Doctor Who: Life, Death, and the Doctor
By David Hill
A lot of attention is paid to the Doctor’s lifespan in relation to his companions and his human friends on Doctor Who. Yet, it is rare to get a glimpse of how the Doctor may regard his lengthy lifespan and regenerative abilities.
With at least twelve regenerations and a lifespan that is measured by millennia, Time Lords are pretty close to immortal. With the Doctor, having been granted an unknown number of extra regenerations, that lifespan will stretch on even longer, so long as he manages to avoid ending up on the wrong side of the Daleks or Cybermen or any of the other assorted enemies he has in time and space.
While these added regenerations means that we get to see more of the Doctor’s adventures, and he can continue to save humanity and defend the weak and downtrodden, one has to wonder what he thinks about that extended lifetime. Depending on the way that his regenerations and continued lifeline are looked at, those added regenerations could be one of the crueller gifts on Doctor Who.
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Think about it. Everyone that the Doctor gets close to, be it his companions or his friends throughout the universe, he gets to see them die. Even the Face of Boe, another being that was virtually immortal, died with the Doctor by his side. His journeys with his companions and friends, even if they last years, are really but seconds for the Doctor in his life.
Perhaps this is why he is so attached to his companions. He realizes how much these excursions mean to them, and how much these travels change their lives, making them completely different people than they were before he came into their lives. They mean so much to him, these brief moments, that he is always trying to capture them for as long as possible. Every time a companion leaves, or a friend dies, it tears the Doctor apart, as these are those moments that he can never get back.
In our lives, there are really two unexplored realms – outer space and death. The Doctor has been able to travel everywhere and anywhere he wants in this universe, bouncing around time and space according to his whims. Yet, with these added regenerations and his extended lifespan, which will continue for an undetermined amount of time, one has to wonder if the unexplored realm of death has a bit of a draw, just as exploring the cosmos has a draw to those of us who are Earthbound.
Death may well have that same feel for the Doctor. He has explored everywhere else in the universe, with death as his last frontier. There, his adventures with his friends, companions, and those he had to leave behind could continue uninterrupted. For once, his regrets and guilt over the deaths of his friends, and from having to leave others behind, could finally end.
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