Howling:The Thirteenth Doctor's Death

The Howling → The Thirteenth Doctor's Death

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We know that the Doctor has travelled throughout most of the eras and has often come across events related to his past/future, now if the Thirteenth Doctor does die in an adventure, wouldn't he leave clues to prevent it that his past would come across? Does it suggests that if the Doctor has to die, then either the Thirteenth Doctor will die in a sudden death or the Thirteenth Doctor will be mentally/physically impaired when he dies or that the Thirteenth Doctor will die in the middle of nowhere where no one could find him? Is there any way for the writers to work around this limit to the Thirteenth Doctor's ultimate death if he does die? --222.166.181.174 15:42, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

The Doctor's death features in Alien Bodies, it's implied in The Five Doctors the Time Lords can give a whole new life cycle to another Time Lord. In one of the New Adventures it's stated the 13 regeneration limit is a psychological one rather than a physical limit. --Tangerineduel 15:58, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah...thanks Tangerineduel, I never knew that "the Thirteenth Doctor thing is just a psychological problem", but I guess this is more of a restriction for any ultimate death for the Doctor if he does die...it just makes no sense for him to have slow death or die in a resourceful situation unless he willingly does so. I mean there is always the possibility that the Thirteenth Doctor will be weary of his own life because of all the damages he directly/indirectly did to others and the people/civilizations that the Thirteenth Doctor will have disturbed, destroyed, and caused inconvenient to. But on the other hand, there seem to be these restrictions that the Doctor can't rationally die in any situations that will allow him to leave clues to his past. This is very problematic, as many of the threats we've seen throughout the series could be solved by these methods similar to the Big Bang...so they're just not threatening unless there is a way to work around this. --222.166.181.29 17:38, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

There is no reason to believe that the thirteenth doctor would be able to prevent his death. The tenth doctor clearly didn't want to die(even though he only regenerated), and he knew his death was coming, but he wasn't able to prevent it. Besides, even if the thirteenth doctor could prevent his death, he would still die eventually. The first doctor is proof that timelords do age if they go long enough without regenerating, so the doctor will die eventually. Also, the timelords can not give the doctor a new regenerative cycle, because they are dead. The Deadly Assassin and The TV Movie both make it very clear that the 12 regenerations limit is a physical limit, and not a psychological one.Icecreamdif 18:16, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

The honest answer? Whoever is running the show will ignore it. You want an in-universe explanation? Pre-Time-War, Time Lords made sure their soldiers would keep coming back by removing the limit/indefinitely bestowing regenerations/set up a system where all regenerations would be pooled (leaving the Doctor with thirteen multiplied by the Time Lord population), and the whole thing will be explained away as a quirk caused by the Time War, or a lie the Doctor told his companions, or whatever... Cannon881 18:37, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

It definetly wan't a lie that he told his companions. The entire plot of both the Deadly Assassin and the TV Movie was that the Master was out of regenerations, and needed to use the eye of harmony to get a new body and a new regenerative cycle. It would be stupid if they decided to write a way around the regeneration limit, because it would get to be a ridiculous number of doctors, and the Doctor would be more like Captain Jack if it turned out that he was immortal. Matt Smith, and his two successors should just stay on for a while(unlike Christopher Eccleston), and then the show should end when the thirteenth doctor is ready to leave.Icecreamdif 18:50, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

• There is always the Crystal Ball of Zog which RTD mentioned... hehe. But I don't think the BBC will end it after the 13th one. They might, if the ratings are so low, but I doubt it. Maybe they'll simply leave it a mystery, like the eighth Doctor's regeneration; having the thirteenth leave perfectly happy and fine, then the next episode simply introduce a new one, without regeneration. The Thirteenth Doctor 19:00, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

My main concern about the Thirteenth Doctor, whether he is just a big annoying recurring compulsive-obsessive psychological problem or physiological one, is that he is supposingly the last incarnation, and when it's about survival, the Thirteenth Doctor is bound to break rules as he has always shown, just like what he did in the Big Bang, because there's probably no punishment/consequence greater than death. Tenth maybe afraid to break rules and stuff, because he still had to live to suffer the consequences as tenth or eleventh, but unless something stops him, the Thirteenth Doctor will do anything and break any rule to keep himself alive if he wish to stay alive. The afraid of creating paradoxes and forbidden from crossing own timeline arguments that the writers use so often don't apply to him. The point is that has anyone figured out a way to reasonably explain such continuity gap something to exterminate this annoying Thirteenth Doctor problem that plagues the show, or is the Thirteenth Doctor destined to die in a sudden death or to die willingly? As long as this problem isn't solved, many of the threatening situations in the show just don't work out at all regardless of which incarnation it is...--222.166.181.20 19:03, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Cannon881, was just editing when you responded...anyway, you can remove any problem by saying the writers will ignore it...but attempting to explain it in a the perspective of the characters would be a nice way to solve the continuity gap. The problem doesn't only lie in the Thirteenth Doctor...it also refers to any possible life-threatening situation the Doctor faces in a resourceful state...but I just kept refering to it because it's common knowledge/assumption/whatever that the Thirteenth Doctor will face the ultimate death. --222.166.181.20 19:03, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

There's always the option of the ultimate reboot... a literal, 100% new continuity. And does it say anywhere in relation to those two stories how many regenerations the Master used up? Besides, this is mere pedantry. If the ratings are enough, the Beeb will keep the show. End. Which particular marketing exec who used to watch Tom Baker is gonna say "Actually, boss, because of a throwaway line 25 years ago, our multi-million pound franchise is going to have to be scrapped."? Is remaining true to the story worth that much? If the BBC announced there would be no Doctors after 13, I would personally set up a campaign to make them reconsider their decision. A good story may be essential to good television, but I'll be damned if I let that story get in the way of me ever seeing that television show again. Cannon881 19:09, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

• I've recently made a forum about the properties of the chameleon arch, which is something that could actually be used here. The chameleon arch changes biology from Time Lord to Human and the consciousness is stored in the fob watch. Note that it's only ever the consciousness that is said to be kept there, never the physical details. When the watch opens and returns the conciousness to said Time Lord, the cells change back to Time Lord, but, where do the details come from? Perhaps the cells actually return to their default state; they are changed to Time Lord, but not given any properties, such as age or number of regenerations. This would mean that the tenth Doctor's regeneration would essentially be the second, first regeneration. --The Thirteenth Doctor 19:21, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

The regeneration limit was talked about in both of the episodes where the master had used up his regenerations. The chameleon arch theory could work if the writers wanted it to, but it would be weird for the 14th Doctor to say "technically I should be out of regenerations but 4 regeneraions ago somethiing happened and my limit is now 23." It would have made since if it had been mentioned in Human Nature or the Family of Blood. After 13 doctors the show should stop, even if the ratings are strong. It is always better to end a show when it has good ratings, and to leave the audience wanting more, than to keep the show going until the ratings go down.Icecreamdif 19:27, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

You guys are assuming the the doctor cannot possibly die before his thirteenth regeneration. This is not true. Remember what the 10th told wilf. he said that he might die permanently if he didnt have time to regenerate. And it actually happened in Turn Left when the doctor drowned. So even if the doctor has unlimited generations, this doesnt mean that he becomes immortal like captain jack. Now back to the original post, if you consider that the 13th should break the rules just to survive, this must also apply to almost all of his incarnations, because none of them is sure that he'll regenerate. The 10th knew he was going to die, but wasnt sure he'll regenerate, so he should've done the same thing right?77.42.181.163 19:28, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

Possible, but how would this be explained? If I was the Doctor, it's not something I'd drop into conversation, especially as it is referencing two things that neither effect nor bother the (no doubt relieved) companion. Sorry, I'm sounding really negative today :P I personally just think it'll be one of those things the fandom will be left to sort out... Like the restoration of the Time Lords between The Gallifrey Chronicles and Rose Cannon881 19:33, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with Cannon, there'd be no reason for the Doctor to tell her, especially since she didn't even know about regeneration, or at least not that we know of. I actually hope that it is left a mystery off screen, like the eighth Doctor's. Just look at how much people want to know that, not knowing how he survived beyond thirteen would send them crazy. The Thirteenth Doctor 19:43, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

The difference is that the eighth doctor's regeneration is easy to explain. We don't know the exact circumstanes, but we know that something that happened to him 7 times before happened to him again. If they show the thirteenth regenerate with no explanation, it will be harder to explain, because they will be showing something that has been stated to be impossible on multiple occasions. The thirteenth Doctor won't break the rules to avoid regeneration. That is what the Master has done on multiple occasions, by possessing people and by somehow becominging a decaying body and a ghost snake thing. I can't really see the doctor doing any of those things just so he could live longer.Icecreamdif 19:57, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

• Oh no, the Doctor would never harm anyone else to survive, but I'm pretty sure he would break the rules, if he needed to, to stay alive. No matter what anyone says, he wouldn't want to die, survival instincts are too strong, especially when there's a way. I'd still like the 13th's regeneration to be off-screen. The Thirteenth Doctor 20:02, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

Okay, the responses are getting completely off topic, can't we bloody keep the discussions on this thread about the continuity problem with Thirteenth Doctor's ultimate death (and that includes any possible ultimate death before the Thirteenth in any resourceful situations), for whether the Thirteenth Doctor's limit is a psychological or physiological one, go to the other thread. --222.166.181.34 20:06, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

I can't see how they could do the thirteenth's offscreen if its a continuation of the series that is going on now(that started in 2005). It would be too random to just suddenly have another actor playing the Doctor in one episode. Recasting the Doctor in Rose worked, because the TV Movie aired almost 10 years before Rose aired, but unless the show takes another decade long break, they need to show a regeneration to recast the doctor. The thirteenth Doctor's death wouldn't cause any continuity problems. It would be easy to write a way where there is no way for the Doctor to escape death. The Doctor won't die before 12 regenerations, because the BBC won't end the show before they have to.Icecreamdif 20:10, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

The 13th regeneration is not the only time where the doctor faces the ultimate death. He could've died any time during his other incarnations (like in Turn Left). Every incarnation is in danger and could die permanently if he didnt have time to regenerate, so why will he break the rules only for the 13th incarnation? in The End of Time he thought he was dying permanently, why didnt he do it then?77.42.181.163 20:13, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

How could he break the rules to avoid death. He won't do what the master did, so what else could he have done to avoid death. The episode made it clear that he was dying, and there was nothing he could do to stop his regeneration. Even if he could break the rules, he new that he wasn't dying permanently because the regeneration process had already started, since his cuts healed. The only Doctor who wasn't sure if he would regenerate waas the fifth.Icecreamdif 20:16, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

• Why would it have to take a break? All we'd need is for the first episode of a series to start in the same manner that Rose did. Alternatively, this is my idea, the thirteenth Doctor meets the next one, then the show simply follows him.

222, we're not getting completely off topic, we're diversifying to discuss the pros and cons of the suggestions. --The Thirteenth Doctor 20:20, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

It would just seem kind of weird if one season ended with one actor playing the Doctor, and the next started with another playing the Doctor, with no explanation at all. Rose started the way it did, because the new series is almost a completely diffent show than the classic series, even though it continues from the classic series. Since it was like a new show, they were trying to ge tnew viewers, who would be confused if Mcgann played the Doctor in the first episode, and then regenerated shortly after into Eccleston. The new series won't just randomly recast the Doctor, with no explanation, when the show has been going on for several years.Icecreamdif 20:26, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

77, please read the beginning of this thread...We're just labelling it the Thirteenth Doctor because his death is ultimate and inescapable...the problem applies to all incarnation of Doctors...If they could leave clues to their past self in life threatening situations, they would. What is the way to work around this continuity issue that prevent many life-threatening issues from being life-threatening.

The Thirteenth Doctor, the thread explicitly states that this deals with the temporal paradox issue that the ultimate death raises, for the discussion of the psychological and physiological problems with the Thirteenth Doctor that Tangerineduel, Icecreamdif and many other users have raised, please feel free to diversify but do not take over the original intention of the thread when there is another thread devoted to it. I fail to see any pros and cons in the discussion either...--222.166.181.229 20:33, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

• 222, our discussions have nothing to do with "Is the Thirteenth Doctor's Limit a Psychological Problem or a Physiological One?" They are more appropriate here. The original post said "Is there any way for the writers to work around this limit to the Thirteenth Doctor's ultimate death if he does die?". We are now discussion how the writers could do it without showing it. We are completely on topic. --The Thirteenth Doctor 20:45, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

The Doctor could not go back in time to warn himself about his own death if he is dead. Even if he could, it would be against the laws of time.Icecreamdif 20:51, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

Thirteenth, the original post said "Is there any way for the writers to work around this limit to the Thirteenth Doctor's ultimate death if he does die?" NOT '"Is there any way for the writers to work around the Thirteenth Doctor's ultimate death?" The '"limit" refers to the paradox stated right before the sentence, neither can not dying be considered "if he does die"...please read what you misquote. If you don't find the thread about The Thirteenth Doctor's -- psychological and physiological problems one appropriate, you can start your own thread that deals about killing off the Thirteenth Doctor and keeping the show running. Is it so hard to stay on topic? --222.166.181.71 21:00, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Icecreamdif for something that's finally on-topic...the discussion is he would break the laws of time if it involves his death, wouldn't he? What measures are there in the show to prevent it? --222.166.181.71 21:00, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

• Sorry, what are you actually asking then? How the hell can there be a paradox? If the thirteenth Doctor dies... he dies... end of. There's no way the writers could bring him back. The Thirteenth Doctor 21:08, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

After the disastrous consequences of breaking the laws of time in the Waters of Mars it is unlikely that he would break them again. In Parting of the Ways, after the Doctor decided not to use the delta waves, the Dalek emperor said that the doctor would be exterminated, and the doctor said "maybe its time," accepting his fate. Earlier in the episode, Rose suggested that they go back in time to warn Earth about the dalek invasion, but the doctor refused because of the laws of time. Even if the doctor was willing and capable to break the laws of time, it still wouldn't be practical. In order to travel back in time to warn himself of his own death, he would have to either know that he was going to die before it happened, or he would have to travel back in time after he died, which would obviously be impossible.Icecreamdif 21:09, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

Well, Thirteenth, since you've never read the initial posts or completely doesn't understand what the thread is about, please do not engage in off-topic discussions in a thread that you don't understand. This is rather annoying to other users who are actually discussing the problem. Feel free to fix your timeline model instead of leading off-topic discussions to a thread with a legitimate topic.

Icecreamdif, yeah, that's what we mean, but we are discussing the exceptions, given the conditions that:

1. The Doctor must die willingly, and

1. The Doctor must die suddenly or without resources

Many of the threats presented are not threats at all, the Doctor can simply leave clues in an era and expect past Doctors to come across it to prevent his death. He is willing to break rules in the Big Bang and he mentioned that there are no rules to survival when he was escorting the Master's remain. Any unwilling death can almost be certain to be ruled out given how clues can be left to the past like how River leave clues in the most random places and the Doctor would just come across it sooner or later. --222.166.181.250 21:25, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

In order to leave clues to his past self about his death, the Doctor would still have to know that he is going to die. Once he knows the details of how he is going to die it will be to late to leave clues to his past self, because he will be dead. When he said that there are no rules to survival, he was refferring to the Master who is a very different character to the Doctor. One of the most important aspects of the Master's character is that he fears death, which was brought up recently by the Doctor when he threatened to blow up the rcokets in Last of the Timelords. The Doctor may not want to die, but he wuoldn't go to the same extremes as the master to avoid death.Icecreamdif 21:32, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

I guess yeah, it turns out to be more of a theoretical problem than an actual continuity problem...but it's the issue that there is always a choice that the Doctor can always save himself, given that he can leave clue in the first sign of danger...the fact that when he does die, it would be that he himself chooses death and not forced to die...it takes away all the life-threatening or dangerous aspect of the show. I guess it was more for a theoretical solution to keep the thrill aspect of it...Given his action in the Big Bang and how much trouble he went through to avoid one single regeneration I believe his comment about survival probably applies to himself too... --222.166.181.2 22:05, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

Well, in almost every episode there is a first sign of danger. The Doctor risks his life in every episode, and it wouldn't be practical to warn himself about the danger in every episode.Icecreamdif 04:11, August 4, 2010 (UTC)

I am sure there are any number of ways for the writers to get around the problem. For example - the Doctor pulls Gallifrey out of the Time War and rescues the Timelord race. As a result he is awarded a new set of regenerations (or maybe some other timelords somehow "donate" a few regenerations to him). Or the Doctor does another job for the White Guardian, and gets more lives as a reward. Or the Doctor finds the fabled underpants of Rassilon which allow extra regenerations... 187.112.22.92 20:45, August 7, 2010 (UTC)

i think the simplest way of going about it is that the doctor will believe that it is his final death and is completely suprised when he regenerates into a new form. 121.216.229.210 09:57, July 20, 2011 (UTC)

I think Moffat's just given himself an out - River gave all of her regenerations to the Doctor!

Did the Doctor actually get Melody's 10 remaining regenerations, or did she just need to use all of them to save him from her poison? If the Doctodid get her regenerations, then thatprobably solves the problem, as the show will probably not go on for another 12 regenerations. Even if the show does last that long, then Moffat did successfully make it somebody else's problem.Icecreamdif 22:10, August 29, 2011 (UTC)

Minor point: We don't know how many regenerations Melody had left. We know of two she's used. We don't yet know there were no others. She could have regenerated one or more times between being abducted as a baby and being found in 1969 Florida. --89.241.68.131 01:48, August 30, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess she did seem to know about how regeneration worked in New York, but I doubt that she had regenerated more than once...maybe twice before at that age. If she did actually transferher regenerations to the Doctor, that leaves more than enough left for the show to go on for a few more decades. Still, my interprtation of the dialogue was that River used up her regenerations to help the Doctor, but she didn't transfer them to him.Icecreamdif 01:53, August 30, 2011 (UTC)

Also, she says in Let's Kill Hitler that the last time she had done this was in New York when she was a toddler -- the regeneration seen in Day of the Moon. While she might have regenerated one or more times between being kidnapped at Demon's Run and that, there's no reason to assume it until proven. Boblipton 02:46, August 30, 2011 (UTC)

I agre, that it is most likely that she's only regenerated tweice, but as the anon said, we don't know that for a fact. Itt is probably best to assume that the regenerations that we've seen are the only ones, but for the purposes of this discussion it doesn't really matter.Icecreamdif 04:13, August 30, 2011 (UTC)

No, she must have regenerated another time around 1992. We see Mels in the 90s as a little girl, the same age as Amy and Rory, and she continues to grow at the same rate as them up to 2011. If she regenerated in Mels in 1969, unless she went into statis or traveled in time, she'd be 20 years too old for that. (Plus, she says that she _became_ a toddler last time she regenerated, not that she _was_ a toddler, which implies that she had some earlier regeneration where she _didn't_ become a toddler. Although, come to think of it, if she had said it the other way, that would be even better evidence, because the little girl in DotM was nowhere near a toddler.)

But anyway, as long as she didn't regenerate 11 times, as Icecreamdif says, it doesn't make a difference. She had some regenerations left, she used them all up healing the Doctor, that's all we need to know.

The big question is: Why didn't the Tersurus Master ever trick, manipulate, or just torture some other Time Lord into using their extra regenerations to heal him? Sure, it wouldn't have gotten him the big prize of another cycle, but it would have been a lot easier to hunt for that new cycle in a healthy body than as a decaying zombie thing (just as he later did with Tremas's body). --173.228.85.35 04:50, August 30, 2011 (UTC)

maybe river is special because she's the child of the tardis, so that gives her special abilities that normal timelords don't have. Imamadmad 06:42, August 30, 2011 (UTC)

"she must have regenerated another time around 1992": Mels herself said that the last time she regenerated she "ended up as a toddler in New York", which implies the regeneration we saw, in early 1970 (six months after the Moon landing), was that last time. Time travel is a far more likely explanation for her being about the same physical age as Amy in 1990s Ledworth. She was presumably planted in 1990s Ledworth for the specific purpose of encountering Amy's "imaginary friend" in due course -- but only after (a) she herself had helped to get her parents together as a couple and (b) the events of her parents' timestreams had progressed beyond her own birth. She met up with the Doctor (with the purpose of killing him) at pretty nearly the earliest point she could without creating a paradox by preventing her own birth. --89.241.71.249 18:02, August 30, 2011 (UTC)

Either that or she could hold her apparent age steady or reverse it as she implied herself able to do after regenerating into River Song. Boblipton 19:07, August 30, 2011 (UTC)

Time travel seems more likely than extra regenerations. When have we ever known an adult to regenerate into a child? Alternatively, maybe that's what the space suit was for. It could have prevented her aging, and the Silence could have found her again to put her back into it. Upon rewatching the episode though, I don't think that Melody actually did transfer her remaining regenerations to the Doctor. Amy said that she used up all of her remaining regenerations, not that she gave them away. If you think about it, there is really no logical reason for her to give them all away. From what happenned in the episode, it seemed more like several regenerations worth of regeneration enrgy were required to heal the Doctor, and Melody needed to use all of them to save him.Icecreamdif 23:20, August 30, 2011 (UTC)

Since this incarnation croaks in Forest of the Dead, that seems like a distinction without a difference. Boblipton 01:30, August 31, 2011 (UTC)

89.241.71.249: How does it imply that? We didn't see her become a toddler in that regeneration. As for time travel, we don't have any evidence that the Silence on Earth can time travel—and if they do (or if someone else who _does_ have time travel, like Kovarian, gets involved), it seems a bit odd that they'd use it to jump Melody ahead a couple of decades that she could just as easily have lived through, but not used it to get spacesuits from the future or shortcut any of the other things they apparently had to do the hard way.

That being said, I can imagine that the Silence can come up with some kind of crude and dangerous-to-the-Web form of time travel that will contribute to alternate timelines forking off and history going mad to the point where Churchill is riding a mammoth in 2011… but really, it's too hard to guess at this point what's behind all of that.

Boblipton: It seemed like knocking off a few years was something she could specifically do while newly-regenerated, like the 10th Doctor being able to regrow his hand, or Romana being able to try on a series of different bodies.

Icecreamdif: When have we ever known a child to regenerate into a toddler? Why is that any different from an adult regenerating into a child? And yet you're obviously assuming that can happen. Besides, we haven't seen that many regenerations; for example, we never saw a man regenerate into a woman, or a black Time Lord regenerate into a white one, and yet we know that can happen.

But your conclusion, I think we all agree with; Amy said she used them all, River didn't contradict her, therefore the best guess is that she used them all. And that also neatly explains why she couldn't regenerate in the Library. (Of course fans had already come up with different explanations for that, but they can now be thrown away.) As I said, it doesn't matter whether that was 3 or 11, it was however many she had left. --173.228.85.35 04:27, August 31, 2011 (UTC)

"different explanations for that, but they can now be thrown away": Why? In Forest of the Dead, River said the Doctor (who certainly did have regenerations left) wouldn't have any more chance of survival than she had. In other words, death would have been too rapid to allow regeneration, anyway. What we've since learned doesn't change that.

The question of time travel versus other regenerations: We know someone with time travel capability was involved. Melody couldn't have been in 1969 at all, without time travel. We don't yet know for sure it was Kovarian that got her to the 1960s, of course, but someone did. We also know that whatever the plan was, it involved having Mels in a position to ensure her parents got together. It may have involved other manipulation of Amy, such as ensuring she didn't start thinking the Doctor really had been imaginary, as most people around her assumed he was. Admittedly, we only have Melody's own word for it that her regeneration in New York was her last before the one in Berlin and she could have been lying. We're also assuming she didn't regenerate in New York more than once, although she could have. Possibly, she could have regenerated in the alleyway (as we saw at the end of Day of the Moon), then lived in NY until the early 1990s and then regenerated again, becoming a toddler, before going to Ledworth to become Amy's schoolfriend. There's still too much we don't know for us to be sure of the sequence of events.

The dialog in Let's Kill Hitler, though, quite definitely says Melody/River "used up" all her remaining regenerations, not that she "gave away" all of them. The implication of "used up" is that they're no longer available to anyone. She was, after all, overcoming something that prevented regeneration. Otherwise, the Doctor could have survived without her intervention. --2.96.28.149 16:06, August 31, 2011 (UTC)

While your parsing of the words is beautiful and precise, 2.96.28.149 -- may I call you 2? -- the results are unknown. We can still speculate on the sum total of effects of River's "using up" her regenerations. Given that there are three explanations of how regeneration works on the page here -- all of them at least partially canon, depending on one's definition of the word -- the side effects may range from nothing to the Doctor having an infinite number of regenerations at the whim of the showrunners. It's an exercise in fanwankery to say precisely what the effects are until they are stated in some canonically valid way. Boblipton 16:36, August 31, 2011 (UTC)

Boblipton:

"may I call you 2?" I've been called worse.

"the side effects may range ..." One thing that occurred to me as soon as I saw The Impossible Astronaut was that this series arc, the (apparent) death of the Doctor, might be Steven Moffat's way of getting round (and maybe even permanently disposing of) the 12-regeneration limit. That's entirely speculation, of course, but I can see why he might want to do it via a very major story arc, rather than in some minor "throwaway" manner. However, that would mean tying it to the lakeside death, rather than the Berlin poisoning. As you say, though, we can't tell until we see what happens.

One thing that bothers me about the whole Silence business is: Why is there an "endless bitter war" against the Doctor? He's not short of enemies but this seems to be an entirely new lot, yet they talk (to the extent that they do talk) about their hostility to the Doctor in terms that keep making me think this is a Time War. --2.96.28.149 18:17, August 31, 2011 (UTC)

If it is a time war, it certainly isn't on the same sccale as The Last Great Time War. Now that we know that the Silence are not a species, but are actually a religious order, I am starting to think that Kovarian probably is a Silence. Presumably it is only the species that we saw in the The Impossible Astronaut an The Day of the Moon that people forget about, and we now know that their must be members of other species in the Silence. The reason that they want to kill the Doctor must have something to do with this question that they are answering. The church was probably only helping the Silence due to post hypnotic suggestion, or just Kovarian persuading them that the Doctor was dangerous. I think that 2 is right about Melody using up her regenerations though. It's really more fanwankery to assume that Melody some how transferred her regenerationss to the Doctor than anything. I think most fansare hoping for some way for the Doctor to survive pat 13 now that he only has two regenerations left, so people will interpret anything that they can as a way for the Doctor to extend his life. Really, if you think about it, there is no good reason for River to have transferred all of her regenerations to the Doctor. She would have used as much as she needed to keep him alive, and then kept the rest. Also, being the good man that he is, do you really think that the Doctor would keep Melody's regenerations? Even though he does know that she will die before she ever has a chance to regenerate again, I doubt the Doctor would feel right living longer at the expense of River living shorter. Dialogue says that River used up her regenerations, therefore we should assume that she used them up. Also, 173, we have now seen a black Time Lord regenerate into a white one (unless you want to continue arguing about the definition of Timelord, but there's another page for that), and we do not know that a Time Lord can switch genders when they regenerate. We have never seen a child regenerate at all until this season, but suince Time Lords often end up a few years younger when they regenerate it is not much of a stretch to assume a young child can turn into a toddler. It is a bit more of a stretch to assume that an adult Time Lord can regenerate into a child Time Lord, unles you're looking forward to the ten year old twelfth Dotctor.Icecreamdif 18:37, August 31, 2011 (UTC)

Well, the Doctor's resources are far smaller than all of Gallifrey's. He certainly doesn't have the sheer manpower of the old home planet, so a galaxy-wide religious movement based over three centuries with their own time travel vehicles is not to be sneezed at. Good thing he's got more nooks and crannies than an English Muffin or whatever they call them in Blighty to hide out in. As for River not having to use all her regenerations, it's still a moot point since she could not physically survive the events in the Library. The Doctor couldn't, so she can't, unless she did, of course. However, if you think that she had the ability to fine-tune the number of spontaneous regenerations and the training to know precisely how many she needed to use and go no further, I must say I don't see where she got the training to do it. Even if she did, she still seems like a bet-the-ranch gal to me.

Mind you, I think there are still a couple of outs for Lake Silencio. Besides the possibility that the Doctor gets a Ganger stand-in for Lake Silencio, ther eis still the chance that he actually talks his assassin out of it. Fixed point in time? It might not be so fixed when it's his life, and if everone thinks that he died there.... well, he's a time traveller. How can anyone tell he's not dead? So what if he shows up for poker games, in 5146? He do you prove he's not dead? Boblipton 01:34, September 1, 2011 (UTC)

Of course it doesn't actually matter that she used up all her regenerations becau she would have died anyway, but Melody didn't actually know that at hte time, did she. It is also obvious thatan entire religous order is more than a match for the Doctor; just saying that one religous order against one man is a much smalller conflict then all of the Time Lords against the entire Dalek empire, presumably with some allies thrown in. Still, this might still fit the definition of a Time War. Whther or not Melody could have controlled how many regenerations she used to save the Doctor, there is no evidence at all that she actually gave her regenerations to him.Icecreamdif 02:24, September 1, 2011 (UTC)

2: "The question of time travel versus other regenerations: We know someone with time travel capability was involved." Yes, and we also know someone with the ability to regenerate was involved. And there are other possibilities (statis field, reversing her age, whatever). None of that argues that it can't be regeneration, or that it must be time travel; it all argues that it could be any of the above, and we don't know enough to guess which.

Icecreamdif: "If it is a time war, it certainly isn't on the same sccale as The Last Great Time War." Exactly, and well said. It obviously _is_ a time war in some senses (it fundamentally involves time travel, after all), but that doesn't mean it has all the same characteristics as the Last Great one.

"… we have now seen a black Time Lord regenerate into a white one." That was the entire point. Your argument that a Time Lord can't regenerate into a toddler because we've never seen it in the 20 or so regenerations we've seen so far is exactly the same as someone last week arguing that a Time Lord can't change skin color because we'd never seen it in the 19 or so regenerations we've seen so far.

"... we do not know that a Time Lord can switch genders when they regenerate." Did you not watch The Doctor's Wife? I sometimes think that you must just skim the episodes looking for things to argue about, missing all the interesting parts.

Boblipton: "Mind you, I think there are still a couple of outs for Lake Silencio." Well, I hope so, because I don't think they can keep Matt Smith under contract for another 200 years. Anyway, all of your possibilities work (he already fooled his best friends into believing he was dead at the end of last season, right?). And there are probably more that we haven't thought of. The only hard part is guessing which of all the many possibilities Moffat's actually going to use… --173.228.85.35 05:02, September 1, 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I saw The DDocor's Wife, and yes, I know that he said that the Corsair turned regenerated into a woman. I'm just saying that we don't know if the Doctor was joking, or if it was some unique thing that only happenned to the Corsair. Althouugh I guess wee did see the Doctor egenerate into a woman in The Curse of Fatal Death. What you seem to fail to understand, is that Mels' reference to regenerating into toddler in the middle of New York was clearly a referenceto Day of the Moon. The Doctor didn't see the end of the episode, so Mels has no reason to lie to him, and that would be something beyoond pointless to misleead the audience about. We know that time travel would be capable of having Mels remain young in the 90s, and we think that maybe regeneration can accolish this. It makes much more sense to assume that the Silence just used time travel to obring her forward a couple of decades.Icecreamdif 14:43, September 1, 2011 (UTC)

It makes sense either way. She's either leaving out a regeneration, leaving out time travel, or leaving out 21 years of her life, but there's no lie either way; it's not as if she were telling the Doctor her whole life story, she was just thinking aloud as she struggled to control her regeneration, and unsurprisingly thought of her last regeneration. And it's not as if there's a rule about regenerating twice in the same place or anything. --173.228.85.35 17:05, September 1, 2011 (UTC)

I think there is if it's triggered by being struck by lightning.Boblipton 17:14, September 1, 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. There is no rule about regenerating twice in the same place, but the rules of probability dictate that it will not happen. Mels really had no reason to stay in New York, and the Silence probably took her directly to the UK. Of course, it is all speculation at present, as we still have no idea why Melody was in 1960s America in the first place, why she needed the space suit, why she seemed to be trying to escape the Silence despite the fact that they brainswashed her, or how the Silence found her again.Icecreamdif 18:22, September 1, 2011 (UTC)

This just occurred to me, and I'm going to throw it out here to see how many people it annoys. I had a discussion with a friend about the Doctor regenerating into a woman and she thought it was wrong. I suggested that just because an individual's sex is fairly hard-wired into Earth genomes is no reason to assume that it is in Time Lords. I suggested that it could be handled by the Doctor starting to regenerate, burst of light, and there he stands as some tough chick -- Helen Mirren thirty years ago, whoever fits nowadays. "That hasn't happened in a while," she says.

Well, here's how that 13th regeneration works. The Doctor is fatally wounded. :"I want to go out standing up to the universe!" he announces. He stands, there is a burst of light and he is the 14th Doctor. "That wasn't supposed to happen," he says.Boblipton 20:31, September 1, 2011 (UTC)

"an individual's sex is fairly hard-wired into Earth genomes": Not all of them and even where it is, not in the same way in all of them. Such information as we have fairly strongly suggests it isn't hard-wired into Time Lords genomes. When a new individual was generated by taking the Doctor's genetic material and shuffling it about a bit, that new individual was female (Jenny, The Doctor's Daughter). --2.101.48.209 01:32, September 2, 2011 (UTC)

"There is no rule about regenerating twice in the same place, but the rules of probability dictate that it will not happen." So the rules of probability dictate that the Doctor can't regenerate multiple times in London? --173.228.85.35 04:07, September 2, 2011 (UTC)

well, seing as london seems to be a frequent stopping point, the chances of regenerating there twice are greatly increased compared to places he only visits a few times. eg, it would be very unlikely for him to regenerate aboard satelite 5/games station because he has only been there twice (and no times after regenerating there) but it would be more likely for him to regenerate in london multiple times because he usually visits at least once per season.Imamadmad 07:26, September 2, 2011 (UTC)

And, given what we know of Melody's adventures between the moon landing and 1991 (that is, almost nothing), how many times would you guess she visited New York? You can't even answer that question; we simply have no idea. She may have escaped to New York shortly after the moon landing, regenerated there, lived there for another 21 years, and regenerated there again. Or she may have been on a train to Boston in 1970, felt sick, got off the train in a random stop which happened to be in the middle of New York, regenerated there, and immediately left. Or anything in between. You can't invoke the laws of probability when you have absolutely no facts. --173.228.85.35 08:34, September 2, 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is possible that she regeneated more than once in New York, but from a narrative pint of view, the purpose of putting that reference in was clearly to remind the audience of the ending of The Day of the Moon. She said she regenerated in New York, we saw her regenreate in New York, there is no reason to believe that she has regenerateed at all after that. Also, the Doctor hasn't actuall regenerated n London too often either. I've never seen the Tenth Planet, so I don't know about the first, but the second regenerated on Gallifrey, the Third regenerated in Unit HQ(was taht supposed to be in London-I can't remember0, the 4th regenerated at the PhAROS telescope(I don't think that was in London), the 5th regenerated on Androzani, the 6th regenerated on Lakertya, the 7th in San Francisco, the the 9th in the vortex, and the tenth in earth orbit. London really doesn't seem to be that common a location for him to egerneratee, and eh's there every other weeek.Icecreamdif 13:02, September 2, 2011 (UTC)

The narrative purpose of her remembering regenerating in New York was to raise questions. "Oh, so she's the little girl… But wait, that was 1970, how did she get to 1991?" And then you start thinking: maybe the Silence have time travel. Maybe she somehow time traveled independently of them. Maybe the astronaut suit prevents her from aging. Maybe she had a bunch of adventures before regenerating into Mels. Maybe…" Moffat is always raising questions—even in the middle of the season finale—so what makes you think that this time he decided to give you a neat answer tied up in a bow? He's also consciously trying to write stories that work for fans who want to put extra effort into understanding while at the same time being enjoyable to people who just tune in for 45 minutes and then forget about it. If something could be ambiguous, it probably is. --173.228.85.35 17:19, September 2, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but when there is a a ridiculously simple answer that doesn't take much effort to come up with, ou don't really need to spend that much time thining. To get from Demon's Run to the 1960s she clearly needed time travel. Therefoe, time travel could easily be used to get her forom 1970 to the 90s. The Silence must have found her again anyway to get all that brainwashing in. The bigger question is why did they bring her to the 60s in the first place. Surely, it would have been easier to just take her straight to Leadworth. we'll get more answers as the season goes on. If you come to the conclusion that she must have been talkabout a different regeneration in Ne wYork, then you actually throw away the onlye vidence that you have that Melody is the little girl. Icecreamdif 17:47, September 2, 2011 (UTC)

I haven't come to the conclusion that she must have regenerated extra times, I've come to the conclusion that there's a mystery that we don't have enough information to come to a conclusion about yet. Your answer isn't ridiculously simple, because clearly she was on the run from the Silence, clearly the Earth Silence didn't yet have time travel even if Kovarian did, and, as you admit, it still leaves open the question of why they'd bring her to the 60s and then move her forward two decades rather than just bringing her to the 80s in the first place. Of course there are many possible explanations for all those things that don't involve another regeneration, but there are also many possible explanations that do, and we don't have enough information to decide between them. --173.228.85.35 18:34, September 2, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, obviously we don't have all the infomation yet, but given the information that we have right now time travel seems more likely. Now that we know that the Silence are not a species but are actually a religious order, I think that Madame Kovarian ia a Silence, and she would seem to have time travel, as she both brought Melody to the 60s and went to the 21st century to kidnap Amy and replace her with a ganger. That would explain how Melody ended up with the species that we know as the Silence in The Impossible Astronaut.Icecreamdif 19:22, September 2, 2011 (UTC)

The fact that Mels said it had taken her "ages" to find Amy and Rory suggests she had to do it without Kovarian's help. Kovarian knew exactly where and when to find them -- otherwise, how could she have kidnapped Amy? We have at least 3 possible ways for Melody to get from being a toddler in New York (presumably in early 1970 -- July 1969 + six months) to being seemingly about 7 or 8 in 1990s Ledworth: 1. time travel, 2. a second regeneration in NY, 3. living through the intervening time whilst tracking down Amy and Rory, then rejuvinating herself until she appeared to be Amy's age (in Let's Kill Hitler, there was a dialog hint that she could make herself look younger gradually). The second regeneration in NY is still possible because, although what Mels said must have been intended to make us think the regeneration she meant was the one we saw, there's no guarantee that it wasn't intended to mislead us by missing out information.

When we saw Melody in Day of the Moon, she had broken out of the spacesuit and was on the run from the Silence. It's possible, therefore, that between 1970 and the 1990s she was operating on her own (albeit in obedience to earlier programming). It's also possible the Silence caught up with her after her 1970 regeneration in NY. From what was said about the Doctor's death in 2011 being a fixed point and it being Melody who killed him, it's likely it was Melody in the spacesuit at the lake but the River who was watching behaved as if she truly didn't remember the incident. If it was Melody in the spacesuit, how and when did she get back into it? Which version of Melody was it (we didn't see)?

Given the ability of the (Munch Scream) Silence to modify memories, it's quite possible that the River we saw in The Impossible Astronaut had no memory of her earlier self being in the spacesuit and killing the Doctor. It's also possible (for the same reason) that the Mels we saw in Let's Kill Hitler was trying to kill the Doctor because she had no memory of her earlier self being in the spacesuit and killing the Doctor -- that she was trying to do something she didn't remember she'd already done.

Far too many questions, far too little information. --2.96.23.243 19:55, September 2, 2011 (UTC)

I might be mistaken, but in a recent episode (this season), River Song stated that the Doctor turned up on her doorstep oneday when she was little and kept visiting her. Obviously, it would be a future Doctor, due to the counter timelines. If this is correct, then it the Melody who escapes the spacesuit to roam New York has possibly already met the Doctor or does so soon after. We have to assume that the Melody the Doctor doorsteps has yet to regenerate into Mels. We can also assume that the Melody meeting the Doctor for the first time (not counting as a baby) must be recaptured by the Church - to be programmed to kill him. If this is the case, that Doctor would surely have gone in search of her again, as he did Amy & child. Is this the real story behind the arc of the Doctor's death and River Song? The Doctor's future self attempting to rescue Melody from the Church/Silence for all time - especially, as the first time he meets River she sacrifices her life for him, and then sacrifices all her remaining regenrations for him.

This might explain the seeming 'abruptness' of introducing Mels and other issues of 'timelines' - the future Doctor is manipilating time to continually rescue/protect Melody. If River Song turns out to be his wife, then that only adds to the Doctor's motives.

In 'Lets Kill Hitler' for instance, the Doctor once he knows Mels is Melody (when she becomes River) is fully aware she will attempt to kill him - perhaps because he knows Melody/Mels might be the one retaken by the Church. After he's poisoned and resolves to fight on (remembering 'fishfingers and custard' - intending to provoke River into using the latent regenerative energy in her still stablizing incarnation to cure him - there is an intriguing gap. When he reappears, he's dressed in the Fred Astaire outfit with sonic cane - why? Is this what we was wearing at Amy and Rory's wedding? Also, again with the shoes, this time a telling brief close-up shows them to be muddy - why? Where did that happen, he must've left the TARDIS in the meantime? Did he go back to affect the past to influence River-Song into 'softening' and want to save him?

Sorry for the length of this entry, especially if I've misremembered River Song's description of meeting the Doctor as a child. Anyway, what are the odds on Amy Pond losing an eye... Makgrey 11:20, September 3, 2011 (UTC)

The Doctor can't have been gone for long, becasue as Amelia said, he will be dead in 32 minutes. Melcertainly acted like she had never met the Doctro before in this episode-qhen did River say that the Doctor had visited her as a child?Icecreamdif 15:36, September 3, 2011 (UTC)

This is hilarious. We've got one group of people who are absolutely sure that the little girl must have regenerated into Mels and time-traveled to the 90s because every other possibility is ridiculous, and another group who are absolutely sure that she must have lived out those two decades on her own, either regenerating again or resetting her age in the early 90s because every other possibility is ridiculous. Neither one of them is at all impossible, and there aren't even really good arguments against either one, and they aren't even the only possibilities. We just don't know at this point, and no matter how much you argue the same tiny handful of facts, they're not going to turn into a conclusive argument. Whether it was left open on purpose (likely) or because of a writing error (less likely, but not impossible), it's still an open question. --173.228.85.35 03:27, September 4, 2011 (UTC)