13 LIVES & THATS YER LOT, COCK! Utter cobblers! The 12 regenerations/13 lives rule was invented as a plot MacGuffin in 1976 by Bob Holmes to give the skeletal, decayed Master a compelling motive in The Deadly Assassin, in which tale the wicked old git is willing to commit mahussive genocide against his own race to ensure his personal survival & settle a few old scores. Back then (still on the 4th Doctor), no-one foresaw the 13 lives rule as ever becoming a cap on the Doctor Who, nobbling the series ingenious & unique device for replacing its leading man. Now, in 2013, its becoming an issue, esp. with the revelation of The War Doctor as an incarnation between McGann & Eccleston. Moffat is right that sci-fi does need to observe rules, & not be flippantly arbitrary, however any half-decent writer could get round the 13 lives quota with a few deft strokes of the imagination. C/o various writers, The Master has done so by... (a) abortively attempting to steal power from The Eye of Harmony & getting enough to extend his final kosher kebab-textured regeneration & reverse a small part of the decay (i.e. Pratts emaciated skeletal form to Beevers). (b) successfully usurping the post of Keeper of Traken & still managing to possess Tremas & rejuvenate his newly acquired body with his fading powers from the Source after his major plan went tits up. (c) being offered a tasty new cycle of regenerations by the High Council, as a bribe for aiding the Doctor in The Five Doctors. (d) attempting to exploit the restorative numismaton gas & flame on Sarn, bolloxing that up right royally, but STILL surviving! (e) surviving direct execution & being blown to bits at the hands of the suddenly litigious Daleks by transforming into the mercurial morphant snake form (TV version) or possessing an existing morphant snake (acc. the novelisation)... (f) ...then possessing the luckless ambulance driver, Bruce, albeit on a (short-term, fast-burnout basis) then... (g) ...attempting to steal the Doctors remaining lives, using the power of the avatar of the Eye of Harmony in the Doctors TARDIS. (h) (perhaps) existing in android form in the alternative 9th Doctors TARDIS (in Scream of the Shalka, as Derek Jacobi - possibly a precursor or parallel to his Professor Yana form/disguise) (i) Being resurrected by the Time Lords, to fight in the Time War (& being given sparkly new regenerations, presumably a full new cycle) (i) becoming the Derek Jacobi incarnation & hiding out in human form as Prof Yana to avoid the Time War. (j) regenerating fully into the John Simm incarnation (thus showing hed regained the power of regeneration proper, & probably a full new cycle of regenerations) (k) Stubbornly refusing to regenerate, but still cheating death using his ring to contain his essence, despite full physical immolation & cremation. (l) Surviving as a wraith, then being corporeally resurrected, but in a flawed form with ravenous hunger & unstable life force. (m) Replicating himself by overwriting his template onto every human being on Earth. Now, admittedly the Doctor is nobler, more self-sacrificing, & less obsessed with personal survival than the Master, but survival after the 13 life limit is *certainly* possible, with many precedents & alternatives in the shows canon, & if the Doctor DOES save Gallifrey, a new regeneration cycle would be well-deserved... As long as there are stories to tell, audience demand for them, & hard cash to be made flogging the franchise, the Doctor will survive! };-}> kasterborous/2013/11/moffat-doctor-used-regenerations/
Posted on: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 08:47:44 +0000
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