B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (347 page)

Following Gaiman’s reasoning (and that of his associate Steve Manfred), we might imagine that the High Council in
The Five Doctors
has a safe, controlled and humane way of granting more lives that is normally illegal.
Why
it’s verboten isn’t clear - possibly, Rassilon laid down such a rule because (as
The Five Doctors
makes abundantly clear) immortality is “a curse, not a blessing”. Alternatively,
Head Games
(p173) builds upon the idea in the New Adventures (
Timewyrm: Revelation
especially) that traces of previous personas remain in a Time Lord’s mind after each regeneration, and has the Doctor state that the number of regenerations was limited because “too often the mind can’t handle the multiplicity of psyches”. (The mental schism that occurs between the seventh Doctor and his previous self - see
Love and War
and
Head Games
- stands in evidence of this.)

If the High Council
can
grant new lives, however, this presumably can’t be done indefinitely - so adamant is
The Five Doctors
in keeping immortality the exclusive province of Rassilon. That might square with Borusa’s actions, actually - if Gallifrey can implant (say) one extra set of twelve regenerations, he might not be content even if given a waiver and allowed twenty-five lives (that, or he wants to present himself as Rassilon’s immortal, fully empowered heir to ward off all political opposition). Alternatively, it’s possible that the Master’s unique status as a former Time Lord now hosted within the body of a Trakenite via the lingering energies of the Source of Traken (
The Keeper of Traken
) qualifies him for a new set of regenerations, whereas a purebred Time Lord such as Borusa doesn’t have that option.

A third option is that the High Council is simply lying when they offer to give the Master more lives - and yet, the Master doesn’t seem to doubt their word on this, and he’s better informed about Gallifreyan secrets and developments than most (
Colony in Space
,
The Ultimate Foe
, etc.). That would, however, create the lingering oddity that if Gallifrey has developed a means of dispensing new regenerations and the Master knows about it, it’s remarkable that he hasn’t (even allowing for his aborted attempt in
The Deadly Assassin
) tried to acquire/steal a new set for himself, choosing instead (after
The Keeper of Traken
) to go about space-time in a hijacked body in which he’s altogether too mortal.

In
Gallifrey: Reborn
(set long after
The Five Doctors
), Romana comments that Gallifrey has the ability to “implant a new regeneration cycle, but not extract, divide or redistribute an existing one”. This curiously, though, overlooks the Master’s claim that the High Council has promised the Valeyard the sixth Doctor’s remaining lives if he helps them cover up the Ravolox affair (
The Ultimate Foe
). Also, the Master nearly succeeds in “redistributing” the Doctor’s regenerations to himself in
Doctor Who - The Movie
, using nothing more than the Eye of Harmony in the Doctor’s TARDIS.

The new
Doctor Who
has largely steered clear of the topic of how many regenerations Time Lords possess, save that the formerly regeneration-less Master regenerates in
Utopia
(possibly part and parcel of his being “resurrected” for the Last Great Time War; see
The Sound of Drums
), that River Song burns up her finite number of regenerations healing the Doctor (
Let’s Kill Hitler
), and that the eleventh Doctor tells Clyde in
SJA: Death of the Doctor
that he can regenerate five hundred and seven times - possibly indicating his unique status, possibly suggesting that the limitation on regenerations was done away with in the Last Great Time War, possibly suggesting that he
could
acquire new lives but hasn’t done so yet, or possibly that he’s just poking fun with Clyde, a teenager. It remains to be seen how future production teams will address the issue, or choose to ignore it.

[
1
] In
The Deadly Assassin
, the Time Lords don’t know that their power comes from the Eye of Harmony, and in both that story and
The Ultimate Foe
, they haven’t heard of the Master. In
The Deadly Assassin
, even the Doctor seems unaware of the APC Net, and knows little about Rassilon.

[
2
] The phrase “the Old Time” is first used in
The Deadly Assassin
. Not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords, as the Time Lords are the ruling elite of Gallifrey - the Doctor seems to say in
The Invisible Enemy
that there are only “one thousand” Time Lords. However, the terms “Time Lord” and “Gallifreyan” seem interchangeable for most practical purposes. Likewise, “Time Lord” is used to refer to the Doctor’s race even before they master time travel (e.g.:
Remembrance of the Daleks,
where the “Time Lords” have trouble with the prototype of the Hand of Omega). Gallifrey is first named in
The Time Warrior
, although the Time Lords’ home planet was called Jewel in the
TV Comic
strip “Return of the Daleks”.

[
3
]
The Ultimate Foe

[
4
]
The End of Time
(TV)

[
5
]
Genesis of the Daleks

[
6
]
The Five Doctors

[
7
]
Borrowed Time

[
8
]
The Time of Angels

[
9
]
The Pit

[
10
]
Pyramids of Mars

[
11
]
An Earthly Child

[
12
]
Lungbarrow

[
13
]
The Brain of Morbius

[
14
]
Lungbarrow

[
15
] We learn that Susan is telepathic in
The Sensorites
, and it has been stated on a number of occasions that the Doctor (e.g.
The Three Doctors
), the TARDIS (e.g.
The Time Monster
) and all Time Lords (e.g.
The Deadly Assassin
) are mildly telepathic. The Doctor has also stated on a number of occasions that the TARDIS is alive (e.g.
The Five Doctors
), and so is the Nemesis seen in
Silver Nemesis.

[
16
]
The Invisible Enemy

[
17
] Omega has a “dark side” to his mind in
The Three Doctors
. The Valeyard [q.v.] represents the Doctor’s dark side (
The Ultimate Foe
), and the Dream Lord (
Amy’s Choice
) is “everything dark” in the Doctor given voice by space pollen. In
Falls the Shadow
, the Doctor refers to this as the “Dark Design”.

[
18
]
Gridlock,
expanding a little on Susan’s description of her home planet in
Marco Polo
. As such, it’s explicit confirmation that Susan is from Gallifrey.

[
19
]
The Deadly Assassin
. Engin says that deep beneath the Capitol there are “vaults and foundations dating from the Old Time”.

[
20
]
Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible, The Infinity Doctors, The Gallifrey Chronicles
and the
Gallifrey
mini-series.

[
21
]
The Nightmare Fair

[
22
]
House of Blue Fire

[
23
]
The Five Doctors

[
24
]
Silver Nemesis

[
25
] According to the Doctor in
The Five Doctors.

[
26
]
City of Death, Warriors’ Gate, Time and the Rani.

[
27
]
The Claws of Axos

[
28
]
The Robots of Death

[
29
]
Just War
. The Time Vortex was first named in
The Time Monster
.

[
30
]
A Good Man Goes to War
, implicitly suggesting that Time Lords developed the ability to regenerate in this fashion, hence why River Song has the talent (
Day of the Moon
,
Let’s Kill Hitler
), because she was conceived while the TARDIS was in the Vortex.

[
31
]
The Five Doctors

[
32
]
The Infinity Doctors

[
33
]
The War Games
; the claim is repeated in
The Infinity Doctors
, and by the tenth Doctor in “The Crimson Hand”.

[
34
]
Lungbarrow

[
35
]
Gallifrey: Annihilation

[
36
]
Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible, Lungbarrow.

[
37
]
Lungbarrow

[
38
]
Interference
. Rassilon’s dissolution of the monasteries presumably accompanies his defeat of the Pythia.

[
39
]
The Song of the Megaptera

[
40
] “The Age of Ice”

[
41
] Omega first appears in
The Three Doctors
and reappears in
Arc of Infinity, The Infinity Doctors
and
Omega
. The Hand of Omega, his stellar-manipulation device, appears in
Remembrance of the Daleks, Lungbarrow
and
The Infinity Doctors
.

The first reference to Rassilon is in
The Deadly Assassin
; after that he becomes the central figure of Gallifreyan history, referred to in many subsequent stories (the quotes are from the Doctor, in
The Five Doctors
and
Shada
respectively). Both Rassilon and Omega are the legendary founders of Time Lord society, both are “the greatest” of the Doctor’s race and supply the energy necessary for time travel. The first time that it is explicitly stated on-screen that they were contemporaries is in
Silver Nemesis
, although earlier in Season 25,
Remembrance of the Daleks
attempted to rationalise the two accounts of Time Lord origins. Early
Doctor Who Weekly
issues included a back-up strip written by Alan Moore which was an account of the origins of the Time Lords, and which has been referred to in novels such as
The Infinity Doctors
and
Interference
.