Legit Doctor Who, question/discussion

[Ink Quill]

Alright, I'll start out with what lead me to thinking this.

A friend and fellow Brony, who sported a Derpy Hooves hat to Gen Con this year, brought back some gifts for my roleplay group, and the item I got was a Sonic Screwdriver, one of those toy ones (similar to 10th Doctors.) Now, I'm a huge Doctor Who fan, and I've seen almost all the episodes since the reboot of the show (which was on the 9th Doctor).

When I got home. I started thinking, now at this time it was 1 AM, so I've been thinking this over for an two hours straight, and its driving me up a wall.

Anyways, everyone who watches, or has watched The Doctor, knows that Timelords can regenerate. My question is, can a male Timelord regenerate into a female one and vice versa? I was discussing this briefly with some people on Facebook, and they...weren't following what I was trying to discuss, so I was little annoyed. Actually, while in the middle of this, someone stated information that I didn't know about, which I will get to in a bit.

So, my argument is as followed:

I mean, if you really want to get down to it. Taking the example of a human being, we need the opposite gender to have off-spring. If the Timelords were an advance race of people before the Time Wars, then they either had some way to stop regeneration into the opposite gender, either cloning, or some sort of genetic marker.

Or, the timelords themselves got to choose which gender they wanted to be since each and every time they regenerate, which if thats the case, would explain why the Doctor hasn't randomly regenerated into a female. If its a random thing, then gender swapping after regeneration might be an EXTREMELY rare chance, having the Doctor regenerate 11 times now, throughout his 900+ years.

I mean, if you really want to get down to it. Taking the example of a human being, we need the opposite gender to have off-spring. If the Timelords were an advance race of people before the Time Wars, then they either had some way to stop regeneration into the opposite gender, either cloning, or some sort of genetic marker.

Or, the timelords themselves got to choose which gender they wanted to be since each and every time they regenerate, which if thats the case, would explain why the Doctor hasn't randomly regenerated into a female. If its a random thing, then gender swapping after regeneration might be an EXTREMELY rare chance, having the Doctor regenerate 11 times now, throughout his 900+ years.

If we wanted to treat that comic relief attempt by BBC as official, the question of is it willingly done by the Timelord his/herself, or is it genetic?

Say the Timelords were not an advance race long before the time war, and that they had their natural ability to regenerate, and that programmed into this ability was a genetic fault that said "X amount of regenerations causes gender swap." I'd assume by the time that they were actually an advance time manipulating race, they'd have technology to alter, or change, this DNA/Genetic fault, and have it to where they say the same sex that they were born with.

Of course, this is assuming they had a genetic fault to begin with.

Now, someone stated the following:

Great point, I've thought of that too actually. Yes it is possible for Time Lords to change gender, it was said in "the Doctor's Wife" that the Corsair, another Time Lord, would always have a snake tattoo on him or sometimes her. So yes. As for a choice, I would guess not, as nothing else of the Doctor's next regeneration has been knowingly influenced by him (i.e. the running joke of "still not ginger") However no other Time Lords have been known to change genders, so perhaps the gender-shift is a sort of birth defect in the Corsair...? Now you've got me wondering...

Of course, this opens up a lot more questions in regards to this birth defect being just known to the Corsair, or does it have something to do with the snake tattoo, and so forth.

Opinions, thoughts?

[Tempest Rime]

When Romana regenerated in Destiny of the Daleks, she did so willinging, not because she was dying, and she was able to change what she looked like, even getting the chance to 'preview' how each body she was considering looked. It may be the fact that the Doctor has always regenerated violently that keeps him from being able to choose details. On the other hand, maybe the Doctor's just not very good at tweaking his regenerations.

Even in that serial, however, all of Romana's previewed forms were female. Perhaps changing gender is just more difficult, or perhaps it was just preference. The Master, for instance, always took male forms, even when he was out of regenerations and was stealing bodies from other life forms. It seems quite plausible that many would simply have a preferred gender, and an uncontrolled regeneration would simply ignore the option to switch genders.

Also, nitpick, he's only fully regenerated 10 times (technically there was that one point where the 10th doctor regenerated but didn't change, but I don't think that counts). The current doctor is thus his 11th incarnation, the first being the one he was born as.

[Cracker3011]

He's repeatedly said he could regenerate into pretty much anything, it's more or less been a coincidence that he's been male and human-looking 11 times. There is no reason why Dr. 12 or 13 can't be a girl, or for that matter a pony.

[Doctor_Scraps]

Hmm...Time Lords were originally "woven" from special looms if I remember correctly, from which their starting state (child or adult), and number of regenerations were determined...Crazy old fashioned sci-fi. And then there was the Matrix itself where a Time Lord would upload their conciousness once they're regenerations had run out, sort of like filling in a a spot in a database.

I've started to ask myself...Were Timelord really ever just a sentient race of being, or genetic constructs run amok?

[brianblackberry]

The show never covers any of this, it has always been assumed if you were male, you would stay male, and vise versa. I though since the series rebooted, various writers and producers have joked about swapping genders for the Doctor, but to be frank I doubt if they were serious. Such an idea, if implemented, may be a "bridge too far" for the fans and officially jumping the shark for the series.

Even Romana's ability to "try on different regenerations" was considered very controversial to the fan base at the time since it was more or less established that regeneration was done as a biological function to protect against death from massive trauma, at least in the Doctor's case. Again, this is never really covered in the show.

[Bizor]

Someone just had to remind me of The Curse of Fatal Death didn't they?

[Mojo]

I LOVE the classic Doctor Who, not as big a fan of the NEW series though.

Originally, regeneration was written into the Doctor Who script as a 'plot device' for replacing the lead actor (the Doctor) in the series. If I remember my history correctly, the first doctor got very ill and had to step down from the role. 'Regeneration' was the method they used to introduce his 'new form' (and the new actor in the lead role).

Since then, regeneration served as a convenient way to transition departing 'Doctors' from the series and new 'Doctors' into it.

In the new Doctor Who, it seems the writers have incorporated 'regeneration' into an expanded plot device in the series, and I suppose that's a good thing.

Now, in the CLASSIC series, all TimeLords (Galafrey wasn't 'blown up' back then) were shown as either male or female humanoids. There were no 'alien' or 'furry' regenerations ever seen. Don't know if that changed in the modern series, but historically, all TimeLords were human in appearance.

Theortically, I supposed it IS possible for a TimeLord to regenerate into a different species, but even if that were so, who's to say if that 'species' would be from Earth? The universe is a big, big place, y'know. One must not be too earth-centric in our thinking, right (even though the writers of the Doctor Who series were and still are to a degree)?

[Boss_Hoss1]

I think the core personality plays a big part in it. For many, gender is a big part of who they are. Apparently The Doctor will always be a stalwart, pacifistic, quirky British male who seems to see himself as a knight-errant who will keep the Earth safe (even if he can never make it to Benidorm for a long vacation). Perhaps gender is one of the factors that must be unchanged so that they can always say "I am ME!" no matter what the outside wrapper looks like. TImelords must be less flexible than some humans I guess. ;P

Of course, there's always forced changes by nanites, someone playing with HIS timeline, or magic.

There is also the possibility of someone hacking the regeneration protocols and tweaking the presets (Like someone from a rival show, Q or Squire Trelane maybe...)

[Dutchmouse]

I've been watching the Whomeister for years (Tom Baker's still #1 in my book), but I am curious if a Timelord can regenerate into different ethnicities. So far, the Doc's only been caucasian. What gives??

-D!

[JCtheBrony]

I've been watching the Whomeister for years (Tom Baker's still #1 in my book), but I am curious if a Timelord can regenerate into different ethnicities. So far, the Doc's only been caucasian. What gives??

-D!

Tom Baker's awesome! He's still one of the best doctors, though I think Tennant would probably place a close second. Though, it's a good question why we've never had an ethnic Doctor... maybe ethnicities didn't exist on Gallifrey?

So, just saw Let's Kill Hitler. Have to say it was quite awesome and well worth the wait. Spoiler... ish comments?

I'm glad River Song's story has finally been tied together for the most part. The only part I was disappointed in was that Hitler wasn't in that much. For an episode titled 'Let's Kill Hitler' and whose previews played up the fact Hitler was there... Hitler really wasn't there.

[Davroth]

When the 10th Doctor regenerated into the 11th, he thought for a moment that he regenerated as a girl that time, so I guess it's possible.

I don't think that a Timelord can regenerate into another species, actually, because he never did. He always stays gallifreyan, which just so happen to look exactly like human. But his inner organs are different to a human. What would be possible is if a different species conceives a child in a TARDIS, it might become part timelord, since that happened before. If you got a part of the Doctor, you might be able to create a hybrid, too, like the Doctor-Donna from the fourth season.

Also, all humans look timelord, not the other way around.