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squishy
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CGren123
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What Happens?
The Doctor's Death, at the Lake, Never Happens.
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They Use a Flesh Body Cop Out.
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River Gave Him At Least One More Regeneration.
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The Time Lords are Coming Back.
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 21% [ 3 ]
Everything has Its Time. Everything Dies.
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Total Votes : 14
 

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Scary
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Scary


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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptyFri Sep 30, 2011 7:27 pm

CGren123 wrote:
Russell T Davis said he included only as a joke.

If you look at the scene, it is an extremely stressful situation, so I somehow doubt the Doctor was being serious when he said 507.

It's also a very random number. Who 507 and not 500? I can understand 13 because 13 is believed by some to be an 'unlucky' number, and with it being his last life that makes sense. But 507? Hmmm...
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Eternal
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptySat Oct 01, 2011 12:14 pm

At the moment we don't really know what the Doctor's situation is with regard to regenerations. Whether Tennant's "Stolen Earth/Journey's End" regeneration counts as anything is completely open to interpretation. Exactly how regeneration works has always been left deliberately hazy.
Moffat may or may not choose to stick with the 12-regeneration limit. It would be very easy to write some loophole around it if he wanted to, or he could ignore it completely, and leave it for the next head-writer to sort out. But what bugs me is that the issue is not being confronted, at all. In 7 years of New-Series Who, RTD and Moff have steered a wide berth away from the regeneration limit issue. They know that it's there, they'll have a little joke about it in SJ adventures, but they won't touch it while the option to avoid it still exists.
I for one would like to see the issue addressed now, not in 5 years time when the 12th Doctor (whoever that is) is about to regenerate and they have no other choice.
However, I can see how it is a difficult issue for the writers... very difficult. Do they press on, and have a 14th doctor? A 15th, etc.? Would the fans accept that, or would they start to lose interest?
Do they keep the regeneration limit from Old Who, and wrap up the show with the 13th Doctor? Would it change the feel of the show to have a Doctor who can no longer regenerate? The may well decide that in 8-10 years time, after a few years of Doctor 13, that the show has run its course, and actually write an ending for the Doctor's story.
And maybe a while after that, they might re-boot Who, starting from the 1st Doctor...
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hitman hart
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptySun Oct 02, 2011 5:26 am

rule one, the doctor lies, by reseting his mystery, and remembering that the doctor lies, they have given him all the room to go on as long as they want, maybe the doctor isn't a regular time lord? maybe hes always downplayed what his abbility to regenerate really is? maybe the regenerations when given away such as rivers case or even the beat the regeration thing to death story of maydrin undead is only a cosmetic form of regereation, but the true survival rate regerations is infinate? i don't know i'm only hypothosizeing, but i honestly was disapointed with them coming back to this old cannon from the the original series, with the master in rtd's run(and by the way he found a way around it, albeit an evil way of escaping death and living on in the classic series) and now with river because it just brings up something that was used as a plot device for the master in one episode of who,albeit a good one for that story, that was blown out of proportion during jnt's run and serves to be a real stupid problem now. bottom line is the show is popular, i don't think it will ever lose its appeal, even if it goes away again, it will come back so at some point the thinking guys in the creative department will fix this problem. but what ive always told myself to get through it was that the 12 regenerations thing was like the terms of the us presidency before fdr, it was tradition to serve two terms until they only made it law after his death. maybe the 12 regenerations thing is just kinda the way time lords impose a limit on themselves but its not necessasarilly a rule that they only get twelve? ive often thought 2 things one, maybe the master was so evil that they stripped him of his ability to go past twelve, and maybe why the time lords imposed a limit of twelve on themselves is because unless your the doctor flittering around in time and space enjoying every moment of your life, you would get bored to death living hundreds of years in a stagnant watcher like existance, again just hypothesizing. and we haven't even begun to get into the once again beat you over the head with this crap jnt brilliant introduction of the valyard, the doctors evil final regeneration, which opens another can of worms entirely! i kinda wish one of two things, 1. we just ignore it, we all know its there but for the sake of having our beloved show we just sorta turn a blind eye to it, or 2. they would just go ahead and deal with it somehow in the new series so we can be done with it and move on. i know when holmes came up with this idea, the doctor was only on his fourth, the show had already had a long and successfull run, and nobody prob ever thought the show back then would last long enough to even get to this point, but the fact is it has, and if your going to be true to established cannon then its got to be delt with. i remember another time when this debate was brought up here years ago in tennents tenure as the doc comming from chris's run someone explained there theory as something like, the time war, combined with the the fall of galifry changed the rules of the game, and i, because i wanted to forget that this cannonical problem even existed was perfectlly fine to go along with that as a logical answer to get around it, but.... then....... rtd introduced the master, with a "new set of regerations"and now this whole thing with moff and river songs "giving up her regenerations in one go", it just opened up that whole can of worms again. ahhhhhhhhhhh. like i said i think at this point i would very much like to see the thinktank just come up with something, and i'd take any half way plausable reason at all at this point to just get it outta the way once and for all.
jon.
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squishy
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptySun Oct 02, 2011 12:13 pm

Robert Holmes made up the regeneration limit to justify the decayed Master in Deadly Assassin (much like he created Gallifrey for an offhand remark in The Time Warrior). It was never meant to be the central focus of the series and I'm sure it's now a headache for the current and near future producers. The writers don't know what to do with this bit of continuity, but fan demand keeps on bringing it up again and again. They cleverly didn't state how many regenerations River had and just said "they're all gone now so she's mortal".

No writer will want to box in the future of the series by saying any more than they have to right now. A future producer may want the Valeyard back or decide to go another direction. They will leave the conclusion of the 13th Doctor to the head writer to figure out when the time comes. Joe Public just wants good stories and I agree that's what the producers should be concentrating on.

Edit: but it's okay that you want to know now, hitman hart. Very Happy
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hitman hart
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptySun Oct 02, 2011 11:52 pm

no prob. Very Happy if i had my way it would all be a bad dream k-9 had and we would never speak of it again. lol
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Rust
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptyMon Oct 03, 2011 8:32 pm

jaredofmo wrote:
How to explain "507" regenerations:

The limit must have been expanded during the Time War.

That's what I figure. The Last Great Time War, with Billions dying in agony every second only to be reborn and die again...in that cauldron of flame and sorrow, the Time Lords would have to remove all the stops to prevent total annihilation.

They brought the Master back from utter destruction in the Eye of Harmony. Disengaging the limit on Time Lord regenerations to keep an effective fighting force seems a minor detail in the war effort by comparison.

Indeed, Time seemed moot considering the Doctor entered the Time War at over 900 years old and exited the Time War around 900 years old.
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CGren123
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptyMon Oct 03, 2011 8:34 pm

Scary wrote:
CGren123 wrote:
Russell T Davis said he included only as a joke.

If you look at the scene, it is an extremely stressful situation, so I somehow doubt the Doctor was being serious when he said 507.

It's also a very random number. Who 507 and not 500? I can understand 13 because 13 is believed by some to be an 'unlucky' number, and with it being his last life that makes sense. But 507? Hmmm...

According to Russell, it was because 5+0+7 = 12, which is the number of Regenerations a Time Lord has.
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Ronpur
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptyMon Oct 03, 2011 10:51 pm

CGren123 wrote:
Scary wrote:
CGren123 wrote:
Russell T Davis said he included only as a joke.

If you look at the scene, it is an extremely stressful situation, so I somehow doubt the Doctor was being serious when he said 507.

It's also a very random number. Who 507 and not 500? I can understand 13 because 13 is believed by some to be an 'unlucky' number, and with it being his last life that makes sense. But 507? Hmmm...

According to Russell, it was because 5+0+7 = 12, which is the number of Regenerations a Time Lord has.


Could have picked 48.....4+8=12 and 4x12=48!
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The 2nd Doctor Roberts
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptyTue Oct 04, 2011 5:08 pm

From a writing standpoint, I've never understood why a number limit was put on regenerations. As a throwaway line to explain the decayed Master, they could've simply said he "used up" his regenerations, was "too old to regenerate" or even come up with a wasting disease that inhibited regeneration.

I could see using a number limit if you were planning on doing something with it down the line...like if "The Deadly Assassin" had been set at the start of Tom Baker's last season, and the number had made it clear that the Doctor had one regeneration left, or better yet, had already used his last regeneration...obviously setting up Baker's final story.

But why introduce a number if you don't need to? Were they planning to go somewhere with this?
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Ronpur
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptyTue Oct 04, 2011 5:36 pm

Back then,I doubt if they planned that far in advance. They just picked a number,an even dozen, and since they were at 3, gave not thought as to what would happen when these dozens were used up.
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The 2nd Doctor Roberts
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptyTue Oct 04, 2011 6:48 pm

Since the show would no doubt be cancelled long before they ever got close. (And they were right...)

You know, not to start that discussion again, but if you were to look at the so-called "past Doctors" from "The Brain of Morbius" and take the 12 regeneration rule into account...and could completely ignore that the show was usually run by the seat of the producer's pants...you'd almost think there could be a story there.
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hitman hart
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptyWed Oct 05, 2011 1:18 am

the funny thing about that is when i was a kid watching the brain of morbius i just assumed those were morbius's past selves, it wasn't until i got the dvd that i learned it was ever supposed to be otherwise.
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Ronpur
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptyWed Oct 05, 2011 8:49 am

hitman hart wrote:
the funny thing about that is when i was a kid watching the brain of morbius i just assumed those were morbius's past selves, it wasn't until i got the dvd that i learned it was ever supposed to be otherwise.

That was what I assumed as well.
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mysterylad
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptyWed Oct 05, 2011 9:29 am

Me too. The suggestion that those were previous Doctors didn't occur to me at all. It only made sense that if we were seeing past Doctors, we were also seeing past incarnations of Morbius.
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptyWed Oct 05, 2011 8:31 pm

speaking of regenerations, why could the Doctor not regenerate in Let's kill Hitler?
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptyWed Oct 05, 2011 8:36 pm

jean wrote:
speaking of regenerations, why could the Doctor not regenerate in Let's kill Hitler?
Poison of the Judas Tree prevented it it seemed.
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squishy
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PostSubject: Re: It Doesn't Add Up   It Doesn't Add Up - Page 2 EmptyThu Oct 06, 2011 5:41 pm

The same reason the Doctor couldn't regenerate during the Girl Who Waited. The writers just come up with a silly statement that the disease/poison prevents regeneration and presto they justify that the Doctor can/cannot do something.

Same way the 10th Doctor started to run across "deadlocked" doors that even the sonic screwdriver couldn't open. The writers figured out that the sonic had become way too powerful and needed a reason to keep a door closed or someone trapped. "Deadlocked" seemed to be the universal explanation for this condition.

Let's not think about these too hard. Just be happy that the director or writer thought enough to throw in a line of dialogue explaining why the Doctor can't do something we know he should be able to.
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