No, that's the point. Reguardless of how much of the regeneration energy he actually used, a Timelord body can only generate 12 bursts of regeneration energy, and he had one of those 'bursts' in the final episode. It is irrelevant as to what happens to that energy (he used some and focussed the rest into his severed hand), the fact remains, his body has now used up one of his 12 bursts of regeneration energy, and as such, he is now the 11th Doctor (which spawned 2 hybrid human-timelords in the process).Originally Posted by roller
I just feel that the writer threw it in as a cliff-hanger, promo concept, without realising that a regeneration is not a change of form, but a regeneration of the body from a cellular level to save a Timelord from dying - change of form is a side-effect, if they are conscious enough to choose to not to change - thus it counts as a regeneration in terms of previous regenerations.
1st regeneration - body was 900 years old, so probably was just dying from old age.
2nd regeneration - not actually dying, but forced regeneration by the Timelord council. (this one could be claimed to be like Romana's physical changes, and not an actual regeneration - but I think it was definitely stated as a full regeneration in addition to the physical change because the Doctor was very upset about it being done to him)
3rd regeneration - dying from cellular decay from exposure to radiation.
4th regeneration - dying from a fall.
5th regeneration - dying from a toxin.
6th regeneration - maybe dying from a head injury when he was knocked to the floor in the TARDIS.
7th regeneration - dying from gunshot wound and/or surgery on the wound.
8th regeneration - not shown/known
9th regeneration - dying from absorbing space-time energy from Rose.
(10th regeneration) - dying from being shot by a Dalek, doesn't change physical form though.
This wiki article also makes the mistake of saying that a regeneration is just a physical change, not a repair or resurrection of the Timelord, reguardless of a phyiscal change occuring:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_...#Regenerations
I just noticed that the actor himself picked up on this as well, wondering if this could be seen as using up one of his regenerations, but will be something they will probably worry about later. Footnote 18 - 'Now, whether this means the Doctor has used up one of his limited regenerations or not is a matter for some future debate, I suspect'
At least someone official has it on the record that this could/should count as a regeneration, because as I keep saying, a physical change is not required for a regeneration to save the life of a Timelord 12 times.
(can you tell that I'm obsessed about this...)
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