Regeneration

So there is fan comic i used to read as a child called comic who writen by marco castiello and drawn by elisa moriconi , if you don't know that comic, it's basically a chibi styled doctor who fan comic with the 9th 10th and 11th doctors into some misadventures, (geez how many times have i said comic?) also they have their own nicknames 9th being called "eccly", 10th being called "tenny" and 11th being called "smithy".

Ok done explaining the comic, so the issue was called a new flatmate, dated december 25th 2013 same day time of the doctor was released, where the 11th doctor "smithy" was undergoing a regeneration, and suddenty two doctors emerged, introducing 12th doctor "cappy" to the comic, and then 10 years later the giggle was made which introduced the idea of bi-generation, which to me was a big surprise, because of the fan comic had something similar like this.

The One (old age)

The Two (Stabbed)

The Three (Poisoned)

The Four (Shot In The Chest)

The Five (Stabbed In The Stomach)

The Six (Strangled)

The Seven (poisoned)

The Eight (crushed under rubble)

The Nine (exterminated)

The Ten (injured)

The Eleven (Shot 3 Times By The Master)

The Twelve (Old Age)

Now If He Had There Would Be Two Tenth Doctor Because Of Stolen Earth And Journeys End And The War Doctor Too

OK, as there have been quite a few queries about regeneration of late... here's the biggie: to what extent do we think that regeneration energy can affect anything around it—specifically, the clothes that the Time Lord (Time Lady or whatever designation they prefer) are wearing?

For the most part, on television, a reasonable effort has been made down the decades to ensure that any new lead actor first appears in essentially the same outfit as their predecessor; but there have been exceptions. Troughton was pretty much wearing most of his costume (albeit one designed to be a slightly messier version of Hartnell's) once he took off Hartnell's cloak at the start of The Power of The Daleks. In Castrovalva, Peter Davison's made his debut wearing different footwear than Tom Baker. (Generally accepted, up to this point, as a production error.) In 2022, there was the complete costume change between Whittaker and Tennant at the close of The Power of the Doctor. Plus, while bi-generation effectively splits the existing clothes between the two incarnations, it also does seem to make some modifications as well—it's not as if, during The Giggle, that the more muscular Ncuti Gatwa was doing an Incredible Hulk impersonation by bursting out of skinny David Tennant's white shirt.

So, if we accept there's this biological process which can change and recharge cells into a new bodily form, is it that far of a stretch to say the process can also (at least occasionally) affect other organic material in some kind of timey-wimey way?

Suppose we have a Time Lord, and several of his consecutive incarnations were adults (from twenty to forty years old). Then he regenerates into a less mature incarnation. Could that happen? I think the Master did something like that.

Since Romana can change & pick bodies at any time, does that mean there's a type of regeneration where a Time Lord can change & pick bodies at any time too?

Okay, I didn’t mean for this post to turn into a mini-essay but I have a lot of thoughts…

One of the biggest and unfortunate things I have noticed most with Doctor Who lately is what I like to call the death of regeneration.

When regeneration was first introduced way back in the tenth planet, it was purely used as a method to keep the show alive for as long as possible. And for the most part that’s how it stayed for a majority of the classic series (sometimes not even finding out a doctor is leaving until mere weeks before their final episode) only being used sparingly even with other time lord characters (the only others we see regenerate on screen are K’anpo and Romana) so regeneration was saved only for when it was really needed especially after the 12-regeneration limit was established.

Unfortunately, Modern who has kind of lost that specialness of the regeneration and has resorted to using it for a shock factor to bring in viewers. When Eccleston’s first regenerated that one was purely to keep the show going since it was the first season, and I would even make an exception for the master’s regeneration in Utopia since it was meant to show the new threat. However then came the stolen earth… when RTD realized he could utilize the fact that Tennant was leaving for an unexpected cliffhanger (as fantastic as that cliffhanger is, it started leading to the downfall of the regeneration). After that, regenerations started to become more marketing pushes or shocking twists.

Obviously the doctor’s regeneration episodes are meant to bring in viewers to see who the new doctor is and say goodbye to the current one, but there’s also episodes during the Smith era like “the impossible astronaut” “lets kill Hitler” “angels take manhattan” where the regeneration is used as part of the shock value.

But then It got REALLY bad in the Capaldi era where we first had “Hell bent” where the general’s regeneration was put in the next time trailer and then once it was announced Capaldi was leaving, they started this whole marketing push of “12’s final season adventure” where we had Capaldi’s fake out regeneration in “lie of the land” before he eventually started regenerating in “the Doctor falls” before finally actually regenerating in “twice upon a time” really just drawing out the regeneration as a marketing tactic.

But I think you could still make excuses for some of them because they were mainly using regeneration energy for some plot device but the regeneration truly lost its specialness with “the timeless children” where it was established that the doctor does indeed have unlimited regenerations… because of this, we no longer have to worry about the regeneration number and we have had regenerations in 2022,2023, AND 2025. (Power of the doctor technically showed three regenerations/degenerations in a single episode!) And assuming Billie Piper is a temporary incarnation we potentially will have another one in 2027 (assuming that’s when the show comes back and Billie is indeed playing the doctor) if that’s the case, we will have four regeneration stories in a five-year period because two of them were stunt castings to keep the show alive. Plus we also have the Rani’s bigeneration (which I’m almost convinced was only used to do the two Ronnie’s reference) in there as well plus the bigeneration energy in lux and it’s making it lose its specialness that the regeneration used to have.

The fact that they IMMEDIATELY put Ncuti’s regeneration on the socials mere minutes after the episode ended just goes to show that they want people to go back and watch it because Ncuti is regenerating. The only thing that is different about this one is that they surprisingly aren’t promoting Billie Piper as the doctor (I have a feeling we might get some clarification in next week’s unleashed special for new who’s 20th anniversary)

but it’s still sad that this element of the show that used to be a very important and a sparingly used element is so overused lately and I feel it’s just gonna get worse because I think they’re gonna start doing more stunt castings like Tennant and Piper. But hopefully I’m proven wrong.😑

Hello everyone,

So its been a long time since I've posted on this fandom. I don't see many familiar faces either so maybe this is a new audience. I remember the Timeless Child reveal that destroyed everything the writers of doctor who and the fan writers have worked on for the last several decades with the justification of a single scene from a single episode which could've been easily explained as "Morbius's past faces". I lost all hope in watching anything further from this point. Now I heard some people say "I am so depressed I will never even watch the earlier seasons". I thought this was absolutely ridiculous, and I would even argue that after this I had a golden era of Doctor who consumption. I watched all throughout the second (sorry Hartnell) to fourth doctors in joy. And also of course some of my second favorite doctor's episodes, David Tennant. That is why I was so excited to hear Russel T Davies was making his grand return. I got quickly disappointed however, for many reasons this didn't feel like Doctor Who (aside from the ridicolous Bi-Regeneration). He definitely, on some level, recognized cannon was erased and tried to think of "new fresh adventures" rather than focusing on any lore. The aliens where quick for laughs character, rather than the intelligent sci-fi of aliens such as the Weeping Angels. Call it disney, call it growing old. But now I think all the glory we experienced in the Russel T Davies era came from the brilliant writers rather than himself.

Anyway I slowly become disillusioned with the show and only returned to some episodes (before Chinballs) on early sunday mornings. I will always have an appreciation for the show. But this most recent reveal? Billie Piper as the new doctor without any hype up?!?! Well I can sort of understand the lack of any formal announcement, sometimes unexpected things happen. But that also makes me question if Davies chose Gatwa quickly with no attempt at stability, possible for the cashgrab of "The first black doctor!". But now having Billie Piper as the next doctor?!? My personal hate for Rose aside, what an absolutely lazy and mindless cashgrab. Is this another one of those one episode doctor stories? If so I'm done and haven't even started. Everything in Doctor Who lately has been a disappointment, and this is no exception.

Which the sudden departure of Ncuti Gatwa that means it’s time to re-rank the regeneration stories! (This is not including day of the doctor or the stolen earth. But does include night of the doctor)

Below is my personal ranking of the regeneration stories.

1. Caves of Androzani 10/10

2. Bad wolf/parting of the ways 9/10

3. The war games 9/10

4. Night of the doctor (9/10)

5. Twice upon a time 8.5/10

6. The tenth planet 8/10

7. Power of the doctor 8/10

8. Logopolis 8/10

9. Time of the doctor 7.5/10

10. The giggle 7.5/10

11. The end of time 7/10

12. Wish world/the reality war 7/10

13. Planet of the spiders 5/10

14. The tv movie 5/10

15. Time and the Rani 4/10

When a Time Lord bi-regenerates, is it easier for them to separate if what caused them to regenerate was more peaceful? Asking this because The Doctor needed help by getting pulled by his friends, whilst in the most recent episode, the Rani was able to separate her two selves easily.