# Doctor Who Series 9 discussion (spoilers as it airs) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 19, 2015, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754 "2015-09-19T11:40:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 37
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/721 "2015-12-08T21:47:13Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > I believe it’s become mandatory to link to [this video, NSFW due to profanity in music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzmnPs64K74) whenever anyone talks about how the Doctor “never uses guns.” 🙂 I’ve never seen that before. The combo of vintage Who and the Geto Boys works surprisingly well! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/722 "2015-12-08T21:54:21Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > I just realized, usually a Time Lord is all wonky for a while after a regeneration, but the General just got up and resumed where he/she had left off. That’s why he’s a general. ---
**Author:** ![anyrose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/54ee81/32.png) [@anyrose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anyrose)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/723 "2015-12-08T22:01:23Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > I just realized, usually a Time Lord is all wonky for a while after a regeneration, but the General just got up and resumed where he/she had left off. > [@Alessan](#): > > That’s why he’s a general. something about the Gallifreyan air, maybe? ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/724 "2015-12-08T22:04:20Z")
That, or a disoriented General would have messed with the plot so the writers just ignored continuity. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/725 "2015-12-08T22:31:53Z")
Most of the examples of regenerations explicitly shown are the Doctor’s, anyway, and I think he’s been established to be a bit rubbish at them. > [@MrAtoz](#): > > I believe it’s become mandatory to link to [this video, NSFW due to profanity in music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzmnPs64K74) whenever anyone talks about how the Doctor “never uses guns.” 🙂 Cool video, but I was simply referring to new who’s explicit renouncement of guns. Of course, when the Doctor repaired the disintegrator in Davros’ chamber, I didn’t have that much of a problem with it… ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/726 "2015-12-09T02:59:22Z")
I think we’ve only ever seen a few non-Doctor regenerations (Romana and that Buddhist monk guy from _Planet of Spiders_ in the old show, and Derek Jacobi turning into John Simm in the new one), and all of those were perfectly smooth, with no “regeneration madness.” I think the Doctor is just supposed to be bad at regenerating. P.S. My link to that video above probably should have had a NSFW warning, due to the language of the soundtrack. Sorry if it caused anyone any embarrassment. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/727 "2015-12-09T03:07:26Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > I think we’ve only ever seen a few non-Doctor regenerations (Romana and that Buddhist monk guy from _Planet of Spiders_ in the old show, and Derek Jacobi turning into John Simm in the new one), and all of those were perfectly smooth, with no “regeneration madness.” I think the Doctor is just supposed to be bad at regenerating. Come to think of it, you have a good point. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/728 "2015-12-09T03:21:55Z")
A couple of other things about the general’s regeneration, that I’ve seen pointed out on other sites: when the General stood up as a woman, she said “Back to normal,” or something like that, indicating that most of her incarnations had been female, and the previous one was the only one that was male. Perhaps a deliberate tweaking of the notion of a female Doctor–just because the majority of your regenerations are one sex, doesn’t mean you can’t turn into the other at some point. The second thing is that apparently at least some fans are going with the theory that the General (whose name we never heard, I don’t think) was Romana. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/729 "2015-12-09T03:28:15Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > I believe it’s become mandatory to link to [this video, NSFW due to profanity in music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzmnPs64K74) whenever anyone talks about how the Doctor “never uses guns.” 🙂 Tom Baker would straight up gas a motherfucker, and shrug when he killed the wrong guy. All of this “never touches a gun” handwringing is pretty recent. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/730 "2015-12-09T03:36:48Z")
> [@Penfeather](#): > > Tom Baker would straight up gas a motherfucker, and shrug when he killed the wrong guy. All of this “never touches a gun” handwringing is pretty recent. He couldn’t bring himself to kill the Daleks in their infant stage comparing it to killing baby Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/731 "2015-12-09T03:51:17Z")
> [@Penfeather](#): > > Tom Baker would straight up gas a motherfucker, and shrug when he killed the wrong guy. All of this “never touches a gun” handwringing is pretty recent. I love that the “bust a cap” video ends with Tom Baker just snapping someone’s neck with his bare hands! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/732 "2015-12-09T04:42:09Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > I love that the “bust a cap” video ends with Tom Baker just snapping someone’s neck with his bare hands! 🙂 “Come along, Sarah”. [The sequel has the Doctor boxing, stabbing, fencing, flipping, kicking, electrocuting, gassing, crossbowing, halberding, quarter-staffing, pipe-wrenching, blow-piping, grenading, acid bathing and beating on motherfuckers with pointy rocks.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNuHV-iLBRw) Newer fans don’t always realise just how medieval the Doctor could get on you. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/733 "2015-12-09T14:26:12Z")
Presumably his War Doctor stint is what put him off of guns (and military types in general (c.f. Danny Pink). ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/734 "2015-12-09T14:39:35Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > I believe it’s become mandatory to link to [this video, NSFW due to profanity in music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzmnPs64K74) whenever anyone talks about how the Doctor “never uses guns.” 🙂 At about the 15 second mark is that a young James Maye (sp?) of Top Gear fame? I laughed at one comment. “Last of the crime lords”. heh ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/735 "2015-12-09T15:06:46Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > Presumably his War Doctor stint is what put him off of guns (and military types in general (c.f. Danny Pink). Yes. Nobody’s saying that the Doctor never used guns. But after the atrocities of the time war, it’s been made very clear that he’d given the manner some thought and decided that guns are bad, mkay. Reneging on this is sort of an unexpected about-face for the character. So it’s like he’s learned a moral lesson—that violence is the easy way out—, limiting himself to his wits in order to get out of bad situations, and then just goes, oh screw that, and starts shooting people in the face. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/736 "2015-12-09T15:26:49Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > I think we’ve only ever seen a few non-Doctor regenerations (Romana and that Buddhist monk guy from _Planet of Spiders_ in the old show, and Derek Jacobi turning into John Simm in the new one), and all of those were perfectly smooth, with no “regeneration madness.” I think the Doctor is just supposed to be bad at regenerating. John Simm was kinda all _about_ the regeneration madness. 🙂 (well, okay, he was just batshit insane…but still. 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/737 "2015-12-09T15:33:25Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > John Simm was kinda all _about_ the regeneration madness. 🙂 (well, okay, he was just batshit insane…but still. 🙂 ) Yeah, I don’t know that that was related to the regeneration, so much as just being The Master. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/738 "2015-12-09T15:50:41Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > Yeah, I don’t know that that was related to the regeneration, so much as just being The Master. 🙂 Yeah, probably, but you have to admit–Simm’s Master was crazy even by Master standards. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/739 "2015-12-09T16:20:47Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > Yeah, probably, but you have to admit–Simm’s Master was crazy even by Master standards. 🙂 Yeah, I guess I do have to admit that. Elsewhere on the internet, I encountered a younger fan who was watching some Jon Pertwee episodes for the first time, and had gotten to see Roger Delgado’s Master. He was quite dismayed and confused at the Master not being an over-the-top ranting maniac at all times. How could those writers from 40 years ago be so inconsistent with John Simm’s performance? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![anyrose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/54ee81/32.png) [@anyrose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anyrose)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754/740 "2015-12-09T17:03:59Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > John Simm was kinda all _about_ the regeneration madness. 🙂 (well, okay, he was just batshit insane…but still. 🙂 ) > [@MrAtoz](#): > > Yeah, I don’t know that that was related to the regeneration, so much as just being The Master. 🙂 > [@Infovore](#): > > Yeah, probably, but you have to admit–Simm’s Master was crazy even by Master standards. 🙂 He was batsh1t crazy in The End Of Time because he didn’t regenerate, he was resurrected and Lucy Saxon interrupted it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754.md?page=36) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-9-discussion-spoilers-as-it-airs/731754.md?page=38)