Doctor Who: Grand Theft TARDIS

[Werthead]

That's annoying. I'd have thought all Commonwealth countries at least would be able to get hold of these (given that some missing episdoes have been tracked down by following paper trails through New Zealand and Australia to other places like Hong Kong).

Philip Morris, whose company found these episodes, just posted a Facebook message saying there may be more news to come, which sounds hopeful.

[polishgenius]

Ben Wheatley has been confirmed as the director of the first two episodes of Peter Capaldi's time on Doctor Who.

While I appreciate that the director obviously has far, far less input on a TV show than a film, I hope I'm not the only one who greets this with a 'hahahawhat'?

Should be atmospheric, mind you.

[dog-days]

Ben Wheatley has been confirmed as the director of the first two episodes of Peter Capaldi's time on Doctor Who.

While I appreciate that the director obviously has far, far less input on a TV show than a film, I hope I'm not the only one who greets this with a 'hahahawhat'?

Should be atmospheric, mind you.

I almost/sort of/ was on the verge of quite liking 'A Field in England', though mainly because of the blurb in the TV guide ("Civil War. Shrooms."). So "hahahawhat" indeed. :blink:

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I just watched "The Name Of The Doctor". I'm dieing to see the 50th anniversery special.

[Werthead]

Set pictures from An Adventure in Time and Space. They seem to have done a really good job with the casting, set design and costumes.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Watched The Tenth Planet last night, the missing 4th episode replaced with an animated version. Pretty good considering when it was made. Notable for the first ever Doctor regeneration. Though I don't remember the Cybermen invading in 1986...

[polishgenius]

Not bad, though still no actual footage... I'm wondering about the glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, if that means anything or they just thought it looks funky.

[felice]

I like the lack of footage; it's more fun to go in with no real idea what to expect.

[Werthead]

I'm wondering about the glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, if that means anything or they just thought it looks funky.

Might be a reference to the Eighth Doctor; the 1996 TV movie was set in San Francisco.

What is interesting is that the Eighth himself does not seem to be in the trailer:

This may back up the fan speculation that Hurt

is the Eighth Doctor, and he simply lived a lot longer than all of his other incarnations bar only the First. I'm hoping that's not true - I'd love to see McGann back in the role at some point and the fact that the Eighth never regenerated on screen means that his appearance is not so much of an issue - but it would solve any potential numbering headaches.

[red snow]

It then gets a bit messy with semantics though. If Mcgann and Hurt were the same person then surely McGann wouldn't be the 8th Doctor? I can't recall if the Doctors refer to themselves as number 9 etc (it may be just us who number them?). It is a simple solution though and it's not like Who hasn't cheated before with these things. I do hope before the end of the special we see who Hurt regenerated from or into. Given the Jacket, you'd think he was before but has the Doctor kept items of clothing from one gen to the next before?

I was also wondering if Hartnell Doctor was supposed to have aged from birth to when we first saw him? If so, the Doctor has not had much luck with incarnations since then. Although isn't Smith Dr hundreds of years old now?

[williamjm]

It then gets a bit messy with semantics though. If Mcgann and Hurt were the same person then surely McGann wouldn't be the 8th Doctor? I can't recall if the Doctors refer to themselves as number 9 etc (it may be just us who number them?). It is a simple solution though and it's not like Who hasn't cheated before with these things.

I don't think we've ever seen the Doctor refer to numbering himself, although other characters in the show have sometimes hinted at it ("The Fall of the Eleventh", for example). Also, in the last episode Matt Smith's Doctor seemed to be trying to deny that John Hurt could claim the name of the Doctor so he could be argued to be outside the numbering system.

[The Marquis de Leech]

On Hurt, if one wanted to be a complete smart-arse, there's always the possibility that he's between Troughton and Pertwee - we never saw Troughton regenerate on-screen either.

[The Marquis de Leech]

I was also wondering if Hartnell Doctor was supposed to have aged from birth to when we first saw him?

That's one explanation for the Morbius Doctors: they're images of a younger First Doctor. On the other hand, the Morbius Doctor debate is a rabbit hole best avoided if anyone wants to keep their sanity.

[red snow]

I don't think we've ever seen the Doctor refer to numbering himself, although other characters in the show have sometimes hinted at it ("The Fall of the Eleventh", for example). Also, in the last episode Matt Smith's Doctor seemed to be trying to deny that John Hurt could claim the name of the Doctor so he could be argued to be outside the numbering system.

This was what I was thinking, He could be the "8th" incarnation or whatever of the Doctor but not the "8th Doctor" for the reason you just stated and Matt Smith in the episode in question.

On Hurt, if one wanted to be a complete smart-arse, there's always the possibility that he's between Troughton and Pertwee - we never saw Troughton regenerate on-screen either.

It's a long time since I read the books (which may have had details the tv show didn't have) but wasn't troughton forced into a regeneration? I guess if we didn't see him pop out as Pertwee it is possible though.

That's one explanation for the Morbius Doctors: they're images of a younger First Doctor. On the other hand, the Morbius Doctor debate is a rabbit hole best avoided if anyone wants to keep their sanity.

Yeah - it seems the makers off that episode opened up a huge can of worms with that one. I do like the idea that Hartnell maybe isn't the first incarnation. I guess Hurt could be the "original" in that sense as well, unless some other episode has established Hartnell is the first. Damn semantics again.

[protar]

Might be a reference to the Eighth Doctor; the 1996 TV movie was set in San Francisco.

What is interesting is that the Eighth himself does not seem to be in the trailer:

This may back up the fan speculation that Hurt

is the Eighth Doctor, and he simply lived a lot longer than all of his other incarnations bar only the First. I'm hoping that's not true - I'd love to see McGann back in the role at some point and the fact that the Eighth never regenerated on screen means that his appearance is not so much of an issue - but it would solve any potential numbering headaches.

By 8th doctor you mean Mcgann right, and not Hurt? I think I spotted him at 0:39 seconds in. It's kind of blurry, but I'm pretty sure that's him.

ETA: He's just behind the Ood.

[Werthead]

Tell a lie, you can just catch a glimpse of the Eighth on the far left hand side of the screen as it pans up.

It then gets a bit messy with semantics though. If Mcgann and Hurt were the same person then surely McGann wouldn't be the 8th Doctor?

If that was the case, McGann and Hurt would both be the Eighth Doctor, just as William Hartnell and Richard Hurndall both played the First Doctor. It does remove the numbering issue which results from Hurt being the "Ninth incarnation of the being normally known as the Doctor but not in this case, but it still counts towards the regeneration limit but not for casual usage, or something."

I can't recall if the Doctors refer to themselves as number 9 etc

Yes. They sometimes refer to themselves as the 'fourth regeneration' (for the Fifth Doctor) or whatever.

Given the Jacket, you'd think he was before but has the Doctor kept items of clothing from one gen to the next before?

Only for the immediate aftermath of the regeneration. They get a new wardrobe pretty quickly. It's been theorised that each new Doctor (having effectively just been born) is not keen to dwell on their mortality and throws away their old clothes and embraces new ones as a symbol of that.

I was also wondering if Hartnell Doctor was supposed to have aged from birth to when we first saw him? If so, the Doctor has not had much luck with incarnations since then. Although isn't Smith Dr hundreds of years old now?

[Whonerdism]

Yes, the First Doctor aged from a child to his appearance at the end of The Tenth Planet, so there is scope within a single incarnation for that incarnation to age, albeit at a much slower rate than humans. The Name of the Doctor - controversially - suggested that the First Doctor stole the TARDIS with Susan and both closely resembled their appearance in An Unearthly Child (the very first episode), suggesting it wasn't too much earlier. Remembrance of the Daleks backs this up by suggesting that the Doctor stole the Hand of Omega from Gallifrey specifically to take it to Earth in 1963 and hide it there, which suggests that not very much time passed at all.

This of course causes problems because the Doctor later said, when about 750 years old, that he had been travelling in the TARDIS for 520 years, indicating he stole the TARDIS when he was around 230 years old. Given that the Second Doctor claimed to be 450 about one season after his regeneration (with a continuous stream of stories not leaving much time for extra time to be inserted between adventures), that apparently means we have to insert over 200 years into the First Doctor's adventures somewhere (the lack of Susan not visibly aging creates additional problems with this). Some of the novelizations and comics say that the First Doctor lived for over 700 years before regenerating and dismiss pretty much all of the Second Doctor's claims (the Second Doctor claimed at various times he was thousands of years old and that the Time Lords were immortal, both contradicting other references). Another reference book suggested that the First Doctor lived for 700 years, died, and 'de-aged' to 450 through his regeneration, effectively claiming that a Time Lord's first life (and possibly a non-Time Lord Gallifreyan's natural lifespan, which gives us clues to Susan's lifespan) was 700 but would gain roughly 250-300 years per additional regeneration. This theory has very little traction amongst fans, however.

A later novel said that Time Lords could live a natural lifespan of about 10,000 years. Assuming each incarnation could live for a similar amount of time, that indicates a natural Time Lord lifespan was roughly 770 years per incarnation. However, the novels are of doubtful canon status.

Going by the TV show and the TV show alone, the Doctor appeared to be 450 by Season 5 (Tomb of the Cybermen), 760 by the end of Season 16 (The Power of Kroll), 900 by Season 22 (Revelation of the Daleks) and 953 by the start of Season 24 (Time and the Rani). In the Eighth Doctor spin-off novels he aged up to about 1,125 years old. This figure, oddly, was respected when the new series returned: the Ninth Doctor says several times that he's been travelling in the TARDIS for over 900 years (900+200=1,100-odd).

This nice progression was ballsed up by Voyage of the Damned, in which the Tenth Doctor claimed to be 903; it appears that Russel T. Davies had gotten 'travelled in the TARDIS' and 'the Doctor's age' mixed up. In The End of Time the Tenth says he his 906 just before regeneration; in The Eleventh Hour the Doctor says he is 907. In The Impossible Astronaut he is 909. Abruptly - possibly someone told Moffat about the mistaken - the Doctor starts giving his age as over a thousand (Night Terrors). However, in The Wedding of River Song he then says he is 1,103, just after his 200-year 'farewell tour', suggesting that Moffat had decided to say screw it and return to the 900 figure. It then looks like he said screw it again and stopped being specific at all: the Doctor says he is 1,200 in A Town Called Mercy and 1,000 in The Bells of Saint John.

Taking the RTD/Moffat refernces as all mistakes stemming from the same source, the Doctor would appear to now be about 1,300 years old. The confusion can be helpfully resolved by various other factors: the First Doctor was aged by several hundred years in The Daleks' Masterplan by the Time Destructor (a similar effect on his human companion Sara Kingdom killed her outright). The 300-year discrepency between the Second and Fourth Doctors' ages may be the result of the Doctor deciding to use his physical age rather than his chronological age at some intervening point. There are various points which you can insert additional adventures (the comic strips rely on this, making the Sixth Doctor's tenure much longer than it appeared on screen for example) though fans seem divided if you can do so convincingly to fill up the stretches of time.

[/Whonerdism]

[Werthead]

It's a long time since I read the books (which may have had details the tv show didn't have) but wasn't troughton forced into a regeneration? I guess if we didn't see him pop out as Pertwee it is possible though.

He was forced to regenerate. However, we only saw him on Gallifrey apparently beginning to regenerate in The War Games and then Pertwee fall out of the TARDIS in Spearhead in Space. The comics - which had to fill in the six-month gap between the two and with no actor cast yet to play the Third Doctor - came up with the solution of saying that the Second Doctor's regeneration was 'officially' carried out, but unofficially was halted. The Time Lords then sent the Doctor to Earth to act as their deniable agent in investigating several unusual events there.

This results in the popular 'Season 6B' theory, that the Second Doctor had potentially years of adventures before his regeneration was completed, with the Time Lord sentence delayed whilst he was working for them. In this time period, the books and comics suggest that he was allowed to re-recruit Jamie as his companion. This theory is officially backed up by the Second Doctor's appearance in The Five Doctors, in which he specifically expresses knowledge of the ending of The War Games which is impossible if he regenerated immediately afterwards. The Two Doctors also has Jaime having knowledge of the Time Lords and looking about 16 years older than the end of The War Games, which adds credence to the theory.

The 'Season 6B' theory got additional support when Terrance Dicks, a former script editor on the series and co-writer of The War Games, gave it his blessing and wrote a novel set during it. Since it was also created by someone who wrote for the TV series (Paul Cornell), it is generally regarded as one of the few pieces of Doctor Who fanwank to actually pretty much be canon.

Yeah - it seems the makers off that episode opened up a huge can of worms with that one. I do like the idea that Hartnell maybe isn't the first incarnation. I guess Hurt could be the "original" in that sense as well, unless some other episode has established Hartnell is the first. Damn semantics again.

The Brain of Morbius is actually easily explained: the images were Morbius's earlier incarnations, not the Doctor's. Philip Hinchcliffe (the producer of the story) did say he intended the images to be pre-Hartnell incarnations of the Doctor, but nothing is said to this effect on screen so it does not count (Doctor Who has no official 'word of God' policy, since it has never had any one showrunner or creator able to make definitive statements of canon). Since the First Doctor is the First, confirmed by The Five Doctors, The Eleventh Hour, Family of Blood and Nightmare in Silver, that means the images on the screen were either Morbius's earlier regenerations or his machine screwing up ;)

[red snow]

Wert, you are a fountain of knowledge :)

The 6B stuff is interesting. I like the idea of Jamie carrying on his adventures and remembering. I thought the fact he forgot it all was one of the saddest moments in Who history - more than death really. Oddly I didn't care when Catherine Tate's character had the same fate.

Is there much on the Doctor pre-TARDIS stealing?

[Werthead]

Is there much on the Doctor pre-TARDIS stealing?

A little. He and the Master were friends and class-mates, he attended the Prydonian chapter of the Time Lord Academy on Gallifrey (famed for its deviousness) and he also knew the Rani when he was younger, who was the same age as him. The Doctor had biological parents (the novels suggested that the Time Lords were genetically created out of 'looms', but the TV series has firmly rejected this) and lived in a house on the side of a mountain. A hermit lived nearby, later revealed to be the Time Lord K'anpo. The Doctor allegedly stole the TARDIS because he was bored, but Remembrance of the Daleks hints that he stole the TARDIS to transport the extremely dangerous Hand of Omega stellar manipulation device (i.e. it can blow up stars) into hiding on Earth. There are indications that the Doctor was directed to do so by the Time Lords' Celestial Intervention Agency and his 'on the run' status was actually a cover (this strengthens the Season 6B theory) for deniability.

The Doctor had children - mentioned several times in the new series - and obviously a granddaughter, Susan. It's possible Susan had children of her own after leaving the Doctor, so he may have descendants on 22nd/23rd Century Earth, where she was left.

[The Marquis de Leech]

The Brain of Morbius is actually easily explained: the images were Morbius's earlier incarnations, not the Doctor's.

That's the normal explanation - except that Morbius is clearly winning the game at that point, so going simply by what is shown in the episode (rather than by the subsequent ret-con), those should be images of the Doctor, not Morbius.