THE FRANCHISE PROBLEM

There is a point where a long running franchise writes itself into a corner. At this point, the fans of the series have accepted the canon rules as fact. And such facts, even in science fiction tales, cannot be changed to suit the need for the character story to continue on forever.

This is the problem with Doctor Who, the 50 year old British sci-fi series. Yesterday, the 11th/12th Doctor, Matt Smith, made his farewell appearance as the main character. But under the terms of the Who franchise, a Time Lord can only regenerate 12 times . . . i.e. gather a new life cycle before dying. Under this season's episodes, Smith was actually the 12th Time Lord in his regenerated body . . . meaning that there was only one left, the final Doctor to be played by Peter Capaldi.

Which is the canon that fans know about. It is the Rule from the very beginning.

Things got a little muddled in this Christmas special, The Time of the Doctor, when head writer Steven Moffat crammed so many untied story strings together to make the special. Smith's Doctor, who previously helped stop a universal war by sending his home planet into a different hidden universe of time and space, finds the means to bring back his home planet, but at the cost of restarting the war that will destroy everyone. It is a typical big picture ethical dilemma that the main character has to solve. In this case, he decided to fight his enemies alone on a wayward planet that he knows from seeing his own future where he dies.

In an fuzzy moment, Smith attempts to explain that he should not be able to regenerate again because of the 10th Doctor's aborted regeneration may have used up his final reboot. Smith's character accepts that this is the end, but his companion whispers through a crack in time and space for help to his trapped home world. At the climax, the Time Lords for some unknown way, transmit to the Doctor another dose of life regeneration which he uses to destroy his enemies, save the planet, then make his final farewell.

That is all well and good, except it really unclear what really happened. Buried in the explosions and sentimentality, is a question of how the writer is getting around the most sacred story Rule of the series on how many times a time lord can regenerate. Even the television reviewers are confused at what the explanation was for the regeneration process.  On reviewer stated that  Time Lords granted the Doctor a new regeneration cycle, thereby saving him from death on Trenzalore and changing his future; that temporary rejuvenation is a 'reset' for the new cycle of regenerations to begin and the second phase of the regeneration is taking some time to start up, but he will soon change. However, another reviewer states that the Time Lords granted Smith's character only "one more" regeneration and not a new cycle (which would mean 12 more characters in the future). 

This story confusion is unwarranted and tricky since everyone accepted the fact that Smith's Doctor had one more regeneration to go. The fact that he suddenly needed an "extra" boost does not make sense since the aborted regen did not alter the prior Doctor's appearance (which shows the completion of the cycle). So, everyone assumed that the regeneration to the Capaldi Doctor was a given and no intervention by his home planet was required to accomplish it.

Because, if the one reviewer is correct in the assumption that the Time Lords can grant another full life cycle of 12 regenerations, and hence immortality, then the Rule was frivolous from the start. The need to "change" the rule so dramatically is to extend the franchise's main character is an easy way out, without the creativity to make a "new" doctor profile (i.e. someone to take the place of the Doctor character - - - would not violate the Rule). But executives and producers believe that the viewers are tied to the main character (in all the incarnations it is still the same man), but that is another false assumption, because as we have seen in the Star Trek franchise, fans will accept different captains, different ships, even different eras - - - so long as they do not violate the basic canon rules of the show. To mess with canon rules is to mess up the show's past history - - - to diminish it to irrelevance.

So the series producers need to quickly explain what they meant by Smith's final regeneration. Did it change the normal, steadfast rule which has been in place for 50 years, or was it convenient hocus pocus to extend the franchise's main character?

Fan reaction to the episode and continuity has been mixed, much like LOST's ending.

There is a vocal majority who believe that the show produced a McGuffin to get around the Rules to make the premise that there are no rules in the show's universe. A few have scanned the wiki-archives to find one small reference to the proposition that the Doctor's high council could "grant" an additional cycle of regenerations to a Time Lord. But how is that possible, especially if the high council is trapped in another universe and cannot get out into ours? And it seems odd that a species has the ability to "grant" another sequence of life force on a mere whim. Again, that would mean that no time lord would ever die, but they have in the past so much so that they were about to be wiped out during the Time War. The change in the principle rule of regenerations has taken many fans to questioning the future of the series; whether it has jumped the shark. More than a few have lamented that there should have been a better, more clever story line than just instantaneously but haphazardly giving a character another cycle of regenerations. These are the same criticisms we have been debating since The End finale of LOST.