How long was the 10th Doctor around for?

[Crewman47]

In Who years how long did the 10th Doctor actually go for and was it more or less than the 9th Doctor? I know we saw the 9th for only 1 year but could've spent at least a couple more after his regen at the Time War and with 10 we saw 4 years and in the the latest special he says he travelled a bit before going to see the Ood.

Would this make these two Doctors the shortest lived of the lot followed by the 8th?

 

[Starkers]

Nah, 6 probably didn't get as long. For all we know between saying goodbye to rose and returning a few seconds later at the end of Rose, the Doctor could have travelled for years!

And again for all we know 8 might have had the longest life of all because we have no concept of how old he was when he regenerated into 9.

 

[Rosalind]

we don't know how long was the gap between The Runaway Bride and Smith and Jones, although the Doctor was still moping over Rose so that shouldn't be a long time.

There's the year that got rewinded, so that's another year.

And then there's the time between all the specials this year, we have no idea how long that was. It could easily for years.


As for shortest lived, well, Davison was only around for 3 years, and he had overlapping companions through all those years. Although BF had managed to squeeze in decades of stories there. Good thing Nyssa wasn't human, so they can hand wave that one, and the time with Turlough, who wasn't human either, though the Peri stories was stretching it.

 

[Starkers]

Even then there's ways round it. He could have dropped Nyssa off on some planet for, to her, a week while he galavanted off for a decade.

 

[Rosalind]

^ Yep, like what BF did with Key2Times mini-series, though it was Peri there. And he spent some time with Amy (different Amy) gallivanting around time and space.

 

[ParticleMan]

7 is another one who could have had all sorts of adventures between the end of the original series and the TV movie...he had obvioulsy aged in that time, so I guess the question is...have we ever been given any indication of how the rate of aging works for a Time Lord within a particular regeneration?

I still like to think that the Doctor is much older than 906...that he's fudging his age, especially since 10 stated that number and I can totally see him not admitting how old he really is...

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I definitely agree that The Doctor is fudging his age. I maintain he's ~1200. Romana said The Doctor was 759 and piloting the TARDIS for 523 years in The Ribos Operation. Add the difference (236) to The Ninth Doctor's "Nine hundred years of phone box travel and it's the only thing left that surprises me" ("The Empty Child" when Rose wanders off and gets into trouble) and you get 1136 as of Series 1.

I'm sure others will disagree but my belief is The Tenth Doctor has been fibbing a lot about his actual age.

 

[OmahaStar]

Well, there's at least a hundred years between Waters of Mars and End of Time. The Doctor is summoned by Ood Sigma at the end of WoM. When he finally appears in the next episode, he says he's been traveling for a hundred years, during which time he got married. (that ties in with the end of Shakespeare Code, finally explaining that loverly little bit of trivia)

So he's been bounding around for at least 106 years.

Slight problem with that, though, is that he says he's 906 years old. RTD is extremely bad with math. I mean, the Fourth Doctor was already in his 900s. Well, either RTD is really bad with math, or the Doctor is really vain, like those women in their 40s who claim they are 29.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Actually, The Seventh Doctor was 950, not The Fourth Doctor (see my previous post).

 

[Starkers]

Well, there's at least a hundred years between Waters of Mars and End of Time. The Doctor is summoned by Ood Sigma at the end of WoM. When he finally appears in the next episode, he says he's been traveling for a hundred years, during which time he got married. (that ties in with the end of Shakespeare Code, finally explaining that loverly little bit of trivia)

So he's been bounding around for at least 106 years.

Slight problem with that, though, is that he says he's 906 years old. RTD is extremely bad with math. I mean, the Fourth Doctor was already in his 900s. Well, either RTD is really bad with math, or the Doctor is really vain, like those women in their 40s who claim they are 29.

Sorry to be picky, but he doesn't say he's been travelling for a hundred years. He asks Ood Sigma how long it's been since he and Donna were there and Sigma says 100 years. That's 100 years to the Ood not the Doctor.

 

[Starseeker]

Are we sure he wasn't talking about how long he's been David Tennant's Doctor? That would make him muuuch older.

 

[EyalM]

Didn't the Master say the Doctor was 900 years old in LotTL?

 

[JoeZhang]

In Who years how long did the 10th Doctor actually go for and was it more or less than the 9th Doctor? I know we saw the 9th for only 1 year but could've spent at least a couple more after his regen at the Time War and with 10 we saw 4 years and in the the latest special he says he travelled a bit before going to see the Ood.

Would this make these two Doctors the shortest lived of the lot followed by the 8th?

Thing is, in Rose, the Doctor is surprised by his appearance so it unlikely to be very long after his regeneration.

 

[HappyDayRiot]

Ten says he's 903 in Voyage of the Damned and 906 in The End of Time. Those 3 years plus 3 between Nine indicating he was 900 in The Empty Child and Voyage. Therefore, Ten was around for approximately 6 years.

What? The old series said he was well over 900 as the Fourth/Seventh Doctor? Discrepancies between old and new solely because RTD and co. missed the reference? Simple - when humankind restored Ten in Last of the Time Lords, he let the rejuvenation process knock off a few hundred years. Nine's statement of "900 years of phonebox travel" as opposed to "I'm 900 years old" allows for Seven's age to be 1200+ and for Ten to be 903 on the Titanic.

Problem solved and the OP question answered.

 

[OmahaStar]

Ten says he's 903 in Voyage of the Damned and 906 in The End of Time. Those 3 years plus 3 between Nine indicating he was 900 in The Empty Child and Voyage. Therefore, Ten was around for approximately 6 years.

What? The old series said he was well over 900 as the Fourth/Seventh Doctor? Discrepancies between old and new solely because RTD and co. missed the reference? Simple - when humankind restored Ten in Last of the Time Lords, he let the rejuvenation process knock off a few hundred years. Nine's statement of "900 years of phonebox travel" as opposed to "I'm 900 years old" allows for Seven's age to be 1200+ and for Ten to be 903 on the Titanic.

Problem solved and the OP question answered.

You are NOT supposed to come up with logical answers to simple questions. Haven't you met fandom? Sheesh!

 

[Captaindemotion]

Regardless of the theories we come up with to estimate or calculate the Doctor's age, I get the impression that RTD and the writers intend for The Tenth Doctor to have been around in his timeline for no longer than he was in ours. I think Wilf said he was 906 in TEOT (or was it 904?) and the 9th Doc was meant to have been about 900. And given that he was told by the woman in Planet of the Dead that his song was ending soon, not much time can have elapsed between the last few specials.

Which kinda pisses me off. I hate the thought of the Doctor running through his last few precious regenerations in a few years (I don't think Nine was meant to have been around for very long either). I would like them to have subtly aged David Tennant over the course of the last few specials - hair greyer, a few laughter lines - to suggest that years have passed since we last saw the Doctor.

Given that he was companion-less for those episodes (at least, he didn't have the same companion for all of them), we don't have to come up with explanations as to why he's aged years and they haven't ('Oh, he drops them off at the end of each episode and then has years and years of adventures that we don't see onscreen, then picks his companions up again' - Puh-leaze!). A perfect opportunity to allow the Doc to age gracefully and thus allow for Lost Adventures, in-betwee-quals and the like. And a wasted one.

 

[23skidoo]

Considering how careful RTD and his writers have been in maintaining ties to the continuity established in the original series, the fact the Doctor's age has been reduced to 900 or so remains a mystery. As noted above it's possible to be creative and work around it. It's also possible something Time War-related happened that changed his age. Or he's simply lying about it. In the novels (which unlike Star Trek novels are not as a matter of policy disqualified from canon) the Doctor was more than 1,100 years old during his Eighth incarnation, at one point living in exile on Earth for a full century.

It's one of the things I hope Moffat addresses as he takes over.

As for the question at hand, 906 -- the age the Doctor states when he talks to Wilf -- works. The last age we heard was 903 in Voyage of the Damned, so assuming a year or less for the travels with Donna, that still leaves 2 years for him to experience the events of Next Doctor, Planet of the Damned, Waters of Mars, and to mess about with Queen Bess, etc. before meeting the Ood. Remember how much he "accomplished" as John Smith when he spent only a few months living in 1913.

I do think he might be understating his age, though, because we know, for example, that he spent a couple of years tracking down Martha in The Infinite Quest animated serial, so by rights he should have been closer to 905 in Voyage of the Damned. Plus wouldn't he count the year that never was when he was imprisoned aboard the Valiant by the Master?

Ultimately it's not too important. Much like the 13-life limit. David Tennant himself said that the often-cited limitation introduced back in the 1970s could be dismissed with a simple line of dialogue. So too all we need is for the 11th Doctor to make some comment about forgetting his age to cover off all these problems. Yes, in some respects it's lazy storytelling, but, really, the Doctor's age is not important in the grand scheme of things.

Alex

 

[Samurai8472]

And just recently Ten popped back to meet John Noble and ask for some cash. Then went to buy a winning lottery ticket.

Finally dropping off at Donna's wedding.

 

[Caleuche]

To be glib, not long enough.
To answer the actual question 3-6 years seems a good age.

I definitely agree that The Doctor is fudging his age. I maintain he's ~1200. Romana said The Doctor was 759 and piloting the TARDIS for 523 years in The Ribos Operation.

Which relies on two timelords talking in Earth years, not Gallifreyian years. Which is how I fudge the issue in my head, hes 1200 years in one system and 906 in the other. Works for me.

 

[captcalhoun]

one of the lines i have for my (theorectical) Four Doctors 50th anniversary story is Ten claiming to be 905 and Eight saying, 'Hold on, I'm over a thousand' to which Eleven replies, 'I lied about my age a lot when I was him.'