Who is the longest incarnation?

[Brendan Moody]

IIRC, RTD has said that no one remembered the Colin Baker/McCoy era age references when series one was being written (even the best fan memories fail sometimes, and it's not like there was nothing else on their minds), and once 900 had been established for a new audience I imagine it made more sense to add on to that rather than fix things with a big gap that might give new viewers the wrong impression.

 

[CaptMurdock]

Speaking of all televised adventures, anyone want to hazard a guess at how long the 5th Doctor was around? Given he was almost constantly with mortal companions...and unless the TARDIS bleeds off their ages....wouldn't the 5th have come and gone pretty quickly?

Well, we can't be entirely sure how much time Nyssa spent with the 5th Doctor between "Time-Flight" and "Arc of Infinity." Just because it may have been a year to Tegan (on Earth) doesn't mean it was the same amount of time to Nyssa and the Doctor. Being from Traken, she might have a longer lifespan than humans. For all we know, she might have not seen Tegan for fifty years until that trip to Amsterdam to stop Omega.

 

[captcalhoun]

RTD contradicted himself though. he claims the Doctor's 903, yet in Aliens of London, the Doctor refers to '900 years of Phone Box travel'. so, is he implying the Doctor was THREE when he was in An Unearthly Child? or that the Doctor was three when he left Gallifrey?

either way, that's flat-out wrong.

 

[Brendan Moody]

RTD contradicted himself though. he claims the Doctor's 903, yet in Aliens of London, the Doctor refers to '900 years of Phone Box travel'. so, is he implying the Doctor was THREE when he was in An Unearthly Child? or that the Doctor was three when he left Gallifrey?

either way, that's flat-out wrong.

What the Doctor says in "Aliens of London" is that he's 900. "900 years of phone box travel" is from "The Empty Child." So if anyone's implying or contradicting anything, it's Steven Moffat. There are any number of ways to interpret the line other than soul-crushing literalism, of course.

 

[Sci]

First of all, the comic strip is not part of the televised universe. Thus, no matter if Shakespeare himself came back from the grave to write the definitive origin of The Doctor for the DWMagazine, if it's not on the screen, then it simply doesn't exist.

I really don't know why you would say this. Doctor Who has never had a canon policy like Star Trek or Star Wars; there's nothing to say they didn't happen, and at least one DW novel was explicitly referenced as having happened off-screen in an episode (The Monsters Inside in "Boom Town"). And no less an authority than Paul Cornell himself has said that it's entirely possible that the events of Human Nature transpired twice in the Doctor's life -- once in the novel and once in the "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" two-parter. To say nothing of the fact that RTD and Steven Moffat have written DW novels, in addition to Cornell.

Obviously, Doctor Who has tended to cherrypick what it wants to acknowledge from the novels -- Human Nature makes it, the Looms don't -- but that doesn't mean that they "didn't happen." After all, it's cherrypicked what it wants to acknowledge from DW TOS, too -- Sarah Jane going from meeting the Doctor again in The Five Doctors to having never seen him or moved on with her life in "School Reunion." And DW TOS didn't have perfect internal continuity -- the infamous Season 6B and UNIT dating controversies.

Mind you, I say that as someone who's more than willing to toss out DW TOS as being a separate continuity from current DW for my own personal purposes. But I don't think that it's fair to claim authoritatively that any of it is somehow "non-canonical;" there is no Doctor Who canon policy.

And, really, that's fine by me. After all, one of the great strengths of Doctor Who is not giving a toss how it all fits together.

 

[Starkers]

RTD contradicted himself though. he claims the Doctor's 903, yet in Aliens of London, the Doctor refers to '900 years of Phone Box travel'. so, is he implying the Doctor was THREE when he was in An Unearthly Child? or that the Doctor was three when he left Gallifrey?

either way, that's flat-out wrong.

What the Doctor says in "Aliens of London" is that he's 900. "900 years of phone box travel" is from "The Empty Child." So if anyone's implying or contradicting anything, it's Steven Moffat. There are any number of ways to interpret the line other than soul-crushing literalism, of course.

The most obvious being that the Doctor either flat out lies about his age, or (more likely) can't actually quite remember how old he is! I mean he is rather doddery at times and when you get to that age it must get harder and harder to keep track!

 

[Sci]

RTD contradicted himself though. he claims the Doctor's 903, yet in Aliens of London, the Doctor refers to '900 years of Phone Box travel'. so, is he implying the Doctor was THREE when he was in An Unearthly Child? or that the Doctor was three when he left Gallifrey?

either way, that's flat-out wrong.

What the Doctor says in "Aliens of London" is that he's 900. "900 years of phone box travel" is from "The Empty Child." So if anyone's implying or contradicting anything, it's Steven Moffat. There are any number of ways to interpret the line other than soul-crushing literalism, of course.

The most obvious being that the Doctor either flat out lies about his age, or (more likely) can't actually quite remember how old he is! I mean he is rather doddery at times and when you get to that age it must get harder and harder to keep track!

Honestly, how could he possibly know what age he is unless he keeps some kind of chart in the back?

 

[Starkers]

What the Doctor says in "Aliens of London" is that he's 900. "900 years of phone box travel" is from "The Empty Child." So if anyone's implying or contradicting anything, it's Steven Moffat. There are any number of ways to interpret the line other than soul-crushing literalism, of course.

The most obvious being that the Doctor either flat out lies about his age, or (more likely) can't actually quite remember how old he is! I mean he is rather doddery at times and when you get to that age it must get harder and harder to keep track!

Honestly, how could he possibly know what age he is unless he keeps some kind of chart in the back?

Exactly.

 

[Stevil2001]

Since the new series established that the Doctor was "900" and therefore we didn't really know anything about his age at all, Big Finish had pretty much gone to town with it-- the story 100 establishes that the sixth Doctor traveled for a century while Evelyn was in a time-coma thing, and in Orbis, the eighth Doctor spends six hundred years without his companion on one planet.

 

[26138]

Since the new series established that the Doctor was "900" and therefore we didn't really know anything about his age at all, Big Finish had pretty much gone to town with it-- the story 100 establishes that the sixth Doctor traveled for a century while Evelyn was in a time-coma thing, and in Orbis, the eighth Doctor spends six hundred years without his companion on one planet.

The Doctor spends 600 years on that planet in Orbis? I'm getting forgetful - I need to listen to that one again.

 

[Stevil2001]

Yeah, that's why he doesn't remember who Lucie is when she gets there; he just hadn't seen her in so long.

It's understandable that you forgot, because after Hothouse, Big Finish did too.

 

[The]

First of all, the comic strip is not part of the televised universe. Thus, no matter if Shakespeare himself came back from the grave to write the definitive origin of The Doctor for the DWMagazine, if it's not on the screen, then it simply doesn't exist.

I really don't know why you would say this. Doctor Who has never had a canon policy like Star Trek or Star Wars; there's nothing to say they didn't happen, and at least one DW novel was explicitly referenced as having happened off-screen in an episode (The Monsters Inside in "Boom Town"). And no less an authority than Paul Cornell himself has said that it's entirely possible that the events of Human Nature transpired twice in the Doctor's life -- once in the novel and once in the "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" two-parter. To say nothing of the fact that RTD and Steven Moffat have written DW novels, in addition to Cornell.

Who is Paul Cornell? Some fan that grew up and got a job writing Doctor Who novels? Good for him, really. I love a lot of the novels, too. That has nothing to do with my point, though. It really doesn't matter who has written a Doctor Who novel, or a Big Finish, or a comic strip. Unless it's on TV, it's just a possibility, not a certainty. And the whole idea of Human Nature happening twice is fucking ridiculous.

Obviously, Doctor Who has tended to cherrypick what it wants to acknowledge from the novels -- Human Nature makes it, the Looms don't -- but that doesn't mean that they "didn't happen." After all, it's cherrypicked what it wants to acknowledge from DW TOS, too -- Sarah Jane going from meeting the Doctor again in The Five Doctors to having never seen him or moved on with her life in "School Reunion." And DW TOS didn't have perfect internal continuity -- the infamous Season 6B and UNIT dating controversies.

Didn't say the internal continuity of Doctor Who had to match itself, nor did I say it doesn't contradict itself. All I'm saying is, if it's on-screen, then it's Doctor Who. If it's not, then it's alternate media. You want to place all of that in an "alternate universe"? Fine by me. But, for me, it's not part of the Whoverse.

Mind you, I say that as someone who's more than willing to toss out DW TOS as being a separate continuity from current DW for my own personal purposes. But I don't think that it's fair to claim authoritatively that any of it is somehow "non-canonical;" there is no Doctor Who canon policy.

And, really, that's fine by me. After all, one of the great strengths of Doctor Who is not giving a toss how it all fits together.

I'm not saying anyone has to necessarily agree with my view on what is and is not Doctor Who. But, when we're having a conversation about the show, and someone comes along and tries to start shoving in novel, audio, and fanfic characters or concepts, it adds nothing to the conversation. It's like talking about movies, and someone starts going on about television shows. It's pointless. And, honestly, I can deal with that. It's the moment it becomes an insistent "point" without any facts to back it up. That's just the wild imagination of a hardcore fan, not facts...

 

[Timofnine]

I'm betting that it's going to be the tenth Doctor... he's been travelling for a LONG time in between all those specials!

 

[Messianni]

I'm betting that it's going to be the tenth Doctor... he's been travelling for a LONG time in between all those specials!

Wouldn't it be something, that being considered, if someone asked the Eleventh how old he was and he responded back with something like "2000 years old"? You'd have a good thousand years worth of Tenth Doctor stories to tell!

 

[wamdue]

I'm betting that it's going to be the tenth Doctor... he's been travelling for a LONG time in between all those specials!

but does that not only apply if he looks aged, you cant have a crazy sitution, where Tenant plays him for 10 years in movies, meaning that in his final movie he looks older than when he regenerated in the TV series.

 

[Messianni]

I'm betting that it's going to be the tenth Doctor... he's been travelling for a LONG time in between all those specials!

but does that not only apply if he looks aged, you cant have a crazy sitution, where Tenant plays him for 10 years in movies, meaning that in his final movie he looks older than when he regenerated in the TV series.

Makeup does wonders, especially for a young-faced guy like Tennant. Besides, if they could get away with it in The Three Doctors, The Two Doctors, The Five Doctors and "Time Crash", I'm sure they could do it with him.

 

[Sci]

First of all, the comic strip is not part of the televised universe. Thus, no matter if Shakespeare himself came back from the grave to write the definitive origin of The Doctor for the DWMagazine, if it's not on the screen, then it simply doesn't exist.

I really don't know why you would say this. Doctor Who has never had a canon policy like Star Trek or Star Wars; there's nothing to say they didn't happen, and at least one DW novel was explicitly referenced as having happened off-screen in an episode (The Monsters Inside in "Boom Town"). And no less an authority than Paul Cornell himself has said that it's entirely possible that the events of Human Nature transpired twice in the Doctor's life -- once in the novel and once in the "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" two-parter. To say nothing of the fact that RTD and Steven Moffat have written DW novels, in addition to Cornell.

Who is Paul Cornell? Some fan that grew up and got a job writing Doctor Who novels?

And then writing for the TV series. He's the writer of "Father's Day," "Human Nature," and "The Family of Blood." And whether or not you enjoy his novels, the point is that he is accurately describing the BBC's canon policy towards Doctor Who when he notes that they don't have one. Doctor Who novels are not non-canonical, nor are they canonical. They just are!

Obviously, Doctor Who has tended to cherrypick what it wants to acknowledge from the novels -- Human Nature makes it, the Looms don't -- but that doesn't mean that they "didn't happen." After all, it's cherrypicked what it wants to acknowledge from DW TOS, too -- Sarah Jane going from meeting the Doctor again in The Five Doctors to having never seen him or moved on with her life in "School Reunion." And DW TOS didn't have perfect internal continuity -- the infamous Season 6B and UNIT dating controversies.

Didn't say the internal continuity of Doctor Who had to match itself, nor did I say it doesn't contradict itself. All I'm saying is, if it's on-screen, then it's Doctor Who. If it's not, then it's alternate media. You want to place all of that in an "alternate universe"? Fine by me. But, for me, it's not part of the Whoverse.

Which is fine. I'm just saying, that's for you. It's not official BBC policy that if it happened in a book, it didn't really happen.

Mind you, I say that as someone who's more than willing to toss out DW TOS as being a separate continuity from current DW for my own personal purposes. But I don't think that it's fair to claim authoritatively that any of it is somehow "non-canonical;" there is no Doctor Who canon policy.

And, really, that's fine by me. After all, one of the great strengths of Doctor Who is not giving a toss how it all fits together.

I'm not saying anyone has to necessarily agree with my view on what is and is not Doctor Who. But, when we're having a conversation about the show, and someone comes along and tries to start shoving in novel, audio, and fanfic characters or concepts, it adds nothing to the conversation.

I think it adds an interesting element to the conversation. I don't really consider info from the novels to be authoritative, so I pick and choose which pieces of info I like, but I don't think it "adds nothing to the conversation."