But of course Russell isn't afraid to also do something controversial and here we are with the bi-generation, his version of the multi-Doctor story in which the current incumbent gets to team up with the one will come after him, in this case the utterly beautiful Ncuti Gatwa, who himself is instantly the Doctor as well, the Mavic Chen ("with his masterplan") name-dropper. The whole thing's turned on its head again, with the two of them totally in love with one another instead of being ridiculous chippy, different people with the same core being. As the writer says on the commentary track, we've seen the regeneration as a negative enough times now. Let's make it a happy occasion.
There'll probably be a number of reactions to this. There'll be those who're cross because Ncuti didn't get the usual regeneration, popping out of the previous incumbent in the final moments of the episode, his first line "No way!" instead of some crack about his dental work or colour of his hair, sharing the limelight, a supporting player in the story of the Fourteenth Doctor. That from now onwards, there'll be two contemporary Doctors, one parked on Earth, the other the protagonist going forward, the audience forever wondering why the Fourteenth Doctor doesn't step in the next time there's a global threat. What happened during the Dalek occupations? Hey? Hey!?!
Firstly, I loved that this is how the Fifteenth's been introduced. It's not unprecedented that current and future incarnations share the screen. The finale of Deep Breath featured the Eleventh Doctor phoning forward to reassure Clara and the viewers that the angry Scots staggering about the street was still the same person (even if the rest of the season seemed designed to disabuse us of that). The Watcher, an ambiguous manifestation of the Doctor's next incarnation followed Fourth around until the right moment and manifests in later regenerations elsewhere. Think of it as the Pudsey Cutaway happening during The Parting of the Ways or something. A taster of who's to come.
What about the idea that there will be two contemporary Doctors going forward existing simultaneously? Well, there's already over a dozen incarnations swirling around one another in time and space, every now and then bumping into one another, in periods of dire emergencies or in the case of some comics licensees because it's a publication day. Ncuti is still the same "Time Lord" going forward with all of the Fourteenth Doctor's memories if not the emotional baggage. |It's just that there's another one branched off, enjoying a well earned retirement buzzing away now and then for a mini-adventure but otherwise happy to put his feet up and leave the running to his older self.
In the commentary for the episode, Russell suggests that because of the events at the close of this episode, every regeneration is now a bi-generation, with each incarnation finding themselves whole again in the spot where they originally made the change, their future selves having already headed off into new adventures, their own TARDIS nearby. Which apart from making a whole bunch of spin-off stories much easier to place (the First Doctor's adventures with John and Gillian Who clearly happening after The Tenth Planet or not having to cram Season 6B in before Spearhead from Space), explains a lot of what Tales from the TARDIS was about.
Russell says that his aim is to loosen up some of the canonical rules (perhaps with an eye to giving the spin-offs more flexibility). The Doctor's life is a series of branches with the Eighth Doctor awakening on Karn not long after the War Doctor's plunged into the fire, much to the surprise of the sisterhood. Having sworn them to secrecy, still knowing that the universe needs to think that he's strayed to the dark side, dusts himself off and heads back into time, helping where he can, perhaps pretending to be his pre-regenerative self until such time that he get back to saving the universe on his own terms. Corridors of new narrative possibilities have been opened up.
What if, for example, it's the Fourteenth Doctor who becomes the Curator? That would explain why he's so mysterious when encountering his younger selves, consolidating the person he is rather than moving forward. He's still a "Time Lord" so he'll still regenerate when necessary, but instead of turning into a Ncuti clone, he continues to revisit some of the old faces, largely staying in one place and time but lending a hand as a mentor when necessary. When Donna begins her job at UNIT, perhaps he decides to become a Curator of UNIT's Black Archive, a place which, like the TVA in Loki, exists outside of time. But I've strayed off topic.
The point is, don't think about any of this too much. The Doctor wasn't around for Torchwood's Miracle Day (or Children of Earth), just as what's left of the current version of that team aren't shown during The Giggle (they're probably off somewhere killing each other). So the Fourteenth Doctor isn't helping the Fifteenth Doctor at every global catastrophe going forward because XYZ is happening off screen and don't worry about it, that's for future spin-off writers to cope with. Sometimes you just do what's right for the story you're currently telling and in this case, the story was told very well. Sorry, that turned into a bit of a review there. Must keep an eye on that.
Additional: Having slept on this, I think RTD views Doctor Who in epochal narrative terms, that everything which has happened up until this point rests on the Fourteenth Doctor's shoulders and we're now in the second Disney epoch with Ncuti, that Tennant represents the end of the a 60 year story arc begun in An Unearthly Child and Ncuti begins another, offering a jumping on point akin to when he first brought the show back. This kind of intellectual jiggery-pokery is for fans really - most people'll just view it as this really cool thing that happened - but you can bet if the television show's ever rested again, there'll be whole PDAs covering the First Fourteen (or so) Doctor's self inflicted exile on Earth.
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