The Doctor's age

Contradictory information has pointed at different estimates of the Doctor's age, both in conversations and in terms of the length of various incarnations.

References and known information

It is unknown what the Doctor's life expectancy is, given his ability to regenerate. In his second incarnation he once stated that as a Time Lord he can "live forever, barring accidents" though it's unclear whether this is accurate or an exaggeration.

First Doctor

The Doctor was 8 when he entered the Academy, along with The Master (DW: The Sound of Drums) and 90 when he first visited the Medusa Cascade where he later described himself as having been "just a kid".(DW: The Stolen Earth)

The Doctor spent "centuries" studying at the Time Lord Academy. (DWM: Mortal Beloved) Magnus chided the Doctor for not regenerating and holding on to this incarnation as long as he did (DWM: Flashback).

He could have been around 236 when he left Gallifrey with Susan (DW: The Pirate Planet)

This statement, as well as one made during his second incarnation (see below) if we take it at face value, make this very possibly the longest-lived of the Doctor's incarnations. - This would make perfect sense as while on Gallifrey he lived with almost no danger, and clearly indicated that prior to beginning his travels with Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, he tended to err on the side of caution. (DW: An Unearthly Child)

In his fourth incarnation, the Doctor would claim that he hadn't been to China in 400 years (DW: The Talons of Weng-Chiang). If taken at face value, and assumed to be a reference to his first incarnation's adventure with Marco Polo (DW: Marco Polo) that would make him about 350 during those events as the Fourth Doctor was about 750.

It would seem to be that this incarnation regenarated at 450, given that not a lot of time passed since then when he stated it in his second incarnation. (DW: The Tombs of the Cybermen' )

Second Doctor

At some indeterminate time after his first regeneration (but not too long after given the continued presence of Jamie McCrimmon), this incarnation of the Doctor made the first known direct reference to his age. To Victoria Waterfield, he described himself as "something like" 450 years old (DW: The Tomb of the Cybermen). The Doctor seemed to have aged visibly by the time he went on a mission for the Time Lords to Space Station Chimera (DW: The Two Doctors). It is unknown when this events actually took place within the era of the Second Doctor. He may have been taken out of time during a point prior to The War Games. As established in Time Crash, the Doctor sometimes shows signs of aging as a result of being taken out of time. This would imply that the Doctor and Jamie had their memories wiped of the events of The Two Doctors once returned to their normal time streams. It is also possible, however, that this event may have taken place after the Doctor's trial on Gallifrey (DW: The War Games), but before he began his exile on Earth (DW: Spearhead from Space)

See Season 6B for a longstanding theory involving the Second Doctor's activities after the trial.

Third Doctor

This incarnation of the Doctor started to say that he had been a scientist for "several thousand" years, but stopped himself before completing the sentence. (DW: The Mind of Evil) He had made a similar age reference shortly before that incident (DW: Doctor Who and the Silurians)

Before his regenaration, he was stranded in his TARDIS for 10 years before landing on Earth and regenarated at 748, making him 738 before he was stranded. (DW: Planet of the Spiders)

Fourth Doctor

This incarnation of the Doctor consistently described himself as around 750. He described himself as 749 when he travelled with Sarah Jane Smith (DW: The Brain of Morbius, The Seeds of Doom), 750 with Leela (DW: The Robots of Death) and 756 with Romana during her first incarnation just prior to finding the first segment of the Key to Time. However on the last occasion, Romana corrected him and described him as 759. (DW: The Ribos Operation) Before the conclusion of the quest for the Key to Time, he turned 760 (DW: The Power of Kroll) On another occasion, the Doctor described himself as possibly 730 and also confessed he couldn't remember his actual age. (DWM: The Time Witch)

Fifth Doctor

The Doctor described himself as 813 when he regenerated (MA: Cold Fusion)

Sixth Doctor

The Doctor described himself as 900 years old (DW: Revelation of the Daleks) and later modified this to be "900 years, more or less". (DW: The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet)

An unspecified gap occurred between these two references, during which his human companion, Peri Brown, visibly matured; there is a possibly apocryphal account that approximately two years occurred between the two events (DWM: The World Shapers)

During this story Peri appears as she does at the start of the adventure on Ravolox and mentions to Frobisher that "a couple of years" had passed since she and the Doctor last encountered Jamie McCrimmon and the Second Doctor in The Two Doctors).

Seventh Doctor

Hours after his regeneration, the Doctor unlocks a door in the Rani's laboratory with the numerical code "953," which he states is both his age and the Rani's. (DW: Time and the Rani)

This would mean that approximately 500 years passed between the Doctor's second and sixth incarnations.

By the time of his next regeneration, he had aged visibly. (DW: Doctor Who)

Eighth Doctor

Three years after his regeneration, the Doctor calculated his total age to be 1012. He admitted, however, that he was "not really sure, there's some question of whether I lost count." (EDA: Vampire Science)

The Doctor aged while trapped as an amnesiac on Earth in "real time" between the late 19th century (EDA: The Ancestor Cell) and the year 2001 (EDA: Escape Velocity).

At one point, while traveling with Lucie Miller, the Doctor mentioned that he rounds and adjusts his age based on different year lengths in different parts of the universe. (BFA: Orbis)

Ninth Doctor

This incarnation claimed "900 years of time and space", i.e. travel in his TARDIS, and when asked, said that this was his age. (DW: Aliens of London) He later claimed to have used the name "The Doctor" for nine centuries and to have had "900 years of phone-box travel" (DW: The Empty Child). These statements appear to contradict his earlier stated ages.

His comment "900 years of phone-box travel" could be interpreted to mean he doesn't count his life on Gallifrey in his age anymore.

Tenth Doctor

The Doctor described himself as 903 years old (DW: Voyage of the Damned, etc.) River Song compared how young the eyes of the tenth Doctor looked when she met for (from the Doctor's perspective) the first time when contrasted with the version of him she knew earlier in her life but later in his. (DW: Silence in the Library)

There is some uncertainty as to whether River Song actually knew the Tenth Doctor and not a later incarnation.

The Doctor's claim of 903 is disputed. As at one point prior to the Titanic incident he is known to have spent at least 2 1/2 years searching for Martha Jones in deep space (DW: The Infinite Quest), as well as several months (at least) living in various time periods on Earth (DW: Human Nature and DW: Blink). He again claimed 903 during another adventure with Donna Noble (BBCR: The Nemonite Invasion).

During a later visit to America, the Doctor claimed an age of 900 once again, suggesting he was rounding down. (DW: Dreamland)

Assuming the Doctor is either lying about his age or ignoring his early life (the first 236 years of his life) on Gallifrey, the Doctor could in fact be at least 1136 when he was with Rose Tyler and 1139, during the Titanic incident.

Just prior to regenerating, he stated his age explicitly as 906, suggesting that several years passed for the Doctor after his travels with Donna Noble, a partial accounting of which he gave Ood Sigma. (DW: The End of Time)

Eleventh Doctor

So far the newest incarnation of the Doctor has not yet stated his age.

In interviews prior to the launch of Series 5 in America in April 2010, actor Matt Smith stated several times that the Doctor is 907. It remains to be seen whether this is ultimately stated on screen.

Behind the scenes

The "900" Controversy

The decision by the writers of the 2005 revival of the series to explicitly describe the Doctor as 900 years old, despite evidence to the contrary on TV and expanded media, is one of the few notable contradictions to established canon in the revival. Although as noted above it's possible to suggest rationalisations (and fans have suggested others ranging from Time War-related trauma to speculation of an unchronicled adventure in which the Doctor was "de-aged" much as he was "aged" in DW: The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords), to date no episode, novel or comic strip has attempted to address the discrepancy. One simple explaination would be that the Doctor has, simply, taken to lying about his age (precedent for this exists in DW: The Ribos Operation in which Romana catches the Doctor shaving a few years off his age - something she, herself, apparently does after her first regeneration). Another is that his measurements of years might vary based on which planet he's using as a baseline; a year on Gallifrey is unlikely to be the same as a year on Earth.

"He Has No Clue"

A simpler and even more self-evident theory is that the Doctor doesn't really know how old he actually is, as constantly traveling backward and forward through time could make it very difficult to measure one's lifespan at all. This theory had been fanon, and the Doctor occasionally admitted to being unsure of his age in spinoff media. (DWM: The Time Witch, EDA: Vampire Science)

This is the theory subscribed to by Doctor Who's current producer and head writer Steven Moffat, as stated in an interview with SFX Magazine:

"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."

Moffat's theory is supported by the two Third Doctor-era references suggesting the Doctor may be thousands of years old, though it doesn't explain why the Master also uses the 900 age mark when he alters the Doctor to look his "true" age (DW: Last of the Time Lords).

External links

• "The Doctor's Age" article in the BBC Classic Series Episode Guide