13th Doctor

My idea for who (Who?) should be the next Doctor...

Paul McGann.

Yes, yes. I know. It should go to a person of another race/colour/sexual preference/etc. I agree the world needs to change in it's attitudes, but personally I like Doctor Who the way it is. Now, back to Paul McGann. Go on. Give him his chance. He would be brilliant! He has demonstrated as much in The Night Of The Doctor and many, many Big Finish productions he has done. He has been hard done by. He is the best Doctor there never was... or almost was... or something.

But how can the 8th Doctor be the 13th Doctor?

I have ideas around that too. There are a number of occurrences that give precedence to a Timelord regenerating into whoever the Timelord wants:

• In War Games, the 2nd Doctor was allowed to choose the 3rd Doctor's face.
• In Destiny Of The Daleks, Romana tried on a number of appearances before settling on her regeneration.
• In The Night Of The Doctor, the 8th Doctor drinks a potion to regenerate into a warrior.
• In The Day Of The Doctor, The Curator (Tom Baker) implies he is the Doctor revisiting an old face. 
• In The Girl Who Died, it is revealed that the 12th Doctor chose the face of someone he previously saved, to remind him to save people.

That gives me 3 (yes, THREE) ideas of ways the Doctor could be Paul McGann in his next regeneration:

1. He simply chooses to regenerate into the form of the 8th Doctor again. Revisit the face, as it were.
2. The regeneration process goes screwy because it has been interfered with in the past. It goes back to when it was first interfered with and resets the regeneration back to that point. The Doctor who drank the potion to choose his regeneration was the 8th Doctor.
3. My favourite, as it could last a whole episode and has lots of nice fanboy geek moments. The regeneration process goes very screwy and he starts regenerating backwards. The 12th Doctor regenerates into the 11th Doctor. Oooo. Hello Matt Smith! The process is dangerous and so keeps nearly killing him, causing him to regenerate again. So before the 11th Doctor has worked out what is going on, he regenerates again into the 10th. Mr Tennant, I presume. And so on. It could get progressively worse and so the 9th and War Doctors could be done pretty quickly, requiring no intervention from the actors. Although if they could get Christopher Eccleston... FANTASTIC! John Hurt, as the War Doctor, not so much. So either the 10th or 9th (depending on the actor) would need to hit upon the solution and put it into effect. It would take place a regeneration or two down the line and.... BOOM... it settles when the Doctor reaches the 8th. Off we go with Paul McGann as the next doctor.

Of course, it won't be Paul McGann. You can never go back. But it would be cool.