Howling:Regeneration in The Impossible Astronaut

The Impossible Astronaut starts with the Doctor's "death." After River shoots him, he starts to regenerate, but river shoots him again in the middle of his regeneration cycle, killing him. Why does he start to regenerate? As shown in The Time of the Doctor, he has no regenerations left. Was this a mistake on Moffat's part? Or was it because the Doctor's death was supposed to be as realistic as possible, and everyone present was unaware of the war doctor? CloneMarshalCommanderCody ☎  14:06, August 19, 2014 (UTC)

*** Interesting thought CloneMarshalCommanderCody But didn't River Song give the            Doctor her own lives in Let's Kill Hitler to save his life after she poisoned him? Maybe it gave him a bit of a top up?

Mickie Newton ☎  18:20, August 21, 2014 (UTC)

Not to be rude, but these comments imply both of you havent seen all of series 6, or at least not the finale. Cause it is explained there. And here. And im not gonna put a spoiler alert as it is three years old by now. The Teselecta, featured in lets kill hitler, was used by the doctor to fake his own death. It then faked regeneration to appear as if it had failed and make the death more believable. Surprising really that youve seen the series 7 christmas special, but not that, since if you believed he did die then, then how could he have been in the special and regenerated again. --Coop3 ☎  17:28, August 22, 2014 (UTC)

While I doubt that Moffat had planned to make Eleven the last incarnation as far back as Series 6, remember that, in-universe, the War Doctor was still being kept secret at the time of the assassination, and that only three people witnessed the meta-crisis in Series 4. As far as the people who are watching the assassination know, the Eleventh Doctor really is the Eleventh Doctor, and those are the people that the Doctor has to convince. Ensephylon ☎  21:33, September 20, 2014 (UTC)