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.
Statements and information
It was difficult to determine the Doctor's life expectancy, given their 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)
It was also evident that Time Lords aged in a way different from humans. The Fourth Doctor once told Sharon Davies that he was a teenager for fifty years. (COMIC: 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, TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
Cindy Wu pointed out the uncertainty in whether the Doctor gave his age in Gallifreyan or human years, "or some cosmic measurement tied to absolute zero universal center?" (COMIC: The Lost Dimension)
By the time he regenerated into the Eleventh Doctor, the Doctor "had long since abandoned trying to keep track of [his age] in any way that mattered to anybody but him". (PROSE: Nothing O'Clock)
According to one account, the Doctor was the Timeless Child, a being from another universe with regenerative capabilities far beyond those of the Time Lords. This account suggested that the Time Lords' own regenerative abilities were derived from those of the Timeless Child, as a result of years of experimentation by the Shobogan traveller Tecteun, who was also responsible for discovering the Timeless Child in the first place. As a result, the Doctor was even older than the Time Lords themselves, making them far older than some accounts would suggest. (TV: The Timeless Children)
First Doctor
The First Doctor was eight when he entered the Time Lord Academy, along with the Master. (TV: The Sound of Drums) He apparently left primary school at the age of 45. (PROSE: Shroud of Sorrow) The Tenth Doctor 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) The Fourth Doctor said he was a "teenager" for fifty years. (COMIC: Doctor Who and the Time Witch) The Doctor spent "centuries" studying at the Academy. (COMIC: Mortal Beloved) Magnus chided the Doctor for not regenerating and for holding on to this incarnation as long as he did. (COMIC: Flashback)
When the Fourth Doctor was 759, (TV: The Ribos Operation) Romana noted that 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) This figure was broadly supported by the TARDIS itself. When transferred into a humanoid body, the TARDIS said the Doctor had travelled with it for 700 years. At this point, the Eleventh Doctor was said to be around 909 years old, putting his age when he stole the TARDIS at 209. (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) While visiting the year 64, the Doctor stated he had been travelling in the TARDIS for 60 years, putting his age at 296 at that time. (PROSE: Byzantium!)
To the best of his memory, the Doctor recalled having met Bill Cody just before his 400th birthday. (COMIC: Gaze of the Medusa)
The First Doctor regenerated when he was 450 years old, (PROSE: Iceberg) roughly 1,500 years before his fourteenth regeneration. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)
Second Doctor
Shortly after regeneration, the Second Doctor told Ben Jackson and Polly Wright that it had been over 750 years since he left his home planet. (PROSE: The Power of the Daleks)
The Doctor told Victoria Waterfield he was "something like" 450 years old in Earth terms. (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen) He was separated from his companions for a few years due to the effects of being on a planet in orbit of a pulsar. (AUDIO: Shadow of Death) He gave his age as a "tender" 500 shortly before his regeneration. (COMIC: The Brotherhood)
Third Doctor
The Third Doctor told Liz Shaw that his life covered "several thousand years". (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians) He started to say to Professor Kettering that he had been a scientist for "several thousand—", but stopped himself before completing the sentence. (TV: The Mind of Evil) By one account, the Third Doctor's cheeks were 725 years old. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Green Death)
Fourth Doctor
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) "about" 719 years older than Sarah was. (PROSE: Sarah Jane and the Temple of Eyes) He later claimed to be 750 when travelling with Leela, (TV: The Robots of Death) which was "middle-aged", (AUDIO: Destroy the Infinite) and 756 with 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) In one letter addressed to a human audience, the Doctor claimed in short succession to be "over 750 years old (…) by your Earth years" and then simply "750 years old". (PROSE: A Letter from the Doctor)
The Doctor and Romana spent 15 years travelling through the nexus point of the TARDIS. (PROSE: Heart of TARDIS) Before they assembled the Key to Time, he claimed that he was "nearly" 760. (TV: The Power of Kroll) He later gave that as his age to Henry Gordon Jago and George Litefoot. (AUDIO: The Justice of Jalxar) He was still attributed that age while fighting Skagra. (PROSE: Shada) However, on another adventure with Romana's second incarnation, the Doctor claimed he couldn't remember his age but believed it was 751 or 752. (AUDIO: The Doomsday Contract) He also told Celia Soames that he was over 700 years old. (AUDIO: The Labyrinth of Buda Castle)
When he met Sharon Davies, the Doctor claimed to be 730 years old, and blamed his age for his faulty memory. (COMIC: Doctor Who and the Star Beast) Another time while travelling with Sharon, after ageing four years due to the chrono-compensator, he decided he would still think himself as "743... or was it 730, I never can remember". (COMIC: 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) Romana told the Doctor that after the first few centuries, it would be hard to remember his exact age. (TV: The Ribos Operation)
Certainly, the Doctor noted that he was much older then 150 as early as his travels with Sarah Jane. (COMIC: Hubert's Folly)
Fifth Doctor
Upon the Doctor's regeneration into their fifth incarnation, he was nearly 800 years old. (PROSE: Castrovalva) By another account, he was already 813 when he regenerated. (PROSE: Cold Fusion) While travelling alone with Nyssa, he claimed to be "about 800". (PROSE: Saturn) Later in his life, he stated that he was "pushing 900". (AUDIO: Omega) He told Peri Brown that "in [her] years" he was "about 850". (PROSE: The Ultimate Treasure) While travelling with Erimem and Peri, the Doctor claimed to be "not even middle-aged by [Time Lord] standards". (AUDIO: No Place Like Home) An age-scanning device identified him as being almost 900 when he was reunited with Abby and Zara, some time after being joined by Peri. (AUDIO: The Garden of Storms)
Sixth Doctor
Some 80 years passed between the Doctor's first and second meetings with Becky. (PROSE: Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing) Peri believed that the Sixth Doctor was 760 years old, (PROSE: The Two Doctors) although he later told her that he was 900 (TV: Revelation of the Daleks, The Mysterious Planet) and said that he was "not a day over nine hundred years old" when threatened with death by stoning. (PROSE: The Mysterious Planet)
While travelling with Flip Jackson, he spent a century frozen in Vortex Ice. (AUDIO: Vortex Ice) Flip later called him around 900, but she was not sure on the exact age. The Doctor later told her that he had lived for almost a millennium. (AUDIO: The Middle)
The Doctor told his companion Constance Clarke that he was over 900 years old. (AUDIO: Absolute Power)
By the time he was travelling with Melanie Bush, he had blown out the candles on his 900th birthday cake and was approaching 930. (AUDIO: The One Doctor) Soon after, Mel noted that the Doctor was approximately 900 years old. (AUDIO: The Juggernauts)
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)
Seventh Doctor
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) On Heaven, Ace described him in her mind as 783. (PROSE: Love and War) While travelling with her and Bernice Summerfield, the Doctor claimed to be 943. (PROSE: Lucifer Rising) The Doctor later had his 1,000th birthday while in their company. (PROSE: Set Piece) While in Japan, the Doctor reckoned he was at least 1003. (PROSE: The Room with No Doors)
While travelling with Ace and Hex, the Doctor noted that he had lived 900 years. (AUDIO: Mask of Tragedy)
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)
He believed that he was nearly a thousand years old before he regenerated. (PROSE: The Novel of the Film) 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)
Eighth Doctor
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) having spent three years imprisoned. (PROSE: Seeing I) 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)
When he partook in a bloodfasting with the vampire Joanna Harris (who was over 950 years old at the time), Harris was able to see the Doctor's memories through their temporary psychic link, and was instantly struck by the fact that he was "far older" than even she, who was the oldest of her vampire coven. (PROSE: Vampire Science)
While battling the Ice Warriors, the Doctor reckoned he was 1200 years old. (PROSE: The Dying Days) While travelling with Charley Pollard, he said he was "nine hundred and fifty something years old". (AUDIO: 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 Major Koth. (AUDIO: 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, claiming that in one obscure galaxy he would be two years old. (AUDIO: Orbis) The Doctor also spent several months travelling with Nyssa on board The Traken during the Last Great Time War. (AUDIO: A Heart on Both Sides)
The Doctor's ninth incarnation
There existed some conflict as to the true identity of the Doctor's ninth incarnation, with the Eighth Doctor being aware of several potential future selves. (PROSE: The Tomorrow Windows, The Gallifrey Chronicles)
"Listless-looking" Ninth Doctor
During his travels with Emma at a point where he hadn't been to Earth in several years, a Ninth Doctor described himself as "over 800 years old". (PROSE: Who's After Your Cash)
War Doctor
The Last Great Time War, in which the War Doctor fought, lasted no 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)
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)
"Big-eared" Ninth Doctor
The Ninth Doctor with big ears and a hawklike face (PROSE: The Tomorrow Windows) spent "weeks" having adventures between first encountering Rose Tyler in Henrik's, and turning up at the meal where he encountered Auton Mickey. (PROSE: Rose)
After Rose asked what he meant when he said "900 years of time and space", the Doctor told her it was "[his] age". (TV: Aliens of London)
He spent 28 years waiting on Earth to meet up with Rose in 1922, (AUDIO: The Other Side) and looked visibly older to Rose after he returned from his journey to the Causubus ship. (PROSE: Rose and the Snow Window) He later considered himself to have had "900 years of phone box travel". (TV: The Empty Child)
Tenth Doctor
The Tenth Doctor was 900 while travelling with Rose Tyler. (PROSE: The Hero Factor) During one of their adventures, he spent several months on Earth learning how to sculpt. (PROSE: The Stone Rose)
When the Doctor was imprisoned on Volag-Noc, his brain was scanned for criminal activity, revealing that some of his memories dated back over 3000 years. Around the time of this incident, the Doctor claimed to have spent at least 33 months searching for Martha Jones in deep space. (TV: The Infinite Quest) During his travels with Martha, the Doctor spent several months living in various time periods on Earth (TV: Human Nature / The Family of Blood, Blink) and inside the Valiant during the so-called Year That Never Was. (TV: Last of the Time Lords)
He said he was 903 years old while attempting to save the Titanic. (TV: Voyage of the Damned)
While travelling alone, he claimed to be 904 years old. (PROSE: Number 1, Gallows Gate Road)
He again claimed to be 903 during an adventure with Donna Noble. (AUDIO: The Nemonite Invasion) During another adventure with Donna, on the planet Calibris, the Doctor shot himself with several time reaver guns. While ten minutes passed for those around him, he experienced 7 centuries frozen in time. (AUDIO: Time Reaver)
After meeting Gabby Gonzalez, the Doctor stated that he was over 900 years old. (COMIC: The Arts in Space) In a later adventure in Nevada, he said 900 again, suggesting he was approximating. (TV: Dreamland)
In an encounter with the Fourth Doctor while traveling alone, the Tenth Doctor told his past self he was "barely half a millennium" older. (AUDIO: Out of Time)
While confronting a rabbit he briefly believed to be a Zygon in disguise in Elizabethan England, the Doctor said he was 904 (TV: The Day of the Doctor) or 900 years old. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor) Just prior to regenerating, he gave his age as 906. (TV: The End of Time)
Eleventh Doctor
Not long after Amy Pond first encountered the Eleventh Doctor, he told her that he was 907. (TV: Flesh and Stone) Later in their travels, he claimed to be 908. (COMIC: The Cleverest King) Indeed, at Lake Silencio in Utah, Amy would recall that the Doctor was 908 the last time she saw him. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
During his travels with Alice Obiefune, the Doctor claimed to have lived "900-odd-years". (COMIC: Pull to Open)
When his future self invited him to Lake Silencio, the younger Doctor gave his age as 909. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut) The Doctor later commented that he was around George's age of 8 "about a thousand years ago". (TV: Night Terrors)
When he met Amy, Rory, River and 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 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) 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)
When he met Clara Oswald, he rounded his age down to 1000. (TV: The Bells of Saint John, The Rings of Akhaten) The Doctor later spent three years trapped in a vast room within the TARDIS. (COMIC: Sky Jacks) When asked by the War Doctor, he said he didn't know his age and had lost track, settling on "1200-and-something". 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)
During the Siege of Trenzalore, 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...) By the time Clara saw him next, he had spent 300 years defending the world of Trenzalore, making him at least 1500 years old. (TV: 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) 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)
Twelfth Doctor
Shortly after his regeneration, the Twelfth Doctor claimed to have lived for over 2000 years. (TV: Deep Breath) He apparently had a birthday which was celebrated by Missy, who claimed to have remembered it while reasoning that he had forgotten. (TV: Death in Heaven) He continued to identify as 2000 after temporarily parting from Clara Oswald. (PROSE: Big Bang Generation) He possessed a Two Thousand Year Diary which he used to identify the Mire. (TV: The Girl Who Died)
The Doctor hid for 139 years in a stasis chamber in order to maintain his personal timeline. (TV: Under the Lake, Before the Flood)
As a result of a Time Lord plot, the Doctor spent around 4.5 billion years (TV: Hell Bent) trapped in a confession dial, and, although it was divided amongst countless copies of the Doctor, he implied that he retained those memories upon escaping. (TV: Heaven Sent) The Doctor would admit to Osgood that he had lost track of his age. (COMIC: Robo Rampage) Whilst travelling alone, Missy told the Doctor he was "getting old", having lived for centuries. (PROSE: Dr. Twelfth)
Sometime after this, the Doctor told a younger incarnation of the Master that he was age 4 billion. (COMIC: Doorway to Hell) He later claimed to be "only two thousand and... something". (COMIC: Invasion of the Mindmorphs)
At some point afterwards, the Doctor spent a twenty-four year night on Darillium with River Song. (TV: The Husbands of River Song)
"A long time ago", the Doctor made an oath to guard the body of Missy for 1000 years. After this he transported her to the Vault beneath St Luke's University. (TV: Extremis) In late 2016, he had apparently been lecturing at the university for over fifty years, although some rumours said he had been there for over 70. (TV: The Pilot) Nevertheless, Nardole still identified the Doctor as being 2000 years old. (PROSE: I Am the Doctor)
Before his first adventure together with Bill Potts, the Doctor told Nardole that he was over 2000 years old. (TV: Smile) A few hours after this, he echoed the same thing to Bill herself. (TV: Thin Ice) On meeting the Monks in a simulation, the Doctor gave his age as "two thousand years at the last count". (TV: Extremis)
Shortly before regenerating, the Twelfth Doctor, in an encounter with his first incarnation just prior to his own regeneration, commented that 1500 years of "rock'n'roll" had passed in the interim. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)
Thirteenth Doctor
Immediately following regeneration, the Thirteenth Doctor was at least 1500 years older than the Second Doctor, making her a minimum of 1950 years old. (PROSE: Iceberg, TV: Twice Upon a Time) The Thirteenth Doctor would later tell her companions that she was thousands of years old, so old she didn't even remember her true age anymore. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon)
After being captured by the Judoon, (TV: The Timeless Children) the Doctor spent "a rough few decades" in a Maximum security facility before being broken out by Jack Harkness. (TV: Revolution of the Daleks)
Behind the scenes
The "900" discrepancy
Before the Eleventh Doctor's 200-year farewell tour between TV: The God Complex and 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. The discrepancy was finally addressed in the short story Doctor Who and the Time War released in 2020, which explained that in the Last Great Time War the Doctor was aged and de-aged multiple times. Eventually "feeling around one thousand" by the end of the War, he rounded his age down to 900.
The Doctor "has no clue"
A simple and self-evident theory is that the Doctor doesn't know how old they are because they have 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, PROSE: Vampire Science)
This is the theory subscribed to by Doctor Who executive producer and head writer Steven Moffat in an interview with SFX: "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."[1] This theory would be voiced in The Day of the Doctor, written by Steven Moffat, when the Eleventh Doctor is asked by the War Doctor how old he is now. The Thirteenth Doctor also later admitted to being unsure of her age in Fugitive of the Judoon.
The Doctor lies
Another theory was that the Doctor lied about their age. This is supported in the audio The Lost Resort, when the Fifth Doctor states that a Time Lord will always lie when asked their age.
Non-fictional sources
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.
Other invalid sources
The age of the incarnation of the Doctor seen in Doctor Who and Crayola is given as over 1 million years by his arch nemesis Crayola.
An incarnation of the Doctor, portrayed by Fourth Doctor actor Tom Baker, who featured in Introduction to the Night gave his age as 700 years old while referring to himself in the third person.
In The Last Dalek, a video game based on TV: Dalek, the Metaltron's memory files state the Ninth Doctor's age as "unknown".
In a brief in-universe portion of The Weakest Link: Doctor Who Special, Tenth Doctor actor David Tennant gave his age as 925 while introducing himself in-character.
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Steven Moffat, SFX, May 2010
