When I watched the season 7 finale of Doctor Who I was confused. I had never heard of the side of the Doctor, now being personified by the actor John Hurt, called The Valeyard. My son tried to explain it to me and found a wiki description for me. It stated:
The Valeyard was similar to several of the Doctor's incarnations, cunning and verbal, with a knack for manipulation. He had a bit of a temper, and was prone to outbursts, but generally calm and collected, traits of several incarnations of the Doctor. However, his actions were constantly defined by his egotism. The Valeyard would risk or sacrifice anything to ensure his own existence, even break the Laws of Time and kill his own past self and try to control the Dark Matrix despite the dangers its presence would pose to established history. (TV: The Mysterious Planet, The Ultimate Foe, PROSE: Matrix)
Suddenly it all made sense to me. The Valeyard is simply the incarnation of the Doctor that is trying desperately to hold on to life. I remembered this Doctor Who Interview in which the new idea of unlimited regenerations for the Doctor is discussed. Putting 2 and 2 together I came up with the following scenario and told my son about it.
Since John Hurt is an older individual, and they obviously would not reveal him as the Valeyard/Doctor without his actually being able to play him soon for age reasons, Matt Smith has decided his tenure as Doctor will end soon. The next regeneration will be the John Hurt Doctor. As the Valeyard he will cunningly try to do all he can to bypass the time lord's regeneration limit, and he will succeed at a price. The price will be his own end I.e. The Valeyard/Doctor must die/regenerate in order to have the unlimited regenerations problem solved. Since John Hurt is also a big name actor I am guessing that the BBC cannot afford to pay for him to be the Doctor for more than one season. Therefore the Doctor following John Hurt will be known within a year.
I know I'm onto something because my son immediately told me to shut up. He hates it when I'm right. Now that we all know that Matt Smith is leaving the role by the end of the year I know at least part of my theory is correct. What do you think?
