Howling:10th Doctor Technicality? (Spoilers)

Panopticon → 10th Doctor Technicality? (Spoilers)

There be spoilers about un-released stories here.
Run back to the forums if you're scared.

The doctor has 12 regeneration cycles, correct? The 10th doctor TECHNICALLY used one of the series 4 finale episodes. Does that mean David Tennant is TECHNICALLY both the 10th doctor AND the 11th doctor?

Just because he didn't change his face, doesn't mean he didn't use a regeneration. The doctor number increases every regeneration so are we not at 11 doctors now?

Solore 04:04, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The limit of 12 regenerations (ie 13 lives) is a psychological one rather than a physical (I can't remember the novel, it's probably one the Virgin New Adventures), but it states that 13 is the maximum 'personalities' that can be contained within one Time Lord. Also until it's actually stated on screen how many regenerations he's got left anything other than that is total speculation. --Tangerineduel 13:07, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I think he's still the 10th - he said he used the regeneration to heal himself, but didn't want to change. But it probably won't matter as they are bound to find a way to go past the 12th regeneration anyway Jack's the man - 13:24, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I've heard an interesting, though somewhat speculative, theory about this. In The Five Doctors, the First Doctor asks the Fifth Doctor what "regeneration" he is. Davison's Doctor answers, "Fourth", to which Hurdnall's Doctor says, "Goodness me! So there are five of me now!" Using this logic, after The Parting of the Ways, Tennant would have been the ninth regeneration, but the Tenth Doctor. After Journey's End, he would be both the tenth regeneration and the tenth Doctor. Course, there's no way to know how, or if, this will ever be dealt with on screen, but this little theory does have the virtue of at least being rooted in some kind of onscreen fact. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 02:13, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Since the regeneration wasn't complete and only reached the part of healing him before it was transfered therefore by logic he is the ninth regeneration and the tenth doctor until the show changes actors otherwise they would be taking years of the life of the show for the cliffhanger which didn't amount to much Dark Lord Xander 06:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's a logic, as well. But the fact is, it doesn't really matter until the BBC Wales series makes some sort of positive reference to the total number of regenerations, which they haven't, and won't unless there's some really good story reason to do so. Again, by the time we get to the 13th Doctor, the last mention of the number of a Doctor's "number" (the 1996 film) will be a very distant memory. Remember, there's not one scrap of dialogue which definitively calls the Ninth Doctor or Tenth Doctor those names. The closest is a very colloquial reference to the Tenth Doctor having regenerated "half a dozen" times since last meeting Sarah. I'm still not convinced that McGann necessarily regenerated into Eccleston, and nothing televised yet even suggests he had to (not even the Journal of Impossible Things). All we really have is RTD and Julie Gardner's behind-the-scenes belief.

The simple answer to the original question in this thread is that it is not correct that there are 12 regeneration cycles available to the Doctor until and unless the BBC Wales, post-Time War soft-reboot speaks in-universe on the matter. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 06:42, 16 July 2008 (UTC)