So the Doctor says he is still only 906 years old, these new Doctors don’t seem to last long do they?

Doctor number nine only seemed to have lasted a year and Doctor Number 10 only seems to have lasted 5 years. So is it as the Doctor gets older he is taking more risks than he used to? or just he is not as good as careful as he used to be?

Unless of course he is...

A) Lying about his age
or
B) Counting his age in years from a planet (maybe Galifrey) where a year is more days than an earth year?

I loved DT’s send off though, so many possibilities for returns for any of the characters from this era if SM chooses to use them in the future, although I am sure he has many new ideas to bring to the table before he even thinks about them. I’m looking forward to the new series already.

Good point that. At this rate he won't reach 950!

He already did. Sylvester McCoy was 953.

Lol! Another good point!

You'd think a self-confessed Who fan like RTD would do his homework to keep it consistent.

I didn't know that myself but i'm not the chief writer or whatever he called himself!

Haven't seen the Movie for ages, but apparently McCoy said 953 in the Time and the Rani and then Paul McGann said he was 900 in the movie. Then Chris Eccleston said 903!

It's all in wikipedia - which I know isn't always to be trusted - but I reckon most of us Whovians are anal enough to get these facts right - even on wiki!

That's all RTD needed to do - www.wikipedia.org

Not RTD's fault then i suppose.

It's another topic but i think it's a shame that the 8th doctor Movie was treated as Canon when the series came back, wasted a regeneration and it didn't really fit in, good as it was.

I suppose you could argue that Doctor No 8, was just vain and lying about his age and his other re-generations since have carried on the lie...

Maybe he's just lost count?

I always imagine that he counts his age in the local years of whatever planet he is on - could be different everywhere he goes!

Probably gets hard to remember your age by the time you are in your 900s lol. Must be confusing as well jumping around in time and changing who you are.

I suppose they can always use the few references during the 4th Doctor's tenure when he said that he found it difficult to keep track of the years. I'm sure Romana picked him up on his exact age during The Ribos Operation.

What confuses is me is how The Doctor managed to get 900+ years in his first form and in less than 50 years he has regenerated 10 times >_>


Time Lords must get clumsy after 900.

He didn't, the Doctor (the 2nd Doctor) says he is 450 when he first states his age on screen.

Many years pass in unseen adventures (or at least they used to).

Which is my original point really, Doctor number 9 only seems to have lasted 1 year and now Doctor number 10 only seems to have had 5 years of life.

I have posted this before on another thread but I will post it again as it relevant.

"The Doctor suddenly became 900 years old for the start of the new series, although I am sure he has said he was older in other classic Doctor Who episodes. David Tennant’s Doc then claimed to be 903 in “Voyage of the Damned”. So it seems he now ages a year each series. That would now make his Doctor 904 meaning his current incarnation has only lived for 3 years since regenerating and would only be four years by the time of passing the torch to Matt Smith. Presuming that Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor had just regenerated as it was implied at the start of “Rose” his incarnation had a very short life and only lived for 1 year. "


Its a nice to imagine that the Doctor has lots of unseen adventures off screen that we dont see but it seems we have seen most of the life of Number 10 on Screen if his age is to be believed.

The third Doctor said to Liz Shaw (but for the life of me I can't remember the episode !) that he was more than a thousand years old.

To be fair they have never been consistent with his age. Personally I think the Doctor just rounds it off or has forgotten exactly how old he is.

Well 10 did say about going off and getting married etc, I can't imagine all those happened in a couple months.

The ninth Doctor claimed he'd been travelling in the TARDIS for 900 years in The Empty Child. It's generally accepted that he actually left Gallifrey late in life, so my personal theory based on all the dates previously given is that he's about 1300 years old but has in recent years begun counting his age from the time he started travelling, discounting the time before that. Otherwise, it makes little sense as he seems to be aging backwards. As I recall, Steven Moffat has said that RTD was perfectly well aware that the 900 years thing was wrong, but felt that it was a number more likely to be accepted by the new audience than if he'd said 'over a thousand'.

For the record: the second Doctor said he was 450 in Tomb of the Cybermen, and the next clear date we're given (barring a few comments from Jon Pertwee so vague that they could mean anything) is when the fourth Doctor claims to be a little over 750 (much time having evidently elapsed between televised adventures). The sixth Doctor is around 900 when he first appears, and by the time the seventh turns up he's 953 (Time & the Rani). The Doctor later celebrates his 1000th birthday in one of the novels published in the nineties, and the eighth subsequently spends a hundred years stranded on Earth. If you count these, he has to be at least 1100, if not he still has to be well over 950. It was suggested in one of the books that the first Doctor had been travelling for 60 years before the first televised story, and there's obviously little time passed between his first incarnation and Tomb of the Cybermen (he has human companions throughout that period) so he must have been around 390 when he left Gallifrey. Add the ninth Doctor's '900 years of phone box travel' and you get a figure of about 1290.

My main problem isn’t really how old in age he is now; there could be many explanations for the discrepancies regarding his age, for example he is indeed lying about it as he is so old now. My annoyance is more to do with the dating him a year older each series meaning if the trend continues like this each new series the Doctor only lives the amount of years he is on screen. So if Matt Smith is around for 3 series he will be 909 when he regenerates.

I just like to think each incarnation of the Doctor is smart enough to live a longer life than that.

Maybe time travelling makes you lose track of time and he simply guesses?


It's simple for us, we know that on out birthday we are exactly one year older, but on The Doctor's birthday? Any amount of time could have passed or him.

My view (and I think that it may have been hinted at in or around Time Crash with Davison and Tennant is that it's all to do with vanity.

As a young man to get respect he opted for an older body (Hartnell) but now he is old, he's (a) lying about his age and (b) trying to keep himself look youthful.

A bit like humans: how many children do you know who act/ dress older than they are? And how many old(er) people dress/ act younger than they are? So, to me the Doctor is 1200 years old, but he's also a kidult.

I certainly can't belive (as someone else wrote) that he did all those things between Waters of Mars and End of Time and still be 906 years old.

I just wish they didnt give him an age at all and just kept it vague.