Regeneration is a term from the TV series
Doctor Who. It is the name of a process that lets
Time Lords revitalize their bodies and survive what would kill normal beings - and also let the TV series survive when the lead
actor gets tired of the role.
Real Life
When Doctor Who was first created it was established early on that the Doctor was not human. This added to the mystery of the character, and also allowed the writers a certain amount of laissez faire to create attributes that help the Doctor out in certain situations - he has a dramatically longer lifespan, is able to outfox mind probe devices, can survive more radiation than normal beings, is less affected by time distortions.... and that's just in the first few years. In fact as time went on these "alien qualities" began to cover up bad planning on the part of writers.
On the other hand regeneration was a necessity. William Hartnell suffered from arteriosclerosis, which made it hard for him to memorize lines, not to mention that the effort the Doctor Who schedule required was killing him. These problems made him unbearable to work with, but eventually he came to the conclusion that he had to quit - though he made quite a big deal about who his replacement would be, as Hartnell almost viewed the show as a responsibility rather than a job.
Explaining the change came down to the fact that as an alien the Doctor can have amazing alien powers (moreso than the previously seen ones, I suppose) and that when his body wore out he could rejuvinate himself, leaving him with a drastically different body - and personality. That's it. No fancy scientific explanation, no pseudoscience, no technobabble. Quite easy on the viewer but frustratingly vague for people wanting it pinned down - over time this was changed and added to and it all got really weird.
As for who thought the idea up, there's no one person claiming responsibility, they all say other people had a hand in it. The speculation that it was a group decision is probably correct. Here's a list of people who are supposed to have been, or were likely to be, involved:
- Gerry Davis
- Innes Lloyd
- Dennis Spooner
- Dr. Christopher Pedler (Kit Pedler to just about everyone in the universe, and happy with that)
The one big failing with the
initial regeneration was that the Doctor's clothes regenerated with him. Ooops.
The personality of the new Doctor is always made to be quite different to the previous one to get a distinct break from the previous Doctor. For the first regeneration Patrick Troughton was to play the Doctor very differently to William Hartnell's irascible and domineering character, but the final decision ended up being decided by the actor - the process of sitting down with a group of people pitching ideas for rigid personalities was too much for Troughton, and so he was given a fairly broad scope, and ended up modelling the character after himself - the tendancy of the Doctor to use disguises was included to give him some scope for the character acting he enjoyed (and probably to stop him geting bored), but the most significant was to play it silly sometimes and be much more underhanded and devious.
Subsequently when Jon Pertwee was asked to do subtle humour he insisted instead on playing the role as straight as possible, and Tom Baker reportedly has much the same sense of humour as his Doctor (in fact he ended up overriding the show a lot in later years). Later Doctors were managed much more by the producer of the show, Colin Baker in particular has always been dissapointed he didn't get to play the Doctor the way he wanted - but either way it was still a big break from the previous portrayal. Ultimately the shift in the portrayal of the Doctor makes a clean break so people get a chance to start over - the actors can make their mark on the role their way, the writers get to try new things, and the audience don't feel like they're watching a poor copy of the previous actor.
The interesting thing about a regeneration was originally showing the Doctor's companions trying to deal with it - they were very suspicious of the second Doctor, and the third Doctor had an even tougher time - none of the people he knew that he met post-regeneration had heard of the process. These gave good scripting options, but with the fourth regeneration the story following it was about the regeneration, which meant there was a lot of rubbish made up. It's not quite that bad though, and it made sense to have a story focus on the concept for once. However the Doctor's companions dealt with the change quite easily, and the opportunity for inserting fresh mistrust of the main character that the first regeneration allowed hasn't been taken up again, apart from the attempt with the sixth Doctor - but people couldn't handle the idea of the main character being so unstable. Mysterious and edgy is okay with viewers, attempting to strangle the other lead character less so.
Fiction
So, how he hell does it work? Well.... Starting from the basic idea that when you get a minor scrape your body fixes itself you can just take that to an idiotic extreme. John Peel theorised in his book The Gallifrey Chronicles that it's a nanomolecular virus that rebuilds the body from the original. Mmmmm okay, that actually sounds good. This explains why the Doctor is often in a bad way after regenerating (at least for one episode) - you try having your body rebuilt from the cells up. He also tends to hang on to his body for far too long, and when he regenerates it's usually after some particularly traumatic experience.
Known post-regenerative problems include seeing the previous face in a mirror, extreme incoordination, flashbacks and psychosis. Poor dress sense, exhibited frequently by the Doctor after regenerating, is a personality trait that gets amplified rather than a widespread problem. Note that these are normal for a trauma induced regeneration (Romana has no trouble when changing her body into something more interesting). Unusual is a steady mental breakdown, as happened to the fifth Doctor, but most TARDISes have a Zero Room built into them - an environment which somehow stabilises the regeneration. Initially it's implied the TARDIS aids regenerations (or even causes it), so maybe, uh, well.... Lets break out Occam's Razor and take the simplest explanation:
Basically the second Doctor tended to hide the facts from everyone (an ongoing character trait) - He was lying. The TARDIS does not aid regeneration. It's not a feature of the ship. Time Lords regenerate on their own. The Zero Room/metamorphic symbiosis regenerator are only needed for mental or physical problems, respectively.
Oh yes, according to a later story Time Lords can regenerate 12 times. This will no doubt be ignored if the Doctor ever needs a 13th regeneration - initially there was never a set limit. It was established so that they could explain the emaciated, wasted Master in The Deadly Assassin. The limit was used in a couple of stories as a plot device.
So what can't it do? Well, the famous rumour that did the rounds every few years since the late 70's was "The next Doctor will be a woman"1 - though interesting2, the idea that a Time Lord's body is rebuilt means it's hard to get a drastic change. This is also why you don't find Time Lords with tentacles, gills or mandibles. If you break a flowerpot you can't glue it back together into a vase3.
- It's a stupid rumour. Why? A similar rumour was made about James Bond in the leadup to Die Another Day, when the working title was Beyond the Ice. They were talking about Catherine Zeta-Jones being Bond. It turned out that she was on the shortlist for a female spy (Halle Berry's character). So what relation does this have to Doctor Who? The "Next Doctor will be a woman" rumour came along when the Doctor was to be travelling with a female Time Lord. In both cases wires got crossed - radical rumours about franchises like these are often wrong.
The Doctor Who team did consider a woman playing the Doctor at one point, but it came down to the fact that people might not cope with it. It's never clear if this was a joke at a meeting or a serious idea, but given that it was the 70's.... people might not have liked the idea of a man turning into a woman, and it would have killed the show - or hammered it firmly into the "childish" basket in the minds of the casual viewer. Fans would have gone apeshit.
No, The Curse of Fatal Death does not count as a legitimate Doctor Who story - no matter how hot you think Joanna Lumley is as the Doctor.
- It would offer some interesting ideas and opportunities for discussion of issues, but it would work better in a book, which would allow us to see the thoughts of the character. I doubt the BBC would accept such a proposal.
- "Doctor Who is racist because he was never played by a black person" was said on the BBC message boards (the same poster claimed James Bond was also racist for the same reason - I wonder if they've read Fleming's books). Doctor Who is fucking shocking for seldom having anyone other than caucasian actors in it, but it's not so much the show as the institution at the time - Most shows were like this. Doctor Who doesn't seem to be consciously excluding, it's just got extreme tunnel vision.
If you can find a way to explain in story terms the Doctor regenerating into another ethnic group that doesn't belittle said group then that's all good - but the BBC would still probably ignore the option. Again, there's some possibilities for some thoughtful works to come out of it, which would even work on television. Unfortunately the show may now be so firmly mired in "tradition" and considered "an institution" that this change could never be considered.
Oh, and one suggestion for the second Doctor was apparently to have Patrick Troughton in blackface and wearing a turban. I have a feeling this wouldn't have been anything more than a stereotyped performance.
Regeneration Stories
The Doctor
Story with cause/Story with resolution
Other Time Lords
Other Time Lords cope with this much better than the Doctor,
there is seldom trauma or mental problems
References
- The Gallifrey Chronicles by John Peel
- The Discontinuity Guide by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping
- Doctor Who Programme Guide by Jean-Marc Lofficier
- BBC site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/
- A Brief History of Time Travel: http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/drwho.html
- Doctor Who Reference Guide: http://www.drwhoguide.com/who.htm
(specifically The Curse of Fatal Death: http://www.drwhoguide.com/fatal.htm)