TIMELESS CHILD VS REGENERATION

TIMELESS CHILD PLOT VS 12 STOP REGENERATION.

WHICH DO YOU PREFER?

Nobody ever expected Dr Who to have lasted this long. And there’s no reason why it won’t be running for another twenty or forty years. 

Imagine by 2063, Dr Who will have run (on and off, more or less) for one hundred years ! Think about that. No, seriously. Sit down and actually consider Dr Who might actually out-live you. Take all the time you need. 

Because by 2063, there will be very few people still alive who might even remember watching that first grainy black and white transmission of Dr Who, way back in 1963 if at all. And the people who made the show in the first place will all be long dead.

Its initial run was only to be a few episodes, a small season at best, shoved in between the 6’Oclock News and Juke Box Jury. But show producer Verity Lambert inadvertently created a tv series that is as Timeless as its central character, The Doctor.

But there’s the rub. The growing controversy regarding that sticky issue of regeneration. After all, Dr Who was only supposed to regenerate twelve times right?

But wait, hang on a moment, he/she/ they must well be into their fourteen or fifteenth regeneration !! 

And then there was that notable continuity issue in The Brain of Morbius, where it was suggested eight other unknown Dr Who’s were floating about !

To be honest, I think I’ve lost count. But fear not. It’s only a tv show. 

So let’s put things back into perspective for a bit folks before someone spills milk on the carpet or over-jams the scones.

12 STOP REGENERATION

So what is all this flaff about regeneration anyway?

Well, by 1967 William Hartnell (the original Dr Who) was getting too old to play the Doctor. The show reached a crossroads. Should the BBC have stopped it then? Should they have shrugged and thought: oh well, fair enough, let’s call it a day and move onto something else?

Well, no they didn’t. Because by then Dr Who was bigger than just one man. It had become a British Icon, a worldwide sensation, the Flagship of the BBC.

And still is. So the idea that he could regenerate 12 times was really just a provisional plot device to keep Dr Who going for at least another twenty odd years, occasionally replacing the central character much like James Bond. Not much thought beyond that really.

As a result, Dr Who reached its natural end back in 1988, and everyone thought that was the end of the story. 

Until that is new TV producer Russell T Davis relaunched it in 2004, continuing on from where the original show left off.

But now its lived for another twenty odd years, the 12 year regeneration cycle idea has become problematic. Mainly because nobody expected the show to survive well into the 21st Century, let alone past William Hartnell and we’re now way past twelve regenerations.

I mean its sixty two years old and counting.

TIMELESS CHILD

So enter the timeless child plot-line. Where by a mortal space explorer/ scientist happens upon a child that can regenerate, holding the key to immortality. Thus she extracts DNA from her and the first Time-lords are born.

This plot-line is a small stroke of genius. It ticked all the boxes and answered all the tricky questions about regeneration, well most of them anyway. 

It heavily suggested that the character of the Doctor was treated like a highly valued prisoner (possibly like in The Truman Show), that the Time Lords leached DNA off. 

It explained why the Doctor stole a time machine and escaped Gallifrey in the first place. 

Meanwhile the Time-lords continued their efforts to sustain immortality but faulted because they couldn’t quite crack the Timeless child's DNA codes and duplicate them perfectly and thus make regeneration work beyond twelve times. 

HUMAN BIOLOGY vs TIME LORD.  

Lets go back to basics. The human body regenerates every seven years. It’s true. Our cells duplicate and replace themselves throughout our entire system. But the price of this is the ageing process.

Now imagine you’re a time lord and you can regenerate 12 times. That means you could potentially live up to around one thousand two hundred years. But the price of such is essentially the same problem humans face with the seven year cycle. Things wear out. Things age.

It would also explain why the Doctors nemesis, (the Moriarty like Master), looked so hideous by the time of The Deadly Assassin and The Keeper of Traken and why the Doctor seems to regenerate without error.

But hang on, Rassilon was immortal, wasn’t he? Well actually no, he just had his mind uploaded to Galifreys central computer hub, known collectively as the Matrix databank. Or so we're told. 

THE LOST STORY

Thus from a plot stand point, the 12 year regeneration idea isn’t sustainable. But if your character is essentially immortal and changes his appearance every so often, then that’ll suit the Vicar nicely my dear. 

But with this ability comes jealousy from everyone else. Mainly the Time-lords themselves. Ultimately the Time-lords needed the Doctor back for further study. 

But this begs the question: Why didn't they just kidnap the Doctor and be done with it long ago? Because that would contravene the established plot lines of previous Dr Who stories. 

Perhaps this is why there is so much debate about this issue. Because we've never seen that episode, whereby Dr Who is kidnapped by the followers of Rassilon or whatever and chained to a operating table and experimented on. 

Of course he would have to be rescued the bad guys are foiled. But all in all, if such an episode existed, it might go a long way to settling the debate once and for all.  

CONCLUSION

Anyway, there are armies on both sides regarding the shows direction. I for one don’t really care, so long as the good Doctor does battle with the occasional Dalek or Cyberman or two. 

And thus if a timey-wimey immortal child plot-line allows him/her/ they to do so, then brave heart, Tegan.