The Doctor’s Companion Ep. 5 – Regenerations Part 1
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
The end of one life always brings with it the start of another in the world of the Doctor, and Scott and Randy are discussing the regenerations for the last three: Eccleston into Tennant, McGann into Eccleston, and McCoy into McGann. What was similar? What was different? What were the circumstances of each one? And what exactly do we know about the mysterious McGann to Eccleston regeneration? Find out in the newest episode of The Doctor’s Companion!
(Sorry for the audio quality issue in this episode, shouldn’t happen again)
Next Week: Regenerations Part 2 – Baker/McCoy, Davison/Baker, and Baker/Davison
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Tagged under: Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Paul McGann, regeneration, Sylvester McCoy
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Awesome, just in time for a camping trip im going on, some good listening while outdoors, cant wait.
Great episode. I think Eccleston’s Doctor came straight his regeneration or very close after anyways. The pictures of him can be explained away as adventures he went on with Rose. As for the time bubble, I think RTD put too many throw away lines in before he thought about how to bring the Time lords back. Eccleston and Tennent both said they were dead and maybe that’s what they thought. I see the time war as trapped in a moment of time that they can’t get out of until they find an anomoly(Master, Daleks) that slipped through the cracks. I also wish there was more on screen McGann. If you listen to the Big Finish Audio’s he really fleshed out his part well.
Clive’s photos could also represent solo adventures the Ninth Doctor had after seeing his reflection, but before taking Rose as a companion. Remember, right at the end, Rose refuses his first offer to travel with him, and the TARDIS dematerializes. Then it comes back so he can remind her that “it also travels in time.” For Rose and Mickey, almost no time elapsed there, but the Doctor could have spent any amount of time traveling on his own before remembering that girl from the Powell Estate and deciding to drop by again.
I think it’s entirely correct that the Time Lords are dead in the Doctor’s personal timeline. However, the notion that they have been entirely erased from time and space really doesn’t work. The Ninth Doctor says he “watched them burn,” and I think mentions at some point that the ruins of Gallifrey are still out there somewhere. That sounds much more like extinction at a particular point in time, rather than erasure from history.
The scenes with Rassilon and the Council in “The End of Time” take place on the final day of the Time War, as they learn that the Doctor is coming to wipe them out. The time lock (whatever it is) seems to be already in place, since they can’t just pile into a TARDIS and escape their fate. Instead, much as the Master arranged for his own resurrection by the Cult of Saxon, they set up the Master as a tool to pull them (and Gallifrey) directly from that time before their destruction to the Doctor’s and the Master’s present. Of course, before Gallifrey can materialize, the Doctor and the Master send them back to the last day of the Time War, shortly after which the Eighth (or Ninth) Doctor shows up and kills them all.
Some suggestions for future regeneration episodes:
While covering the Fourth Doctor, also spend a bit of time on Romana’s regeneration, which is very different from any of the Doctor’s. In complete contrast to the Tenth Doctor’s fear of death, Romana changes bodies the way people change clothes, even trying on a few first. This despite the fact that the personality change between Romana I and Romana II is actually quite severe.
Likewise, when covering the Third Doctor’s regeneration into the Fourth Doctor, see if you can find anything on the regeneration of K’anpo Rimpoche into Cho Je. It’s the first time we see the “projection of a future self” idea that recurs (in a much less developed form) right before the Fourth Doctor’s death.
While the Ninth Doctor definitely didn’t dread his regeneration nearly as much as the Tenth Doctor did, I think there are signs of sadness at his impending departure. He mentions all the places he was going to take Rose, and though he later corrects himself to indicate that he might even still accompany her to those places, it won’t be “like this. Not with this old face.” Though he specifically referred to regeneration as a way of cheating death, rather than a form of death, he was obviously keenly aware that his form and personality would soon be replaced.
I think most of the Doctors have viewed their impending regenerations as, at least, something akin to death. The First Doctor regarded the Second and Third as inferior “replacements” when he later met them. The Fourth Doctor spoke of his demise as “the end.”
It’s each new Doctor, at the beginning of life, who is more likely to regard regeneration as a way of staying alive. For the new Doctor, continuity of memory and experience is preserved, so the regeneration is not a death but a change. The Tenth Doctor comments on his “new teeth” because he remembers, just minutes ago, having different ones. Likewise, even though he dreads his next regeneration, Ten is perfectly content to claim the destruction of the Daleks and Time Lords as his doing, because he remembers doing it.
Is part 2 coming out soon ?