Another board coined the phrase Doctor Goo for the clone doctor. Fits him rather well.
I would be totally OK with being wrong on that one, I just hope the Big Reveal is as good as advertised.
Except the gangers aren’t clones, they’re identical copies. A clone is an identical twin, someone who just happens to have the same DNA as you do. That’s not a copy of you. The gangers are copies, with all the flaws and experience and thoughts and everything else of the original. Which might include “ability to regenerate”.
Besides, Jenny is a sort of clone and she sort of regenerated, didn’t she? Just because “Handy” Doctor 10.5 can’t (contaminated with Human DNA as he is) doesn’t mean some other replicating process won’t result in a copy with regenerative capabilities.
Besides, the whole point of the two episodes is that the gangers aren’t “fake”, they’re real people even if they can out of a batch of goo instead of being born.
But yeah, it could be an issue with the fan base. A really big one.
Well, strictly speaking no, but not everyone really wants to speculate. I err on the side of caution with spoilers maybe more than I should, but that’s just me.
Intriguing idea, that - Or could it be the two doctors splitting their time with Rory and Amy? Would River know?
Meh, but that only works for “Doctor Who” and “Doctor Goo” and no one has ever called the Doctor actually by “Doctor Who”.
I’ve seen “Doctorganger” several places as a play on “doppelganger”, but that’s just my preference.
Maybe the Doctorganger is really from Gangerfrey.
I need to stop thinking about this before I get to last season’s finale episode.
I like this very much indeed.
Regarding Broomstick’s speculation, that is the kind of thing that really turns people off.
Yes, he’s an exact copy. That’s great. That’s wonderful. Still sucks.
Look at Voyager when they killed off Harry Kim and a baby only to replace them with (essentially identical) copies from a parallel universe. Look at something similar with Peter Parker.
If nothinig else, consider the possibility that 22nd century humans could make a perfect permanent copy of anyonr and anything. If we’re going with “it’s really real and there’s no difference”, then nobody ever has to live without their dead spouse again. Death by anything but natural causes is now a distant memory.
-Joe
In other words, making the Doctor different, as they started to do back when Hartnell left and Troughton arrived, worked better than making an identical copy. How odd that the fanbase seems will to accept a different body and personality as the “same” person, yet would reject an identical copy.
I agree, though, that it would alienate the vast majority of viewers. As I said, I’m happy to be wrong on speculation, I just hope the payoff is as big as advertised. I’d like to think the guys running the show know what they’re doing and don’t get stupid.
If River is a Doctor regenerated then that makes that kiss kinda icky.
It’s not that, it’s just pulling something like that is a really cheap, totally shitty trick that guarantees a pathetic cop out.
Hell, if they could pull this off then Doctor Tennant should have just swung by the 22nd century after his radiation poisoning…
-Joe
Well, then you’d have two radiation-poisoned Doctors instead of one!
But really, what was the Doctor thinking here, making a copy of himself? I mean, I know he’s lonely for someone of his own kind, and an intellectual equal, but really, that seems desperate.
Thesis topic!
Yeah, this is an interesting study in identity. But, it’s also easy to form an opinion about things…
Level 1: Original person.
Level 1.25: Split transporter clone, alternate universe clone.
Level 1.5: Original person who has some sort of shape shifting abilities in a new form (Time Lord, shape shifter).
Level 2: Exact duplicates - transporter clone (occasionally level 1.25 if split), clone with memories
Level 3: Clone with memories and extras (ability to become plastic goo stretching man or ticking time bomb of dissolving), union of two sentient beings (Trill, Tuvix)
So, Dr Goo is at three levels down in terms of duplicity, and it’s understandable that fans not be as enthusiastic as a level 1 or level 1.25 duplicate.
No, just masturbation.
Okay, can we talk about speculation openly now?
I have been wondering about the two doctors from the first episode. If there were two doctors there should have been two tardises, right? But suppose Original Doctor lets Doctor Goo borrow the Tardis for while while he spends 200 years having adventures. In the meantime Original Doctor just stays on Earth for a vacation and decided to visit the U.S. since he hardly ever goes there. When Doctor Goo comes back he’s the one that gets killed, possiblt even by Original Doctor.
Why does Doctor Goo allow himself to be killed? Perhaps they discover the goo can only hold itself together for a couple hundred years and since he’s going to go out, may as well go out with a bang and preserve the timeline.
And the whole business about them saying a major character gets killed? I have a feeling they are going to spend the next episode convincing us that the gangers are just as real people as the original ones, and the Goo Doctor would have just spent a couple hundred years as “The Doctor” so basically The Doctor is the one killed.
You have hit on what is likely the most feasible thing that will resolve the whole “Doctor Gets Killed” plot arc. So, you’re probably wrong. 
Only thing is, I prefer for The Doctor to win through guile than through ‘Boy, that sure was a convenient clone, thanks Doctor Goo!’. Having said that, however…well…if they manage to convince us that Goo is a ‘real’ Doctor…then it becomes The Doctor willing to sacrifice himself for The Doctor .
Moffatt sure can write a story. I hope he gets the next season of Sherlock out soon because that show was absolutely brillaint.
-Joe
The Doctor who dies in episode 1 being the goo Doctor doesn’t really answer any questions, though. Why would it have been necessary to invite an audience for the event? The death really hasn’t changed the motivation of the characters who witnessed it; it’s really just been a quiet undertone to the season that hasn’t really affected anyone’s decision making, even in the first story - there’s no compelling reason for goo Doctor to die in such a manner.
I think the Copy Doctor was generated because the Doctor either knew or suspected that negotiations between the humans and the gangers would break down, so he wanted someone reliable on the ganger side to help him fix things.
I think it’s way too early in the season for us to have the answer to ‘How will the Doctor survive being killed off in the first episode?’ - BUT it’s also possible that the Doctor is aware of his impending demise and came to the 22nd century to make the copy to die in his place and preserve the timeline. In which case, it would lead to the interesting consequence that River Song is not, in fact, a future companion of the Doctor - she’s a future companion of the Doctor-ganger.
Here’s a question I had. The gangers were created when the humans hooked themselves up to a machine to put their minds into the goo and this created a copy of their minds in a new body.
But the Doctor never projected his mind into the goo. So how did his mind get copied? I know he said that while he was scanning the goo, it was scaning him - but couldn’t it have scanned anyone, like Amy and Rory? Are we just to assume he has a copy because he’s the Doctor and therefore special in some way? Can the goo copy your mind just from touching it? Did I miss something? Or should I expect an explanation in the second half?
I assumed that the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to emulate the neural interface the humans used.
The Doctor didn’t just scan the goo, he touched it. Amy and Rory didn’t.
Also, it’s long been established the Doctor is mildly telepathic, so there might have been some of that going on, too.
And he sonic’d it at least twice I can recall.
Another sneaking suspicion: all of this is going to end up being tied to the Dream Lord. Amy was pregnant in that episode, and it’s where Rory first died… And to top up the wild guesses, if there’s a Doctor Goo, is there a gooey Dream Lord (…Cream Lord? That sounds icky…), too?