Eight gets a lot more love in the novels, which I believe cover at least part of the events leading up to the Time War. (I could, of course, be completely wrong about that.) The transition between Eight and Nine is never really covered.
There are a lot of inconsistencies between the current series and the old show, so I'm not really 100% sure how that theory holds up with past incarnations, if at all. The only Classic Doctor I'm really familiar with is Four, so my personal understanding is limited at best. I do know, however, that the first Doctor died of old age (of all things) and one of his regenerations is forced onto him by the other Time Lords as some kind of punishment. Then there was the time when this weird, bald ghost thing called The Watcher merged with the Doctor to create a new regeneration of something. IT GETS WEIRD, OKAY? It definitely warrants further investigation, though, but that's a bit hard since roughly a third of the old series was lost in a fire or something.
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There are a lot of inconsistencies between the current series and the old show, so I'm not really 100% sure how that theory holds up with past incarnations, if at all. The only Classic Doctor I'm really familiar with is Four, so my personal understanding is limited at best. I do know, however, that the first Doctor died of old age (of all things) and one of his regenerations is forced onto him by the other Time Lords as some kind of punishment. Then there was the time when this weird, bald ghost thing called The Watcher merged with the Doctor to create a new regeneration of something. IT GETS WEIRD, OKAY? It definitely warrants further investigation, though, but that's a bit hard since roughly a third of the old series was lost in a fire or something.
I should really look all this up, shouldn't I?