Moff error? Or is the Doc lying?

[OmahaStar]

In the beginning of End of Time, the Tenth Doctor says he had traveled for a hundred years after getting the Ood's message to come to them.

He says he's 903 years old in Voyage of the Damned. At least one year has passed for him between then and Waters of Mars, when he gets the call, making it 904. Then he travels for a hundred years (and makes the "good queen" not so much), so he's at least 1004.

But in Flesh and Stone, which was just transmitted here not long ago, he says he's 907 years old.

So there's two main possibilities. One, Moff forgot about End of Time while preparing this season, and didn't fix the script for continuity. Or two, he's just making shit up.

I'm kind of wondering, since the Sixth Doctor was already 900 years old, and the Seventh said both he and the Rani were 953 years old.

Dunno why I'm even thinking about his age. Weird.

 

[Captain Pike]

(May 2010): "The thing I keep banging on about is that he doesn't know what age he is. He's lying. How could he know, unless he's marking it on a wall? He could be 8,000 years old, he could be a million. He has no clue. The calendar will give him no clues.". - Steven Moffat

As you said yourself, the 4th Doc said he was 750 in Pyramids of Mars and the 6th Doc said he was 900. If we regard these as being somewhere near the mark, then there was no way the ninth Doc was 900 as he claimed to be in the first revival season.

It's messed up already, before Moffat came to the party..

 

[Stevil2001]

It's a moot point, because the Doctor never says it's been a century since "The Waters of Mars." Ood Sigma says it's been a century since the Doctor was last on the Ood Sphere, which is a very different thing.

 

[David cgc]

At least one year has passed for him between then and Waters of Mars, when he gets the call, making it 904. Then he travels for a hundred years (and makes the "good queen" not so much), so he's at least 1004.

As already pointed out, it was a hundred years for the Ood since "Planet of the Ood," not for the Doctor. The Doctor tells Wilf he's 906, suggesting there was two years of assing about and deflowering royalty before he decided to meet his fate.

 

[Brent]

Wibbly Wobbly Agey Wagey

 

[Sci]

The Doctor claims to be 906 years old in "The End of Time" -- and 907 in "Flesh and Stone." So either the Doctor actually spent a year running about with his shiny new TARDIS between defeating the Atraxi and picking up Amy, or he's just making it up.

 

[Stevil2001]

Or he had his 907th birthday during the gap between "Victory of the Daleks" and "The Time of Angels."

 

[Cutter John]

Of course to really bugger things up, Seven said he was 953 way back in Time & the Rani.

I think he's just afraid to admit he's over a thousand, and should have settled down and started acting his age by now.

 

[captcalhoun]

it was something i was going to put in my 50th anniversary script: Susan asks Ten how old he is. he replies 904. Eight chips in and says 'oh, i started lying about my age after i turned a thousand did i?'

 

[Hermiod]

I'm guessing that he doesn't actually have a clue how old he is because perhaps measuring age in human terms isn't really something a race of extraordinarily (by our standards) long-lived time travellers are worried about.

 

[Brent]

Gallifrey's rotation around their sun would be different anyway.... I don't know why he insists on Earth years

 

[Kibbin]

I prefer the explanation given in Ten Doctors which states is as his second mid life crisis

 

[V'ger]

I prefer the explanation given in Ten Doctors which states is as his second mid life crisis

it is a confusine situation but i think continuerty in age has gone out of the window

 

[Skywalker]

I prefer the explanation given in Ten Doctors which states is as his second mid life crisis

Thank you so much for that link. I just spent the better part of an hour reading through some of that. Now I'm downloading the whole story.

 

[HappyDayRiot]

I'm still convinced he knocked a few years off when he rejuvenated himself in Last of the Time Lords.

 

[Bones2]

Most of the points I would have made have been said already, though that Moffat quote is silly. Just because he travels in time doesn't mean he has no idea of how long he's been alive in his own experience. But yes, he said he was 900 in Revelation of the Daleks and 953 in Time and the Rani.

I've got two theories (though they're not mutually exclusive) as to why he's been lying about his age. The first is that in Time Lord society, if you pass 1000 you're considered an older person (or perhaps not considered a young man any more, like turning 40). The other is to do with the 8/9 regeneration and the Last Great Time War. If we look at the Seventh Doctor as the dark Doctor people say he is (though I'd contend that's only down to his reinterpretation in the Virgin New Adventures; his actions towards Ace in Fenric were necessary in the situation, leaving his destruction of Skaro as the only real questionable moral grey I can think of), then despite seeming to have changed in his 8th incarnation to a more life-loving romantic character, he then had to fight in a war in which he was ultimately responsible for the end of his own people and the Daleks. I think this act induced his regeneration into the Ninth Doctor, and (in-universe) is the reason the Ninth was so different from all the preceding Doctors. The Eighth Doctor was very much an archetypal Doctor in my view; he had much in common with many of the others, and is possibly the Doctor I first think of when you mention the Doctor to me because he has so many characteristics of the others. I like to think that after his actions in ending the War, he intentionally regenerated into someone very different from anyone he'd been before, to try separate himself from his actions. Where his age comes in is that I think in saying he's 900 he's effectively turning the clock back not only to an easy round number but also to before he was the dark Seventh and the war-fighting Eighth, and to a Doctor who was more like the Doctor of old; travelling around, fighting usually smaller-scale evil, perhaps underappreciated and largely unknown.

Of course, in reality this is me trying to justify in-universe some (in my view) terrible decisions like the character of the Ninth Doctor and this lazy continuity-ignoring notion that he's 900 years old, just because it's easier to say. Anyway, I'd better go and find a tissue after that fanwank.

 

[Kibbin]

I prefer the explanation given in Ten Doctors which states is as his second mid life crisis

Thank you so much for that link. I just spent the better part of an hour reading through some of that. Now I'm downloading the whole story.

I just like how well written everyone is in this scene, I can almost hear the actors read the lines (this goes throughout the piece actually)

I'm sure a better whovian than I can give quotes here, but wasn't there an isntance of Tom Baker liying about his age, with Romana correcting him? Or at least one of the doctors? That's what leads me to think that he's simply fibbing a bit now, what with no one to correct him.

 

[David cgc]

Yep, that happened in... Wiki says... "The Ribos Operation." He said he was 756, and Romana corrected him that he was 759.

 

[Sci]

Of course, in reality this is me trying to justify in-universe some (in my view) terrible decisions like the character of the Ninth Doctor and this lazy continuity-ignoring notion that he's 900 years old, just because it's easier to say. Anyway, I'd better go and find a tissue after that fanwank.

Oh, yes, terrible decision to have the Doctor give a different age for himself. Just awful. Such a big deal. How could they?

 

[Starkers]

He's old, he's slighty forgetful, he exists in non linear time...

Frankly I'd find it weird if he did know how old he was!

I think the 900 thing was just to give new viewers some kind of handle of his age. Didn't Troughton claim to be 450 or something? I mean you might as well say that the disparity between that and the 700+ age Baker quoted makes as little sense.