The Mystery of Degeneration in Doctor Who Explained
Feature article by guest contributor Zachary Schulman.
With the recent release of the 61st Anniversary special, “Once and Future: Coda – The Final Act” from Big Finish, Whovians should be delighted with the unexpected—and much needed— closure to one of Doctor Who’s most important stories. “Coda” is the bonus release to a story that was once thought to have ended, and it’s a game changer. After being shot by a degeneration weapon, the War Doctor has finally recovered. This article serves both as a processing of the baffling transformation of degeneration as well as a reminder of how such a transformation keeps the show, and its family, alive.
Of the 60th Anniversary special’s numerous contributions to canon, the “Once and Future” series offers fans a detailed guide to degeneration. The War Doctor, played on audio by the amazing Jonathon Carley, explains:
I don’t know how much you’ll understand, but recently I underwent a traumatic experience known as degeneration. It’s over now, but just as regenerative energy takes about fifteen hours to flush out of the system—give or take—degenerative energy clearly takes the same amount of time. It’s a slightly more powerful substance, like angry scar tissue. And this is bad for two reasons: one, it means I’m subtly altering reality wherever I go, and, two, my timestream is lit up like a Christmas tree.
Though the 60th Anniversary special, “The Giggle”, adds bi-generation to canon as well, the “Once and Future” series is preoccupied with making sense out of the associations that fans have had with regeneration and degeneration for decades. Now, after what the War Doctor has been put through with the “Once and Future” series, we finally have what we need to understand the differences between regeneration and degeneration.
Once . . .
In 2022, the BBC Centenary special “The Power of the Doctor” brought “forced regeneration” back to our screens after it was last seen in the Second Doctor’s regeneration story “The War Games” in 1969. While audiences knew that the Centenary special would be the Thirteenth Doctor’s regeneration story, who could have predicted that she would be forced to regenerate into the Spy Master? The disturbance of the Doctor’s incarnation cycle would soon be corrected by what the Thirteenth Doctor calls “forced degeneration”, a never-before-seen but much speculated upon concept. In the case of the Centenary special, degeneration means the forceful return to a previously seen incarnation of the Doctor (thus excluding the Fourteenth Doctor as a degeneration, whose face returns, like the Twelfth Doctor’s face, as an unconscious choice for a new incarnation). Produced in parallel to the Centenary special, the 60th Anniversary series “Once and Future” guides us through enough degeneration scenarios to understand how the process works in accordance to the established rules of the Whoniverse.
During the extraordinary events of the “Once and Future” finale last year, each incarnation of the Doctor—that Big Finish then had license to publish—appeared together in a concert of degenerations (with the exception of the Ninth Doctor, who only appeared in the 60th Anniversary special “Once and Future: Time Lord Immemorial” in a crossover with the David Warner Unbound Doctor). As one of the antagonist’s minions addresses him, degeneration makes it so that the Doctor is “Dragged through [his] own timeline—[his] entire being! Face, clothes, even the scarf!” Rather than being the healing of the body after death that is regeneration, degeneration is the disruption of that sequence by anachronistically transposing incarnations in order to destabilise the very concept of self. While this portrayal differs from the stabilisation of self seen in “The Power of the Doctor” special, each of these stories uses degeneration to strengthen the ties that the Doctor has with both their “extended fam” and with generations of audiences.
The main antagonist of “Once and Future” invents a transcendent technology she names the Diamond Array in order to bend the very rules of the Whoniverse. Just like the Spy Master in the Centenary special, it would be another renegade Time Lord who warps the rules regarding the sequence of the Doctor’s many lifetimes to ridiculous extremes. Using the metaphysical disarray of the Time War as a background to her scheme, the magic sands of the multiverse as seen in “Time Lord Immemorial”, and the Diamond Array, Madame Union does the impossible and achieves the creation of a paradox whereby incarnations one to twelve of the Doctor can play in the time-locked sandbox of these anniversary specials.
Degeneration, like the Curator, or the Guardians of the Edge, is another form of afterlife for the many beloved incarnations of the Doctor. Each degenerated incarnation is disoriented, canonically taking place after their last words, but existing as a snapshot of who that incarnation was during their lifetime; or, in the case of the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Doctor degenerations, snapshots of who those incarnations beyond the Time War would be. The antagonist’s invention, the Diamond Array, uses the power of at least three hundred seventeen black holes (that of beyond a Type II Kardashev scale civilisation) for the “pathologically pointless” pursuit of making the Doctor feel what Madame Union feels in being such an unstable person. To put it simply, Madame Union’s plan failed. Instead, the Union’s scheme actually functions as a bridge to help the Doctor’s family in Classic Who, like Susan, to make the cross over to New Who and beyond.
. . . and Future
Canonical New Who milestones such as Jenny (the Doctor’s “greatest creation”) becoming the Curator’s companion, the First Doctor featuring in a Tenth Doctor story with Missy, the Ninth Doctor meeting the Unbound Doctor and the Lumiat, Susan meeting River, the Tenth Doctor getting to say goodbye to Susan, the Eleventh and the Twelfth Doctors each getting to say hello to Susan, the classic Doctors having a chance to accept the dark necessity of the War Doctor, and the meeting of the War Doctor with the Fugitive Doctor all happen because of what the Union puts the Doctor through with her Diamond Array. Interestingly, while the Doctor and the Master are both affected by the degeneration weapon, Susan and River are both immune to it, ironically being more stable Time Lord personalities.
Fittingly for an anniversary special, dozens of characters are invited to play in this Time War story. Using the authority of the Fourth Doctor, Matt Fitton names the other incarnations of the Doctor as the First Doctor had done so in the 10th Anniversary special “The Three Doctors” in 1973. While the Schoolmaster, the Mischievous Imp, and the Swashbuckling chap are outstanding names for the First, Seventh, and Eighth Doctor respectively, there are some titles that need addressing. Perhaps an edited list would include the following: the Schoolmaster, the Clown, the Dandy, the Bohemian, the Cricketer, the Peacock, the Imp, the Swashbuckler, the Warrior, the Veteran, the Casanova, the Bowtie, and the Magician. Though the Blossom wasn’t in “Once and Future”, the Thirteenth Doctor will be making her way to Big Finish soon enough.
Finally, the 61st Anniversary special ushers in the beginning of the Fugitive Doctor’s Big Finish series; long may she reign.
Interestingly, “Once and Future: Coda – The Final Act” explores the fan-favourite Fugitive Doctor’s origins as well. In addition to speculating on what degeneration means in the Whoniverse, the coda to “Once and Future” experiments with the idea that the Fugitive Doctor, like the Unbound Doctor, is not from the Whoniverse after all. Bernice Summerfield, the most important character to have never appeared on screen in all of Doctor Who, has a fascinating exchange with the Fugitive Doctor. As Classic Who’s most famous archaeologist, Benny has made many noteworthy discoveries, from the Unbound universe, to Dark Gallifrey, and now to the Fugitive Doctor. In a key exchange of dialogue, Benny addresses the Fugitive: “You may be from another universe. That’s happened before.”
Just as the Division operates from outside of the Whoniverse (as seen in “Survivors of the Flux”), “Once and Future” canonizes a multiverse of Time Lords. One reason that the Fugitive Doctor is preferably from her own timeline is that she’ll be free, narratively speaking, to be herself. In the 61st Anniversary, Benny is puzzled by the Fugitive’s willingness to carry guns and follow orders. In what “Coda” identifies as her own timeline, the Fugitive Doctor ran away from the Division, as opposed to the First Doctor, who may have run away from his part in the coming of the Hybrid. In the exciting publication, Doctor Who: Origins, writer Jody Houser envisions an entirely different future for the Time Lords, one where their evolution into post-Gallifreyans allows for the species to survive the oppressive aristocracy that’s traumatized countless generations across the universe. Even with the Flux and the Toymaker throwing into chaos the Whoniverse’s timeline, the Fugitive Doctor should have the freedom in future Big Finish releases to be whoever she needs to be.
Speaking of the Doctor’s origins, many of us look to a long-sought-after reunion between the Doctor and his granddaughter, but the relationship isn’t as estranged as the television series makes it out to be. Carole Ann Ford has returned to Doctor Who many times: for the 20th Anniversary special, “The Five Doctors”; for the 30th Anniversary special, “Dimensions in Time”; for the Doctor Who Unbound series released during the 40th Anniversary year; for the 60th Anniversary special, “Once and Future: The Union”; and more. Writers have been unable to resist making these family connections, and so the Doctor hasn’t been as alone as we’ve been told he is. The Doctor’s just waiting for the next reunion, for the next anniversary of the family.
The connection between the Doctors and their family has always existed. It’s time we recognize what’s always been with us, and remember. Now, at autumn’s end, with the United States evidently having decided to play with RTD’s Years and Years timeline, the Fourth Doctor’s assurance that “We are all the Doctor, and we are united against tyranny, against fear, against cruelty,” could not be timelier. The Friendship is Universal campaign, coordinated by the showrunners of both Star Trek and Doctor Who earlier this year for San Diego Comic-Con reinforces the need to build bridges and strengthen connections between like-minded groups. Even though degeneration denotes deterioration in our common tongue, Doctor Who is able to magically transform a negative into a positive by turning pain into something that inspires. Whether Susan’s return is deferred to Season 2 of Disney Who or beyond, the joy of this year’s Christmas special should remind us all of what we’re fighting for, and that we “are not alone.”
