Doctor Who's Regeneration Has NEVER Made Sense 

They consistently “made it up as they went along”. Each one was different.

My fanon is: The less traumatic the circumstances of the regeneration, the more control a Time lord has over the regeneration. That's why Romana was able to try out bodies, because she chose to regenerate and was in a safe place , while the Doctor's regeneration are usually a bit more traumatic.

The Eleventh Doctor's choice to save Gallifrey in the Time War becomes the linchpin for the existence of the Twelfth. This pivotal act leads to 12 convincing the First Doctor to regenerate, setting in motion the entire sequence of the Doctor's incarnations. Ultimately, saving Gallifrey is intricately woven into the fabric of the Doctor's destiny.

Something that still grinds my gears about the Ruth Doctor…why is her TARDIS stuck on a Police Box as well?! Wasn’t it established that it got stuck that way due to a malfunctioning Chameleon circuit (which gets repaired later on…Yada-yada). But wouldn’t that have meant Hartnell was the first doctor to get the Police Box TARDIS?

The one thing you can rely on Doctor Who Lore for, is for it to be unreliable lol I think they sunk Atlantis several different times lol

15:21 the 3rd Doctor had one of those crisises. SHOES.

Thanks for the video! This was super informative and interesting!

Friend of mine got to interview Peter Davison. Very fun and good sport after said friend jokingly used a puppet to call him Peter Davidson and ask him what it's like being David Tennant's father in law.

A timelord can just regenerate you see Peter capalde give davros energy and matt smith fix rivers wrist if they want they could just take it all the way and regenerate

David Tennant's departure was actually announced three months after Journey's End, so he wasn't known to be leaving; I only mention it because it was therefore even more of a surprise. There was speculation that the BBC may have finally managed to pull a regeneration completely out of the hat.

Not to be picky but their was also the 12 Doctors fake regeneration. Being able to start it and stop it at will. The thing about Doctor is that it evolves because their was no book or comic it was based upon and show runners will always add there sauce to it. Not to everyone’s taste but that’s is part of being a fan. My personal beef with regeneration was the sense of it being renewal in the classic era and then being death in the modern. Also I like Moffat’s interpretation said in the 50th anniversary “same software different case.” Whereas I felt that RTD just loved David Tenant and couldn’t let that incarnation fully go. I mean there are 3 versions of him. I always hated the conversion 10 had about dying and someone else standing up. For me that was about the actor not the character.

The only thing I think you missed was The Doctor NOT regenerating in Turn Left. There was a hand wave of he was shot then caught in a fire and couldn't regenerate, which is something that happened. It quite doesn't fit into the Timeless Child narrative, and we haven't heard of anything like it before. It's no biggie and led to a great episode, but it is one of the oddities of regeneration.

Tom Baker was my first Doctor, back in the 80s. That's when Doctor Who was being shown on PBS late at night. I'd sneak into my older brother's room to watch it and absolutely fell in love with the show. This is the end, but the moment has been prepared for.

I think the master actually wanted to be the doctor after finding out she was the timeless child because that means they would in effect become this super important being and the master has always had a superiority problem and he probably experienced ego death when he found out it was his greatest friend/enemy

This is the best Dr Who related video I’ve seen on RU-vid. Excellent!

I watched your video about the dune 1 movie and really enjoyed it. I've just seen part 2 and was wondering if you might be able to make the same kind of video about it. Since you really made things clear for me in the part one video and now i've seen part 2 im still a bit confused haha

Regeneration is SUCH a genius idea. The show will last another 60 years because of it!

The TARDIS soapbox segment was so good, thank you!

can we get sock puppets to replace all offensive portrayals? that'd be great for me

The way I see it, The Master regretted absorbing the Cyberium but didn't want to sacrifice an incarnation he enjoyed being...so used regeneration energy to force The Doctor into becoming a fresh version of his existing body for his mind to take-over

The Master possesses many abilities that some consider unnatural

Fantastic!

I'm the worst kind of nerd because, honestly, his opinions on Tennants doc and a few other things he said in the 20-24 minute space might have moved me to hands if this were in person. I'm going to go and contemplate why opinions about fictional events and characters would move me to feeling that way and try to be a better person >.>

When "renewal" was first talked about, William Hartnell had a medical condition, (In fact, Doctor Who: The Three Doctors was the last time Hartnell was on television and his condition made it impossible for him to appear totally. According to the people filming Hartnell, he sat, looked at a camera, and read lines off of cue cards. Hartnell died in 1974, but I digress)So, Innes Lloyd came up with the "renewal" aspect where the Doctor would change bodies. At first, they wrote Troughton to be a younger, gruffer version of the Hartnell Doctor, then they tried to make him a pirate.. for...reasons. Finally, they asked Troughton how he wanted to play the Doctor and the Cosmic Hobo was born. Thus, each actor and actress has put his oe her stamp on the Doctor, but also referred to past Doctors as well and Ncuti will do the same.

The way British TV is structured is such that a 'series' is a set of episodes aired weekly for up to 8 weeks at any given time in a year. If a second series of episodes is aired in the same calendar year, it becomes the series second season.

I never understood the problem with a female Doctor. I mean, *fan-films* had been doing it (occasionally quite well) since the late 70s, early 80s. My head cannon on the twelve-regeneration limit was that they put it in place because regenerations keep getting more violent as you go on. I mean, the first few were basically lap dissolves. But by the 10th Doctor, he's putting out enough energy to damage the Tardis. And by Matt Smith...he's destroying Dalek battleships with the excess energy. Then Capaldi, new regeneration cycle, we're back to even less than a lap-dissolve.

Hey @Nerdist, I have a question about propulsion in space. I just dont see how rockets are able to produce thrust in a vacuum? I can see how the fuel is still able to ignite due to the possibility of having a fuel that produces its own oxygen like in little fireworks. How can you propell yourself in a zero g, vacuum type of environment?

I loved the 3rd doctor. He was stuck on earth because bbc slashes the budget… and they producers had no choice

One of my fave things about Doctor Who is the scope for imagination I can use to create my own head canon. There’s so much to reverse engineer…😁

i mean regeneration only happened cus hartnell's health was deteriorating during his time of filming and then it just turned into one of those main things of the show, making it continue for 60 years.

Even in "Deadly Assassin", Runcible acts like the Doctor changing appearances is strange for Time Lords... Having not seen him since school he studies the Doctor's face.... "Have you had a face lift?". Also the President is shot and doesn't regenerate, they make no mention of it being his last incarnation/etc.

Doctor Who rookie here.. I saw only Tennant's seasons and half of Matt's. Can anyone tell me why I was sure he is the only living Timelord and he had something to do with destroying Gallifrey? But now I learn that apparently Timelords are very well, just banished him? 🙈 Is it some kind of error in my brain or it's somehow explained? Would love to know cause now it's gonna be killing me 🥲 Great video, thank you for sharing with us your knowledge ❤

So does 15 still have 10's memories? Or did he take that with him? Im so confused.

The problem with bi-regeneration echoing back is that, how many David Tennants is that now? If he biregenerated when he regenerated in "Journey's End", that means that there are now 3 David Tennants running around in that story. And then he bi-regenerates again when he turns into Matt Smith? So now there are 2 David Tennants unaccounted for along with the Fourteenth Doctor and the Metacrisis Doctor.

Jodi can be a dr. But man they did her a huge disservice

fab ... well thought out ... we have started on number 1 and are now on to baker last season .. ( BBC I player )

Preach it, Nerd Lord!

The "Tulpa" of Cho-Je in Planet of the Spiders is very similar to the tulpas as shown in various episode of Twin Peaks, David Lynch being a big fan of transcendental meditation and Buddhism, this is not surprising. The Watcher in Logopolis seems to be another similar kind of tulpa (mental projection of a future regeneration just like Cho-Je was)

I get that the planet of spiders monk by todays standards isnt appropriate but i really liked the character and the regeneration being his future incarnation wondering about and interacting with him only to disapear when he changes was a really cool concept. The romana regeneration although bent a lot of rules was also an interesting concept and although the dr hasnt just chose bodies at will it has been established he can influence the regeneration as 12 states he chose that face. Perhaps sime time lords can learn to manipulate their regenerations in ways not intended.

This was great, well done Kyle.

The clip of the first regeneration was in blue peter at some point. So that's how it still exists

this this this this person. i wish to subscribe to his brochure. more with him! he is a High Quality, Non-Agressive, Non-Problematic (to women and minorities) Nerd. We need more nerds like this. A mench. A nerd, not a geek, who ENJOYS the material and isn't here to tear it down, but talk about the good and the bad but is generally optomistic about a property that he's loved since childhood, but not without recognizing that we're not kids anymore and some things we grew up with didn't age so well. I like this nerd!

Heaven sent was the episode that broke me.

I always wanted to see more about the Vallard.

You know what since Matt Smith regenerated the rules at this point are beyond broken and I need peace with this a long time ago.

That kind of links and possibly explain peter calpadi's regerenration

Basing it on the colin baker playing s different timelord tom baker could be a different time lord with one of the old doctors face.

It's obviously not deliberate writing; but the idea that the time lords pull from a science the implications of which they barely understand does fit them

I maintain the best thing to do was make the Master the Timeless Child

You left out the Toymaker's claim that he made a jigsaw out of the Doctor's history, implying that the pre-Hartnell Doctors didn't actually exist originally UNTIL the Toymaker entered our spacetime and tinkered with the Doctor's past, which, given the fact that the Toymaker comes from another universe, makes some sense - he's not bound by the same rules. He's essentially Q, Mr. Mxyzptlk, the ultimate trickster. And while I don't love the whole Timeless Child/Division stuff, I do love this explanation and I love the Fugitive Doctor and NPH as the Toymaker. Besides it's not as if RTD or Moffat always got things right prior to Chibnall's tenure.

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. The problem with the Timeless Child isn't the revelation itself; it's how little is done with it. Imagine if Star Wars had the "No, I am your father" line and then didn't do anything with it. Oh, and you missed 1 minor difference in 13 going to 14. Her clothes change. They'd made a pretty consistent point till that point of how the new doctor starts off wearing the old doctor's clothes then decides on their own outfit.

I feel like regeneration has lost it's touch over the last decade. The inclusion of the War Doctor being one of the reasons for me. The thought of a series lead passing the torch to the next actor is beyond fascinating. And as Hurt was not a seires lead, it kind of creates this 'in-between' Doctor paradox which we'd see way more of in the Timeless Child arc. Also, McGann only had 1 episode so sticking an extra regeneration between 8 and 9 ironically defeated this 'mysterious' incarnation persona as we barely knew about 8. Big Finish is very niche so I'm not counting it for this. However, if you do count Big Finish, then you'd know that 8 was set up to be the one to fight in the Time War. The Timeless Child just makes the Doctor automatically different from all the other Time Lords. What was interesting about him, is that he was a Time Lord like everyone else but he chose a completely different path to others which can relate to any outsider in life. Now there's no intrigue in the Doctor as a whole... At least for me. In general, the inbetween regeneration thing is something that frustrates me to my core and is essentially a way for writers like Moffat and Chibnall to stamp their names all over the lore. At least the first Davies era focused on being great in itself and now it's still the best era of the show.

I enjoyed this.

36:50 no the CIA and the Division are different organisations and I don't know where you got the information that they regenerated them after every mission

Where did the dude with the long hair go?

I don't have an issue with the BI-Regeneration. TBH I'm happy with "The Toymaker did it" as explanation. The 2 Tardises i find a bit iffy though. I find it just a bit too easy.

Am I missing something in translation here??? I remember Jon Pertwee as The Doctor.

I thought he was called TenToo.

An enjoyable video. I don't agree with everything you said but life would be boring if I agreed with everything everyone else said.

There are parts of this sh.....stuff that I am going to ignore and noone can stop me.

Good video!

Timeless child is all explained by the other and the looms

Regeneration doesn't make sense but all the other stuff in the show does? Ne ver bought the faces in Morbius were the Doctor's, why aren't they Morbius'? The Watcher is like K’anpo/Cho-je in POTS. Romana's change was a joke by Douglas Adams, I guess you can say one can regenerate and choose for a short period. The Doctor doesn't do that cause he changes via violence and is too on the move to do it properly. If he was on Gallifrey, it would be smoother. Maybe the hand cut off from X-Mas Invasion is like what Romana is doing. I feel the way about the last few years of the show the way you feel about the Colin Baker era. I will keep watching out of loyalty but my enthusiasm is low. Hope they prove me wrong.

I love how the brain of Morbius implied that the doctor was the timeless child

Character Assassins are not deadly

Eh Timeless Child doesn't really make any difference, just a different regeneration cycle.

i wonder if david tenent dr, will regenerate into the old faces, and become the curator, leaving his dr title for the 15th, heading off to keep saving the worlds. it was said that 14 was tired. too much running. so, give him time to slow down. look at the smaller things. save the world by staying home.

YOU WENT OFF!!! Thank you for addressing those who complain and lable everything under "woke"

why is it so hard for folks to pronounce dalek?

They shpuld retcon certain doctors out of existence go make life easier for the writers

This was really good! Ive been complaining a lot about Bi-Regeneration and this helped me realise my issue isnt at all the logic itself, just that some regenerations feel more dramatically earned than others. Meaningful endings, not necessarily well-established science rules. (Like i have absolutely no issue with Gatwa using 'rope logic' to figure out how to create a pulley system) The process itself isnt an issue, but like, Eccleston sacrificed himself for Rose after she looked into heart of the tardis, Tennant sacrificed himself for Wilf after 4 knocks, Smith accepted his grave and Clara reminded the timelords they owe him one (from the literal previous episode), capaldi hugged his companions after 3 seasons of arc, they had long-established emotional or pre-established tools to create opportunities with and then THOSE things come up during the regeneration to make it feel earned. 14 just survives a laser and splits into two because... because... uh... like i dont take issue with the strange magic side of it, its a great novelty, but just within the story itself it dramatically pops out of nowhere. It doesnt have that Emotional sense of setup and payoff the others have. Its not completely lacking, Gatwa represents emotional support to a weary doctor, but that weary doctor plotline feels so seperate to the literal physical threat of "games trickster-esque chaos god" that i dont feel like bi-regeneration was warned the way the others connected the situation to the antagonism and to the regeneration. Id love if someone could explain to me how the toymaker is directly antagonising 14's supposed need to retire. He just seems like a incidental force to pass time and while NPH Is really good, both together dont cohesively work for me. (Ive been thinking about it a lot and i havent put up a video on The Giggle yet because how i feel about is so torn between self-contained chaos and overarching Kinda-Setup-Payoff-Good-Enough-I-Guess. So im open to 'no you're wrong and here's why'. I dont need a scientific explanation for the magic but i do feel its lacking a dramatic metaphor and falls on shock-value gimmick a bit too much. Or maybe im just thinking about it a lot deeper than I used to, but i swear despite some deus ex machinas here and there it didnt struggle with setup and payoff this much (when it comes to the really good episodes)

@32:20, @33:41 I'm glad someone finally pointed out the diversity these sci-fi shows already tried to aim for.

Just on the subject bit on the character K'ampo and Cho-je the monk character your referring to in "Planet of the Spiders" I think that's abit of an exaggeration and abit of over sensitivity there on your part I don't agree with you that he was intended to be a "racist" character I think Kevin Lindsay who was an australian actor who also played original Sontaran Linx in "The Time Warrior" and another Sontaran in "The Sontaran Experiment" was superb in that role in "Planet of the Spiders" and I never heard anyone or even remotely mentioned by anyone or complained that this role was intended to be a "yellowface" he was only acting like a Tibetan he wasn't wearing any "yellowface" make-up we never noticed it as being racist because it's not it wasn't by any means at all suppose to be offensive you have to remember diverse casting was very hard to come by in those days but I thought he pulled off the role nicely and that character help assured us that we were going to lose this incarnation of the Doctor but to remember its the same character and he's not dying I treasure that scene and the most memorable so no I totally disagree with you you can't fault a time when it was the norm of the time when people play different cultural characters no more different to a say if a black actress was playing Ann Bolyn and we shouldn't call people bigots just because we have a different opinion to them that's their human right whether we agree to it or not. "Planet of the Spiders" is for me the best regeneration story of all time it's epic and I love that the Third Doctor quietly fades away and dies peacefully which you don't often get in today's Dr. Who I like the fade effect I didn't think it was lame at all. If you love vandalised and destroyed story lore good for you but i think it completely ruins it yes the show should evolve but there's some elements that should remain the unchanged the bi-generation was absolute rubbish and complete fanfiction there was absolute no real need for that, that would mean no consequence, no drama, and separating the fact that the Doctor isn't the same as all the others it completely ruins the magic of regeneration it's just lazy pure laziness RTD is desperate for a cash grab which is one of the reasons he brought David Tennant as a new incarnation which I think was also a big mistake that was purely done as a desperation The 13th Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) should had changed into straight into Ncuti Gatwa if this bi-generation becomes an ongoing thing that's just going to switch alot of people off from watching because there be no point in watching it because the consequence and drama are no longer there it's just unimaginative lazy writing. The Timeless child is also complete rubbish and fanfiction it's called "Doctor Who" for a reason to keep the mystery of the Doctor's backstory hidden so it completely diminishes that so there would be no point in calling it "Doctor Who".

Gosh, the pomposity is ludicrous

last few doctors...unwatchable

Terrible summary truly awful

As far as I am concerned, the Capaldi Doctor failed to regenerate and the Doctor died. The end.

Way to much whining in this video about old Who not being Woke enough. Woke is ruining the show, as it has so many others. The problem with Doctor Who isn't changing gender of race when regenerating. The problem is forcing pronoun garbage on fans and all the talk about sexuality. The show doesn't need to be a Woke/DEI forum every episode as it has become. Let's continue with the Doctor being able to change gender and race when regeneration occurs but cut out promoting all the garbage Woke agenda. That is what is ruining the show. Writers and showrunners and media pushing agendas on the public.

You know what’s always been a winning strategy? Gaslighting the fans and telling them they should like a thing that they don’t like.

Not showing part of the show because... "racism"? I beg your pardon?