Doctor Who: 9 Predictions About The Regeneration Conundrum

7. The Solution Won't Erase Past History

Harkening back to prediction nos. 1 and 2, one can hardly imagine Moffat's script for "The Time of the Doctor" to pay paeans to this or that episode for only the hardest of hardcore fans to enjoy. However, we know that the Head Honcho does have a sense of "Doctor Who" canon. The one takeaway from the much-ballyhooed Radio Times piece which triggered this hubbub that we can probably believe is Moffat's assertion that "That 12 times limit is a central part of 'Doctor Who' mythology €“ and science fiction is all about rules, right?" If anything, the Davies and Moffat eras have reassured old followers of the show that continuity does count. Indeed, check out the episode-referencing in, say, "The Snowmen" alone: Large bits of "The Web of Fear," the "Trial of a Time Lord" arc and "The Asylum of the Daleks" are all name-checked, ensuring their inclusion in Official Doctor Who Canon„. And the roll call of Eighth Doctor companions in the "Night of the Doctor" short went well beyond making the folks at Big Finish Audio Productions happy (though certainly they were ecstatic) in assimilating an entire run of stories into the show's history without contradicting anything that had come before. In short, Moffat and the gang do not fly in the face of "Doctor Who" history: They embrace it.