Regeneration Impossible

Short Trips #10.5

Released: 23 May 2020

Listened: 12/29/22

While the Doctor is moping around in Victorian London, he meets the king of grumpy, the Twelfth Doctor, who’s also the king of showing up too early. The Eleventh is more than a little puzzled by this, because he believes himself to be his final regeneration. He’s also especially puzzled by the fact that the Twelfth keeps regenerating without changing, having the energy siphoned away. Of course, neither of them know about the Timeless Child yet, so they assume there’s a limit to how often he can do this. Of course, the plot is less important than putting two Doctors in a room and letting them snark at each other, a task for which the Twelfth Doctor is overqualified. He hasn’t mellowed from his time at St. Luke’s yet, and he’s quite dismissive of the Eleventh’s “retirement,” even though he knows how that’ll end. What’s really amazing is that Jacob Dudman plays both Doctors, even through all the snark, and the bad guy as well. It’s not narrated like a short trip at all; it feels like a full-cast story, even though there’s only one actor. For that reason alone, it’s worth a listen.