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As it has aired in Canada (cable) and the UK and Aus, only the US are relying on friends and various communications to peek at it - it's time to give the ep it's own thread.

To start it out, even tho there is a whole story to carry on about -

just to finish a conversation in Stolen Earth/Journey's End where we end up quoting the Next Doctor-
The Doctor, faced with a new incarnations says he must be "The next Doctor - or the next Doctor save one."

M-R Franklin said she thought that when the Doctor said he was talking to his next incarnation or 'next save one', he took that as the Doctor saying he was talking to either his 11th or 12th incarnation.

My point was that he has no way of knowing what incarnation from the future he would be talking to, but he only sees 2 possible answers, not 3.

...carry on <g>

Actually, it's M. R. Franklin - I'm technically a Mrs., though I use Ms. since I kept my maiden name...
Anywho (hmmm... I use that all the time, but I suppose here it should be "anyWho"), you make a very good point. I hadn't thought it through completely logically. If he sees a future incarnation and thinks, "well, that's me after my next regeneration or the next after that," then he has effectively ruled out there being more than two future selves. Very tricky, and nicely spotted!

I fixed the M R snafu- I suppose if anyone should have known better it's me - I discovered a couple of years ago that M'reen or Mreen has occasionally been taken as a MR, instead M then reen. (most spot the een as a the end of feminine name, but then a lot of bboard don't allow a ' or - between the name, and I tend to drop it out when I type a lot. I rarely use the _underline seperation, as it's more for seperating whole words than part of one.)

No worries. I get that a lot. The run-on is a holdover from a school e-mail where everyone's username was first initial, middle initial, last name. I'm used to having my first name misspelled all the time, so I've learned to let such things roll off me.

Wait, I'm still confused by that statement...the Doctor says Jackson Lake must be "the next Doctor - or the next Doctor save one." This makes me think that the Doctor automatically ruled out Lake being the 13th Doctor, that he automatically thought he was either the 11th or the 12th regeneration. Does that make sense?

Anyway, assuming it does...why would the Doctor do that? If Lake had been a future regeneration of the Doctor, why couldn't he have been the 13th? Am I missing something here?

Because he used a regeneration in Stolen Earth/Journey's End, and no one has had a successful 13th regeneration. So he should only have 2 left, if all holds as it is.

BUT, if he used up a regen in Stolen Earth/Journey's End AND no one has had a successful 13th regen, wouldn't that mean it couldn't be the Doctor's 12th, as (minus the one regen) that would, effectively be his 13th?

Or perhaps 10 thinks 13 will look more like that Valeyard (even though he was taken from a point between 12 & 13).

But this also raises a question that's bothered me for a long while...

What, exactly was the Watcher? Would that manifestation have any contributing factor to the, "how many regens does the Doctor have left" discussion?

Are you saying that the Doctor can't have a 12th incarnation because his 13th regeneration will fail? If that's the case, then you've counted wrong. Under normal circumstances, a 13th regeneration would be trying to create a 14th incarnation (start from the beginning to see why: the 1st regeneration turned the first Doctor into the 2nd Doctor). If M'reen and I have interpreted things right, the Doctor's 13th (theoretically doomed to fail) regeneration should be trying to create the 13th incarnation - thus there can only be an 11th and 12th Doctor remaining.

Or you could say that David Tennant is both the 10th and 11th incarnation, as he didnt want to change, so Matt is the 12th and the 13th is yet to be picked.

But that confuses people even more, so we stick to calling Matt the 11th, with just another regen left, as far as we and the Doctor know.

Tho there's always the Valyard theory to confuse people <g>

(The Watcher was a projection 4 made to ease his transition to 5 - a smart move since the 3 to 4 regeneration didnt start till his friend jump started it- but he'd projected it to appear at the moment of regeneration. The Watcher, being part of the Doctor, had his own opinion and journeyed back to warn the Doctor regeneration was approaching, rescued Nyssa who was searching for her father, bringing her to the Doctor, and then kept Adric and Nyssa safe during universal collapse, before finally joined back with the Doctor to cause the regeneration to begin. He was fuzzier than any other projection we've seen before or since, but I took that to represent the Doctor's poor job in making him, what with events pressing on him.)

That brings up an interesting point, M'reen...

The Doctor immediately recognized the Watcher when he saw him, but he was surprised that the Watcher was there. This seems to indicate that the Watcher was created without the Doctor's knowledge. Is it possible that when a Time Lord's future projection appears, that it's not intentionally created? K'Anpo's future projection seemed to live a life of his own, until the regeneration. Maybe he just appeared one day on K'Anpo's doorstep, much as the Watcher just suddenly showed up when 4 needed him.

My impression - tho BBC deliberately left it unexplained, to 'preserve the mystery', was that Tom created between seeing it and dying, tho I often speculated that he created not long after recovering from his own regeneration, and just urged the fuzzy creation to appear when he was about to regenerate. The Watcher then traveled back in time to warn the Doctor to prepare.

The Doctor was always willng to regard laws of causality a bit fuzzily when it came to dealing with other parts of himself - but once he saw the Watcher he knew very well what he was and what it meant, which was why he was so tense that adventure. His not entirely truthful speech about not choosing his companions was typical Doctor reaction to having to say a type of goodbye, and to try and distance them from him a little.

David T's Doctor is sort of trying the same thing again, distancing himself from companions so that he doesnt have to deal with parting from them.

But, the Next Doctor reminded him that he is hardly alone in having lost people, and part of the traditions of holidays is making that tribute or toast to those you have lost.

Or maybe the Doctor simply doesn't want to go into too much detail 'you're the next doctor, or the next save one, or the next save two, or the next past 13 who for whatever reason got more regenerations, or an astral projection' isn't exactly a quirky comment.

Well, OK, yeah... But I like it so much better when it supports my pet theory instead!

That is along the lines of what I was getting at, I misunderstood what I quoted you on in my previous post M'reen. I thought by "no one has had a successful 13th regen." I thought you meant "13th incarnation" (I didn't understand that but I know that you know more about Who than I do).

And thank you M'reen about the Watcher... and yay for BBC keeping things unexplained ;p


Initially that's what I thought as well, but it is fun to speculate other possibilities.

You could say that, but I wouldn't.
In story reasons would be that the whole hand-absorbing-the-regeneration crap meant that he didn't regenerate, he used the aborted regenerative energy to heal himself instead and the hand absorbed the regeneration. Therefore, he is just the 10th incarnation that nearly -but didn't- regenerate.

In real life reasons, nobody who's casting a new Doctor is going to count that one simple (and lame) sub-sub-sub plot that will probaby be all but forgotten in a year or so except by the very very nerdy like us. If the writer's bible states that the Time Lords have 13 lives (12 regenerations) then they will cast 13 actors and number them thus. They won't bother going back over all the old stories to see if there's an episode where he sort of half-regenerated and try to explain it.
If the show is still going strong when the 13th actor decides to pack it in, then they'll come up with some new explanation at the time, but they won't need to worry about it until that happens.

You won't see any publicity material with David Tennat's face printed twice amongst all the other actors. He is simply the 10th Doctor.