How old is the Doctor?

[Gingerbread Demon]

OK bearing in mind this is just my theory.

But could the Doctor be thousands of years old?

Supposing each regeneration is say up to around 1000 years or more and each is treated as a "new life" almost couldn't he be thousands of years old by now?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

If he's not lying, 2000+ years.

He was 1200-ish in Day Of The Doctor, then spent 900-ish years on Trenzalore.

But the age he said occasionally in the classic era makes for extremely short lifespans for some of them. 11 was 400 years older than the War Doctor, so that made WD 800 years old. I wanna say Colin Baker said 700, so that was only 100 years for 7 & 8.

But it might have been Tom Baker that said 700, so that really limits the years for 5,6,7 & 8.

Before Trenzalore, 11 was around 900. Idris said he had been running for 700 years, so he left Gallifrey around 200.

In other words, his age is as convoluted as everything else about the show

 

[Lakenheath 72]

I do not think even the Doctor knows his age. The only entity that might know is the TARDIS. I do not see him asking her what his age is.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

If he's not lying, 2000+ years.

He was 1200-ish in Day Of The Doctor, then spent 900-ish years on Trenzalore.

But the age he said occasionally in the classic era makes for extremely short lifespans for some of them. 11 was 400 years older than the War Doctor, so that made WD 800 years old. I wanna say Colin Baker said 700, so that was only 100 years for 7 & 8.

But it might have been Tom Baker that said 700, so that really limits the years for 5,6,7 & 8.

Before Trenzalore, 11 was around 900. Idris said he had been running for 700 years, so he left Gallifrey around 200.

In other words, his age is as convoluted as everything else about the show

"shrug" I guess

I just had in my own headcanon that each regeneration was say 1000 years old he'd be 10,000 years old at least.

 

[RoJoHen]

If he's not lying, 2000+ years.

He was 1200-ish in Day Of The Doctor, then spent 900-ish years on Trenzalore.

But the age he said occasionally in the classic era makes for extremely short lifespans for some of them. 11 was 400 years older than the War Doctor, so that made WD 800 years old. I wanna say Colin Baker said 700, so that was only 100 years for 7 & 8.

But it might have been Tom Baker that said 700, so that really limits the years for 5,6,7 & 8.

Before Trenzalore, 11 was around 900. Idris said he had been running for 700 years, so he left Gallifrey around 200.

In other words, his age is as convoluted as everything else about the show

"shrug" I guess

I just had in my own headcanon that each regeneration was say 1000 years old he'd be 10,000 years old at least.

Which would be fine if he hadn't told us his age multiple times throughout the series.

Tennant was 900 or so.
Smith was around 1200 before he went to Trenzalore, where is supposedly spent 900 years.

However, I have a theory that the Doctor has done so much time traveling that he really has no idea how old he is. I mean, when you've spent centuries galavanting through time and space, are you really going to bother looking at a calendar anymore?

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

Old enough to Know Better
So Cry, Baby, Cry

 

[The Wormhole]

Supposing each regeneration is say up to around 1000 years or more and each is treated as a "new life" almost couldn't he be thousands of years old by now?

Except each regeneration doesn't last 1000 years.

Okay, we don't know how old the First Doctor is at the start, but he is clearly old, old enough that he eventually regenerates of natural causes.

The Second Doctor has human companions with him his entire time, and since they never age we can infer that no more than the three years that went by in the real world went by in the show.

Not only does the Third Doctor have human companions with him constantly who do not age, he spends most of his time on Earth without time travel ability for a decent percentage of it, so again probably not much more time went by in the show than in the real world.

With the Fourth Doctor there is some wiggle room, given he briefly spent some time alone and some time with a Time Lady for a companion, meaning decades could have gone by with them not showing age. Still, I'd be surprised if he even made it to the century mark in this form.

The Fifth Doctor and Sixth Doctors had humans with them the whole time who don't age and don't have any time alone, limiting how much went by in their respective lives.

The Seventh Doctor clearly aged a bit when he regenerated and given there were no companions with him when he regenerated could very well have lasted decades.

The Eighth likewise aged by Time Lord standards at least several decades worth between the TV movie and Night of the Doctor. Plus given how much we know went on during his lifetime (the audios are canon, given they are mentioned in Night, plus the Time War started) he could be one of the longer lived Doctors.

The War Doctor definitely aged a lot in his lifetime, and was the first Doctor since the First to have regenerated due to natural causes. So definitely past a century, possibly even a few centuries.

The Ninth, we'll start with RTD's assertion that Rose isn't his post-regeneration story. So, there's likely a few decades between regeneration and Rose, but the period from Rose to Parting of the Wars covers less than a year for him.

The Tenth we get a reasonably accurate measurement of how long he was around, since the RTD era stayed very consistent with the Doctor's age. Starting with when the Ninth said he was 900, the Tenth consistently added another year to that each season, ultimately saying he was 906 just prior to regenerating.

The Eleventh things get, tricky. In the Weeping Angel story he says he's 907. By The Impossible Astronaut he's 909, and the future version of himself, which is him at the end of the season is 1100. By season 7 he's 1200, which is where he stays up until Trenzalore. Since he spends 900 years on Trenzalore, he's 2100 by the time he regenerates.

So far the Twelfth Doctor hasn't really elaborated on his age other than to say he's over two thousand years old.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I think he's around 4,000 years old.

The old series ages and new series ages don't line up, otherwise the War Doctor is actually younger than the sixth. So I think the Doctor restarted his count at some point, probably when he was reborn on Karn.

 

[Mr Light]

Google google.

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Doctor's_age

The Twelfth Doctor was 2,100 years old when he was born.

 

[matthunter]

We have evidence that each body COULD last about a thousand years - the Fourth Doctor is aged (it's reversed later) in The Leisure Hive and Eleven lived about 1200 years including the time on Trenzalore.

Why did One regenerate of "old age" at a mere 200 or so? Well, he had been exposed to a Dalek Time Destructor (that aged humans to death in seconds) and had some of his life force drained in The Savages, both of which may have cut his lifespan short.

There are also hints that the First Doctor only had one heart (his companions never remark on a double heartbeat when checking his health) and that this is later added by regeneration... Of course Romana later proves to have two hearts even in her first body... Maybe one simply isn't working due to illness, resulting in his physical frailty?

 

[Kemaiku]

OK bearing in mind this is just my theory.

But could the Doctor be thousands of years old?

Supposing each regeneration is say up to around 1000 years or more and each is treated as a "new life" almost couldn't he be thousands of years old by now?

Sylvester McCoy (apologies for the spelling) mentioned that he had already celebrated his 1000th birthday before the end of the original 7 Doctor run.

We have all the years after that until the TV movie, then the 8th Doctor's unknown amount of lifetime, but due to the aging of the actor by Night of the Doctor, it seems to imply a while (not their fault but still).

Then the Eccleston, we have no idea how long he spent around before finding Rose, how many adventures he went on to appear in all those photos around time.

Then the years of Tennant and Smith, who spent all the time in the Pandorum thing and Trenzalore, aging maybe more than any other than the War Doctor.

Who we now know went between 8 and 9, adding many more centuries in the process given how old he liked and presumably being one of the oldest Doctors alive by that point which could be what, another 500-900 years alone?

Then the newest Doctor, add a few more on. If he's anything less than 2500, there's something wrong.

Rassilon, going by the TV movie, has lived to rule for 10,000+ years, but I'm guessing he has used a lot of his lives up doing so and chosen the same form every time. But it proves that they should really be living longer.

The Doctor is actually too young to have run through so many lives so stupidly soon.

 

[Kor]

In season 8, didn't he say he's "two and a half thousand years old" on at least one or two occasions?

Kor

 

[Kemaiku]

Well then it's about right.

 

[Tom]

The first doctor was about 448-49-50'ish when he regenerated, this is because the Second Doctor mentions he is 450 in Tomb of the Cybermen.

 

[Nightowl1701]

Why did One regenerate of "old age" at a mere 200 or so? Well, he had been exposed to a Dalek Time Destructor (that aged humans to death in seconds) and had some of his life force drained in The Savages, both of which may have cut his lifespan short.

Not to mention the energy drain from Mondas in 'The Tenth Planet.' One was already out of gas at that point (he'd already had a heart attack in a novel set between 'The Savages' and 'The War Machines'), and the drain proved just too much.

There are also hints that the First Doctor only had one heart (his companions never remark on a double heartbeat when checking his health) and that this is later added by regeneration... Of course Romana later proves to have two hearts even in her first body... Maybe one simply isn't working due to illness, resulting in his physical frailty?

Or being half-human (on his mother's side) meant only one heart and a drastically shortened physical lifespan until regeneration 'reset' his DNA (except for his eyes) to Gallifreyan specs?

 

[Kemaiku]

The Doctor is not part human, it was a throwaway line in the TV movie when the show was set to be sold to America. It was retconned the moment the show was rebooted.

 

[Nightowl1701]

It wasn't a throwaway line, it was the key plot point of the whole damn movie. And it wasn't retconned, it was simply ignored. But that's an argument for another thread.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Then there's the question of what sort of years is he referring to? Earth years or Gallifreyan? Or are they the same?

I mean, yeah, I'd accept that for the audience's benefit it's probably meant to be earth years but in-universe, there's no real reason why he should be.

 

[Doctorwhovian]

There is a loophole of sorts with the Sixth Doctor-one that Big Finish and the novels have used.

The "Vervoids" segment is set in the Doctor's future, from after the trial; and the Mel that arrives in the final segment has already experienced that adventure. Although she leaves with the Doctor at the end, it's been suggested that she was 'out of order' and would be returned to a point later on Sixth's timeline. (Although the Doctor normally runs into different regenerations when he meets himself, there were a couple of those Smith mini-episodes where he met his current incarnation at a different point on the timeline if I remember correctly).

So the Sixth we see at the end of "Trial", after dropping off Mel, goes on other adventures possibly with other companions (Evelyn, Frobisher etc.), then meets Mel "for the first time", has the Vervoids adventure in proper order (with possibly some differences, as it was implied the Valeyard tampered with the "footage") and then "Time and the Rani".


So in other words, she's a bit like another red curly haired "Mel" he would meet down the line, although not nearly as complicated.

 

[Volpone]

Age is a tricky thing to gauge when you're time traveling. Unless there's some kind of running time counter in the TARDIS and then you add on his age before he left Gallifrey, it would be very hard to keep track. I mean, what is the point of reference? Some of his adventures happen millions of years before he was born and some happen thousands of years after. Some of the alien adventures, we can only guess the frame of reference. So while he is aging, he exists outside of time.

OK. Philosophy aside, they don't really make a point of it until well into #4's run, when they really start nailing down a lot about the Time Lords. #3 has a couple lines where he says he's "thousands of years" old and when they had the mind bending dual in "The Brain of Morbius," it was the director's intent that the faces we see on the screen were regenerations before Hartnell.

By the time of "The Five Doctors," at the latest, they've decided Hartnell was #1. And #4 regularly starts saying he's 749 which is barely middle aged for a Time Lord (or something like that). Whether he's making that up or he's like Jack Benny, who was perpetually 39, we can't tell.

Beyond that, I can't add much to the discussion.