:)

As this is a reboot though……”

This is not a reboot. It is still the same universe as the original series. David Tennant was the 10th doctor and Matt with be the 11th. As for his limited number of regenerations, Russell Davies never really got in to that and I’m hoping that Steven Moffatt will. They’ve opened it up for multiple explanations as to why he would be able to go on regenerating past his 12th (13th lives total). I’m sure they will come up with something since the show is still and always will be immensely popular, not to mention the possibility of films down the road (though I would love to see Paul McGann return for the films and see the Time War play out.

As for the Master, he’s cheated to get his last several lives, from body stealing to convincing the Time Lords that he can help in the Time War (it was really their idea) only to escape the end of the universe to hide.

As for new Doctors, that is part of the fun of the show; discovering a new play on the character. You grow to like each one for unique reasons. I loved Tennant but I loved Eccleston, T. Baker, Pertwee and Troughton as well. With Doctor Who, it’s also a matter of who’s running it and with Moffatt now in control, I have complete confidence! As the Doctor would say, “He’s brilliant!”

As for the “trendline” that’s being referred to here, it is no such thing! Moffatt stated that they had intended to cast an older Doctor this time, but when Matt Smith came in and read, they changed their approach because he blew them away. The Doctor’s age has altered throughout the years. There has been nothing stating that he’s getting younger or that any Time Lord ever did.

As for the Valeyard, that it? It still doesn’t preclude additional regenerations after the 12th. Like I said, there are ample ways they can alter that that have been set up during the Davies years (think of Jack Harkness or just the fact that Gallifrey is gone and all their power is now in one Time Lord…it may be something he doesn’t discover until it happens).

CE

Of course, with Time Lords, your mileage may vary… a young Time Lord might take a hundredplus years to reach the appearance of the “Boneyard”…

The Master – used up all of his regenerations and possessed the body of Tremas of Traken to continue living, although the non-Time Lord body could not regenerate. The High Council of Time Lords offered the Master a new regeneration cycle if he would save the Doctor from the Gallifreyan Death Zone, although it was not given to him. He is executed by the Daleks, but manages to survive in a small slug-like form and later posesses a human but cannot sustain his control over it. Later, the Master says that the Time Lords “resurrected” him to fight in the Time War and can once again regenerate. His next incarnation is shot by his companion, and seemingly “refuses” to regenerate, showing it to be at least partially a willful act.

Romana – the only other Time Lord to travel with the Doctor, Romana regenerated once seemingly by choice, and “tried on” different forms, not all of them human-looking, before “deciding” which one to become. She later mentions that this is a learned skill.

The Doctor – a strange event in the Doctor’s personal timeline occured when the 6th Doctor is put on trial by the Time Lords for supposed misconduct and the prosecutor, “the Valeyard,” is discovered to be the 13th Doctor, having eventually developed an evil persona. As the incarnations increase, it will be interesting how the Valeyard is addressed.

I’ve watched Defying Gravity, you didn’t need to assume I was an idiot. You may correctly assume though, that I don’t care to continue watching it as it’s a soap opera set in space. I got plenty of that with BSG to last a few years. And I realize they’re not NASA, I said that these personality archetypes wouldn’t have made it through regular NASA training, the only *real world* training there is to use as a candlestick. Perhaps they would have made it through Russian Cosmonaut or Chinese Taikonaut training, but I rather doubt it…

And as for your later comments about astronauts…. ummmm, most astronauts and mission specialists have degrees in the sciences and engineering, or they wouldn’t be up there. You’ll be hard pressed to find an astronaut who isn’t. Test pilots who are that alone don’t walk into the astronaut corps, or Chuck Yeager would have landed on the Moon.

BTW, Harrison Schmidt and the other scientist-astronauts first began dominating the corps in 1965. That was, um, 44 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut_Group_4

The character driven stories like you see on “Defying Gravity” work on TV because it’s more of a soap opera slower motion medium.

And it isn’t a reboot.