Doctor Who Christmas Special 2017: Steven Moffat on regeneration process
For Peter Capaldi, what we’re seeing so far is a regeneration process that is much more similar to David Tennant’s than Matt Smith’s. This is a man who isn’t ready to go, who fears the future, and is very much worried about who he will be on the other side of it. It’s not something that is easy to imagine, given that with every Doctor is a different face, a different voice, and a different style. It takes away a huge part of himself, and while the memories are there, the sense of who he is never quite works the same way.
In the new video below via the BBC, showrunner Steven Moffat explains in-depth what makes this process so challenging:
“The turmoil of regeneration, while it extends your life, does sacrifice parts of you that you want to keep. It’s too radical a change [to undergo] … What he is saying is that actually, I can’t keep on being somebody else.”
Moffat also adds for a moment that these regenerations do cause the Doctor to think about his mortality, something that is very difficult and challenging for him:
“He’s gone past his original regeneration cycle and here he is contemplating it again. He’s been the Capaldi Doctor for a long time and he’s just saying ‘let me be me’. That was what Bill was saying [in the recent finale] — if I can’t be me then I don’t want to live.”
Who will The Doctor be on the other side? That’s what we’re waiting — but also excited — to find out. These are of course plenty of rumors out there already suggesting who the next Doctor will be, but the actor almost doesn’t matter as much as the character and how showrunner Chris Chibnall chooses to write them. It’s not going to be the same Doctor that you’ve remembered and cared about the show, largely because that’s impossible. It’s going to be a very different take and a very different spirit. It’s exciting, but it’s also scary. Maybe in that sense, what we are thinking about here is a reflection of what is going on with The Doctor himself. We don’t know how to handle a change, but we do also know that we don’t want to see Capaldi’s Twelve go — even though it does feel like it’s time. He’s been this character for many years now, and it is time to move on. The best Doctors are the ones that we can look back and miss, and we certainly will miss him.
Now, speculation and more
For some further information on who the future Doctor Who star may not be, despite all sorts of rampant rumors, be sure to head over to the link here. (Photo: BBC.)