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Doctor Who: Time Of The Doctor |OT| 11's hour is over now... The clock is striking 12

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Ah, yes, I thought the Valeyard was created after Smith, not before him. It's been ages since I saw Trial, so I don't remember all of it (I don't think I ever really understood all of it).

Oh well, Big Finish is probably a better home for the Valeyard than the TV show. He's the only enemy that feels really iconic for the 6th Doctor, so it'll probably be more fun to have them pitched against each other.

I still don't like the idea of metacrisis Tennant counting as an actual regeneration though, but mostly because I thought that story was incredibly stupid. It makes sense to count him, I guess, and it doesn't really matter in the end, so I guess I should act my age and ignore it. Oh well.

According to my extensive ten minute research (This period between Christmas and New Year is really boring) there are three different 'origins' to the Valeyard:
1) He was created due to the 13th Doctor trying to break his 12 regeneration limit (According to Big Finish's Trial of the Valeyard)
2) He's somewhere between Doctors 12 and 13 (According to Trial of a Time Lord)
3) He's Doctor 12 (According to the novelisation of Trial of a Time Lord)

If we apply that to what we know now he's either Post-Handy-Doctor Tennant, Smith, or between the two. I'm sure you could link that to the Dream Lord somehow since he's kinda created by what we now know is the 13th Doctor but...meh.

And no, you should never act your age. Otherwise you'd probably start hating Doctor Who.
 
Is the Valeyard supposed to be an incarnation that springs up between 12 and 13, or just 12 and the final incarnation? Because the Doctor's final incarnation now is much further down the road.
 
Just reading all this Valeyard-related discussions, and something hits me. It is the fact that so many people simply overlook the "time is not strictly linear as you imagine it, but instead a ...timey-wimey..stuff."

You know, for all it is worth, things (variables if you like) got changed so much that it is quite easily possible for the doctor to be in a timeline (his own one) where he does not become "The Valeyard", or he does not spit out an incarnation like that.

A very basic thought experiment with all multiverse theories include something similar (granted that we are talking about a show where timetravel is an actual, accepted part of reality, not just some pipe dream only the cool kids of string theory dream about - jokin, jokin...).

Imagine looking at what you are now, and imagine if you were able to see what you become. Just seeing it - by all known rules of our current reality - would change the way you think about yourself, about the world, it would literally change you. It might even change you so much that you completely steer off from that timeline and never become the person you saw as your "future self" (or in this case, future regenerations).

Imagine how much darker everything could have been if Rose were not there, if she did not peak into the Vortex, and all the subsequent ifs. I like to think "dark timelines" as simlpy stuff that has been put past the current doctor.
 
Is the Valeyard supposed to be an incarnation that springs up between 12 and 13, or just 12 and the final incarnation? Because the Doctor's final incarnation now is much further down the road.

Or it could be that
Capaldi's Doctor IS the Valeyard

Yeah, doubtful that it will happen.
 
The only reason I was hoping for the Valeyard to come back (Trial of the a Time Lord isn't really that good) was because it's one of the few storylines from Classic Who that make sense to revisit, especially because they were foreshadowing the period we're in now. There are actually surprisingly few plot points that hint at a larger mythology during the first 8 Doctors. They're mostly self-contained stories. The only real mysteries are the Valeyard, what the Doctor's exact relationship with Susan is and what happened to her after Dalek Invasion of Earth, the Doctor's life before An Unearthly Child (which should never be explained in too much detail), the fact that he had a human mother (as stated in the tv movie), and the collection of faces of unknown future Doctors as shown in Brain of Morbius.

I still think the Valeyard would make an interesting enemy for Capaldi, especially now that he was mentioned by the Great Intelligence in Name of the Doctor. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
 
as nice as it'd be for capaldi to be a somewhat venomous doctor, i don't think that'll be the case

besides somewhat obvious typecasting, there's not a tremendous amount of justification for it right now
 
as nice as it'd be for capaldi to be a somewhat venomous doctor, i don't think that'll be the case

besides somewhat obvious typecasting, there's not a tremendous amount of justification for it right now

I don't know. I can see him having the more intense attitude like past doctors (Hartnell, Baker 1, Eccleston).
 
Couldn't it be possible that during Matt Smith's regeneration another Doctor spawned off of him and maybe right now is off somewhere cold and alone filled with anger? We pan up the camera and we see that the face of the Valeyard is...also Capaldi. Boom, Capaldi vs. Capaldi for Series 8. You're fuckity welcome.
 
Now that his regeneration cycle has been extended, and it's the final incarnation before he dies, doesn't that mean it's still upcoming in the far future?

edit: also, just remembered this quote in 'The Name of The Doctor', which might back this up...

“He will have other names before the end. The storm. The beast. The valeyard.”
 
Now that his regeneration cycle has been extended, and it's the final incarnation before he dies, doesn't that mean it's still upcoming in the far future?

edit: also, just remembered this quote in 'The Name of The Doctor', which might back this up...

Possibly, yeah. Won't know for sure until...well, we see the Valeyard or Moffat comments.
 
Possibly, yeah. Won't know for sure until...well, we see the Valeyard or Moffat comments.

I have to admit, as much as I want to see a Capaldi Doctor, I think part of me would prefer to see a Smith vs Capaldi Valeyard face off.

I was kinda hoping to get this from Hurt but was epically disappointed that he turned out to be an all round nice guy.
 
Possibly, yeah. Won't know for sure until...well, we see the Valeyard or Moffat comments.

Moffat has commented on that line - he said he "threw it in for a laugh" and said he "never truly understood" what the Valeyard was in the old series but thought it was "cool in concept." It doesn't sound like something he's going to actually use, really.
 
Moffat has commented on that line - he said he "threw it in for a laugh" and said he "never truly understood" what the Valeyard was in the old series but thought it was "cool in concept." It doesn't sound like something he's going to actually use, really.

Moffat never truly understanding something and thinking it's cool in concept sounds an awful lot like most of his time with Dr Who.
 
I have to admit, as much as I want to see a Capaldi Doctor, I think part of me would prefer to see a Smith vs Capaldi Valeyard face off.

I was kinda hoping to get this from Hurt but was epically disappointed that he turned out to be an all round nice guy.

Bringing Smith back I feel would only sour his ending as the Doctor.

Moffat has commented on that line - he said he "threw it in for a laugh" and said he "never truly understood" what the Valeyard was in the old series but thought it was "cool in concept." It doesn't sound like something he's going to actually use, really.

Didn't he also say before that he thought the hard and fast rule of only 12 regenerations was rubbish too? If so, among other quotes by him, its hard to take them as truth unless he outrights states he will not use a concept. Unless it was RTD who said that, considering his little joke about 502 regens.
 
Didn't he also say before that he thought the hard and fast rule of only 12 regenerations was rubbish too?

I'm not sure if you noticed, but he put the token amount of effort necessary to address that and move past it as quickly as possible to stop people going on about it. Him thinking it was shit fits perfectly with how it was dealt with in Time of the Doctor.
 
I know it's impossible to read anything about Capaldi's Doctor from the few seconds we got of him before the end, but the vibe I got was very similar to the vibe I first got off of Tennant's doctor. He struck me as a completely wild, unpredictable madman. And I loved it.
 
Bringing Smith back I feel would only sour his ending as the Doctor.

Didn't he also say before that he thought the hard and fast rule of only 12 regenerations was rubbish too? If so, among other quotes by him, its hard to take them as truth unless he outrights states he will not use a concept. Unless it was RTD who said that, considering his little joke about 502 regens.

They've both said they thought the rule itself was crap, with RTD saying that if it was up to him he'd ignore it or handwave it, but said by then it'd be somebody else's problem. RTD's tabled theory was simple: the limit wasn't a genetic/natural thing, but an artificial one imposed by the Time Lords, like a speed limit (probably ingrained into the Eye of Harmony) to prevent immortality, because immortality led to corruption. When he was running the show he suggested that either a) with no Time Lords left there'd be nobody to police the 'speed limit' or b) In the later days of the war they removed the limit entirely to ensure they had as many soldiers as possible, and they're no longer around to reinstate it.

Moffat was always somebody who maintained you had to fix it on screen because it was so ingrained in the public consciousness in Britain. It's a weird thing, but I was born the year the show went off air and prior to 2005 there were certain things I knew - I knew what the TARDIS was and looked like, I knew that the Doctor was a Time Lord, I knew what a Dalek was and that they shouted Exterminate, and I knew that the Doctor had 13 lives. It's weird how that concept, only mentioned twice I think on screen, took on a life of its own.

It comes back to that quote I posted a page ago where I compared the two, where RTD said for the sake of a good story he'd trample over or rewrite almost any piece of old Doctor Who lore if it'd make the show good and help him tell the story he wanted, while Moffat described himself as being "clinically unable" (or something like that) to contradict old Who lore because he's too much of a stickler for it.
 
Moffat has commented on that line - he said he "threw it in for a laugh" and said he "never truly understood" what the Valeyard was in the old series but thought it was "cool in concept." It doesn't sound like something he's going to actually use, really.

This is kind of his shtick though, isn't it? Things he says he doesn't like or understand about old Who, but recognizes that they're important to other people, and either out of that respect or his own ego (or both) ends up addressing them.

Not just the 12 regenerations, but the Time Lords themselves - something that Moffat himself has said he doesn't like, yet not only went out of his way to bring them back, but made them central to both the 50th and Matt's regeneration. I don't think Moffat will end up bringing back the Valeyard, but I also don't think his saying "I don't like/get this" has ever been reason enough for him to NOT write about it.
 
It's weird how that concept, only mentioned twice I think on screen, took on a life of its own.

I think it's so well known because it is so well known that Doctor Who has had multiple Doctors. Anyone who finds out this piece of info immediately thinks: "So he can keep doing this forever?" or "So he's immortal then?" and the 13 lives thing always pops up.
 
Just rewatched

The regeneration scene really got to me this time

;_;

[edit] 11 is my fave doctor, for sure. I think he was probably my favourite by the end of 11th hour. Poking his head out of the TARDIS at the beginning,

'Am I people? Do I even look like people?'

I'm gonna miss him a buuuunch.
 
This is kind of his shtick though, isn't it? Things he says he doesn't like or understand about old Who, but recognizes that they're important to other people, and either out of that respect or his own ego (or both) ends up addressing them.

Not just the 12 regenerations, but the Time Lords themselves - something that Moffat himself has said he doesn't like, yet not only went out of his way to bring them back, but made them central to both the 50th and Matt's regeneration. I don't think Moffat will end up bringing back the Valeyard, but I also don't think his saying "I don't like/get this" has ever been reason enough for him to NOT write about it.

Are they back, though? Like, I have a sneaking suspicion Moffat has done what he wanted to do with that. He retconned the genocide, which he didn't like, and he got around the regeneration limit. I have a sneaking suspicion he'll leave them in that other universe (except perhaps for The Master slipping through the crack or whatever) for somebody else to pick up if they want to now. We know they're not dead, but I still think we won't see Gallifrey/more Time Lords proper under Moffat.
 
if we take into account Eccleston originally intended for the 50th over the War Doctor and the various references to regeneration in Smith's run (Let's Kill Hitler, Impossible Astronaut, Angels Take Manhattan).

That's one thing that stops me from completely loving the 50th. As charming as Hurt was, his performance was completely not appropriate for the character he was supposed to represent: The doctor who literally committed suicide to become a warrior who fought for who knows how long during the Time War before he declared No More!.

Take the entire script and all of the scenes you remember from the 50th and insert the angry Eccleston from the beginning of the 9th in place of Hurt and you'd have one epic special.
 
If you think RTD's run was somehow head and shoulders above Moffat's, you are remembering RTD's run incorrectly.
I didn't say head and shoulders, but better highs for sure. I love Smith's Doctor, but that's in spite of what Moffat has churned out for him.
 
They've both said they thought the rule itself was crap, with RTD saying that if it was up to him he'd ignore it or handwave it, but said by then it'd be somebody else's problem. RTD's tabled theory was simple: the limit wasn't a genetic/natural thing, but an artificial one imposed by the Time Lords, like a speed limit (probably ingrained into the Eye of Harmony) to prevent immortality, because immortality led to corruption. When he was running the show he suggested that either a) with no Time Lords left there'd be nobody to police the 'speed limit' or b) In the later days of the war they removed the limit entirely to ensure they had as many soldiers as possible, and they're no longer around to reinstate it.

Moffat was always somebody who maintained you had to fix it on screen because it was so ingrained in the public consciousness in Britain. It's a weird thing, but I was born the year the show went off air and prior to 2005 there were certain things I knew - I knew what the TARDIS was and looked like, I knew that the Doctor was a Time Lord, I knew what a Dalek was and that they shouted Exterminate, and I knew that the Doctor had 13 lives. It's weird how that concept, only mentioned twice I think on screen, took on a life of its own.

It comes back to that quote I posted a page ago where I compared the two, where RTD said for the sake of a good story he'd trample over or rewrite almost any piece of old Doctor Who lore if it'd make the show good and help him tell the story he wanted, while Moffat described himself as being "clinically unable" (or something like that) to contradict old Who lore because he's too much of a stickler for it.

Ah I see, and the Valeyard isn't as ingrained into the British public as the whole 12 regenerations thing. Still, I think its far too tempting for Moffat not to touch on during his tenure since the Valeyard is ingrained at least into the Who fanbase. I just think that someone like Capaldi would be perfect against a focused humanish arch enemy, whether it be the Master or the Valeyard, which is something Matt Smith didn't really have the pleasure of having outside of maybe Madam Kovarian who was a bit shite.
 
Let's talk more classic Who

The Rescue

This comes immediately after the Dalek Invasion of Earth, and is only a two-part serial, so it's one of the rare classic Who stories that is about the same length as a modern adventure.

The Tardis materializes inside a cave, on a planet where there is a crashed Earth spaceship, cracked in half. There are two survivors, an injured man named Bennett and a teenage girl named Vicki. As the Doctor just said a final goodbye to his daughter in a previous episode, you can guess where this is going.

In any case, Vicki and Bennett are waiting for a rescue ship, while trying not to draw the ire of an alien called Koquillion, who comes upon the Tardis crew and throws Barbara off a cliff (though apparently she didn't fall very far) before collapsing the cave entrance, trapping the Doctor and Ian inside. The rest of the show is basically the Doctor and Ian going to find Barbara, who has been taken in by Vicki, while trying to figure out why the previously peaceful aliens the Doctor had previously met on the planet had become hostile.

It's a fairly standard story, with a couple of good moments from the Doctor and a moment of surprising dumbassery from Barbara. The villain in this one is pretty evil, as it turns out
Bennett IS Koqullion, wearing ceremonial alien garb that makes him look like a scary creature of some sort. He was on board the ship, and had murdered someone on the crew. When the ship crash-landed on the planet, he rigged an explosive and killed all of the crew and the entire (small) alien population of the planet. Vicki was younger and sick at the time, so she had no idea Bennett murdered her father and everyone else. Boy, classic Who sure did like its genocide, didn't it?

You know! For kids!

Anyway, Vicki joins as a new companion at the end of this episode. She seems alright I guess.
 
So did the show basically retcon the Doctor's final death/grave at Trenzalore within 3 episodes? Or is he going to end up caught in an even bigger battle there sometime in his future? Or was that maybe already changed within the Name of the Doctor episode by what Clara did? What's the general consensus?
 
Are they back, though? Like, I have a sneaking suspicion Moffat has done what he wanted to do with that. He retconned the genocide, which he didn't like, and he got around the regeneration limit. I have a sneaking suspicion he'll leave them in that other universe (except perhaps for The Master slipping through the crack or whatever) for somebody else to pick up if they want to now. We know they're not dead, but I still think we won't see Gallifrey/more Time Lords proper under Moffat.

I definitely hope that after all the 'we need another major theme that will last the next 50 years' he's not going to bring Gallifrey back in the next season finale. I kind of trust that of all the 'big secrets' he's set up he can at least resist solving that one a year after introducing it.

So did the show basically retcon the Doctor's final death/grave at Trenzalore within 3 episodes? Or is he going to end up caught in an even bigger battle there sometime in his future? Or was that maybe already changed within the Name of the Doctor episode by what Clara did? What's the general consensus?

Seems like a retcon to me. But wasn't (part of) the point of the cracks that they could change the future? 'Time can be rewritten' and all that.
 
So did the show basically retcon the Doctor's final death/grave at Trenzalore within 3 episodes? Or is he going to end up caught in an even bigger battle there sometime in his future? Or was that maybe already changed within the Name of the Doctor episode by what Clara did? What's the general consensus?

Nope, the Time Lords helped the Doctor rewrite that point in time and so the giant graveyard never existed, but the experiences and stuff done there in the Name of the Doctor remains in effect, which means Clara still went through the Doctor's timestream and whatnot.
 
It's only a mystery because people couldn't deal with the idea that the hero had had, GASP!, ~sex~
well depending on what parts of the canon you subscribe to, there may not have been any sex involved at all, and the doctor's family were born from the nightmarish looms instead like the doctor himself
 
That's one thing that stops me from completely loving the 50th. As charming as Hurt was, his performance was completely not appropriate for the character he was supposed to represent: The doctor who literally committed suicide to become a warrior who fought for who knows how long during the Time War before he declared No More!.

Take the entire script and all of the scenes you remember from the 50th and insert the angry Eccleston from the beginning of the 9th in place of Hurt and you'd have one epic special.

Why would that make any difference? It's not like the script was calling for an angry doctor and Hurt decided to ignore it and do his own thing.
 
Moffat has commented on that line - he said he "threw it in for a laugh" and said he "never truly understood" what the Valeyard was in the old series but thought it was "cool in concept." It doesn't sound like something he's going to actually use, really.

Yeah, because Moffat always tells the truth.

I know it's impossible to read anything about Capaldi's Doctor from the few seconds we got of him before the end, but the vibe I got was very similar to the vibe I first got off of Tennant's doctor. He struck me as a completely wild, unpredictable madman. And I loved it.

Aren't new regenerations generally pretty reflective of their previous incarnation for a bit until they settle down? Tennant certainly began to chill out.
 
So I believe we're all of the assumption that
Tasha is a regeneration of River Song?

Not all of us. I don't think so. It might just be that
Moffat got lazy and started writing his female characters all the same. There's too many inconsistencies for her to be River regenerated. Especially since it would have to be before the River Song we know since she can't regenerate anymore. And she's dead. Kind of.
 
I dont follow that myself. I'm with Mariolee on this one.

tumblr_mcs19vuMGn1qh8ujs.gif
 
....whoa what?
wiki it, it's one of the most interesting and disgusting parts of doctor who lore

from what i remember the timelords were made infertile due to reasons i forget, so they devised a machine called the loom that would take genetic material and create a timelord within it, there's quite a gruesome description in one of the seventh doctor novels i think where the doctor recounts being entirely conscious while being loomed, literally slowly being 'built' from genetic material
 
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