I know the First Doctor would say, "Young man,", "My child,", or "my dear", but I think Two skipped such terminology. Three brought back "My dear", but then Four and Five referred to people by name, until Six called Peri "My dear child". Everyone else, I don't recall any of them saying "MY dear".

Of course, Harry did call Sarah "Old thing" a few times, but that's another argument, so I don't know what RTG is talking about.

From the Deep Breath board:

Me: He didn't die, he just changed. It probably means she doesn't care what he looks like, or what he sounds like, or what he wears on the lapel of his coat.

Emily: 'Everything I am dies, and a new man going sauntering off in my place...'

I'm not too sure that wasn't clinical depression, combined with PTSD, talking. The tenth Doctor's mirth always struck me as a "gotta laugh or I'm going to put a bullet in my head" sort of thing. Contrast that with what happens to the Third Doctor when he wakes up after his regeneration. He doesn't even realize anything is different until he has a look in a mirror. The change from one incarnation to another can't be all that drastic if the new incarnation doesn't even notice it.

Of course he noticed it! He'd just had several weeks in bed to subconsciously come to terms with the New Improved Doctor.

Also, HE'S the new man so of course he wouldn't waste time mourning the bloke who'd DIED to give him life. (Especially as, frankly, Pertwee was ASKING for it.)

When it came to Tom's turn to die, he spent the whole of Season Eighteen suicidally miserable. Beat THAT, Tennant!

Ok then, how about Romana's regeneration? She just casually tried different looks, with no more concern than we show while trying on pants or dresses while shopping for clothes. She even triggered her regeneration on purpose. That doesn't sound like somebody knowing she's about to die.

Or how about Yana Master regenerating into Simms Master, embracing it, calling it forth, welcoming it, hardly the attitude of someone committing suicide.

Or how about the War Doctor's regeneration. His biggest concern apparently was that he wouldn't end up with such big ears this time around.

Or how about Collin's comment that change had happened just in time? Not death mind you, just change.

I think Tennant's apprehension's about regeneration were his, and his alone. All his other incarnations as well as the other Timelords we saw regenerate seemed to see the process as a renewal, not a demise.

Ok then, how about Romana's regeneration?

Excellent question.

But then, Romana's regeneration has spent thirty-six years making no sense whatsoever compared to everything else we've ever learnt about the Whoniverse in general and regeneration in particular.

Or how about Yana Master regenerating into Simms Master, embracing it, calling it forth, welcoming it, hardly the attitude of someone committing suicide.

Yana was APPALLED at being killed (especially as it was by an insect. And, worse, a girl) but decided he might as well put a brave face on it and concentrate on becoming young and strong and as much like the Doctor as possible.

Plus, he at least had the consolation of being able to REGENERATE properly instead of having to nick yet another second-hand body.

Or how about the War Doctor's regeneration. His biggest concern apparently was that he wouldn't end up with such big ears this time around.

He was going for quiet resignation. He'd been fighting on the front line of a devastating war for hundreds of years, he was desperately tired, and he had the consolation of knowing he'd just saved his homeworld (sort of). I'm sure plenty of humans in a similar situation would die with dignity.

Or how about Collin's comment that change had happened just in time? Not death mind you, just change.

Yeah, but that's POST-regeneration. Few Doctors (least of all Colin*) bother to spend two seconds mourning the previous self who would, let's face it, happily have prevented THEM from ever having been, um, born or whatever the word is. (Interestingly, Christmas Invasion DID have a line where Rose and Ten agreed they'd miss Nine...but RTG cut it.)

I think Tennant's apprehension's about regeneration were his, and his alone.

It REALLY sounded like he was speaking from PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. Opening his hearts about regeneration for the first time ever.

And sure, he was TOTALLY suffering from depression at the time but if regeneration HADN'T equalled death he could always have just REGENERATED to get over it.

All his other incarnations as well as the other Timelords we saw regenerate seemed to see the process as a renewal, not a demise.

Hartnell and Davison didn't exactly seem over the moon about the prospect of a healthy new body. Troughton was utterly outraged (admittedly not as much as one would expect when being unjustly sentenced to death). Tom and Tennant were devastated at the prospect (twice, in Tennant's case, what with his desperate cheat in Journey's End). Eccy was utterly heartbroken when he caught that glimmer of light on his hand. Matt gave himself a touching eulogy of the type you WOULDN'T give if you felt like you were just going to slip into something more comfortable.

Mels, Pertwee and Abbot Whatshisface are the only people I can think of who didn't seem to mind regenerating shortly BEFORE said trauma rather than shortly afterwards. And Mels was a psychopath and Pertwee and the Abbot were religious maniacs.

(Don't ask me WHEN the Third Doctor converted to Buddhism but he had no OTHER reason to BLOODY KILL HIMSELF to 'atone' for his 'greed' (!) for knowledge.)

*Actually that might not be fair. Colin spent a bit of time sneering at his predecessor's feckless innocence but it was DAVISON who UNRAVELLED THE SACRED SCARF - dancing AND spitting on Tom's (metaphorical) grave.

Contrast that with what happens to the Third Doctor when he wakes up after his regeneration. He doesn't even realize anything is different until he has a look in a mirror.

Of course he noticed it! He'd just had several weeks in bed to subconsciously come to terms with the New Improved Doctor.

Sorry, I thought you were talking about the FOURTH Doctor owing to my brain instantly leaping to that glorious memory of Himself peering in the mirror (Pertwee's mirror scene just wasn't as memorable).

Still, Pertwee was obviously unconscious for long enough to get comfortable in his new body too.

"I think Tennant's apprehension's about regeneration were his, and his alone. All his other incarnations as well as the other Timelords we saw regenerate seemed to see the process as a renewal, not a demise."

Ten had such a young body and felt that he 'could do so much more', and he 'didn't want to go'. I'd be apprehensive and depressed that my time was cut so short, well before the time I was ready to go.

Plus, he was GORGEOUS.

He said so himself - 'Why would I want to change? Look at me!'

A discussion of the Doctor's age.

The Doctors ranked by...eyebrows.

http://www.cultbox.co.uk/features/lists/doctor-who-ultimate-countdown-the-doctors-ranked-by-eyebrows

Pertwee should be higher, maybe even #2. He's the only Doctor we've seen speak (albeit only 'hello') with his eyebrows.

Well, that was different...

About a gay man as the 13th Dr - I think the 'pink press' and gay rights activists would celebrate the fact that an openly gay man can play such an iconic role on a family TV show.

I should think even the homophobes would be breathing a sigh of relief that at least it's not a woman.

(I'm assuming if you're homophobic you're also sexist. Don't want to let all those sort of people get above themselves.)

Well, I'm surprise more people are saying that, since the Master became a woman, why not the Doctor.

Well, EXACTLY.

But then, it's ALWAYS been blantantly obvious that WHY NOT THE DOCTOR, and the Master finally evolving into the superior sex has just got the misogynists* in a terrified flap.

Come to think of it, isn't Jacobi gay? We've already had a gay Master and no one batted an eyelid.

*And, to be fair, any non-misogynsts who have a reasonable argument against a female Doctor, not that I've actually ever HEARD one.**

**Lawrence Miles did once say that aesthetically the Doctor should be male, and since he REALLY knows how to write Who I accepted that as a valid argument. Of course, he also suggested that the Eleventh Doctor really ought to be a woman, so aesthetic considerations can obviously be overridden.

ME in New Series: Season Nine: General Discussion:

I LOVE the New Who thing of treating all the Doctors as the same person instead of going insane trying to make each one radically different from his predecessor.

KEVIN: Well since Tennant on anyway. Eccleston was pretty different, and to give credit where it's due, so was the War Doctor.

I'm not so sure. Tennant n'Eccy were both keeping up a cheery front whilst ravaged with War-guilt and refusing to admit they're in love with Rose Tyler. Eccy gradually became happier and more human while Tennant gradually became unhappier and less human, but MOST of the adorable little differences between the Best Two Doctors We Will Ever Be Blessed With came from the performances rather than the writing.

And as for that War Doctor...he was one big sonic-loving human-rights-respecting Dalek-hating softie, just like all the others. The initial attempt to portray him as SO EVIL HE'D BEEN ROBBED OF HIS VERY NAME AND WRITTEN OUT OF HISTORY fell by the wayside in TWO MINUTES FLAT.

Capaldi in Before the Flood: 'This regeneration is a bit of a clerical error' - what the hell does he MEAN? If it's about the numbering, then Eccy, Tennant and Matt were clerical errors too. If it's about the new regeneration cycle, then you surely don't think it was some sort of MISTAKE it got, um, wafted into Matt's mouth, do you?

let's look at it this way: Does the Doctor need to transform into literally Sauron in order for us to think "Good grief, he's completely lost it !" ? I don't think it's necessary to be completely over-the-top in this regard. Even lower-level un-Doctor behaviour is creepy if done well. For instance, the twelfth's threatening of Ashildr made me gawk for a moment, and nod. "Oh yeah, he's losing it, all right.", I thought. He doesn't need to go around biting heads off puppies and kneecapping little kids to make me, the viewer, understand that he's behaving outside of his own usual moral convictions.

I'd buy the whole "Why isn't the Doctor creepier ?" complaint if his character was imacculately goodie-two-shoes all the time. Thing is, even in most of the revival, he isn't portrayed like that. He's very clearly shown to be a flawed man, often an antihero, sometimes even abrassively/impudently so. The first wanting to bash a caveman's skull in, the third remarking that he quite enjoyed a fight for a man who abhors violence, the ninth making blatant hateful remarks to a Dalek and gleefully wishing it death, the tenth with his whole Time Lord Victorious bit of creepery (Tennant played him with some really insane facial expressions), the eleventh going off the handle and cold-heartedly threatening people, and all the myriad morally ambiguous things the twelfth has said or done. All the hallmarks of me that the Doctor isn't "a cute good guy who occassionally gets angry", but something potentially worse. And we do know he's killed, and that he sometimes didn't regret it. Perfect, always remorseful hero my behind...

For instance, the twelfth's threatening of Ashildr made me gawk for a moment, and nod. "Oh yeah, he's losing it, all right."

Why the hell SHOULDN'T he threaten Ashildr?

Her murderous incompetence cost him SPOILERS FOR HEAVEN SENT/HELL BENT his best friend and four and a half billion years of agony.

What he did to the Time Lord general, on the other hand...END OF SPOILERS

I'd buy the whole "Why isn't the Doctor creepier ?" complaint

WHAT ''Why isn't the Doctor creepier' complaint?

Her murderous incompetence cost him SPOILERS FOR HEAVEN SENT/HELL BENT his best friend and four and a half billion years of agony.

Wasn't it more his best friend's suicidal incompetence that cost him that?

It was a combination of the two.

Boy, THOSE two are gonna have fun together in their bigger-on-the-inside diner...

It was a combination of the two.

Me's had several billion years to get over her whole "the Doctor's mad at me because Clara was an idiot" thing.

Wonder if Me destroyed a planet to ease her boredom at some point?

Pah! The Doctor blows up whole STARS just so he can say goodbye.

Me's had several billion years to get over her whole "the Doctor's mad at me because Clara was an idiot" thing.

It takes more than a few billion years to get over the Doctor.

Wonder if Me destroyed a planet to ease her boredom at some point?

I doubt it. She's not competent enough. Now accidentally destroying a planet, that's a different matter.

Pah! The Doctor blows up whole STARS just so he can say goodbye.

*Rapturous sigh* SO romantic!

It would (probably) be career suicide to stay with the role of the Doctor too long - especially if Doctors' runs are artificially extended by gap years.

It's career suicide to be the Doctor AT ALL - you might as well hang on with both hands for as long as humanly possible.

I'm kind of glad they didn't do a "Young Dr. Who Chronicles." Because I know why the Doctor left. And it wasn't dramatic or anything. He was bored and unhappy. His boss paid him a bunch to sit around and do nothing. And he felt bad to be taking money to muck around on Time Lord Internet. And he felt worse that his boss didn't have any work for him. So since he wasn't going to be doing anything anyway, he might as well be doing it on mid-20th century Earth...

They'd never come up with something that mundane for a tv series.

I find it hard to picture Hartnell mastering the Internet. He was still astonished by the sight of a computer when he was TROUGHTON.

Clara and Missy: 'He's not your friend. You keep trying to kill him.' 'He keeps trying to kill me. It's sort of our texting. We've been at it for ages.' 'Mmm. Must be love.' 'Oh, don't be disgusting. We're Time Lords, not animals. Try, nano-brain, to rise above the reproductive frenzy of your noisy little food chain, and contemplate friendship. A friendship older than your civilisation, and infinitely more complex.'

Flemming and River Song: 'You are the woman who loves the Doctor.' 'Yes, I am. I've never denied it. But whoever said he loved me back? He's the Doctor, he doesn't go around falling in love with people. And if you think he's anything that small or that ordinary, then you haven't the first idea of what you're dealing with...When you love the Doctor, it's like loving the stars themselves. You don't expect a sunset to admire you back. And if I happen to find myself in danger, let me tell you, the Doctor is not stupid enough, or sentimental enough, and he is certainly not in love enough to find himself standing in it with me!'

What does it say about the Doctor if his wife AND his best-and-oldest-friend both declare him incapable of love? What the hell was going on with Rose Tyler (which presumably Missy witnessed as she trawled back through his timeline for victims)? Or, for that matter, Susan's granny? Or...the President's wife?

Here's a Doctor Who spoof from Spitting Image...

Christmas Day Doctor Who style - Dead Ringers - BBC

https://youtu.be/35uYgSYXtfA

Or maybe just Dead Ringers. My mistake.

Some fanboys seem to think that a female TV Doctor will be "Oooh! I broke a fingernail! Better let the Daleks win!"

Missy is definitely NOT like that, and I have argued that Jenny could be considered a female version of the Doctor, and SHE wasn't the type to let a broken nail (or probabbly even a broken arm) slow her down, so an actual female Doctor would very likely be even more badass.

Money is the reason we don't get prestigious actors to match the prestigiousness of the part.

An actor of Hugh Grant or Alan Rickman's calibre would have come with a pretty astronomical cost to the production. It's apparently why we had Matt Smith instead of the several older actors who wanted more money than the series could afford after its post-RTD budget cut.

Why would anyone want Hugh Grant or Alan Rickman when they can have MATT SMITH?

I'd have no problems with a female Doctor - although historical episodes could get a bit boring: TARDIS arrives, Doctor wanders about - and is immediately declared a witch and sentenced accordingly (intelligent, unmarried woman who asks questions and is not an aristocrat).

That's not desperately likely, historically speaking. Accusations of witchcraft came with a burden of proof, and penalties for the accusers if they couldn't back things up, so witch trials were a lot rarer than you'd think - even before the Catholic church declared that witchcraft didn't actually exist, so anyone going round making accusations was risking getting burned at the stake for heresy.

Ah, but if the Doctor bumped into a Witch-Hunter OF COURSE it would be Matthew Hopkins, and he's well-acquainted with the (Protestant) laws and the ways you can rig the 'evidence'.

Do Time Lord bodies come with psyches attached? The two Tennants had such similar personalities that we never suspected a thing until Time of the Doctor. And the Curator certainly seemed much as our beloved Fourth Doctor would have been, had he spent a few centuries mellowing in a museum instead of jumping off radio-telescopes.

And that bloke in Lungbarrow who regenerated into a Hartnell-style body in order to frame him for murder before regenerating into an exact copy of his pre-Hartnell body was presumably quite sure that he'd regain his original horrid character. (And one can't say that cold-blooded murder isn't something someone-in-a-Hartnell-body could have done.)

And if there's much difference between Maxil and Old Sixie I've yet to spot it.

It occurs to me that, just based on statistics, we've probably had a gay man somewhere in the Hartnell to Capaldi set of leads.

And doesn't the acting profession have a higher percentage of gays than the general population? Trouble is, from everything we know about their private lives they all seem terribly heterosexual. And it's not as if the later ones would feel the need to hide it. Hell, it would probably be a selling point these days ('Terribly sorry it's YET ANOTHER white male but hey, at least he's gay...')

Moffat in DWM: 'There's no show ever made that wouldn't be improved by putting the Doctor in it. He's leading man, comic relief, expository scientist, and chief troublemaker all rolled into one. He can even be the villain, if you like; he's the villain in Hell Bent...

'He's so far up himself that he can't see sometimes. Every character failing he has is based on his assumption that he is cleverer, and more important, and more entitled than everyone else in the room. He's Robin Hood - he's a slumming-it toff. He believes he's a man of the people, but he still expects the people to fetch him cups of tea.'

Wow.

Hey, remember how Benedict Cumberbatch turned down the role of the Doctor because he didn't want to see his face on the side of a lunchbox?

Well... http://www.comicbookmovie.com/doctor_strange/first-doctor-strange-merch-offers-new-look-at-benedict-a142344#.V1SfAUeeh0I.twitter

Ha! Serves him right -

- Wait. THAT'S Benedict Cumberbatch?

Doctor Strange lunch box instead of Doctor Who. I hope some journalist asks him the question.

Well, now I know what I want for Christmas. But no change there - I've wanted Benedict for Christmas since 2010.

About a black Doctor... there are times in Earth's past where a black man won't have things as easy as a white man but wouldn't a white Doctor face that same issue in a story set in, say, Tokugawa Japan or Maurya-Dynasty India or the Empire of Mali? This was something the original series glossed over quite a bit in serials like "Marco Polo" and "The Aztecs," but the white travelers would've been the racial minorities in those cultures; indeed, the Aztecs would never have seen anything like them before. And realistically, if the Doctor's visits to Earth were anywhere near random in their geographical distribution, he'd land in Asia and Africa much more often than he landed in Europe. So if anything, the fact that the Doctor looks white should be an impediment to him much more often than it's shown to be.

I'd like to see a Doctor written as if they were a character on Drop the Dead Donkey.

Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee are part of the Greatest Generation, Tom Baker is part of the Silent Generation, Hurt, Colin and McCoy are War Babies, Davison, Capaldi and Eccleston are Baby Boomers, Tennant is Generation X and Smith is Generation Y.

A usenet reviewer makes a point in his review of An Unearthly Child. He points out that the Doctor was prepared to bash in the head of an sleeping cave man during an escape attempt until stopped by Ian.
And then there's Twelve's additional comment to Rusty on how "he only really became the Doctor once he first met the Daleks". Hm... That the Doctor is an antihero - and was one especially at the start - is no coincidence, IMHO. I think he started out as a rather bad man during his later youth. Not an evil man, but not one who's actions you'd be cheering for either. Hence, becoming a renegade later on and even being somewhat overly prideful and foppish about the fact in front of his own people could be a reaction to his own past guilt. One that he is not easily willing to admit to (let's face it - he might be generally nice, but he is a bit stubborn, and prior to Twelve, "humble" wasn't a very accurate word to describe him).

In light of all of that, I think the scene in Listen doesn't undermine the mystery of the Doctor's pre-travels past, but only adds to it further. And not in a twice pleasant way: You might sympathise with the fearful boy crying himself to sleep, but he very well might grow into an arrogant and not too compassionate man before he comes to his senses late in his life (when he has the elderly, Hartnell look). Fear often leads people to anxiety, and in turn, onto less pleasant pathways, where they might do things they would otherwise feel sorry for or regret. So yeah, while I don't think the Doctor was ever outright evil, the majority of his first life probably saw him commit some things he started regretting massively even before he first left Gallifrey. In light of that, it would only make sense that he'd forsake his birth name and adopt a pseudonym, and later that "never cruel or cowardly" creed.

Yeah, children in foster-care are almost always so damaged by the experience - and by whatever parental experience necessitated said foster-care - that they do NOT grow up to be well-balanced members of society. And that's on THIS planet, where we don't deliberately try to send 'em mad at the age of eight.

Though no doubt the message we're supposed to take away from Listen is that Clara YET AGAIN saves the day by moulding the Doctor we all know and love.

Moffat in DWM: 'Flirted with Cameca and clearly had a crush on Barbara Wright...flirted so outrageously with Astrid that I had to leave the room, twice...so in love with Jo Grant I'm still crying...' - I'm torn between screaming 'DIE BLASPHEMER!' and asking what Todd did to offend him, that she should be omitted from the list...

imagine if Kenneth Williams had been cast instead of Colin Baker in 1984. It would have been everything you could want from a Doctor, really. Age, authority, eloquence...

V117 in New Series: Season Ten: The Return of Doctor Mysterio:

I think the personality aspect reshuffle helped sell both the concept of regeneration and that it mattered. Whats the point of it it when successive regnerations have the same personality with very minor differences?

The POINT of it is to keep our Lonely God ALIVE. And New Who has certainly emphasised its importance - hell, jammed said importance down our wretched throats in End of Time *sob*.

And it's wonderful to see how, in the hands of each new actor, these 'minor differences' turn into new Doctors who are wonderfully the same and yet wonderfully different from their old selves.

As opposed to bizarrely and occasionally life-ruiningly different from their predecessors, as in the Good Old Days.

Terrance Dicks in DWM: 'I've always said, "The casting of the Doctor is a recurrent miracle." They got Hartnell dead on right. They got Troughton dead on right. They got Pertwee dead on right. They got Baker dead on right. They got Davion...well...he wasn't one of nature's Doctors...Sylvester is interesting too, but again I would say not a born Doctor; somebody who had a really good go at it. Now, Colin Baker...He's a good, strong actor. But he was never really given a chance...If I'd had Colin for five years, I'd have got a brilliant Doctor out of him' - hell, let's be totally generous to Colin and actually AGREE with this summary.

Actually I wouldn't mind seeing the Terrance Dicks version of the 6th Dr.

Five years, though, I mean FIVE YEARS...

Colin Baker's own idea of the Doctor was to start unlikable and grow into someone we love. A pretty bonkers idea really.

Well, it worked for Eccleston and Capaldi.

Of course, they made sure we all fell in love with Eccleston n'Capaldi - unlikable or not - in their first episodes long before they bothered to mellow 'em.

half the Classic Doctors were ex-military: Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee were all veterans of World War Two and Tom did National Service.

Did this influence their performance of the role of the Doctor in a way?

Do the people here think having a real life military veteran in the role of the Doctor is a good or bad thing?

Out of all the would-bes and might-have-beens, I'm the most intrigued about Richard Hearne, if only for the possibility of seeing a darker, more multifaceted version of Mr. Pastry.

I am thankful that neither Commander RNVR Patrick Troughton, nor Ordinary Seaman Jon Pertwee did what so many other veterans have done and used their enlisted titles after they had returned to civilian life.

The Doctor is a peaceful warrior, a brave coward, a good man forced to go to war.

I like 'peaceful warrior' but I don't regard him as any sort of coward (whatever he said in Parting of the Ways) and he's hardly FORCED to go to war - until the Time War came along (and it might NOT have come along if not for him) then he could have stayed quietly rotting on Gallifrey (well, probably. Depending on which if any of our multiple explanations for him leaving are actually true).

Moffat's take in DWM on which Doctor was the happiest: Disagree with him on a) Five - 'Oh, but the anguish in the eyes. The pained innocence, the reckless bluster' - that's not how Tennant remembered being the wimp in Time Crash!, b) War - 'Not happy. Not for one single moment, an incarnate rejection of everything the Doctor has ever stood for' - oh, come ON! He's secretly enjoying every minute with Matt n'Tennant, who wouldn't! and c) Six - 'He's happy because an egomaniac is always in the company of their favourite person' - yeah, but that level of bipolar is seldom fun to live with.

Ian Briggs in DWM: 'If you look at all the Doctors up to Tom Baker, they all had empathetic qualities. Setting aside their abilities as actors, they had this quality. Then you get to Peter Davison. He's a nice character and, like Colin Baker, obviously a good actor. But he lacked the hooks to make you really care about him as a character. And I believe the same applies to the Colin Baker character' - how true, how true! (And...you can actually bend over backwards to be NICE to Colin and STILL eviscerate his Doctor! It's a revelation!)

The Fourteenth Doctor: https://imgur.com/a/Z0vU2

There seems something faintly but thrillingly wrong about the words 'The Fourteenth Doctor'. Even though we've already had fifteen of 'em...

Just remember that the Doctor is worse than a iceberg, with probably 99% hidden below the surface.

What are the consistent defining characteristics of the Doctor, recognisable to the point where we can look at a performance and say "Doctor/Not Doctor"

A good starting point is the Terrence Dicks description:

Much has changed about the Doctor over the years but much has remained the same. Despite the superficial differences in appearance, at heart, or rather at hearts (the Doctor has two) his character is remarkably consistent.

He is still impulsive, idealistic, ready to risk his life for a worthy cause. He still hates tyranny and oppression and anything that is anti-life. He never gives in and he never gives up, however overwhelming the odds against him.

The Doctor believes in good and fights evil. Though often caught up in violent situations, he is a man of peace. He is never cruel or cowardly.

In fact, to put it simply, the Doctor is a hero. These days there aren't so many of them around.

Well, Uncle Terrance got the 'MAN of peace' thing wrong, for starters...

what would happen if something dreadful was to come out about a current or former Doctor actor? How would the production team react? Would the actor be un-personed?

What if the Doctor became a Peeler/Bobbie? I'd love to see him deal with some real life monsters that escaped justice, particularly those who hurt children.

It depends in which era, I can't see any Doc coping well with all that modern-day paperwork.

The Doctor and paperwork just don't mix.

It takes an average of eight hours to process an arrest, the Doc could have saved a couple of planets in that time...there's no WAY s/he's becoming a policewoman.

Though it looks like she's about to shack up with a couple of 'em so their reaction to her no-nonsense form of universe-policing will be...interesting. (YASMIN AND RYAN: 'Did you read The Terrible Zodin her rights under Article 2 subsection 4 before Venusian-Aikido-ing her over your shoulder and sending her battlefleet tumbling into the sun?' JODIE!: 'Er...no.')

John Dorney on writing the Doctor: 'I think the scripts are always stronger, more individual, if you tailor them for the specific actor. Tom and Paul lines could possibly switch, in my experience, but everyone else feels very much distinct when I'm writing them' - that's weird, if you'd asked me which two Doctors are most alike I sure as hell wouldn't pick Four and Eight...

Which ones would you pick?

Well, Six and Twelve had the most similar character-arcs but there's obviously no way in hell anyone would get Colin Baker confused with Peter Capaldi.

Five and Eight are the NICE Doctors but again, McGann had a certain essential Whoyness about him whereas Davison only had blandness.

Theoretically One and War are both old codgers bumbling around ruthlessly killing anything that gets in their way but Hurt just totally lacks Hartnell's twinkle.

Two and Seven are both short, mischievous clowns with not-very-well-hidden dark manipulative genocial sides to 'em.

But Ten and Eleven are probably the most similar. They're both young, enthusiastic and sexual and they did behave extremely similarly in Day of the Doctor.

But Ten and Eleven... and sexual

which some fanfic writers have taken to mean horndogs (and sadly, sometimes, sexual assault)

Well, Eleven DID commit sexual assault.

He knew perfectly well that Jenny was a happily-married lesbian, how DARE he kiss her like that?

He had just come out of that red thing. Give the guy a break.

I don't care if he HAD just fallen in a vat of red dye! Or punched a diamond wall for a few billion years, or accidentally wiped out half the universe or whatever...he can keep his lips to himself!

The Doctor is like someone that takes off in a Kombi van to drive around Australia.

Can anyone let me know what the SMEG that means?????

Kombi van? Those V&W vans.

What she's talking about or how it follows the previous discourse? no.

I was quoting from my piece in Sonic Screwdriver.

Well, Jenny did belt him one, showing that she didn't like it.

Pardon my ignorance, but who is the Skinny Lonely God?

David Tennant. Donna calls both of him 'skinny boys in suits' and the Face of Boe calls him the Lonely God.

Everyone else just calls him Ferret Boy.

An African-British actor cast in the role would be too plain an invitation to the crass British tabloids to invoke/mention this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bongo_Bongo_Land

I wonder what they call the Tom Baker Doctor?

Scarf Boy? The Googly-Eyed One? Vaguely Bohemian?

Forrest Gump? ("I'm not a smart man, but i know who Sarah Jane is")

I don't think a "regenerate in the middle of a story, then the new Doctor beats the enemy" would work.

Given the amount of time regenerations take these days, the enemy would be retired and driving around Australia in a caravan.

Actually, all that has to happen is the villain just has to stand in front of the yellow streams of energy emanating from the Doctor's hands and it'll kill the bad guy. It certainly blew apart Ten's TARDIS from the inside out! You don't want to stand in the way of that kind of power!

On the other hand, Twelve donated Davros a bit of regeneration energy and it rejuvenated ALL the Daleks, you can't be too careful with that stuff.

I think every Doctor would be a good member on this forum.

Various Doctors disagreeing with posters.

First: How would you like a jolly good smacked bottom!

Fourth: [Name] is an imbecile!

Ninth: You stupid ape!

"Capaldi" not "Peter" to avoid confusion with Davison. Similarly "Colin" and "Tom" rather than "Baker", and "Hurt" and "Pertwee" rather than "John" and "Jon".

Also, 'Hurt' is a perfect description of that particular incarnation, both his own War-ravaged existence and the way Fans felt when a hitherto-unsuspected 'Doctor' popped up to destroy our life's beliefs and Sacred Numbering System...

And JODIE! rather than 'Whittaker' to avoid confusion with a mercury-and-food-machine-obsessed Founding Father...

What the Doctor does to acquire some companions can apply what was said about the Pied Piper:

The people were indifferent to the Piper, so he takes their children. No matter how wonderful the place is that he takes them, it still makes him nothing more than a kidnapper.

---

quote:

I think that the Capaldi Doctor is what the Ninth Doctor was meant to be. He uses guns on occasion, he's threatening, he doesn't like or trust humans that much and is cold and dangerous at times but at the end of the day he's still fighting the good fight and when all is said and done he's lost too much and seen too much hurt to ever for a moment consider turning his back on people who need him.

I can see why the Ninth Doctor couldn't go around shooting and punching people even in a finale and had to step back from using a doomsday device to solve his problems. But looking back its clear his concept was meant to be the scarred war veteran who is just a bit harder edged than his predecessors and successors. And he has the physical presence and style for that but only in the later series with a lot of trust, experience, budget and well established 'rules' could the show runners truly have the Doctor as a warrior or noble demon type who genuinely does things you can't forgive or reminds you that this guy once sacrificed billions to save untold trillions. It couldn't be done when the series was just being rebooted, it would turn people off. But this brought me back.

---

Here's some wibbly-wobbly timey-wimpey stuff form Youtube-- all of the Doctor's regenerations (1 to 11) backwards. Emily gets Tennant back! The master's sequence is funny, because his laughter asounds strange, and then he suddenly stops laughing and appears angry. You'll see what I mean...

https://youtu.be/kjJnkBlzUbQ

I really like David Tennant's regeneration scene and the music, but here's a version of The Tenth Doctor's Regeneration | Logopolis Style , switching the music to Tom Baker's soundtrack.


https://youtu.be/W9HZsS3LHkA

Interesting.

I hadn't actually realised how excitingly ominous the Logopolis music WAS before, no doubt due to it being attached to something as drearily miserable as Logopolis.

Mixed feelings about the regenerations-backwards, obviously. Some of them made me very very happy, some of them...not so much.

Lawrence Miles on Twitter:

'Something really, stupidly obvious only just occurred to me.

People within fandom who hate the idea of the Doctor being a woman... they don't realise that the Doctor's always been in drag, do they?

Good Lord.

I can understand the Not-We Not-Getting-It. But really.

The Doctor is an *imposter*, but egregiously so. The Doctor is camp in the truest sense of the term: a knowing, winking parody of both a hero and a human. No, *obviously* most of the actors wouldn't have described it that way. But it's a drag act. Species drag. Temporal drag.

The idea of the Doctor as definitively male is rooted in a belief that those personas are essentially "him", when they're not real even to the Doctor.

So perhaps the biggest problem with V.12 is that Chibnall, desperate to make a point, has written her as if she's *honest*.'

???????

You DON'T think the Doc has just been faking-it as a human, all this time...?

You might want to read a few Dave Stone books, he REALLY spells it out. (E.g. Sky Pirates!'s' 'Those minuscule things that lived inside their meat machines that it amused [the Doctor] to emulate'.)

Well, if the Doctor has been play-acting at being a human, why haven't any Time Lords called him out on it?

For that matter haven't all Time Lords acted like humans?

For that matter haven't all Time Lords acted like humans?

*Sigh* Good point. But then, it's been an eternal mystery what the hell the Time Lords have been playing at since the moment they appeared on our screens.

For that matter haven't all Time Lords acted like humans?

*Sigh* Good point.

On second thoughts, the Time Lords only started acting like humans after WE started watching 'em. Maybe, like Weeping Angels, they can SENSE it. After all, before we came along they were all-male with glowy eyes and the next thing you know they invent vandalism, chalk outlines for murder victims, and torture. Oh, and even those women things...

That would seem to be confirmed by the first Doctor wishing us all a happy Christmas. ;-)

*Shudders* I'd rather lose an argument than be right on THOSE grounds.

STEVE in Modern Who: Season Twelve: Can You Hear Me?

I'm not buying this ridiculous 'socially-awkward' b.s., because the Doctor has lived for thousands of years and has had dozens of companions, and met thousands of people and it wasn't a 'thing' for most of the Doctors. Practice makes perfect and 'socially awkward' barely worked to explain the Capaldi Doctor, because, he, too, was thousands of years old and companions and people, blah blah blah.

SPOILERS for Fugitive of the Judoon:

Not when you get rebooted every few years/centuries with differing amounts of what-we-humans-call-autism in your make-up it doesn't.

I mean, at first you think s/he's learnt SOMETHING about human interaction cos post-Hartnell s/he doesn't compare people to 'savage Red Indians', shriek 'It's a madhouse full of Arabs, let's get outtahere!' or attempt to apply a large rock forcibly to the head of anyone getting on his/her nerves, but the Doc's social awkwardness just shifts into other channels.

Troughton - commits genocide. Seriously, under all that clowning it's his go-to solution for dealing with problems and he just doesn't care whether it's Vulcan guards, Atlanteans or Macra, it's all just KILL KILL! with him. (Of course, he's somehow grown a whacking great conscience by the time of War Games, which promptly gets him killed.)

Pertwee - either genuinely or to hide his alien-insecurity-in-bitterly-resented-exile he slides into odious upper-class-white-male-chauvinist-mode ('I was telling old Tubby at the Club...') Utterly unDoctorish and frankly I preferred the genocide.

Tom - of course, he's so PERFECT AND WONDERFUL in his weirdness that only very occasionally does he get taken to task and have to explain 'I'm - not - human - you - moron - screw - Scarman - I'm - trying - to - save - the - bloody world.'

Davison - of course, it's his very normality that makes him such a disappointing Doctor but even he has his moments - see that scene in Snakedance when Ambril is laughing his head off at the crackpot who doesn't even realise he's a crackpot...

Colin - yeah, throttling people and forcing them to worship you on a barren rock and making puns after brutally murdering people is pretty socially awkward, especially when the puns aren't even any GOOD...

McCoy - after his excruciatingly embarrassing first season of misquotations and clownish tricks he converted his social awkwardness into being a mysterious god. It really worked.

McGann - well there isn't really enough TV stuff to go on but certainly grabbing someone's gun and threatening to shoot HIMSELF instead of them was a new one on the Americans.

Hurt - fought centuries on the frontline of the Time War, probably just to get away from having to talk to people, especially when it comes to the 'Don't call me the Doctor!' 'What's your name then?' 'Um...' conversation.

Eccy - oh sure, the love of a good woman mellowed him in no time but remember those glorious early scenes of 'Look, if I did forget some kid called Mickey it's because I'm trying to save the life of every stupid ape blundering on top of this planet, all right?' Not to mention 'Doctor, they kept him alive!' 'Yeah, that was always a possibility. Keep him alive to maintain the copy.' 'You knew that and you never said?!' 'Can we keep the domestics outside, thank you?'

Tennant - the most adorably human of 'em all, until you start noticing things like his total inability to tell the woman he loves that he loves her.

Matt - they've made ENTIRE COMEDY EPISODES out of his total failure to pass himself off as human - see The Lodger and Closing Time.

Capaldi - yeah, like you said, no one's denying HIS social awkwardness, even when he was TRYING ('Ahem. I'm very sorry for your loss. I'll do all I can to solve the death of your friend slash family member slash pet')...

JODIE! - bear in mind she's suddenly got a whole NEW set of social rules to abide by (don't ask me why she feels the need to, say, drill holes in her ears to conform to petty human obsessions with gender and its associated stereotypes, that's a whole other issue). There are plenty of other examples - desperate babbling attempts to seem 'normal' with Yaz's family, the inconveniently-truthful 'I'm almost gonna miss ya' to her Fam, the idea that hiding in an alcove is the pinnacle of human experience....

Ruth - bit early to tell but judging by the way anyone who talks to her tends to end up dead or at least mutilated at her hands I'm thinking she'll score pretty high on the socially-awkward spectrum.

Good examples, Emily, but I could also point out tons of examples when the Doctor got it right and treated people like Susan, Jamie, Victoria, Jo, Sarah Jane, Leela, Ace, Rose, and Donna completely normal, and with EMPATHY!
I blame the writers for that scene. Trying to be funny in the face of Graham's fears made her look bad!

I could also point out tons of examples when the Doctor got it right and treated people like Susan, Jamie, Victoria, Jo, Sarah Jane, Leela, Ace, Rose, and Donna completely normal, and with EMPATHY!

Maybe we just applied our petty human standards to the Lonely God and THOUGHT it was empathy?

There are plenty of non-empathetic interactions with said people:

Susan - You need a jolly good smacked bottom! No, actually you need to be abandoned against your will on a Dalek-devastated alien world with some human who'll be dead of old age before you even break into a sweat!

Jamie - that disgusted way he HURLED Jamie's hand away from him in Tomb of the Cybermen...dammit, Two n'Jamie should have run round that universe hand-in-hand together for DECADES...

Victoria - look, just cos he told her in an adorable fashion that his alleged family 'sleep in his mind' (i.e. OH JUST FORGET YOUR DAD) doesn't detract from the fact that within five minutes of Daddy's extermination he had her in a Cyberman-infested quarry wearing a miniskirt...

Jo - I've never forgotten or forgiven that nasty little slap-down he gave her in The Daemons when she did exactly what HE did ALL THE TIME and criticised the Brig's knee-jerk militaristic response. (Also, he kept dragging her off to alien planets despite the fact she blatantly hated 'em all but I do have more sympathy with that - WHY DON'T YOU LOVE GOING TO ALIEN PLANETS YOU MORON.)

Sarah Jane - thirty years. He kicked her out the door and never gave her another thought THE BASTARD.

Leela - did he teach her to read? Did he even TRY to make her a better person or did he just call her 'Savage' and use her (quite sensible, in the circumstances) armed-and-violent tendencies to put her down all the time?

Ace - there's more truth than he'd like to admit in that Curse of Fenric speech when he broke her. She was an experiment and he put her through hell, from Segonax to Gabriel Chase. And lied to her all the while.

Rose - he's obviously capable of love and sex, why did he torment her for years before - when she'd •••• near ripped apart universes to get back to him - tossing her back on the beach with a Tennant-flavoured chew-toy?

Donna - he raped her mind. Against her clear and repeatedly-expressed will.

Trying to be funny in the face of Graham's fears made her look bad!

She wasn't trying to be funny, she was trying to be honest. Which did make for a rather funny scene.

Emily - grabbing someone's gun and threatening to shoot HIMSELF instead of them was a new one on the Americans.

He probably got the idea from the 1974 movie Blazing Saddles (about 3.50 into the clip).

I'm sorry. I should have put a Language Warning on that link. I hope nobody got offended or got in trouble for clicking it. Sorry.

Hey, these things happen.

Regeneration is really just the Doctor Who writers favourite way of insulting the actors who play The Doctor.

The writers are not the ones who decide when an actor's tenure as the Doctor ends.

With the exception of Colin Baker, who was unjustly fired, the actor playing the Doctor decides when it's time to leave.

Colin Baker's firing was entirely justified - he was a terrible Doctor. Hartnell was also fired (again, heartbreakingly justified - he wasn't up to it any longer, and The Show Must Go On no mater how many trampled lives it leaves in its wake). McCoy and McGann didn't exactly choose to depart either. (Neither did Hurt but at least they were presumably up-front about the temporary nature of his gig.) Pertwee and Baker obviously didn't want to leave, they just pulled a Sarah-Jane-style 'I'm packing my goodies and I'm going home!' bluff that tragically got called.

Colin Baker's firing was entirely justified - he was a terrible Doctor.
It's hard to be a good Doctor when are lumped with second rate cr@p like he was. How many people will write off Capaldi's Doctor because of the some of the bad stuff he had given to him? I think you are being entirely unfair and nasty.

I completely agree it would be difficult to be a good Doctor in those circumstances. We've all seen actors take a godawful script and SHINE within it (Soldeed in Horns of Nimon is springing to mind). But that's a lot harder when ALL your scripts are •••• and so is your coat. Colin being a terrible Doctor wasn't entirely his fault but I'm not being nasty, I'm just stating a bloody obvious fact.* He was cast cos JNT found him entertaining at a wedding FFS.

*Yes, technically speaking any opinion on Who is subjective and not a fact, if you want to say that Time and the Rani is better than City of Death, knock yourself out, but we'll all KNOW that you're wrong.

Colin Baker is an honourable and decent man. He's treated as the runt (I said RUNT) of the litter, when he was treated like •••• by his bosses then fired after 3 years, most of which time had been spent with the program off the air.

Well, YEAH, but at the end of the day Who is more important than one man's feelings.

And don't forget his story has a happy ending, he's got a very successful audio afterlife and didn't DWM voters give him some Best Audio Doctor prize or something?

Even Tennant would have had a hard time with the scripts that Colin got.

Scary image; Tennant in THAT coat! Quick! Somebody cut and paste a combined image of that and e-mail it to Emily!

Somebody had more or less that idea.

Have I been driven slowly mad by The Coat over the last few decades or would McGann actually look quite good if not for the yellow trousers?

You alone can answer that question, although, of the three, I prefer Matt's outfit.

It should be pointed out that the colours on that image have been heavily de-saturated, so none of those are as... vivid as Colin's original.
Having said that, with modern set lighting not being as bright and flat as the 80's, and not being shot on video that tends to boost the reds, it might actually look.. kinda alright in a New Who setting?

Michael Grade was the Ernst Stavro Blofeld of television.

If SPOILERS FOR TIMELESS CHILDREN the Doc's regenerated thousands - OK, lots - of times before...why is he so rubbish at it? Just because he doesn't consciously remember doesn't mean practice shouldn't have made, if not perfect, then a LOT better than those amnesiac sleeping wrecks we usually get.

(I say 'he' because we've no idea if JODIE! will be any good at regenerating without agonising pain/blowing up Sexy/degenerating into a man/whatever. And we don't want to find out for a LONG LONG TIME.)

'degenerating into a man'?
Wow, Emily.
You berate Judi for being racist (re. the Master discussion happening right now), but it's okay for you to be sexist.
No one here would DARE say the Doctor 'degenerated into becoming a woman'.

I think a) everyone knows not to take me entirely seriously, b) the cases aren't entirely compatible due to the weight of, y'know, THE ENTIRETY OF RECORDED HUMAN HISTORY which does rather consist of men oppressing women and not vice-versa and c) it would genuinely FEEL like a degeneration to me, not because I consider men to be inferior to women but because we females of the species have only just got our hands on the TARDIS key after twelve - um, thirteen - oh, whatever - white men and dammit we need to hang on to it for a bit longer. (If JODIE! - please gods - proves Tom-like in her longevity then, fair enough, find the right bloke for Fourteen and no doubt I'll fall madly in love with him like the Doctor-slut I am, but even with the utterly unexpected blessing of Ruth, it would feel like JODIE! was a token gesture if we get another man wielding the sonic screwdriver in a couple of years.)

Awww...

Aren't they all so cute!

And aren't they all so OLD!

(Well, just the men. The current cast of FEMALE DOCTORS PLURAL!!!!!! are looking considerably less...chronologically-challenged.)

And Colin Baker in a JODIE! t-shirt! That I should live to see the day!

Yeah, you picked the wrong Doctor to say 'Never be cruel or cowardly.' About the only things we know about Ruth is a) she rips Judoon horns off and b) she crawled away and hid.

'Real life doctors'?! What exactly are you IMPLYING!

Dunno why they're all thanking the NHS, Pertwee was the only one who made good use of it. Well, Ruth may have done as well, I suppose.

Oh look, Eccleston's missing. No surprise there, then.

No surprise, no, but how much better he would have made this...

No faux first Doctor either.

Ugg, no, you don't want to raise canonicity questions by hauling Bradley along, not when it's the first time Jo Martin's joined so many of her other selves...

Eccleston probably wouldn't have agreed to this, even if the BBC bothered to ask him, as he agrees with the comedian Henning Wehn's quote about the need for charity being a failure of the government - i.e. If the NHS was properly funded/equipped they wouldn't need to beg the public for money.
https://www.instagram.com/christophereccleston/

Interesting, I guess.

Two Doctors on the Late Late Show:
http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2020/06/two-doctors-on-late-late-show.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2OZZaceqyd_PsYcgZRcS6_XsOGXLkR1J3uT37K43b2y4vIc9_437LslmU

Thoroughly enjoyable.

But is that an American or British show?

American.

Holy COW could Tennant not have had the RESPECT for The Sacred Costume as to shave that MOULD off his face?

'I'm a huge fan of the show' - just not publicly prepared to admit that you STARRED IN TWO EPISODES?

'Here's what a Cyberman looks like on the show' - why show one of the Nightmare in Silver abominations? Maybe to make the cosplay one look better, in which case it totally worked...

JODIE! looks so totally excited by a Cyberman picture. But I have a horrible suspicion she looked slightly confused when the Face of Boe turned up.

JODIE! looks wonderfully impressed by the Fan who dressed up as a Cloister Wraith an hour after surgery - so hopefully we'll have no Covid-related cowardice from her when it comes to filming Who in the middle of a pandemic.

I can't believe the Ood didn't make the short-list!

Nice seeing Tennant bow to the superior authority of the Current Doctor.

It's always fun to see these two together, even on a video call, the banter between Jodie and David is a joy to watch! Loved Tennant's pride at still fitting into his costume - and the fact that they both have their costumes at home!
I can't decide if I'd prefer the obviously fun on-screen dynamic of 13 and 10 together, or the double Northern-ness if Jodie could convince Eccleston to return!

10-ent has returned once onscreen, plus audios.

Eccleston never has.

Come on, Emily. Team Eccleston! The second best Doctor in 50+ years!

(Written after an impressive degree of inebriation has been reached, I admit, but still. Eccleston!)

Trouble is (aside from him being a miserable Who-hating traitor), Eccy would make ANY of his other selves look lightweight and frankly JODIE! can't afford that right now. She's made tremendous strides in her second season away from Davison's band bondness towards Tennant's Best Doctor Ever-ness but •••• Nine can get really, REALLY intense...

The three Doctors - David Tennant, Matt Smith and Jodie Whittaker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kmyLeVOzp4&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0btveNl43hmtgNA1bdAXGM9JOEg8suvKJcSpnFpPr8-M-c6otjUFr8a10

JODIE!'s middle name is Auckland? That's very weird. On the one hand the Docs have the plainest imaginable names - loads of Johns and Jos and Peters and Toms - and on the other hand you also get the occasional John Devon Roland de Perthuis de Laillevault thrown in to confuse you...

I had to look that name up - you really do learn something new every day!
Still, if any of them were going to have a convoluted, multi-part, aristocratic surname it was bound to be Pertwee. I suppose he's lucky they anglicised the 'Perthuis' - if they'd chosen the last part he might have ended up as Jon Level!

Isn't there a British peer for which the New Zealand city of Auckland is named?

On the one hand the Docs have the plainest imaginable names - loads of Johns and Jos and Peters and Toms

Emily, so far there has only been ONE Jon, and ONE Tom (unless you count Paul McGann, who's first name is John, Paul being his middle name).

There have been two Peter's though (Davison and Capaldi).

Emily, so far there has only been ONE Jon, and ONE Tom

You're forgetting John Hurt.

Also, both the Fourth Doctor AND the whichever-number-Doctor-the-Curator-is were played by a Tom!

Uh, the Fourth Doctor and the Curator were played by the same guy!

Yes, but that still adds up to TWO GLORIOUS DOCTORS whose human avatar happened to bear the name of Tom.

Two characters, not two actors.

My statement stands.

The Doctor is written as ambiguously human until about the end of the black and white era - The Daleks calls him human in "The Chase" and he describes himself as human in "The Sensorites" and "The Savages". The renewal in "The Tenth Planet" is described as technological ("it's part of the TARDIS. Without it i couldn't survive"). The Doctor's attempt to pass himself off as a Chameleon in "The Faceless Ones" is exposed when he scans as human not Chameleon. The Daleks say the Doctor's time travelling has made him "more than human" in "The Evil of the Daleks". A full medical scan in "The Wheel in Space" finds no non-human abnormalities.

David Gibbs:
he doesn't care who gets hurt or destroyed for some long game scheme of greater good hence Ace always at odds with him, and I'd steer clear of him too. Then again in terms of personality you've two Seven's anyway; the early clown and the dark manipulator (neither of which I'd like to travel with). Likewise the Sixth Doctor has very different versions, I wouldn't travel with manic TV Six but absolutely would with the cuddlier BF Old Sixie.

I think the Second Doctor would be easiest to get on with as a person, the Second & Jamie friendship is very good. As much as I liked the First & Third as performances I don't think they'd that easy to get on with in person.

I think the Second Doctor would be easiest to get on with as a person

Sure, I mean, he gratuitously massacres people and Macra at the drop of a hat, but ASIDE from that...

I'd love to think I'd get on well with Troughton but his "overgrown child" and his (outwardly) cowardly behaviour would get on my t i t s.

he gratuitously massacres people and Macra at the drop of a hat

Everyone has their flaws

The antepenultimate episode of James Cameron's The Story of Science Fiction, Dark Futures is the second episode that includes Peter Capaldi.

This episode includes 1984 (1984) with clips of its star John Hurt, who like Capaldi is a Doctor.
So two Doctors in this episode of James Cameron's The Story of Science Fiction.
In Doctor Who itself, the War and Twelfth Doctors are in the same episodes in The Day of the Doctor, Listen, The Zygon Invasion & Twice Upon a Time.

When 12 met 8 in a Hotel! (and those puns).

https://imgur.com/a/thvfqwq

Saw this 2001 TV movie long before Peter Capaldi became 12 and reuniting with Keeley Hawes in Time Heist.

OK, that's WEIRD.

Though come to think of it, Eight and Twelve would be good to join JODIE! for our Sixtieth...

Perhaps.

PERHAPS?

I think any ageing since Night of the Doctor and Twice Upon a Time will be less noticeable than with certain other Doctors.

Though of course Tom can reprise the Curator, it won't matter if HE looks any older.

They could do Audios.

BRAD in Modern Who: Season Thirteen: Revolution of the Daleks: If Tennant is a traitor for leaving Doctor Who, does that make all the other actors traitors too?

Well...not Hartnell and Colin, they were sacked. Or McCoy and McGann, they...no longer had a programme. Or Pertwee and Tom, they only offered their resignations in a huff without expecting them to be ACCEPTED. (Though it's still a bloody stupid risk to take DAMMIT TOM THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO TSLABYOD IF YOU'D JUST HUNG ON FOR ANOTHER FEW DECADES FORGET THE CURATOR YOU COULD AND SHOULD STILL BE THE DOCTOR RIGHT NOW.) Davison...on the one hand good riddance and on the other COLIN BAKER so the jury's out. Capaldi - absolutely not, it was JODIE!-time and through no fault of his own Twelve wasn't exactly pulling in the viewers.

Troughton - YEAH he's a traitor and a bloody stupid one, he and Jamie bitterly regretted listening to their wives and leaving and yet he still went round telling other Doctors they should stick to three years. Matt - yes he's a traitor cos his departure turned out to be a hideous mistake (sure, he had to have exactly the same Doctor's Knee operation as Capaldi thanks to the show but he was young and conquered America and it turns out his successor wasn't nearly as popular so he could have given us another few years the wimp). JODIE!, if the rumours are true, will be a hideous traitor, betraying n'abandoning us whilst simultaneously assuring us how much she adores the show and isn't even THINKING of leaving. Ecclestraitor is of course the worst traitor in human/Time Lord history. FIVE MINUTES after humanity's raison d'etre returned to us he attempted to smash it into smithereens, ripping out my heart in the process. But Tennant comes a good second. He was a Fan since BIRTH, this was his life's ambition and heart's desire and he left us after THREE-AND-A-BIT YEARS and the BBC literally tried to CANCEL DOCTOR WHO because they couldn't imagine it surviving without him.

Emily, you are a joy here.

Never change.

Thanks, that's good to hear, especially after I practically drove Rodney to suicide the other day.

I am now REALLY REALLY OLD so unlikely to do any of this 'changing/growing up' thing at this advanced stage.

Unless you regenerate.

My chances of being a Chameleon-Arched Time Lord are...remote.

Brian Blessed interview:

'The BBC wanted me to be Doctor Who. They said, “William Hartnell is getting older. We’d like you to play the Doctor in a different way.” I was still a young man, so I said, “I’d be interested, but I want to make him Oriental. His name is Who, so I’d like to play him like Charlie Chan.” That terrified them. They went, “Good God, no!” and dropped the idea.'

I have my doubts that the BBC was actually THAT politically correct in those days...

(He also says 'I’m only loud when I choose to be...I love peace and quiet' which I was tempted to get quite bitter over, but then if I was appearing in the Colin Baker Era no doubt I'd be screaming really loudly too...)

War Doctor's regeneration complete.
Marking 16 years since the arrival of the Ninth Doctor this March 26 2021:
https://imgur.com/a/1tX0RVo

8, 12 and Graham in a Hotel! (2001):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUHiIRXeDKQ

OK, that is...really weird.

River's 'You know when you see a photograph of someone you know, but it's from years before you knew them. and it's like they're not quite finished. They're not done yet' doesn't BEGIN to cover it.

It has been a long time since I saw Bean: The Movie (1997) but I have just read that Peter Capadi was in it.
When I saw it I eventually forgotten most of the people who were in it and Capaldi's face didn't register with me back then.
Of course he and Rowan Atkinson (Bean) later became Steven Moffat Doctors:
https://peter-capaldi-news.tumblr.com/post/137342170311/uk-watch-peter-capaldi-in-the-1997-movie-bean

Doctor Who Impressions Poem / Poetry, Ode To A Time Lord:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3cjqQ8dGPY

A poem/poetry by impressionists of the Doctors.

Interesting.

Didn't think much of the poetry, but the voices were pretty good.

A more Asian-esque Doctor would be interesting.

Not necessarily a Charlie Chan, i think a Central Asian Doctor would be interesting or even a Doctor in a Chokha!

Also I think the Doctor has an actress sister lel

She'd be part of the "Cast of Rassilon"!

And now I made a video of playing the classic who doctors as territorial.io empires!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzXuRy5P_nA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRxXe4FP_IA

And now I made a video where Doctors and Companions are countries.

The Doctor was the most-searched-for pop culture character this year!

Yes, 'Doctor Who has knocked Peppa Pig off the top of the most-searched characters list for the first time.'

And before Peppa Pig was released, Doctor Who was off the air so the Doctor could'nt be the most searched.

It COULD have been if more people kept the faith during The Sixteen Long And Barren Years Of Despair...

Yup but if that was the case, then the Eighth Doctor movie would have spanned a series.

Some people want new Doctors that are related to Classic Doctors (people have fancasted Troughton and Pertwee's kids and grandkids as future Doctors and now are even starting to fancast Ty Tennant as such) and even new Companions that are related to Classic Companions (people have fancasted William Russell's youngest son Alfie Enoch as a new Companion.) but what about, new Doctors that are related to former Companions and viceversa?

Like, maybe we will see Frazer Hines' niece\nephew\greatniece\greatnephew as a Doctor?

Or the opposite way, one of the Pertwees, Troughtons, or Davison-Tennants being a Companion.

Maybe he does'nt only revisits old faces but also faces he would meet in the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB4hsgwbxVQ

Somewhat mediocre but the costumes are great. And it has the occasional moment (Gallifrey 'fixed itself...don't think about it' 'You mean to tell me you fell from a height much higher than a radio telescope' 'I hear you young fellows have started to kiss our Companions now. Who started that nonsense' 'It's not the proper thing' 'That's why I've put a stop to all of that and I've only kissed the Master')...

Why didn't JODIE! get a cheer, plenty of others did??

They decided to only put her at the very end to calm the rest.

There's more to say about the 11th and 12th Doctors than 13th, also those people may show a preference for the 11th and 12th Doctors, and it shows up in their writing by having them appear first. Me? I treat all the Doctors as equal, so I would have them show up in order and close to each other.

I've also seen a "Toddler Who" AU in which 11 and 12 were step-siblings (but none of the other Doctors were, also Clara showed up both as a toddler and as an young adult babysitter), a "Dragon Who" AU in which there was both a dragon and human Mel (but no other Companion had both a dragon and human counterpart), and someone made the Doctors and Companions in Sims 2 and put Sarah Jane with the UNIT era instead with Four and Harry.

I... I don't show preference. Heck I usually prefer writing for the freaking Companions instead. Part of it may be that I started with freaking Doctor Whooves instead.

https://familyecho.com/?p=START&c=taltpdpynp&f=769098746953940874

I decided instead of making everyone related, to just recast everyone as a family.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDqqDxJBhKo

Steven Moffat reunites with David Tennant and Peter Capaldi each in new shows:
https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/steven-moffat-david-tennant-peter-capaldi-exclusive-newsupdate/?fbclid=IwAR3D4vlxxcNn-Duf1twAxFBoySSLF4Ux6FoCaMwBbaSblcARrzuPeQ1DPJU

Sylvester McCoy (I think it's his official page) shared this on FB. The binarism can be criticised as can the ugliness of the link itself, plus it's a variation on something I think someone shared here a few years ago. Still...


https://scontent-ssn1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/277560425_539144744239536_8539204144326534042_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=IuebKJXuYvIAX9zFLfa&_nc_ht=scontent-ssn1-1.xx&oh=00_AT-i-jVOPgz7cv9FdxI2oal3VC31mISTBs7WCiMpRWzwhw&oe=62543F35

When 12 met 3:
https://imgur.com/a/he3Xi1H

When 12 met 4:
https://imgur.com/a/MygVBJ4

Contemporary article of when Peter Capaldi met Jon Pertwee, Lis Sladen and Tom Baker:
https://imgur.com/a/vwTvXHK

https://www.ncls.it/g/archives/7683

A musical episode too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZDv-X5kb6w
maybe him as the Doctor or Master?

Hmmmm..... no.

Make that HELL no.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/4401164/chapters/9994727#workskin

look its time cats

Happy Birthday to the BBC from the Doctors:
https://imgur.com/a/3sWqZ5E

Awwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Needs the Valeyard and propably also Watcher, Metacrisis, and Dream Lord.

Anyways, Trakenboard is coming back.

https://support.proboards.com/thread/672238/recovering-proboards

Peter Capaldi awarded for Outstanding Contribution at the British Academy Scotland Awards and praises Ncuti Gatwa as the two poses pictures together:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-11450509/amp/BAFTA-Scotland-Ncuti-Gatwa-poses-ex-Doctor-star-Peter-Capaldi-ahead-taking-role.html?fbclid=IwAR0qkkdN2ijA2ypYld4VEnh-WDI45ZT46p-h12QVKGU3VOj-mkCKSpu02Tg

First Moments of the Doctor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJhoxmvc-PU

Every Doctor ranked from worst to best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LNrvq54o3M

'We're not going to say any of the Doctors is bad' - why the hell NOT!

'Technically, the War Doctor is the Ninth Doctor' - the nine HUNDREDTH Doctor, maybe...

'As we know, things do not end well. Colin Baker was sacked' - but that IS ending well...as well as can be expected of anything in the Sixth Doctor Era, anyway...

'He's not at the bottom of our hearts' - yes he is.

TROUGHTON as the second-worst Doctor! What the hell is WRONG with you!

'Look at Star Trek' - and why would I want to do THAT?

Why is he so obsessed with 'crying man-babies'? To the extent he allows 'em to ruin the JODIE! Era for him?

'You'd just had ten years of Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor' - oh IF ONLY...

'Some relationships just work' - yeah but Five/Tegan ain't one of 'em.

'Some of [McCoy's] Dalek stories - they're pretty serious' - McCoy had more than one on-screen Dalek story?!

'[Tennant] is really when Doctor Who got big' - nope, that was 60s Dalekmania.

'You don't want someone to stay when they're clearly not enjoying themselves any more' - yes I bloody do. As long as I'm still enjoying myself...

In The Star Beast, Sylvia slapped 14.

Gradually I got reminded 9, 10, 11 and 12 got slapped by various people.

Within the realm of NuWho and notwithstanding War, Fugitive, the various Timeless Children and what we yet to see with 15, 13 never got slapped not something I would have wanted to see anyway.

I shudder to think what reaction a 13 slapping would have received.

After all slapping a male Doctor has a different kind of and generally an amusing reaction to it.