What Are You Doing In That Body?

(An addendum to the on-going Love And Doctors Who posts.)

Of course, there are problems with this little sequence from season 17′s “Destiny of the Daleks.” All kinds of established canon was thrown right out the window (or perhaps, the TARDIS viewscreen). I mean, regeneration is only supposed to be a last resort, save-your-ass kind of device. It’s death-proofing. And a timelord only gets just so many — twelve, actually* — in the cycle a single lifetime. So to have Romana just up and decide one day to shift into a new body as easily as one might change their socks … and then to do it again and again until she found one she liked … that’s enough to make any hardcore fanboy bleed from the ears.

Still … I love this sequence all the same.

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June 15, 2007 – 11:45 am | By Thomas | Posted in Geekery, Television | Comments (6)
  • http://www.missmisc.com Alyssa

    That clip is bizarre when you’ve only seen one regeneration like me, the Ninth into Ten. It was so serious and such a big deal, having her go in and out like that just seems…wrong.

  • Thomas

    Hence the controversy. Had there been an Internet (a public one, anyway) in 1979, can you imagine the fan forum flamewars? “OMG!WTF?!!!111one”

    Honestly, I think most fans were more than ready to accept the change because the first Romana was just such a horror. And while it would’ve made story-sense to have the first Romana suffer a fatal blow to trigger the change, this is another time where we have to remember the era in question. As this is still a children’s show in the late 70s, having a female (a lead character, particularly) die would be just terribly inappropriate. Far “better” to bend (break) the rules entirely than to do so.

  • http://jeniq.blogspot.com JeniQ

    OK, you’re posting about Doctor Who AND you blogrolled me? I love you!! I can’t stay right now, but I will come back and visit. I’m sure I will delight in your posts! (Beer and Doctor Who, what’s not to love?) (P.P.S. Recently posted a bunch of DW stuff on my bloggy.)

  • Thomas

    Everyone, meet Jeni. Jeni, meet Everyone.

    Jeni went to Berry College when I did, long ago when the Earth was young. These days, she lives her life up in Raleigh and blogs about about such things as baby birds and David Bowie.

  • http://monotonous.net Joseph G

    The Wikipedia article on this is pretty good. There are some theories there about the Romana regeneration scene.

  • http://jeniq.blogspot.com JeniQ

    A comic that you might enjoy reading, Thomas:
    Romance and Math

    P.S. Thanks for the intro!