[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Chris

"The Doctor" is not a given name. Time Lords give themselves monkiers depending on how they want the Universe to see them. Hence the Master is a mentally unstable egomaniac bent on domination (as is the Rani, 'Rani' being a Sanscrit word meaning 'Queen').

The Time Lord we only know as the Doctor, it turns out, has not had 11 incarnations, but 12. However he refuses to consider the John Hurt incarnation to be an incarnation of the Doctor, because of something he did while in that incarnation that is incompatible with how he prefers to live, and how he prefers others to understand him. What that terrible thing was, was and when it happened, I expect we will find out on 26 November.

Incidentally ... whoever is revealed as the 12th Doctor tomorrow, will actually be the 13th incarnation, meaning the show is now only couple of years off hitting that inconvenient regeneration limit. I know they've alluded to it once or twice already but I expect when it comes to it they will write something explicit into the script. That, however, is not for this Christmas, but for whenever the new boy decides to quit.

I was on my iPad so didn't want to type all that lol. Up till the eight doctor it was only the 7th regeneration as the first doctor hadn't used any regenerations yet. Not sure how it stands now but due to the Timeloards ceasing to exist it may have put an end to the regen limit. As I think it was a limit imposed by them and not a genetic limit