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Didn't notice he looked at the camera. Thought he was looking at Clara. Matt is amazing and I thought it was very classy for him to thank the fans.
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QUOTE=Exedore;8020902]Good point but it still wouldn't be exactly the same though. In the S6 plot, the Doctor's age and date/time of death was known. They knew that he would survive and live up until that point. What was being suggested above was a scenario where the Doctor had to face the reality that he was well and truly mortal while at the same time he had this mission of bringing Gallifrey back (but without starting the war all over again). There would be no specific date or time of death known. So every risk he takes, every danger he faces could result in certain death leaving his dream unfulfilled. He could die from a gunshot, poison or even just falling down a flight of stairs or something. He would really be facing the unknown. That could have been an interesting arc. [/QUOTE]
I can understand where these thoughts about making Capaldi "The Last Doctor" - the one who has run out of regenerations - but I don't think that, in the context of the stories, it heightens the drama or raises the stakes to any particular degree. First, the search for Gallifrey is not intended as merely the "Capaldi series arc" in the way that "The Silence" became for Matt Smith's Doctor. Steven Moffat wanted to give The Doctor a new reason for travelling that could sustain the show well into its next half-century. The Doctor had been running away from the Time Lords; then he was left as the apparent last survivor of the Time War; now he wants to find Gallifrey and return it to this universe. However, The Doctor knows that finding Gallifrey, let alone restoring it to our universe, is a near-impossibility. He also knows that Gallifrey is safe where it is - he doesn't have to rush to rescue it, and it would be more of a personal disappointment rather than a disaster if he never found it.
As for having run out of regenerations upping the stakes for the Doctor by increasing his chances of sudden death, he has never treated the fact that he had regenerations left as meaning that he could not die - and the show has made it clear over the years that death could come at any time. Tom Baker's Doctor nearly dies from the strain of a "mental wrestling" contest with Morbius in The Brain of Morbius, and has to be saved by the Sisterhood of Karn's Elixir of Life (the Sisterhood having earlier threatened to execute him). In The Deadly Assasssin, the Doctor's mind is connected to the Matrix so that he can discover the identity of the assassin who has already entered this virtual reality realm - and it is made clear that "death" in the Matrix will kill him in the real world. Even in "regeneration" stories, the Doctor doesn't know that his ability will save him. In The Caves of Androzani, Peter Davison's Doctor asks "Is this death?" before adding "Maybe I'll regenerate. It feels different this time." Paul McGann's Doctor nearly died at both ends of his incarnation - in the TV Movie, he realises that the anaesthetic that he was given nearly prevented his regeneration, whilst in Night of the Doctor, the Sisterhood of Karn make it clear that they had to bring the Doctor back from death for a short period so that his regeneration could be triggered by one of their elixirs. Even Tennant's Doctor in The End of Time doesn't know if "your song is ending" implies death or regeneration - and he fears both. As for Smith's Doctor, he hasn't merely had to deal with the prospect of his death as a "fixed point" - in Let's Kill Hitler, River/Melody's poison suspends the Doctor's ability to regenerate (presumably he has forgotten about "Captain Grumpy" and/or his previous incarnation's partial regeneration). There are probably other examples if you look for them, but suffice to say, the Doctor has had plenty of reason to fear dying before reaching twelve regenerations. His biggest fear in his final incarnation would be physical infirmity as he would finally experience "old age" as other species do. The risk would not be from sudden death preventing him from achieving his goals, but gradual incapacitation - a sad, slow decline, lacking the urgency of "time running out" because the chance of success had long since vanished by the end.
In the real world, the "raised stakes" might not exist for the audience. As the leaking of Christopher Eccleston's departure showed, it is virtually impossible to avoid revealing several months in advance that the lead actor is quitting the show, or that his replacement has been cast. We know when the Doctor will regenerate, and it is highly likely that we would know about his death well in advance. I don't think that you could keep doing stories that partially depend on the Doctor fearing death because he believes he cannot regenerate, when the audience is all too aware that he will regenerate.
Of course, until recently, we all thought that the Doctor had two regenerations left, so this was hardly a pressing issue. I suspect that what we saw in The Time of the Doctor was not part of the plan until Moffat began work on The Day of the Doctor. Once he had the idea of introducing a previously unknown "War Doctor" incarnation into the story, the implication would be that the current Doctor was the result of the 11th regeneration. and that Matt Smith's successor would be "The Last Doctor." At that point, Moffat may have had concerns about how that would play with both the regular audience and the wider public and press. Moffat has been at pains to stress that he did not the 50th Anniversary to simply become a celebration of the show's past, saying that he felt such an approach was akin to a state funeral. Instead, he wanted the anniversary to look forward as much as back; a new beginning that could provide the foundations for the next fifty years of the series. Suddenly introducing the "Last Doctor" in the next story makes it look less like a new beginning, and more like the beginning of the end. You could argue that if Doctor Who remained a success, then a new regeneration cycle could have been introduced at the end of Capaldi's run. Moffat's successor as head writer might have been lumbered with the headache of devising a story that allowed that allowed that to happen, but it would hardly have been an insurmountable problem. However, making Capaldi the Last Doctor would have left a hostage to fortune that could have put the entire series at future risk.
As far as parts of the press (and, to be fair, the general public) are concerned, the correct way to greet a new Doctor is "Hello - and when are you quitting?" That must be annoying for any actor playing the role, but imagine that you are Peter Capaldi, and you are the Last Doctor. Potentially, when you decide to leave the role, the series could end. Given the way certain parts of the press like to imply that rating for the series are on the slide, it would not be much of a stretch to imagine that they might start running stories claiming that "sources at the BBC" have told them that the series will end. The fact that the Doctor has no regenerations left would be given as providing management with a convenient excuse to end the show, and the casting of a much older Doctor could be depicted as implying that the BBC wanted an actor who would not stay for more than a couple of years. Such stories could - indeed, probably would - be complete nonsense, but why should Peter Capaldi (not merely the star of the show, but a fan since childhood) be put in a position where he might have to deal with being falsely portrayed as a "lame duck" Doctor, merely because his incarnation is the result of the twelfth regeneration? The stories might even become self-fulfilling prophecies. Whilst the show's success makes it less likely that BBC management could try to kill the show, there is always a risk that senior management in future might again include people in key positions who are not fans of the show, and who might prefer to axe it in order to fund other series - especially as economic austerity has already shrunk overall programme budgets, and will continue to do so.
Even though such worries might have turned out to be unfounded, it would only have been prudent of Steven Moffat to do something to avoid these possible outcomes. In this wider context, taking advantage of the "aborted regeneration" in The Stolen Earth/Journey's End and the "War Doctor" as an excuse to make Matt Smith the last Doctor of the first regeneration cycle, with Peter Capaldi as the first Doctor of the new cycle, makes perfect sense. Things might be different when the Doctor reaches the end of his new regeneration cycle, but what Steven Moffat has done was, in my view, in the best interests of the series at the present time.Comment
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I finally got to see it I thought it was good.Comment
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Oh, god. Regeneration debates.Comment
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I love debates about regeneration. I had a feeling he had maybe one left after I saw the regeneration from McGann to Hurt in The Night Of The Doctor. To be honest I forgot all about the Meta-crisis until i watched The End Of Time and heard Wilf talk about it. Thought it was very smart how they included it in since the debate for yrs was if it counted or not. Glad to see we got an answer and it made sense to me. It is a regeneration in the strictest sense because Tennant was regenerating but he used the energy to heal then shifted the rest towards the severed hand in the holder. So he healed which could be counted as a regeneration because they've said before i believe that it's a way of cheating death. So he cheated it by not only healing but also by shifting the energy.
I guess that also explains why River was so mad he used the same regeneration energy to heal her wrist. She knew he was down to his last regeneration and felt he was wasting it after she gave up hers to save him.Comment
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A wonderful scene! Matt was spectacular as The Doctor; and I only recently was able to get into the show (thanks to binge watching from 2005 onward).
I'd have to see it again, but what were the final words Amy Pond said to Matt's Doctor? It was "Raggedy man...."? I kind of spaced on that; thought it was great when she said it, now can't recall (I looked away and forgot). Nice how Amy was the first and last to see Matt's form as The Doctor.Comment
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Amy's last words to him were "Raggedy man. Goodnight." I loved them too.
Btw i was rewatching The Big Bang and they showed the shadow of him going into the crack. Then in Matt's last special, he says the Timelords r talking to him through it, asking for confirmation. So does that mean when he went through at then end of TBB he went home to Gallifrey?Comment
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