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From: The Last Doctor <mike@xenocyte.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho
Subject: Re: From the Archives .....
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2024 14:08:46 -0000 (UTC)
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The Doctor <doctor@doctor.nl2k.ab.ca> wrote:
> In article <v00f5u$3m6k4$1@dont-email.me>,
> The Last Doctor  <mike@xenocyte.com> wrote:
>> The Doctor <doctor@doctor.nl2k.ab.ca> wrote:
>>> In article <uvtoin$30ajm$1@dont-email.me>,
>>> The True Doctor  <agamemnon@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote:
>>>> On 19/04/2024 13:13, Daniel70 wrote:
>>>>> Tonight's post from the past concerns Regeneration Limits, a topic that 
>>>>> has been close to the Hearts of some here-abouts, recently!!
>>>>> 
>>>>> Quote from 'Olton' in the 'Favourite Dr Who' thread of June 1991
>>>>> In "Nightmare of Eden," the Doctor says something about timelords having 
>>>>> 125 lives, and that he had had about 190. This clearly doesn't "jive" 
>>>>> with other established facts, unless you want to think that he means 
>>>>> that their lifespan is 125 times the length of a human's. That's 
>>>>> possible, but the context that he uses it in implies 125 regenerations.
>>>>> End Quote
>>>>> 
>>>>> So it would seem that Chris Chibnall was not the first to suggest that 
>>>>> there had been many re-generations PRIOR to Hartnell (over and above the 
>>>>> "The Brain of Morbius" confusion).
>>>>> 
>>>>> Discuss.
>>>> 
>>>> The Deadly Assassin which was 3 series earlier firmly establishes a 
>>>> limit of 12 regenerations and that is repeated by both the Doctor and 
>>>> the Master in The Keeper of Traken, the 4th Doctor's penultimate story.
>>>> 
>>>> Maybe he was talking about going undercover 190 times or on 190 
>>>> different planets or different historical periods.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Good facts AGA!
>> 
>> Facts? Facts? (Not that I think there was any such discussion in Nightmare
>> of Eden, but maybe my memory of that is faulty. Or maybe it’s another of
>> those novelisation inventions like the nonsense Aggie loves from
>> Underworld.)
>> 
>> But wait - Aggie is saying that Deadly Assassin predates Nightmare of Eden
>> therefore the 12 regeneration limit is absolute. 
>> 
>> But Brain of Morbius came before that, and on screen showed 11 faces of the
>> Doctor prior to Tom Baker’s. Therefore using Aggie’s logic, Peter Davison
>> was the 13th and final Doctor and when he says “Feels different this time”
>> he is dying. Doctor Who ended with Caves of Androzani in March 1984 and
>> every episode since has been a fever dream of the dying Doctor.
>> 
>> (I am of course not taking account of the retcon in the novelisation that
>> suggests the 8 unknown faces are those of Morbius. Morbius is clearly
>> winning the mind duel and it is the Doctor who is being pushed back, and
>> this was Philip Hinchcliffe’s intent).
>> 
>> Unless, of course, we go back further to The War Games, when the Doctor
>> reveals that his people can “live forever, barring accidents”.  But perhaps
>> that can be construed as suggesting that Time Lords who do not suffer
>> twelve fatal accidents never reach their thirteenth and final incarnations.
>> 
>> Which explains the need for the Matrix - millions of years of memories
>> couldn’t possibly all be retained in one mind, so some sort of external
>> augmentation and storage would be very much needed.
>> 
>> But of course the idea that there had been earlier Doctors didn’t originate
>> with Morbius.
>> 
>> Whitaker's draft scripts (for The Power Of The Daleks) revealed that the
>> Doctor had been “renewed” before; he was to open a drawer in the console
>> which contained relics from his previous incarnations, including an earring
>> and a metal bracelet (which in the 60s would have suggested that at least
>> one previous Doctor had been female). The scripts also specified the
>> Doctor's age as 750 years, included various references to his grandchild
>> Susan -- whose present location the Doctor could no longer recall -- and
>> hinted that it might have been the Daleks who had destroyed his homeworld.
>> All this material was cut in Dennis Spooner’s rewrites for time - much
>> additional background was removed to fit the very complex story and
>> introduction of the new Doctor into six episodes.
>> 
>> Then we move forward again to the 80s and The Five Doctors, where the
>> Master reveals that he has been offered a whole new cycle of regenerations.
>> So the limit of 12 was never absolute, and the Master’s whole motivation
>> for The Deadly Assassin is negated.
>> 
>> In short, a rigid insistence on a specific canon is pointless when it comes
>> to Doctor Who. And paying any attention to Aggie, who insists on repeating
>> his delusions about the show as “facts”, is a sure sign of a very limited
>> intellect. So know you know why Dave says what he says.
>> 
> 
> You seem to be skewered MM!
> 
I have absolutely no idea what you think you mean by that Dave.

-- 
“The timelines and … canon … are rupturing” - the Doctor