Spoilers Why do you think the TARDIS threw the Doctor out?

[Christopher]

I am sure this has been mentioned before but maybe regeneration is traumatic for the TARDIS as well as for the Doctor. We've been very focused on what regeneration is like for the Doctor and how he does not like it. But the TARDIS is alive and has a special bond with the Doctor. Furthermore, we've seen the regeneration energy damage the inside of the TARDIS. So it would make sense in a lot of ways that the TARDIS does not like the Doctor changing either. So perhaps, the TARDIS throwing the Doctor out, was it's way of saying "I don't like this".

That doesn't make sense, because the majority of regenerations have happened in the TARDIS -- 1/2, 5/6, 6/7, War/9, 9/10, aborted 10, 10/11, 11/12, 12/13. And only 10/11 and 12/13 have affected the TARDIS in any way. So we're not talking about something common to all regenerations, we're talking about something specific to just those two. And as I said, the one common factor applying to those two (aside from coinciding with a showrunner change) is that they're the ones where the Doctor resisted regeneration the longest, where he fought against it rather than just letting it happen.

On the other hand, "Twice Upon a Time" has now established that the First Doctor also fought to stave off regeneration for roughly as long as the Twelfth did, since they were side by side nearly the whole time. And that regeneration caused no damage to the TARDIS. But then, maybe the First Doctor's body was better able to absorb the energy because he was, in absolute terms, much younger.

I suppose one other common thread of the "deaths" of 10 and 12 is that they were both subjected to massive radiation damage -- 10 from being inside the reactor control chamber, 12 from being repeatedly shot by energy weapons. But several other regenerations -- 3/4, 9/10, aborted 10 -- were also the result of absorbing lethal doses of radiation or energy, and they didn't cause a blowup. Maybe it's the combination of being bombarded with massive amounts of energy and fighting off regeneration as long as possible that causes the TARDIS-damaging outbursts.

 

[The Wormhole]

...And cue the Wormhole's tired old rebuttal that the BBC supposedly can not "lie" because of some "divine" charter.

It does say so in The Writer's Tale. But I suppose citing The Writer's Tale is also a "tired old rebuttal" of mine according to you?

 

[Starkers]

I

It all a big con by the BBC, she will plummet to the earth then die on impact activating a regen and changing back into a male doctor, BBC has been trolling you all good. lol

Yeah she hits the ground and regenerates into Kris Marshall. The rest of the first episode if Chris Chibnall pointing at the camera laughing!

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I


Yeah she hits the ground and regenerates into Kris Marshall. The rest of the first episode if Chris Chibnall pointing at the camera laughing!

And if you cut him in half you'll find Steven Moffat inside.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I'd argue the First Doctor fought off regeneration for less time than Twelfth did. 12 arguably "died" earlier than shown in The Doctor Falls.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I really hope not........ I hope this is a full series with Jodie or it would be a pointless excercise..... And the fans would backlash if they did this as well despite some fans whining about a girl Doctor

 

[Professor Zoom]

To be puerile for a moment

Why? Why give into the impulse?

She was expelled because the Tardis had a knee jerk "I aint gay!" reaction. The old girl will come around when she realizes that the Doctor will keep the sonic screwdriver.

Are you suggesting the TARDIS is a bigot?

 

[Christopher]

I'd argue the First Doctor fought off regeneration for less time than Twelfth did. 12 arguably "died" earlier than shown in The Doctor Falls.

Slightly, but not massively. Yes, 12 died, and that's exactly why I don't count it -- because he was too badly injured to regenerate on his own, or else he would've done it already by the time Bill and Heather showed up. So I don't consider the regeneration "clock" to have started until Bill revived him. After that, it was only a minute or two before he stepped out of the TARDIS in Antarctica and met his first self -- and, as we saw in the opening of "Twice Upon a Time," the First Doctor had already shown the first signs of regeneration back at Snowcap Base with Polly, when he said "This old body is wearing a bit thin" -- which, in "The Tenth Planet," was near the beginning of the last episode. And according to internal references, that episode takes well over an hour of story time. So he'd already been holding it off for at least that long at that point. Which means that One had actually been delaying his regeneration longer than Twelve.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I'm not sure Bill's tear is the equivelant of the monk from Planet of the Spiders reviving Three. I genuinely think the process was longer for 12. Otherwise, why didn't the First's TARDIS blow up, retroactively?

 

[Mr Soak]

The 12th Doctor was showing signs of regeneration for at least the last two episodes. Every now and then he'd see his hand glowing and shake it off or hide it. However, I don't have the discs to check, yet. Certainly, it was before the final Cybermen attack.

 

[Christopher]

I'm not sure Bill's tear is the equivelant of the monk from Planet of the Spiders reviving Three.

No, it wasn't. Three wasn't dead, just dying, needing a jumpstart to regenerate. Twelve was, to all indications, dead already when Bill and Heather found him, and he was revived by the sentient oil's basically godlike ability to restructure matter.

Although I suppose that if the regeneration energy really was building within him for as long as people are saying, maybe being briefly dead didn't actually reset the clock after all, since the energy was still built up -- although it's hard to see how the energy could be so heavily pent up inside him and not regenerate him if he wasn't consciously able to hold it back.

I genuinely think the process was longer for 12. Otherwise, why didn't the First's TARDIS blow up, retroactively?

Which was exactly the question that led me to propose that it took two causes in combination, the radiation exposure plus the delayed regeneration. Or maybe it just doesn't happen that way with a "younger" Time Lord regenerating for the first time. Most things are easier for younger bodies than older ones.

 

[The Wormhole]

I really hope not........ I hope this is a full series with Jodie or it would be a pointless excercise

Of course we're getting a full season with Jodie Whitaker. Why is that even in doubt?

Every now and then he'd see his hand glowing and shake it off or hide it. However, I don't have the discs to check, yet. Certainly, it was before the final Cybermen attack.

No, it wasn't. I know, since when I got the blu-rays the I scrutinized everything from Empress of Mars onwards to see if I could see the evidence the Doctor was already regenerating everyone was saying was in those episodes in their discussion threads last spring. And I couldn't. The Doctor shows no indications of an impending regeneration until after the battle in The Doctor Falls, unless you count the opening scene in the prior episode.

 

[David cgc]

No, it wasn't. I know, since when I got the blu-rays the I scrutinized everything from Empress of Mars onwards to see if I could see the evidence the Doctor was already regenerating everyone was saying was in those episodes in their discussion threads last spring. And I couldn't. The Doctor shows no indications of an impending regeneration until after the battle in The Doctor Falls, unless you count the opening scene in the prior episode.

The Doctor first shakes off a regeneration when he's talking with Cyber-Bill on the way to see the elevators with the Masters in "The Doctor Falls," when he stumbles against the tree out of nowhere, and then again just before he detonates the floor in the battle with the Cybermen (though immediately after being shot a couple times). Assuming nothing terribly violent happened that we didn't see, that means the Doctor was probably terminally injured by the Cyberman electrocuting him on the roof of the hospital at the beginning of the episode, since that's the last time he's hurt until the Cyberman shoots him just before the big explosion. Then there was a caption saying Bill was unconscious for two weeks in the barn, so, there you go. The Doctor was resisting regeneration for two weeks, plus the next few days preparing for the Cybermen's attack, plus a few hours for "Twice Upon a Time." The First Doctor had only been holding back since his hand went all glowy (retcon!) on the "Wearing a bit thin" line in "The Tenth Planet," which certainly adds up to less than a day.

As for why Twelve didn't regenerate when he passed out after detonating the floor, my guess would be he'd delayed it long enough to prevent the regeneration, and Bill's tear just gave him enough of a "push" to reset the clock and reopen the regenerative window for a few more hours.

 

[sttngfan1701d]

There will of course be an in-universe explanation for it. But from the very first moment, I thought it was some meta-commentary sort of thing. The TARDIS threw her out, reflecting (portions of) the audience going "The Doctor isn't a woman!" So the TARDIS is, in effect, saying the same thing. "Who are you? You're not my Doctor!" Within the first episode this will be resolved, and we will all see that she is the Doctor and all will be well, etc. etc.

 

[Christopher]

There will of course be an in-universe explanation for it. But from the very first moment, I thought it was some meta-commentary sort of thing. The TARDIS threw her out, reflecting (portions of) the audience going "The Doctor isn't a woman!" So the TARDIS is, in effect, saying the same thing. "Who are you? You're not my Doctor!" Within the first episode this will be resolved, and we will all see that she is the Doctor and all will be well, etc. etc.

I wondered that too, and so did other people whose comments I saw, but on a second viewing, it was pretty obvious that the TARDIS was trying to get her away from the imminent explosion, to protect her, not reject her. So maybe that was meant as a red herring.

After all, why would a nonhumanoid, wildly alien sentience like the TARDIS care what naughty bits the latest regeneration of the Doctor happened to have, any more than it cared about the Doctor's height or hair color or accent? Only us silly humans are preoccupied with such a minor physical variation. A nonhumanoid intelligence might have difficulty telling the difference. (Strax certainly couldn't, and he's pretty humanoid.)

 

[UncleRogi]

I'm going miss Strax and the Gang if they get left behind. They did cover 2 Doctors, so
who knows?...

Love to see them meeting 13, especially considering the marital status there. That's probably
why we won't see them. Less headache for the PTB.

 

[Christopher]

Love to see them meeting 13, especially considering the marital status there. That's probably
why we won't see them. Less headache for the PTB.

We won't see them because they were Moffat characters and Moffat's gone. Outside of "The Day of the Doctor" and "World Enough and Time"/"The Doctor Falls," we didn't see any Davies-created characters during the Moffat era either, as far as I can recall. (We saw plenty of River Song, but she was a Moffat creation to begin with.)

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Agreed. Outside of the casual mention here or there, we've most certainly seen the last of many of his creations. I'm guessing we may still see the odd Weeping Angel or Silurian episode, but specific characters are not likely to return.

As for the TARDIS, in EVERY new series regeneration she's thrown some sort of hissy fit within moments of the Doctor doing the lightshow, and then crashed somewhere. Only twice has she also suffered catastrophic damage, but at no point has the Doctor shaken off the last few sparks of a regeneration, flipped a switch and had the TARDIS continue on her merry way.

We've known since the beginning that the TARDIS is meant to help regeneration in some way; the first Doctor went back (the long way, it turns out), and as recently as the metacrisis regeneration did Jack order everyone to drag the just-shot tenth Doctor into the TARDIS in anticipation of regeneration (or POSSIBLY just to find cover for the event, YMMV). In any case, I'm wondering if the Doctor and the machine have become so intertwined over the centuries that a) the TARDIS has lost its ability to help with a regeneration without some consequence, or b) the TARDIS also regenerates to a certain extent whenever her pilot does, possibly behind the circuit panels and not so overtly.

My feeling is also that the TARDIS hit her ejection seat button and was trying to save the Doctor from something completely unrelated to her regeneration. We'll see (not) soon enough, but my feel from watching it has always been that the new team has something specific in mind and is setting the Doctor and ship to be separated for a plot-related reason. The cloister bell was going off BEFORE the regeneration while the Doctor was busy giving his final testament (sic), which has not happened in any other regeneration (though it has happened AFTER every modern one), which might suggest that something else was in the works besides anticipating what the Doctor was about to do.

Mark

 

[Christopher]

As for the TARDIS, in EVERY new series regeneration she's thrown some sort of hissy fit within moments of the Doctor doing the lightshow, and then crashed somewhere. Only twice has she also suffered catastrophic damage, but at no point has the Doctor shaken off the last few sparks of a regeneration, flipped a switch and had the TARDIS continue on her merry way.

I got the impression that the fender-bender the TARDIS had in "Born Again"/"The Christmas Invasion" was more the result of the Doctor's impaired driving, and the TARDIS's reaction to his residual outbursts of vortex energy, than due to any automatic Doctor/TARDIS symbiosis or something. Similarly, I didn't get the impression that the "crashing" at the end of "The Time of the Doctor" was anything more than a result of nobody's hand being on the throttle.

Also, strictly speaking, it hasn't been every regeneration. We didn't see what happened right after the War Doctor's regeneration into Nine. And the Tenth Doctor's abortive regeneration (which does count, as we now know) happened while the TARDIS was stationary. Really, he'd have a lot fewer problems if he just wouldn't regenerate and drive. There oughta be a law about that.

We've known since the beginning that the TARDIS is meant to help regeneration in some way; the first Doctor went back (the long way, it turns out), and as recently as the metacrisis regeneration did Jack order everyone to drag the just-shot tenth Doctor into the TARDIS in anticipation of regeneration (or POSSIBLY just to find cover for the event, YMMV).

That's true, up to a point. The Second Doctor said "it's part of the TARDIS"; I think the original idea was that it was a technologically imposed change, since they hadn't quite settled on the Doctor being an alien rather than a far-future human (Hartnell's Doctor did call himself human on occasion). The second regeneration was induced by the Time Lords, and the third was catalyzed by a Time Lord. The fourth was the first one to happen far from the TARDIS, and it was the most unstable, needing the Zero Room within the TARDIS to stabilize. And pretty much all the rest were in the TARDIS except 8/War, which was under the influence of the Gallifreyan-descended Sisterhood of Karn. I don't think they planned it that way, but it sort of seems to work that way.

In any case, I'm wondering if the Doctor and the machine have become so intertwined over the centuries that a) the TARDIS has lost its ability to help with a regeneration without some consequence, or b) the TARDIS also regenerates to a certain extent whenever her pilot does, possibly behind the circuit panels and not so overtly.

I think that's a pretty huge reach. The only times we've ever seen a TARDIS change coincide with a regeneration were in "The Eleventh Hour" and now in the upcoming season, and both of those can be adequately explained by the damage caused by the Doctor's energy outburst. So there's no need for any speculation beyond that, by Occam's Razor.

My feeling is also that the TARDIS hit her ejection seat button and was trying to save the Doctor from something completely unrelated to her regeneration.

Again, I'm going with Occam's Razor -- the huge explosion that engulfed the entire TARDIS interior a moment after the Doctor was ejected is all the explanation we need. Huge explosions pretty much outweigh any other considerations.

We'll see (not) soon enough, but my feel from watching it has always been that the new team has something specific in mind and is setting the Doctor and ship to be separated for a plot-related reason. The cloister bell was going off BEFORE the regeneration while the Doctor was busy giving his final testament (sic), which has not happened in any other regeneration (though it has happened AFTER every modern one), which might suggest that something else was in the works besides anticipating what the Doctor was about to do.

I don't think there's anything to that beyond a tendency of modern producers to overuse the heck out of the Cloister Bell.

Besides, my impression was that Moffat's work on the episode ended with the regeneration and Chibnall wrote and produced the final scene. So there wouldn't be any connection between Moffat's and Chibnall's uses of the Cloister Bell. Although Rachel Talalay directed both parts, so its use could've been her idea.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Oh, I think the First Doctor was clearly an alien. He contemplated going "back to (his) home planet" some time after the Dalek Masterplan stories.