Steven Moffat returned to his former home of Doctor Who to pen the episode "Boom," and it was another banger from the sci-fi series' Disney+ era. Few would expected anything less from the former showrunner, who played a large role in helping push the series into the mainstream. As such, his brain is always worthy of picking, and I asked for his definitive take on what's happening with The Doctor's regeneration when he talked to CinemaBlend about the current season.
It was originally believed The Doctor had a limited set of regenerations, with the character being gifted a new cycle of them in the episode "The Time Of The Doctor." Then the Timeless Child storyline threw all that into question when it was revealed The Doctor wasn't natively from Gallifrey and seemingly had a limitless number of regenerations. I asked Steven Moffat if he could set the record straight for me, and he was more than happy to oblige with a deep-cut reference to an episode that can't be found with a Disney+ subscription:
I'll tell you the truth about The Doctor's regeneration. He's always had an infinite number of regenerations because it wasn't like we were ever going to stop the show because he ran out! ‘Oh, I have to stop now. It's number 13.’ That was never going to happen. So it's always been a narrative contrivance. There are no contradictions. You can make everything fit. If you know your Doctor Who, you know that there were more incarnations of The Doctor in the past than we thought because there were some we saw in 'The Brain of Morbius.'
Steven Moffat seems to express here that evidence of The Doctor's uncapped regenerations was shown in the Season 13 serial, "The Brain Of Morbius." In the episode, The Doctor sees eight incarnations of himself, but only three are played by actors the audience is meant to recognize. Given what we learned in "Timeless Child," that now makes sense because those were other regenerations of The Doctor the Time Lord didn't know about due to his memory being wiped.
The explanation seems solid enough, but wait. What was the deal with The Doctor being gifted a new regeneration cycle in "The Time Of The Doctor" after winning the Time War? Since Moffat was the writer of that episode, it seems natural he'd be the one to explain what happened there:
We don't know quite what happened in 'The Time of the Doctor.' He thought he'd been given more regenerations. The fact is, turns out maybe he wasn't. Maybe they were just doing a bit of smoke and mirrors on him. So no, there's, there's no contradiction there at all. And the fact is Doctor Who will keep finding new faces for as long as we need him to and by whatever narrative contrivance comes to hand at that point.
As expected, all answers about The Doctor and regeneration tie back to The Timeless Child. Russell T. Davies made it clear in interviews during the 60th-anniversary specials that he would reference The Timeless Child, which has proven polarizing to viewers thus far. Those who have disliked the reveal have complained it changes The Doctor's origin too drastically, but other fans will point out that so much has changed in Doctor Who's 60 years.
The Doctor's regeneration status was just one of many things CinemaBlend talked to Steven Moffat about. The former showrunner mentioned he loved the fear that Ncuti Gatwa brings to his performance in "Boom," so I do wonder if we'll see that on display further when he's in Moffat's Christmas episode later this year.
Three episodes into this new season of Doctor Who, and we now have a better picture of where this run is going to go. Russell T. Davies confirmed we will be seeing more of the Pantheon, the enemies of The Doctor first referenced by Maestro in "The Devil's Chord." And now that we have assurance from Steven Moffat that the show will stay the course with the Timeless Child storyline, one would think we'll continue to see more about The Doctor and Ruby connecting through their shared status as foundlings. With all these nods to Timeless Child, I do have to wonder if we'll see Chris Chibnall write an episode at some point, considering it's his brainchild.
Doctor Who streams new episodes on Disney+ at 7:00 p.m. ET. I can't wait to see where the rest of the season leads, but I'm also already stressed out because I know this season doesn't have as many episodes as we're used to, and I don't want the fun to end!
