OK Brits...New Dr. Who..

[Palinka (RIP)]

Doctor who - a guide for non-Brits...

[Palinka (RIP)]

Fucking-A! The BBC release a mini-film, The Night of the Doctor, to explain the chronology.
Can you smell the fangasms?

[Duluoz]

Fucking-A! The BBC release a mini-film, The Night of the Doctor, to explain the chronology.
Can you smell the fangasms?

It's like someone dared Moffat to pull out all the stops and he said, "All right. Brain of Morbius, bitches!"

Plus he brought back Paul McGann, and with a couple of lines made the 8th doctor audio adventures part of the official canon...

[Palinka (RIP)]

And...here's Ron Burgundy's take...

[Duluoz]

A lovely little spoiler from Saturday's episode:

Fuckity-bye, Daleks!

Really looking forward to a more mature, intense Doctor.

[Palinka (RIP)]

The Problems of the "extra Doctor" and the limitations of 13 regenerations

However, there are several ways around this, to my mind (to avoid confusion, I have referred to each Doctor in terms of the actor portraying the incarnation, rather than using the more traditional, but now confusing, numbering system) :

1) The regeneration from Patrick Troughton's Doctor to Jon Pertwee's Doctor was imposed by the Time Lords, so may not count.

2) The regeneration of the Paul McGann's Doctor to "the War Doctor" was brought about by the Sisters of Karn, so also may not count.

3) River Song gave Matt Smith's Doctor all of her regenerations, to save him, in "Let's Kill Hitler". So she might have added a few extra regenerations to his span.

4) The Time Lords gave The Master a whole new set of regenerations in exchange for his service in fighting "The Great Time War". Since, in "The Day of The Doctor", "The War Doctor" also helped in fighting "The Great Time War" and, eventually, with the help of all the Doctors (from Hartnell's incarnation to Capaldi's) found a way to end "The Great Time War" whilst saving Gallifrey and, therefore, all The Time Lords, surely they would be grateful enough to grant him a new set of regenerations. 

5) Since the events of "The Great Time War" have now been changed, so too must the events of "The End of Time". So not only would David Tennant's Doctor no longer need to regenerate but also The Master would no longer be insane from the "drum-beat" homing-signal that was implanted in his mind to save Gallifrey (since it no longer gets destroyed).

There are probably a great many more "outs" that Steven Moffatt will be able to use/already has used, and, chances are, this story is another of Mr Moffatt's use of smoke and mirrors (so to speak) to keep us guessing and conceal some even bigger thrills until the special gets aired (after all, he concealed Tom Baker's and Peter Capaldi's involvement in "TDoTD", Paul McGann's return to the rôle in the mini-episode "The Night of The Doctor",  and John Hurt's reveal in "The Name of The Doctor" from us, very successfully).

In the end, only Time will tell...