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The Eighth Doctor regenerated into an individual who would logically have been called the Ninth Doctor after he broke his bones falling back into the Doctor's TARDIS from the eyrie on which he had activated the Moment, destroying the Time Lords and ending the Last Great Time War.
Once the regeneration died down, the Doctor, his thirst for life renewed despite the horrors he had witnessed, eagerly felt at his new face before exclaiming his first word: "Blimey!". (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Time War)
Behind the scenes
- Author Russell T Davies introduced Doctor Who and the Time War's position in relation to The Night of the Doctor as a "glimpse of parallel events" given that "all Doctors exist [and] all stories are true".[1] Although the specific mention of "ears" as the new Doctor feels his face references Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor, the story does not positively identify the Doctor into whom the Eighth Doctor regenerates. In the comments of the Instagram release of Doctor Who and the Time War, Russell T Davies liked a suggestion by a fan that
…the Ninth Doctor here could also be interpreted as the Shalka Doctor or the Rowan Atkinson Doctor for the hat trick of alternative Ninth Doctors.
- Davies' affirmation echoes The Gallifrey Chronicles's in-universe confirmation that the Doctor had "three ninth incarnations", intended to refer to the Ninth Doctor played by Christopher Eccleston in the BBC Wales Doctor Who series; the Ninth Doctor played by Rowan Atkinson in The Curse of Fatal Death, and referenced in The Tomorrow Windows as the "listless-looking" Doctor; and the Ninth Doctor played by Richard E Grant in Scream of the Shalka. The Ninth Doctor in Doctor Who and the Time War can be understood to be any of these characters.