Whooboy, if you thought the fanboy bigots frothed over Jodie Whittaker...

[Bob Schroeck]

...and her female Doctor, wait until they get a look at the first black female Doctor.

Jo Martin will be playing a "forgotten", interstitial incarnation of the Doctor, much like John Hurt's "War Doctor". Interestingly, neither she nor #13 recognize each other as known incarnations, so it's currently a mystery where she fits in the cycle of regenerations.

[classicdrogn]

Some will, some will wait and see if it's more of the Mouse Wars/Captain Marvel/etc plot hammer politics, some will immediately denounce anyone who doesn't sing loud enough praises for whatever reason. As long as she's The Doctor who happens to be black and female she'll have me onboard.

[Labster]

I'm fine with whatever they want to do as long as the stories are good.  That said, I feel like this season they've been more interested in being SJWs than writing good stories.  You can do both, you know?  I like SJW stuff!  Last season was fine, and had Alan Cumming playing King James deliciously.  But this season, I get monster plot after monster plot.  A reskinned teen zombie movie, followed by the Doctor dropping the moral anvil on climate change.

Do we all remember "Gridlock" back in series 3.  Comic bits against a background of existential horror?  The end of the mysterious cracks in the universe, and the power of love across dimensions in "The Big Bang" in series 5?  The premise of Doctor Who allows essentially any story to happen.  Why is every episode now yet another monster movie? </rant>

[Star Ranger4]

have to agree with Labster here. As long as the story is good, the person playing the part is secondary.

[robkelk]

But this season, I get monster plot after monster plot.

Isn't that what killed Space:1999?

[Star Ranger4]

But this season, I get monster plot after monster plot.

Isn't that what killed Space:1999?

 
but it is also what Sailor Moon and many Anime throve on.

[Matrix Dragon]

The screaming online is already throthing at the mouth. Personally, I liked the ep, this Doctor is interesting, the reveal was fantastic, given they managed to keep it hidden...

Oh, and Captain Jack Harkness is back too!

[classicdrogn]

Perhaps they're finally going to present some kind of explanation for how the Doctor is on about number fifteen of a supposed twelve regenerations...

[Star Ranger4]

Kind of thought that was covered in one of the christmas specials. SHort form, the Doctor gets fed up and puts down roots on the... I want to say the planet he is supposed to die on based on the episodes up to that point in the season before. WHile his companion (The one before Clara, the impossible girl I do believe) keeps dashing back and forth between her own christmas and the Doctor, he keeps getting older and older and still fighing off all the various forces who would like vengance. Until, at the climax, when there is sort of a crack that might let Gallafrey return, the Doctor keeps it safe and is rewarded with at least another dozen regenerations. And let us not forget that River Song gave him all of her remaining ones not long after meeting him for the first time (in her temporal line)

[classicdrogn]

Must be one of the (admittedly many) ones I've missed even reading commentary about. Though after bringing it up I remember vague impressions of the limit of twelve being artificially imposed in the first place, and The Master plotting to take The Doctor's remaining regenerations was the basis of at least one multi-part episode IIRC.

[Star Ranger4]

Okay.  Google search gives this: https://youtu.be/4F84WapAH7M
Which is Matt Smith passing the torch to Peter Capaldi.  Apparently, I was wrong, as the companion in question IS Clara, the improbable woman.  Still, back tracking from there should give the desired data.  In the meantime I still have a scene where my fanfic self is going after Judge Claude Frollo to finish writing.

[Bob Schroeck]

... I seem to recall seeing at some point that the twelve-regeneration limit is social/legal, not biological. Am I mistaken?

[Matrix Dragon]

... I seem to recall seeing at some point that the twelve-regeneration limit is social/legal, not biological. Am I mistaken?

It was a bit of both, but plot events extended the limit for the Doctor after Eleven's era. Even she's not sure how many lives she has now.

[Norgarth]

Okay.  Google search gives this: https://youtu.be/4F84WapAH7M
Which is Matt Smith passing the torch to Peter Capaldi.  Apparently, I was wrong, as the companion in question IS Clara, the improbable woman.  Still, back tracking from there should give the desired data.  In the meantime I still have a scene where my fanfic self is going after Judge Claude Frollo to finish writing.

*nods* I recall thatin that special he stated that his current life (Matt Smith's) was his 13th/last life(the War Doctor, and an aborted regeneration using up the last 2 slots) Clara managed to talk to Galifrey, there was no verbal response but they did send energy which resulted in him being able to regenerate once more.

... I seem to recall seeing at some point that the twelve-regeneration limit is social/legal, not biological. Am I mistaken?

It was a bit of both, but plot events extended the limit for the Doctor after Eleven's era. Even she's not sure how many lives she has now.

This matches what I recall as well. The Doctor's regenerations may have been reset or the limit may have been removed entirely

[Dragonflight]

If I recall correctly, Rassilon invented the Regeneration process for his Time Lord project, back when he was experimenting with black holes and this wacky gauntlet with superpowers. (Huh. I wonder if that gauntlet had gemstones...)

Anyway, the regeneration process in its "natural" state is infinite. But Rassilon limited it to 12 kicks at the can, supposedly so that the Time Lords would not succumb to hubris and delusions of godhood. Considering how Rassilon's life turned out, that's actually masterfully ironic.

Matt Smith lecturing the Daleks about "the Rules," was also meant to be Davies taking the fanbase to task for telling him he couldn't regenerate the Doctor again because it violated "the Rules." The Doctor himself hints at what it would take right before he goes up to speak to the Daleks the last time, when he tells Clara that he could change his death, once up on a time, when there were Time Lords in the universe. They could do stuff like that. So when Clara speaks through the crack, she's telling them to rewrite the Doctor's demise, and give everyone a second chance. They listen, and do as she asks.

What hasn't been answered, obviously, is which version of the regeneration he got. He might have just gotten another 12. That's plenty for the ongoing future of the series. But they might also just leave that question unanswered so that if the show continues past another ten regenerations, they can just say the Doctor was given the unlimited version, and he'll be around as long as the show is popular.

[Labster]

I feel like the Dragonflight's post is desperately seeking a sense of continuity in a show that has very little outside the particular series you happen to be watching.

Not a criticism, continuity is irrelevant so long as I'm being entertained.  I mean, this season we changed "The Doctor is barred from going home" to "The Doctor's homeworld is in ashes".  And also "I'm Harriet Jones, MP, and I'm fighting aliens in Parliament" became "people don't really believe in aliens."  Okay, whatevs, but make the story interesting.

[classicdrogn]

Oh, the Whoniverse is full of discontinuities - I had a doorstopper of a book (in tiny print, and no pictures but on the cover) that counted them all up and gave summaries before the house fire, and that was only up to the 9th Doctor. It's really no more than you'd expect from a show that cared about this week's story first, the budget second, and arcs longer than a two-to-five-episode miniseries approximately never unless a previous regular was reappearing as a guest star.

[Matrix Dragon]

I feel like the Dragonflight's post is desperately seeking a sense of continuity in a show that has very little outside the particular series you happen to be watching.

Not a criticism, continuity is irrelevant so long as I'm being entertained.  I mean, this season we changed "The Doctor is barred from going home" to "The Doctor's homeworld is in ashes".  And also "I'm Harriet Jones, MP, and I'm fighting aliens in Parliament" became "people don't really believe in aliens."  Okay, whatevs, but make the story interesting.

Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey. The timeline in Doctor Who has always been a mess, and that was before parts of it got eaten

[Labster]

Finally got around to watching the episode in question, and it's easily the best writing this season. Rhinoceros Judge Dredd, check. Jack Harkness kissing random dudes, check. The Doctor coping with confusing continuities, double-check.

I'm fairly sure that black!Doctor the current Doctor's past because her TARDIS looks so modernist compared to the current crystal spires and steampunk version. It is pretty neat how the current TARDIS console has a convenient hat steamer built into it. But I much prefer the black version's fashion sense.

Sadly the preview for next week's episode looks like another monster movie.

[Star Ranger4]

Going to have to second Norgarth's viewpoint here, as it seems to mirror my own take on the whole thing

[classicdrogn]

Well, having watched the episode, I have to say that the new black Doctor feels more Doctor-ish than the current blonde Doctor. It's a good enough first impression to be cautiously optimistic, at least.

[Bob Schroeck]

I haven't seen it yet myself, but a couple articles I read explicitly compare her personality to that of the First Doctor.

[classicdrogn]

I know that if you set aside the blue-green "underwater" lighting, her TARDIS control room looks a lot more like the classic Doctors' tended to. Steampunk/magitech copper and crystal is okay and all, but it's a little busy and overgribbled by comparison I think.

[Labster]

So she was there at the beginning, but they wrote her out of the canon just because she was black? This is exactly what happened to Rufus the Apostle.

The only way I can reconcile the stylistic choices of steam-powered quartz cavern and rainbow T-shirt is that the current Doctor has no sense of fashion whatsoever.

[robkelk]

Has the Doctor ever had any sense of fashion?

(thinks for a moment)

well, maybe Pertwee's incarnation.