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| Contradictory information has pointed at different estimates of '''the Doctor's age''', both in conversations and in terms of the length of various incarnations.
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| == Statements and known information ==
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| It was difficult to determine the Doctor's life expectancy, given his ability to regenerate. The [[Second Doctor]] once stated that as a [[Time Lord]] he could "live forever, barring accidents". ([[TV]]: ''[[The War Games]]'') A Time Lord named [[Handrel]] claimed that a single incarnation of a Time Lord could live for around ten thousand years. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Time Lord's Story (short story)|The Time Lord's Story]]'')
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| It was also evident that Time Lords aged in a way different from [[human]]s. The [[Fourth Doctor]] once told his [[Sharon Davies|companion]] that he was a teenager for fifty years. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Doctor Who and the Time Witch (comic story)|Doctor Who and the Time Witch]]'') He also went through spans of linear time longer than average human lifespans without growing visibly older. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Escape Velocity]]'', [[AUDIO]]: ''[[Orbis (audio story)|Orbis]]'', [[TV]]: ''[[The Impossible Astronaut]]'')
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| By the Doctor's eleventh incarnation, "he had long since abandoned trying to keep track of [his age] in any way that mattered to anybody but him." ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Nothing O'Clock (short story)|Nothing O'Clock]]'')
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| === First Doctor ===
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| The [[First Doctor]] was eight when he entered the Academy, along with [[the Master]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Sound of Drums]]'') He apparently left primary school at the age of 45. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Shroud of Sorrow (novel)|Shroud of Sorrow]]'') He later described himself as having been "just a kid" when he first visited the [[Medusa Cascade]], at the age of 90. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Stolen Earth]]'') He said he was a "teenager" for fifty years. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[The Time Witch]]'') When the [[Fourth Doctor]] was 759, ([[TV]]: ''[[The Ribos Operation]]'') [[Romana I|Romana]] noted the Doctor had been travelling in the TARDIS for 523 years. This would have made the Doctor about 236 when he first 'borrowed' the TARDIS and left Gallifrey. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Pirate Planet]]'')
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| This figure was broadly supported by the TARDIS itself. When transferred into [[Idris|a humanoid body]], the TARDIS said the Doctor had travelled with it for 700 years. At this point, the [[Eleventh Doctor]] was around 909 years old, putting his age when he stole the TARDIS about 200. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Impossible Astronaut]]'', ''[[The Doctor's Wife]]'') During the time [[Susan Foreman]] travelled with the Doctor, [[Ian Chesterton]], and [[Barbara Wright]], she knew that despite his apparent maturity, in terms of their own species the Doctor was considered an adolescent. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Here There Be Monsters]]'') He stated he had been travelling in the TARDIS for 60 years when he visited [[64]], putting his age at 296. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Byzantium!]]'') The Doctor spent "centuries" studying at the [[Time Lord Academy]]. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Mortal Beloved (comic story)|Mortal Beloved]]'') [[The War Chief|Magnus]] chided the Doctor for not [[regenerating]] and for holding on to this incarnation as long as he did ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Flashback (comic story)|Flashback]]''). This incarnation regenerated when he was 450-years-old. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Iceberg]]'')
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| === Second Doctor ===
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| The [[Second Doctor]] told [[Victoria Waterfield]] he was "something like" 450 years old in Earth terms. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Tomb of the Cybermen]]'') However, he also made claims saying he was several thousand years old, but gave no specific age. He gave his age as 500 shortly before his regeneration. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[The Brotherhood]]'')
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| === Third Doctor ===
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| The [[Third Doctor|third incarnation]] of the Doctor started to say to Professor [[Kettering]] that he had been a scientist for "several thousand" years, but stopped himself before completing the sentence. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Mind of Evil]]'') He had said something similar shortly before that incident. ([[TV]]: ''[[Doctor Who and the Silurians]]'')
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| === Fourth Doctor ===
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| The [[Fourth Doctor]] gave his age as 748 shortly after he had first regenerated, ([[PROSE]]: ''[[A Device of Death]]'') and later on he consistently said he was "something about 750", about 757 or 749 when he travelled with [[Sarah Jane Smith]] ([[TV]]: ''[[Pyramids of Mars]]'', ''[[The Android Invasion]]'', ''[[The Brain of Morbius]]'', ''[[The Seeds of Doom]]''), a further year older; 750 when travelling with [[Leela]] ([[TV]]: ''[[The Robots of Death]]'') and 756 with [[Romana I|Romana during her first incarnation]] just before finding the first segment of the [[Key to Time]]. Romana corrected him, saying he was 759. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Ribos Operation]]'') Before they assembled the Key to Time, he turned 760 ([[TV]]: ''[[The Power of Kroll]]'') and he was still attributed that age while fighting [[Skagra]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Shada (novelisation)|Shada]]'') Another time, he said he was possibly 730, but couldn't remember his actual age. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Doctor Who and the Time Witch (comic story)|Doctor Who and the Time Witch]]'') He claimed at various times to be anything from 400 to a shade over 1000 years old. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Evolution (novel)|Evolution]]''). Romana told the Doctor that after the first couple hundred years, it would be hard to remember his exact age. {{Fact}}
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| === Fifth Doctor ===
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| The Doctor said he was 813 when he regenerated into his [[Fifth Doctor|fifth incarnation]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Cold Fusion]]'') Later in his life, he stated that he was "pushing 900." ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Omega (audio story)|Omega]]'')
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| === Sixth Doctor ===
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| The [[Sixth Doctor]] said he was 900 years old while travelling with [[Peri Brown|Peri]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[Revelation of the Daleks]]'', ''[[The Mysterious Planet]]''), "not a day over nine hundred years old" when threatened with death by [[stoning]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Mysterious Planet (novelisation)|The Mysterious Planet]]'') At some point in his past, he had blown out the candles on his 900th birthday cake. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The One Doctor]]'') The Malamud noted that, because of the many volumes about the Doctor's life, he must be 20,000 years old. The Doctor didn't contradict them. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Book of My Life]]'') At another time, he was 991 during his travels with [[Melanie Bush]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[A Wee Deoch an ...?]]'') He was 953 years old when he regenerated. ([[TV]]: ''[[Time and the Rani]]'')
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| === Seventh Doctor ===
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| Hours after his regeneration, the [[Seventh Doctor]] unlocked a door in [[the Rani]]'s laboratory with the numerical code "953", saying it was both his age and the Rani's. ([[TV]]: ''[[Time and the Rani]]'') The Doctor had his 1,000th birthday while travelling with [[Ace]] and [[Bernice Summerfield]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Set Piece]]'')
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| On arriving in [[the Forge]], the Seventh Doctor claimed that "a century or three" had passed in his personal timeline since his previous incarnation visited it. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Project Lazarus (audio story)|Project: Lazarus]]'')
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| By his own estimate afterward he would have been 1009 when he regenerated, though he admitted he may have lost count at some point. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Vampire Science]]'')
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| === Eighth Doctor ===
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| Three years after his regeneration, the [[Eighth Doctor]] calculated his total age to be 1012. He was unsure and might have lost count, and so preferred to simply begin counting at his most recent regeneration, giving his age as "three" when asked. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Vampire Science]]'') The Doctor later stated his age as 1018. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Autumn Mist]]'') The Doctor aged while trapped as an [[amnesiac]] on [[Earth]] in "real time" between the late [[19th century]] ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Ancestor Cell]]'') and the year [[2001]], making him at least 1125 by the end of this crisis. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Escape Velocity]]'')
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| While travelling with [[Charley Pollard]], the Doctor said he was "nine hundred and fifty something years old". ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Neverland (audio story)|Neverland]]'') Not long after, while travelling in the [[Divergent Universe]], he was noted to have had "over a thousand years worth of collected experience" by a [[cave creature]] in the form of [[Koth (The Twilight Kingdom)|Major Koth]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Twilight Kingdom (audio story)|The Twilight Kingdom]]'') While travelling with [[Lucie Miller]], the Doctor spent 600 years on the planet [[Orbis]]. He later mentioned that he rounded and adjusted his age based on different year lengths in different parts of the universe. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Orbis (audio story)|Orbis]]'')
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| === War Doctor ===
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| The [[Last Great Time War]], in which the [[War Doctor]] fought, lasted not less than 400 years of linear time, although at the time of his experiences in the [[Tantalus Spiral]], which led him to decide the war could go on "no more", this incarnation's age was a hundred years or more. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Engines of War (novel)|Engines of War]]'')<!-- Although pp. 11-12 of Engines of War says that "in simple, linear terms, the war had been going on for over four hundred years", p. 20 first describes the Doctor by saying that the luminescence from the roundrels was "causing the craggy lines of his face to be picked out in shadow: the map of a hundred years or more, worn thin through conflict and weariness." --> Shortly before the end of his life, the War Doctor said he was 400 years younger than the [[Eleventh Doctor]] when he gave his age as "twelve hundred or something", making him somewhere between 800 and 900 years old. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Day of the Doctor (TV story)|The Day of the Doctor]]'')
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| === Ninth Doctor ===
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| The [[Ninth Doctor]] claimed "900 years of time and space". Immediately after he made this comment, Rose asked, "When you say 900 years?—" and he responded, "That's my age." ([[TV]]: ''[[Aliens of London]]'') Later, when Rose appeared to wander off, he mentioned to a cat that the only thing left to surprise him after "900 years of phone box travel" was whenever he met someone who got the "don't wander off thing". When Rose asked him about his name, saying "Don't you ever get tired of 'Doctor'? Doctor Who?" He responded, "Nine centuries in, I'm coping." ([[TV]]: ''[[The Empty Child]]'')
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| === Tenth Doctor ===
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| The [[Tenth Doctor]] said he was 903 years old while attempting to rescue the ''[[Titanic (spaceship)|Titanic]]''. ([[TV]]: ''[[Voyage of the Damned]]'') Prior to the ''Titanic'' incident, he claimed to have spent at least 33 months searching for [[Martha Jones]] in deep space ([[TV]]: ''[[The Infinite Quest]]''), and several months living in various time periods on Earth ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Stone Rose (novel)|The Stone Rose]]'', [[TV]]: ''[[Human Nature (TV story)|Human Nature]]'' / ''[[The Family of Blood]]'', ''[[Blink]]'') and inside the ''[[Valiant (aircraft carrier)|Valiant]]'' during the so-called [[Year That Never Was]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[Last of the Time Lords]]'') He again claimed 903 during an adventure with [[Donna Noble]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Nemonite Invasion (audio story)|The Nemonite Invasion]]'') In a later adventure in [[Nevada]], he said 900 again, suggesting he was approximating. ([[TV]]: ''[[Dreamland (TV story)|Dreamland]]'') While confronting a [[rabbit]] in [[Elizabethan]] [[England]] he briefly believed to be a [[Zygon]] in disguise, he said he was 904 years old. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Day of the Doctor (TV story)|The Day of the Doctor]]'') Just prior to regenerating, he gave his age as 906, suggesting that several years had passed for the Doctor after his travels with Donna Noble. ([[TV]]: ''[[The End of Time (TV story)|The End of Time]]'')
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| === Eleventh Doctor ===
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| Not long after [[Amy Pond]] first encountered the [[Eleventh Doctor]], he told her that he was 907 ([[TV]]: ''[[Flesh and Stone]]''), which he then restated when meeting the [[Dream Lord]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[Amy's Choice]]'', [[TV]]: ''[[Meanwhile in the TARDIS (TV story)|Meanwhile in the TARDIS ]]'') When his future self invited him to [[Utah]], the younger Doctor gave his age as 909. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Impossible Astronaut]]'') The Doctor later commented that he was around [[George (Night Terrors)|George's]] age of eight "about a thousand years ago". ([[TV]]: ''[[Night Terrors]]'') When asked if he knew any tricks, the Doctor stated that he'd been escaping for "about a thousand years, give or take a century or so." ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Magic of the Angels (novel)|Magic of the Angels]]'') When he met Amy, Rory, [[River Song|River]] and [[Canton Everett Delaware III|Canton]] at [[Lake Silencio]], his older self told Amy that he was 1103. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Impossible Astronaut]]'') Indeed, the Doctor at this point in his life had just finished his [[farewell tour]], which therefore appeared to have lasted about 200 years. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Wedding of River Song]]'') By the time he had left Amy and Rory, but still offered them brief trips in the TARDIS, he stated his age as 1200. ([[TV]]: ''[[A Town Called Mercy (TV story)|A Town Called Mercy]]'') When he met [[Clara Oswald (The Bells of Saint John)|Clara Oswald]] he rounded his age down to 1000. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Bells of Saint John]]'') The Doctor spent three years trapped in a vast room within the TARDIS. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Sky Jacks (comic story)|Sky Jacks]]'') When asked by [[War Doctor|the War Doctor]], he said he didn't know and had lost track, settling on "Twelve hundred and something, I think, unless I'm lying." He went on to say that he was so old he couldn't remember if he was lying about his age. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Day of the Doctor (TV story)|The Day of the Doctor]]'') The Doctor told [[Theol]] that he was "nearly" 1500, but he could be a few hundred years off either way. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[An Apple a Day... (short story)|An Apple a Day...]]'') He spent 300 years defending the world of [[Trenzalore]], making him at least 1500 years old by the time Clara saw him next. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Time of the Doctor (TV story)|The Time of the Doctor]]'') By the time the [[Mara]] began attacking the residents of Trenzalore, the Doctor had been there for 750 years, making him 1950. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Dreaming (short story)|The Dreaming]]'') In total, the Doctor spent 900 years on Trenzalore, making him roughly 2100 years old at the end of his first complete cycle of regenerations. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Tales of Trenzalore: The Eleventh Doctor's Last Stand (novel)|Tales of Trenzalore: The Eleventh Doctor's Last Stand]]'')
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| === Twelfth Doctor ===
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| Shortly after his regeneration, the [[Twelfth Doctor]] claimed to have lived for over 2000 years. ([[TV]]: ''[[Deep Breath (TV story)|Deep Breath]]'') This was later reiterated when he read his [[Two Thousand Year Diary]] in order to identify the [[Mire]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Girl Who Died (TV story)|The Girl Who Died]]'')
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| == Behind the scenes ==
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| === The "900" discrepancy ===
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| Before the Eleventh Doctor's 200-year farewell tour between [[TV]]: ''[[The God Complex]]'' and ''[[Closing Time (TV story)|Closing Time]]'', the writers of the 2005 revival of the series explicitly described the Doctor as around 900 years old, despite contrary statements on TV and expanded media. It is one of the few notable contradictions of previously established material in the revival. To date no episode, novel or comic strip has addressed the discrepancy.
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| === "He has no clue" ===
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| A simple and self-evident theory is that the Doctor doesn't know how old he is because he has lost count, constantly travelling backward and forward through time making it difficult to measure one's lifespan at all. This theory began as [[fanon]], with the Doctor occasionally admitting to being unsure of his age in spinoff media. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Doctor Who and the Time Witch (comic story)|Doctor Who and the Time Witch]]'', [[PROSE]]: ''[[Vampire Science]]'')
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| This is the theory subscribed to by ''[[Doctor Who]]'' [[executive producer]] and [[head writer]] [[Steven Moffat]] in an interview with [[SFX (magazine)|SFX]]: {{quote|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]], [[SFX (magazine)|SFX]], May 2010}}
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| This theory would be voiced in ''[[The Day of the Doctor (TV story)|The Day of the Doctor]]'', written by Steven Moffat, when the [[Eleventh Doctor]] is asked by the [[War Doctor]] how old he is now.
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| === Non-fictional sources ===
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| The first non-fictional writing about regeneration, ''[[The Phoenix in the TARDIS]]'', stated that the First Doctor was about 900 at the time he [[regenerated]] into the Second Doctor.
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| == External links ==
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| * [http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/doctorsage.shtml "The Doctor's Age" article in the BBC Classic Series Episode Guide]
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| == Footnotes ==
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| {{reflist}}
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| {{TitleSort}}
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| [[es:La edad del Doctor]] | | [[es:La edad del Doctor]] |
| [[Category:The Doctor]] | | [[Category:The Doctor]] |
