January Meme: Ideal Regeneration Scene?

[selenak]

lightofdaye asked: With Doctor # 13's regeneration upcoming, what does your ideal regeneration scene look like?

Ah, regeneration scenes. Well, I don't have a platonic ideal as such, but I'm fond of quite a few, so let me ponder them and speculate whether that leads me to an ideal after all.

Classic Who (aka before the New Who fireworks Artron energy display came into it): Third Doctor to Fourth Doctor. ("A tear, Sarah Jane?") As far as sad regenerations go, that certainly does it for me - the Doctor is quiet and subdued, Sarah Jane does the mourning for this particular regeneration for the audience, and the Brigadier is his stoic self. Random space Buddhist monk won't show up again, but fits with a story the Doctor told Sarah Jane earlier in this story. Also, while The Caves of Androzani in general are a bit too grimdark for me, the Fifth Doctor had an exit that's both sad and touching and provided the Sixth Doctor with some good opening lines, see here. (Err, subsequent events are another matter.)


New Who: offers a few very memorable regeneration scenes not involving the Doctor - Jacobi to Simm for the Master, Mels to River, and the General, who was the first on screen gender change regeneration (though not the first mentioned in dialogue), thus paving the way for others. Of the Doctor regenerations, the Twelth Doctor's is my favourite. Laugh hard, run fast, be kind. I might be biased because the Twelfth Doctor is my overall New Who favourite so far, but I do think it has the right balance between pathos (not bathos) and the immediate counter spark of the new self appearing.

So, basically, what I want out of my regeneration scenes is that there's some sadness because short of specials, we don't see this regeneration again (though we might hear them on Big Finish Audios), but also a sense of something completed, a life well lived. (There's some inherent difficulty right there with Thirteen's regeneration because in general, the Chibnall era didn't feel like it was doing much character development with the Thirteenth Doctor.) Conversely, the brief glimpse of the next regeneration should be exciting and revitalizing to me-the-audience and make me eager to watch this new person in the Doctor's shoes. The Doctor doesn't have to save the universe and/or a single life just before they regenerate, but knocking his head on the console (Six to Seven) is definitely something not to be repeated. I also object to random gun shots, even if the result looks like Paul McGann.

Because Thirteen is/was the first on screen female Doctor we got to meet (qualiflications necessary because of certain reveals), there are so many meta issues. If the next Doctor is a white man (of any age) again, there will be raging on the majority of my flistI/circle, while another part of the audience will rejoice and believe the BBC has "learned its lesson" and there will be all kind of revolting tweets. Either event is undesirable, so while I honestly don't care so much about the gender and race on a personal level, I'm already getting a headache ad the thought if it is this time around a white male actor, which is why I hope for another woman (complexion optional) or a non-white man.

Should a Companion be present at a regeneration scene? Since some of my favourites have them there while others do not, I really can't decide. On that wishy-washy note, I have to end these rather inconclusive musings.

The other days

Comments

[reverancepavane]

I think my favourite is the Second Doctor forced regeneration, which admittedly mostly happens off-screen whilst the Doctor complains bitterly about it. But then I do like the Time Lords of War Games and their rather cavalier dismissal of the Doctor and his companions. And the punishment for his crime.

I am saddened that the writer's room never gave the Thirteenth Doctor a real chance to truly strut herself and have the same chance of establishing herself as the Doctor as her previous incarnations had, instead of being a part of an ensemble. I would have liked to see that Doctor.

[selenak]

The Second Doctor regeneration is certainly one of the most traumatic and dramatically memorable, but as you say, mostly off screen, and the question was about regeneration scenes specifically.

Agreed on Thirteen.

[jesuswasbatman]

I don't know if you've seen it, but a lot of people have been pointing to RTD's novelisation of "Rose" published a few years ago, in which the scene with Clive the online conspiracy theorist is extended with photos of Doctors who were clearly described as Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen, followed by one described as a bald black woman.

I still worry that RTD will have been brought back with a mandate of "do it exactly like it was in 2006", but on the other hand I am amused by certain people on Twitter declaring that he isn't "woke". They obviously didn't see the clip that was going round a few months ago of his acceptance speech for an award he received for It's A Sin, which was a ferocious defence of the right of trans people to be a part of the LGBT community and denunciation of the minority of lesbians and gay men who have been engaging in vocal transphobia recently.