Russell T Davies Explains the 14th Doctors Bi-generation 

Video quality is low due to upscaling. Apologies

Stories without consequences have no value. If Peter Capaldi peeled off Matt Smith the emotional impact is gone.

I think I'd be on board with this if it means we could see more of Paul McGann as the Doctor.

Where is the jeopardy? Fair enough, The Doctor doesn’t die; but regeneration use to feel like a kind of death-we lost him when he regenerated; the relationship we had with him was over…and we were sad; now however we don’t lose him, we just get another, and another, and another. Isn’t that just a bit unnecessary? Would Superman still be super if the were a thousand copies of him. Is the Doctor still unique and special when there are a thousand of him? Or is he diminished?

Now, this may sound like an overcomplicated, confusing and absurd explanation with wide and dangerous concequenses for the rest of the Whoniverse, but I believe what he's actually saying is basically "Big Finish no longer need to worry about finding places to slot their stories into the established canon" I mean Earthbound 14 is practically a gift to Big Finish as a jumping-off point for an entire Pertwee-era-style UNIT series. Point is, I don't think we need worry too much.

So then why did 10 come back as 14 if he was still traveling out there as 10? Bi-generation should be unique to 14, and not something we backtrack and make apply to all the previous doctors.

I feel like this completely removes the dramatic stakes from the show.

God he does love the sound of his own voice doesn't he Mr RTD

Doesn't he specifically say that the whole thing about all the other Doctors splitting is his headcannon?

If you have to explain a new plot idea every time you add something, then you're doing something wrong with and you know it.

"And no one has a problem following this." What is this guy talking about? The MCU has been ridiculously convoluted and over-complicated since they introduced the multiverse. Now there are no stakes to anything in the show because anything can happen at any point.

OMG, thank you so much for posting this!! I live outside of the UK and I've been ransacking the Internet trying to get even a snippet of the in-vision commentary! ;__; Bless you! 💜💜

Just imagine what big finish will do with this.

Based on The Three Doctors, Five Doctors and Two Doctors (I assume it’s for that one as well as I haven’t seen it yet), it makes sense on the last one why Colin Baker and Patrick Troughton meet because it’s one Doctor going into his own time stream, which is why previous Doctors can interact in the first place. It’s not because the Second Doctor somehow bi-regenerated from the Third Doctor or vice versa.

With the Doctor being functionally imortal and with bigeneration now being a thing, effectively the timeline will end when everyone is the Doctor. Billions of Billions of souls over trillions of eons.

Sorry, but this idea better not make it to screen. The Ncuti Tennant thing was terrible enough but at least it only ruins three episodes of character development and I can have a headcanon that 14 eventually becomes 15 rather than being a seperate being. What RTD is describing, every Doctor still running around, completely negates the impact of regeneration and every previous regeneration story, goes against the spirit of the show which is accepting change and moving on. Finally, its like treating the incarnations as seperate characters. I don't need a version of Tom Baker running around, his character still lives on in the Doctor. These past regenerations aren't dead, so stop acting like they needed some happy ending as if the Doctor's story isn't still going, ffs.

Oh god RTD nooo please don't do that. You're taking the levity out of the story!

I'd honestly far prefer just ignoring how old Doctors look rather than accepting, plain in RTDs own words without wishful thinking tacked on, that none of the doctors actually regenerate at the right time.

Multiverses get complicated after a while unfortunately and people tend to get confused after a while.

I like the part where they put background audio that is distracting

i hope he sees how much this idea is hated and doesn't go through with it further💀 i'm one of those people that LOVES 14's bigeneration for the emotional impact it had, but similarly i love the emotional impact previous "normal" regenerations represent and would hate that to be retconned

I hope they do something with tom baker before he passes on

Last episode saw Doctor Who return to black and white.

Anyone else on the fence deciding if they hate this or not?

Ohhhhh no this is a terrible idea

There's no need for the "doctorverse," because the doctor's sort of always his previous self, due to his non-linear timestream. The doctor's adventures are still ongoing, even in the past. New stories with old doctors are always happening. Big Finish does it all the time. No need for bi-generation retcons. Besides, a multiverse seems like a bit of a lazy/unwieldy explanation. Hopping between parallel worlds is exceptionally hard for even the Tardis to do, as seen in season 2 and 4.

Oh there's wokey t davies

This is interesting, it explains the plotholes with the 2nd doctor returning in the Five Doctors and Two doctors, having looked much older and having knowledge of h is future.

This is so bad. Its great that the doctor has an ending and now this new body is off on adventures but now its going to be a constant thing ruins everything. Who cares if thw Doctor regenerates ever again because the previous doctor still stays around. Its such a bad idea. Should have only been a one off.

Love this!

YES LET GET MATT BACK

I think its bad idea and would create more plotholes than ever. Having a time traveler as a main character already have so many opportunities and making bigeneration to apply to all previous incarnations undermines the feeling of farewell. So nothing is ended and everything is possible. It kinda destroys the emotional impacts of the series.(which in my opinion many times the series have fail to establish that feeling with companions not being able to die and always become some kind of immortal)

I defenetly would not want. Where they all r still going. Like i love tonsee them all again. Maybe 14th doctor generates to tombaker so wee know how he became the Curator

I have been watching Doctor Who since the 80s when it was on PBS here in the states. And I love this because I know that the doctors that we no longer see have further adventures. That's what big finishes all about. And I hear so many people saying" you ruined Doctor Who" but I just don't see it that way. I've always seen it as a Multiverse and if there's one doctor you don't like, you can just be Busy having adventures with the one you like. It's fine! There is room for everybody

Can someone tell him to,stop rambling and just get to the point.

Everyone says this is a show about change but I’ve seen very few people actually deal with the changes well usually theres a backlash with every Doctor and lets be real the only time there hasn’t been is the announcement Tennant and Tate were back, because humans don’t like change and they would prefer to go back to what gives them comfort. People are praising these episodes so maybe this proves for Doctor Who people actually don’t like or really want change they more need to suck it up because the actor is going to move on and so the messaging needs to change and be updated for the audience now. The audience clearly with all the backlash don’t actually care about the messaging that change is good, often they don’t care about the messaging to be kind either but I digress, they just want what they like. There were heaps of complaints when Doctor Who started back up in 2005 and there has been backlash to every Doctor since Tennent. So much so Moffatt has commented on it on his social media before. So maybe the show isnt about change anymore maybe theres new messaging for the show to focus on, theres certainly more cultural issues people care about for it to focus on. 

Lots of people wanted Tennant and Tate back, lots of people are already getting excited to see 14 again after the specials, maybe RTD is actually seeing the fandom for what it is and just giving the fans what they want, their Doctor out there still having adventures, still alive living the good life with their companions… the universe is huge, time is forever theres more then enough room for 15 plus Doctors to be going about their immortal business. Maybe regeneration from now on will be a trauma response that doesn’t kill the current Doctor but creates the next Doctor free from the trauma. Who knows! And this may lower the stakes as to what we have known in the Doctor Who universe but that doesn’t mean RTD cant make new stakes for the Doctors to have to wrestle with, or the fact humans can still die, the family and friends along the way can be loss. Every time a show runner doesn’t give the fandom what it wants the fandom eat them alive so maybe this is RTD going here you all want your Doctor to still be alive out there with their companions? Sweet now they are. I like big lore changes and I like knowing my Doctor is out their still alive with their companions, because like most people I have my comfort Doc so I'm glad they are alive, I hope it becomes canon we hear about in the show as RTD describes here.

plz get RTD away from our show lmao

Now that means that all comics and audio books and novels are all cannon. I love it it's fantastic

“I don’t like the bigenerations” I’m sorry, do you want Chibnall to come back and focus on the timeless child?

I've had singular timeline queries in my mind for a long while. Each story/episode was treated differently and separately, but I always wondered why the Doctor never ran into themselves in a similar location and point in time. In the older episodes its explained that its a protection mechanism by the TARDIS to prevent one from materialising into another causing a black hole to form, but since then we've seen evidence that the SAME TARDIS can exist in the same space and time as itself without any issues. I'm not keen on this whole "bi" thing though. Mitosis does exist in nature, so why not have it named around that instead of having more LGBT associations. Having 2 of the same Doctor in the same timeline now though does complicate things a bit further. Especially considering RTD has said he isnt completely dismissing the whole "Timeless Child" thing from Jodie's era. That sub-plot stuff does definitely need addressing, it wouldnt feel right continuing with it undermining everything still when it defined what the Doctor was 'made of' so to speak.

UGH

I think Russell is a great writer and show-runner, but I really hope he dosen't follow through on what he's cooking here. Not even for nerd lore reasons, but I feel that it spiritually goes against some of the very positive messages that the show has embodied over the years.

But what does this bi-generation have to do with the multiverse? You need to learn how to let go. Maybe have the previous Doctors endure as voice in his head or something but this is just overly complicated

I love the idea of the Bi-Generation in this instance but I think Russell could take that idea a bit too far saying retcon all doctors have done this.

I don't really understand Russel's logic here with "it's exactly what Big Finish does". You don't need a bi-generation to have another adventure with those Doctors. They can just step out of the Tardis. It would just be set at some point in their timeline. He even mentions that Colin Baker turned up to save Patrick Troughton. So then.....why is bi-generation necessary?? Russel just went against his own argument. And why even bring up the multiverse in this context? That's a completely separate thing.

It's a time loop. Ncuti said, "I'm okay because you fix yourself." Which means, eventually he will turn into the 15th Doctor and be recalled to save himself before moving on.

The problem with this is that there is now no peril for the Doctor. Doctor 10 said 'I don't wanna go', coz he knew that even though he'd still go on in another form, that was it for his current form. And the Doctors like who they are and would fight harder coz they don't wanna lose it. Now... it doesn't matter. So where's the peril for them? #14 even got to keep his Tardis!!!

If it didn't do so already, Doctor who has officially and undoubtedly Jumped the shark.

Personally, I liked bi-generation more as a coping mechanism for Timelords if they ever experience great emotional/physical trauma. Makes sense for The Doctor. It could be an explanation for The Curator and even The Valeyard and also the existence of Spymaster after Missy's death. However, I don't like the concept of bi-generation always being a thing for the Doctor. It takes away from the magic that this vast collective of personalities is just one good person.

So in other words, you took something that actually made sense, and had a logistical structure to it... made it into a vague bunch of nonsense...and are excusing it with "it's fiction, lmao" Okay. I was excited about bi-generation until I saw this. This killed the hope I had that this was going to be handled properly; I now know this was a cheap "I can do what I want, bite me fanboys" gimmick for Russell to feel like a god over his fictional toybox (ironically so, all things considered) "Why can't this special thing just happen?" Yes, and why can't Captain America show up in the middle of an episode riding on the back of a giant Dinosaur, too? You need to EARN rewarding things via the goddamn narrative, Russell. JFC...

All the previous Doctors coming back instead of regenerating is taking it too far. He think it, but don't make it canon.

The spider verse was part of the lore of Spider-Man. Literally, since the 60’s. Dr who had it’s own unique lore. That’s what made it interesting

Honestly the concept of bigeneration is interesting but i hope its explored sparingly because i wouldnt want this to happen for every doctor going forward, like i think the reason regeneration is so effective as a concept is because it helps the show move forward, like yes the doctor before is gone now, but we're also now in a new era that feels fresh and so the show can go on, with bigeneration that feels more like a half step, like it isnt a defined ending to something it doesnt feel as consequential when you know 14 is still out there

the biggest issue for me now is where's the stakes ? all the doctors from turn up to save the day or if things go really wrong why didnt an old doctor turn up

NOT A GOOD IDEA. NOT A GOOD IDEA. NOT A GOOD IDEA.

and now every single regeneration up to this point means nothing. good job davies. youve ruined the show.

I think Bi-Generation didnt split him into2 Doctors but instead it healed the 14th Doctor and the 15th Doctor is a regeneration from the 14th Doctors future when he has dealt with his internal trauma. This regeneration has been done non linearly because its a regeneration protocol to allow the subject to heal from trauma. Just regenerating from 14 to 15 wouldnt have allowed the Doctor to actually process and reflect on himself because as we have seen, he would just continue going through time and space. It makes alot of sense that members of his race require this protocol to function in later regenerations.

I get the 1 Bi-Regeneration from 14>15. But I don't get how EVERY Doctor Bi-Regenerated, if that's indeed what RTD is implying. This lore implication makes the series 12 TTC revelations seem like childplays, really. I love it but it's bonkers as hell even for Doctor Who.

If only this was available during the Time War *Norm MacDonald laugh*

No Russel. Dont get power mad.

I don't think its along the lines of all the doctors have retroactively bigenerated, more along the lines of time is a massive mess so sometimes you get stuff that contradicts each other

It’s not a Multiverse you can still do everything in the universe because time travel 😂

Yea that’s terrible unfortunately, hopefully he doesn’t make this cannon

What I really want to happen is 14 settlong down and growing old with the noble family and regenerating due to old age, ready to be pulled back into 15 post bi-regeneration

I respect his thoughts but I dislike the thought of them all splitting. It is ok to remain Linear, and still be able to do the multiverse in which he is speaking of.

I dont hate the idea of Bi regeneration, honestly i had thought of something similar to make the timeless child less terrible. (Timelords reproducing asexually though a kind of bi regeneration and have all orignated from the timeless child.) What i dont like is it make tennet feel like the character we have been watching for 60 years and Ncutti feel like a imposter.

Dr Who is getting more and more incoherent from the top down. .

It doesn't matter what Davies does now. No one, relatively, is watching.

This explains away the tales of the Tardis doctors, they are alternate timeline doctors who never regenerated and just aged, just like 14 and the curator.

Out of universe I don't think they really could have done the classic face morph this time around.

I hate this

Please give me a Paul McGann miniseries.

I have never liked dolls, after watching "The Giggle" I now know why!

This is all pretty stupid on multiple levels. Basically it of course wrecks every doctor that came before ... But also ... it is a time travel show .... by definition they ARE all out there still. Until they "died" ... which of course ... death is removed ... stakes are removed ... the show is not based on a multiverse which are parallel universes ... which people have already burned out on via Marvel.

I feel like David hates it but can't say it. I know I do; they should become separate entities. I see it as the 14th doctor starts regenerating backwards. also, they said it was a myth and a rare thing that can happen. Maybe the bi generation is the effect of purging his baggage and Memorys, so the 15th doctor doesn't remember them, maybe this happened to the war doctor, and this is why he forgot. maybe he bi-regenerated as a kid and one of them felt like they were replaced and becomes the master.

I don't like the idea of the dr verse it's like 11 said to 10 what you do in the privacy of your own regeneration is up to you, meaning they're time travelers and what we see in the series you can fill so much in between adventures so why can't matt smith after he dropped amy and rory off before the astronaut have an adventure with nucti gatwa, just like how 11 and 10, 10 was clearly in the era of after donna somewhere before the master, don't have it so they're all out there please don't. In it's self the 14th dr stated hes younger meaning that now hes within the privacy of his own regeneration.

Go ahead- Sounds great- love me more McCoy

I think they're just floating this as a headcanon/ AU / expanded universe thing, not saying this is per se 100% canon

I like the part where you titled the video very correctly.

My headcanon is Ncuti goes on a big tour finding classic doctor's TARDISES and using the Toymaker's mallet to seperate them for the other bi-regenerated classics to use

I am more confused now

All i got from this is this guy doesnt really think too hard into whatever idea he comes up with and just throws it out there without a care in the world. So what exactly happens with the 10th doctor in this scenario, do we have 10 and 11 splitting in half and we have two timelord tennants wandering about plus that meta crisis tennant. I like the guy but thats too much tennant lol.

I think the bigeneration makes sense since the 10th Doctor’s whole thing at the end was that he didn’t want to go (I know the 10th Doctor and the 14th Doctor are different) so in this case it helps both Doctors so that way the 14th Doctor gets to stay but we will still get the 15th Doctor. I also think this bigeneration explains the existence of the Curator and what he said to the 11th Doctor about reliving a few favorites (got to recheck what he said but it was something like that) so maybe the 14th Doctor will eventually regenerate into the Curator.

RTD is arrogant to spoil the perfect idea of regeneration. It spoils the impact of the Doctor having to come to terms with his body changing if he can just pump out a body and live on. It’s killed it for me. This man clearly has too much power.

But what does this mean for the Master...

Can I just say, I love this. I love it because we don't have to see it ,but now the curator makes sense. Now all of the big finish companions that have come after the television adventures make sense. And I was so happy that for once, the regeneration was joyful. The 14th Doctor wasn't sad that he had to go but instead, looking forward to the future. And Russell, as a lifelong fan since the eighties, thank you for making the TARDIS accessible. As I mentioned before, I was born with cerebral palsy. As a kid, I grew up watching Doctor Who and consequently, didn't want to play G.I. Joe were transformers. I wanted play Doctor Who. Unfortunately for me, we Americans didn't get the action figures that were being produced in the eighties so the only way I can play doctor who was to gather my friends up and do audio adventures and cassette. But it was actually Peter Davison met me know that someone like me could play the doctor. You see, up until that point, all of the regeneration's and God perfectly. It was Peter Davison who had to spend much of the 1st part of his 1st story in a wheelchair! And then I knew it was okay for me to play the doctor! Now you are clearing the way so that one day, we can have a doctor in Canon who experiences right is a wheelchair user! Thank you thank you.

*Whats this from?*

Disney had some input into this bigeneration caper Think ill stick to big finish drom now on - gutted

I hate this

So was the 4th Doctor's regeneration assisted by the Watcher a bi-generation in reverse?

The foundational lore of the show has been retconned and twisted so much by RTD, Moffat, and Chibs. They've shown they don't truly care about the show. They've dismantled all the core elements that made the Doctor special. What a mess.

OMG.... so RTD wants to change the essence of the character and the nature of the show entirely? It's almost as though any old idea will do, requiring no thinking at all. Someone needs to remind him that this IS a time travel show so all the Doctors are out there already.....FFS

The Tennant doctor becomes the Valeyard

Blink and you’ll miss it there but RTD just explained season 6B Troughton

Yes well as we all know, every Doctor is still out there, somewhere in Time and Space, always having more adventures ;D

What the hell is Russell even talking about?! Colin Baker meets Patrick Troughton because he time travels and bumps into his own timeline. The whole multiverse thing has absolutely nothing to do with bigeneration, as what has been presented in The Giggle, and it's so vague, he hasn't ever actuslly properly explained how it has happened, why it's happened now and not any other point, was it the Toymaker who did this. I am finding it hard after watching Empire of Death to have faith in Russell's storytelling ability, especially with long formed, story arcs, he used to be so good at this, but it just seems more and more like a lot of things just happen because he wants it and damn the way he's going to make it happen

Hats off to him...now they've figured out a way to have 15+ doctors running around at once...that's a lot of spinoffs!

1 of something is precious. 2 of something is half as precious. Millions of something (because if every doctor bigenerated ever, including those that came before, the universe is teeming with time-traveling doctors is not special anymore at all. If I didn't miscalculate, at the moment there are 8192 doctors even if we don't count the timeless child nonsense and assume that the 1st doctor was the 1st doctor. Of course there could be millions of doctors at the same time in the universe even without bi-generation, because he is a time traveller, but at generation 14 there are 8192 different versions of the doctor and unlike with normal regeneration they are not one person, not one timeline. Doesn't feel so special anymore, does it? Also, the curator was always explained, he can revisit faces he found interesting, it's not some universe breaking non-sense, he just regenerated sometime down the line into that face again and met his younger self. What is not explained anymore is why Clara would go with 12 instead of staying with 11 if all doctors bigenerated. That whole storyline is now erased. Actually all of Doctor Who is now erased if Russell T. Davies ever follows through with this doctorverse all doctors bigenerated idea as none of the doctor's regenerations and the companions' story would play out how it did before. Actually I'm kind of OK with that. That would make it easy to headcanon that after 12 this turned into an alternate universe fanfiction as it would literally place all the doctors that came before in a different universe. (13 included, but the timeless child kind of broke things already). What I would do though is retcon the timeless child as a game played on him by the toymaker (it is kinda hinted and the whole thing was introduced by the Master and the toymaker said he worked with the Master on the jigsaw puzzle he made of the Doctor's life) and turn Tennant into the Valeyard. 15 seems to be running away from him. He is kind to him, but he is very much in a hurry to get away. This could be explained as the point where the Doctor decides to get rid of his dark side and 15 knows that or maybe just feels that. 14 stays with Donna, that's very-very uncharacteristic of the Doctor anyway. "Hey, there is another one of me now, let him do all the work, I'll just sit back and relax here, who cares what happens in the universe". That's not the Doctor. But it could be the beginning of the boiling dark side that has always been inside the Doctor and would turn into the Valeyard. This way we wouldn't have to see the Doctor, an embodiment of good go all evil, he can stay good. And in the meantime it would be quite a twist to have the most beloved version of the Doctor play the Valeyard (Tennant).

Thank you Russell for taking all the dramatic weight out of regeneration.

If they are indeed "two" seperate doctors, then what happens if the 14th doctor gets himself killed ? Does he regenerate again or simply dies ? RTD really should have let the 14th go out with a bang instead of carrying on. David said he would not return and only reprise his role for the 60th anniversary.