2 Questions about Doctor Who

[Ganon83]

I know this forum has a few Who fans, so I know you guys can help me out on this:
Ever since seeing the pilot of the 2005 series via Netflix a few months ago, I have fallen in love with the series in general, although I've yet to watch one of the classic serials just yet (I'm waiting to see if the rumor that BBC had found a lot of the missing episodes for the 50th anniversary panned out, so that I could start with the first Doctor and only miss some of the second's episodes without having to backtrack).
I just finished with the 3rd season of the revived series yesterday, and my only real 2 questions are this: if Time Lords only have 12 regenerations, does this rule apply to the Doctor himself? I'm sure the producers will find a way around it eventually when it comes time for Capaldi's successor if that is the case, but has it ever been specifically said?
Finally..... does Matt Smith hold up to Tennant? I liked Eccleston, and the Doctors before him were probably more memorable then Tennant, but to me Tennant just seems like the real Doctor.

[Phosphor Glow]

Matt Smith is tremendous. I'd say all of them hold up in their own way. It really just depends on what's more up your alley, and which writing style you like better. The feel of the show changes a pretty good bit once Matt Smith shows up.

My personal favorite is Tennant, but only by a very little bit over Smith. Eccleston would probably be my favorite had he been around longer.

But yes. Smith is awesome.

[Zaq "That Guy" Buzzkill]

To answer your first question they already found a way around the "12 regenerations" limit in the Smith episodes, but it contains spoilers for that season so I won't tell you how.

For the second, it depends on taste but Matt Smith is a great Doctor. He really embodies the concept of making The Doctor more alien than human and is also fantastic in several other aspects, although he's not that great at doing serious angry Dcotor, he just comes across and goofy a lot of the time when he tries it.

[Drillbit Taylor]

Sept 2, 2013 17:01:12 GMT -5 Zaq "That Guy" Buzzkill said:

To answer your first question they already found a way around the "12 regenerations" limit in the Smith episodes, but it contains spoilers for that season so I won't tell you how.

For the second, it depends on taste but Matt Smith is a great Doctor. He really embodies the concept of making The Doctor more alien than human and is also fantastic in several other aspects, although he's not that great at doing serious angry Dcotor, he just comes across and goofy a lot of the time when he tries it.

There are many outs for the 12 limit thing.

1) There never was a true 12 limit and he just said that
2) He was granted extra limit durring the Time War
3) He has gone off the charts and learned how to go beyound
4) The thing with Rose and The Tardis
5) The one you are referring to in the Matt Smith Seasons

[Jiren]

Matt Smith was a good doctor shame about the show itself, I HATED Tennant's doctor.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Yeah it's been established that the 12 regenerations rule applies to the Doctor as well, especially since one of he recurring characters is the Valeyard, a possible future (and from what I understand, evil) Doctor who came to be between his 12th and 13th forms. Keep in mind the Master has managed to bypass the limit by possessing someone else in the past (thought that was in the made for TV movie which is only partially canon), so it can be done, but not through ethical means, it seems.

Then again, many people believe River Song gave him her remaining regenerations so he could go beyond 12 because of course she has to be the focus of every-f'n-thing and be so awesome and better than everyone else and GAH I HATE THIS FAN-FICCISH MARY SUE CHARACTER.

Matt Smith is my favourite doctor so far. I liked the way he played him, he really managed to be believable whether he was supposed to be focused, intimidating, silly. The Elventh Doctor was written very differently from Nine and Ten, closer to how he would have been portrayed in the classic series, very intelligent and resourceful yet scatterbrained and Smith really pulled off the character.

[Deleted]

Yeah, if it's what I think you're referring to, I'm almost certain they'll do that.

I like what little I've seen of Smith, although I may be in the minority that actually liked Eccleston better than Tennant. Don't get me wrong, Tennant's great, but with Eccleston, he had that way of playing The Doctor, you couldn't help but get into the story because HE was into the story. The best example I can give is in "The End Of The World," when all the aliens are arriving on the ship, and he's just standing there with that big silly grin on his face.

[Koda, Master Crunchyroller]

Tennant is my favorite Doctor with Smith being my second favorite.

That being said, I agree, Smith can NOT do a convincing "serious" Doctor. He is lights out as a goofy Doctor and if he did almost nothing but goofy stuff, he'd probably be my favorite one.

Also it may take a while for Smith to click with you, cause the start of his run just felt....off to me. But once everything starts gelling? Oh hell yeah.

[DSR]

Sept 2, 2013 17:19:25 GMT -5 @wordlifeecw said:

Yeah, if it's what I think you're referring to, I'm almost certain they'll do that.

I like what little I've seen of Smith, although I may be in the minority that actually liked Eccleston better than Tennant. Don't get me wrong, Tennant's great, but with Eccleston, he had that way of playing The Doctor, you couldn't help but get into the story because HE was into the story. The best example I can give is in "The End Of The World," when all the aliens are arriving on the ship, and he's just standing there with that big silly grin on his face.

Eccleston is my favorite doctor, though I've only seen one story from each of the classic doctors (save Pertwee, whom I've seen 2 stories from). Sucks Ecc only had the one season, but it was SO GOOD!

Smith is good, though I wish I could see him under a different showrunner. Moffat's take on the character doesn't really work for me.

[Bo Rida]

I think there was a general theory that the rules had changed since the time war, I believe the timelords somehow gave The Master more regenerations than the normal 12 due to usefulness in the war.

Matt Smith is great but is often pushed to the back of his own stories, as a result it's arguable he hasn't really got a defining episode(s) like many other Doctors.

[AdamAFL was sooooo wrong]

I have never seen the classic series either. I tried to watch a Tom Baker one once but something about it didn't click and I've never tried since.

Matt Smith's doctor is good. It's probably been covered already in this thread but he's absolutely fantastic at the goofy, oddball, comedic aspect of the doctor but he falls down when it comes to the serious, asskicking doctor.

I grew to love Tennant's doctor but he's my least favourite of the three and it took me a while to get into him. Eccleston remains my favourite, he was just awesome - but then again he was my first doctor and everybody always says their first was their favourite so maybe that's it. Either way, Eccleston was awesome.

[BlackoutCreature]

Sept 2, 2013 17:07:28 GMT -5 Drillbit Taylor said:

Sept 2, 2013 17:01:12 GMT -5 Zaq "That Guy" Buzzkill said:

To answer your first question they already found a way around the "12 regenerations" limit in the Smith episodes, but it contains spoilers for that season so I won't tell you how.

For the second, it depends on taste but Matt Smith is a great Doctor. He really embodies the concept of making The Doctor more alien than human and is also fantastic in several other aspects, although he's not that great at doing serious angry Dcotor, he just comes across and goofy a lot of the time when he tries it.

There are many outs for the 12 limit thing.

1) There never was a true 12 limit and he just said that
2) He was granted extra limit durring the Time War
3) He has gone off the charts and learned how to go beyound
4) The thing with Rose and The Tardis
5) The one you are referring to in the Matt Smith Seasons

While most of these ideas are certainly possibilities, choice 1) seems incredibly unlikely. Yes the Doctor lies and all that, but for it to work The Master and several other Time Lords that appeared in the original series would've had to decide to go along with his lie for... reasons? Hell, in "The Deadly Assassin", where the regeneration limit was definitely referenced, there's not even a human companion around that he would even need to lie to. Why he would feel the need to lie about this to anybody in the first place is also difficult to imagine.

[Drillbit Taylor]

Sept 2, 2013 19:13:13 GMT -5 BlackoutCreature said:

Sept 2, 2013 17:07:28 GMT -5 Drillbit Taylor said:

There are many outs for the 12 limit thing.

1) There never was a true 12 limit and he just said that
2) He was granted extra limit durring the Time War
3) He has gone off the charts and learned how to go beyound
4) The thing with Rose and The Tardis
5) The one you are referring to in the Matt Smith Seasons

While most of these ideas are certainly possibilities, choice 1) seems incredibly unlikely. Yes the Doctor lies and all that, but for it to work The Master and several other Time Lords that appeared in the original series would've had to decide to go along with his lie for... reasons? Hell, in "The Deadly Assassin", where the regeneration limit was definitely referenced, there's not even a human companion around that he would even need to lie to. Why he would feel the need to lie about this to anybody in the first place is also difficult to imagine.

I could have sworn one of the first two had a throw away line long before Deadly Assassin that he had regenerated at least once prior (Prior to Hartnell).

[BlackoutCreature]

Sept 2, 2013 19:24:40 GMT -5 Drillbit Taylor said:

Sept 2, 2013 19:13:13 GMT -5 BlackoutCreature said:

While most of these ideas are certainly possibilities, choice 1) seems incredibly unlikely. Yes the Doctor lies and all that, but for it to work The Master and several other Time Lords that appeared in the original series would've had to decide to go along with his lie for... reasons? Hell, in "The Deadly Assassin", where the regeneration limit was definitely referenced, there's not even a human companion around that he would even need to lie to. Why he would feel the need to lie about this to anybody in the first place is also difficult to imagine.

I could have sworn one of the first two had a throw away line long before Deadly Assassin that he had regenerated at least once prior (Prior to Hartnell).

You'd have to be more specific, I'm not really sure what you're referring to. The closest I can think of is Arc of Infinity (a fifth Doctor story) which kinda suggested regenerations before Hartnell's, although most fans nowadays just look at it as a reference to previous regenerations of the villain Omega.

Even if that is true though I don't see how that would change the fact that for the Doctor to have been lying about the twelve regeneration limit an unreasonable number of people who would know better would have to be complicit in the lie.

[FinalGwen]

Sept 2, 2013 17:17:27 GMT -5 SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman said:

Keep in mind the Master has managed to bypass the limit by possessing someone else in the past (thought that was in the made for TV movie which is only partially canon),

This is wrong in so many ways.

1) The Master first bypassed the regeneration limit by possessing another body in The Keeper Of Traken, 15 years before the TV movie was aired.
2) "Only partially canon"? Says who? Oh no, that's right, the BBC have never declared a formal canon. In fact, the only comments from showrunners on canon have been to demolish it, to say that it doesn't make sense to have canon in a show about time travel.
3) There's nothing to suggest that anything from the TV Movie isn't a part of Doctor Who continuity, or that the BBC don't want to refer to it.

Sept 2, 2013 19:52:17 GMT -5 BlackoutCreature said:

Sept 2, 2013 19:24:40 GMT -5 Drillbit Taylor said:

I could have sworn one of the first two had a throw away line long before Deadly Assassin that he had regenerated at least once prior (Prior to Hartnell).

You'd have to be more specific, I'm not really sure what you're referring to. The closest I can think of is Arc of Infinity (a fifth Doctor story) which kinda suggested regenerations before Hartnell's, although most fans nowadays just look at it as a reference to previous regenerations of the villain Omega.

Even if that is true though I don't see how that would change the fact that for the Doctor to have been lying about the twelve regeneration limit an unreasonable number of people who would know better would have to be complicit in the lie.

I think what's being referred to here is actually The Brain Of Morbius, 9 months before The Deadly Assassin, which had Morbius reading the Doctor's mind, the faces counting back from Tom Baker through Pertwee, Troughton and Hartnell before going further back, members of the production team being used to represent these further back points in the Doctor's history, with Morbius asking "How long, Doctor? How long have you lived?"

[BlackoutCreature]

Sept 2, 2013 21:20:16 GMT -5 FinalGwen said:

I think what's being referred to here is actually The Brain Of Morbius, 9 months before The Deadly Assassin, which had Morbius reading the Doctor's mind, the faces counting back from Tom Baker through Pertwee, Troughton and Hartnell before going further back, members of the production team being used to represent these further back points in the Doctor's history, with Morbius asking "How long, Doctor? How long have you lived?"

My mistake, I confused Morbius with Omega.

[Evilution E5150]

All Timelords who took part in the Great Time War were given an brand new set of regerations by Rassilon which is what allowed the Master to return

i read that on wikipedia so its gotta be true

[Drillbit Taylor]

Sept 2, 2013 19:52:17 GMT -5 BlackoutCreature said:

Sept 2, 2013 19:24:40 GMT -5 Drillbit Taylor said:

I could have sworn one of the first two had a throw away line long before Deadly Assassin that he had regenerated at least once prior (Prior to Hartnell).

You'd have to be more specific, I'm not really sure what you're referring to. The closest I can think of is Arc of Infinity (a fifth Doctor story) which kinda suggested regenerations before Hartnell's, although most fans nowadays just look at it as a reference to previous regenerations of the villain Omega.

Even if that is true though I don't see how that would change the fact that for the Doctor to have been lying about the twelve regeneration limit an unreasonable number of people who would know better would have to be complicit in the lie.

Sorry for the confusion. Lying was not the right termonlogy I meant. You are right there. LOL

[Chainsaw]

There isn't a Doctor I don't love, but the Eleventh is MY Doctor.

[Futureraven: Beelzebruv]

I'm just going to echo other people, I love Matt Smith but his stories could be a bit stronger.

Tennant was too human for me, just a very smart one. Smith is totally alien, he can also do serious, just not badass. When he calls out a Silurian for claiming to be the last one of the species, that was a great scene. Just don't make him singlehandedly threaten ALL of his enemies at once. For a start that's not the Doctor, the Doctor would run and have an amazing plan when he came back.

Thing is, Tennant had some of the same probelms with certain emotions. At least to me, he never had the gravitas when talking about the time war and came off as a bit emo, whereas Eccleston came accross as a shell shocked survivor of a war.

Also, once Catherine Tate left, the quality really dropped off for the specials. I had heard about Time Lord Victorious and thought that sounded like a great new development, but it was a massive let down.