And so, we embark on the second installment of: "What is up with the Doctor's age?!". We looked at the issue of Age Gaps in the Classic Series, first. We sorted out where the Doctor may have gained a few centuries here and there as he went from 450 to almost a 1000. Now we're going to tackle some discrepancies regarding his age in the New Series.
PART 2 - HOW DID THE DOCTOR LOSE A FEW CENTURIES?
Before we get to that Big Question, let's look at some other age gaps that occur in the New Series. Some of it's pretty straightforward, of course. Particularly in the 11th Doctor's Era. But there are a few other spots that bear closer scrutiny...
NEW SERIES AGE GAPS
It's likely that another significant age gap occurs between Survival and The 96 Telemovie. The Doctor's age isn't explicitly stated but there is a 900-year-old diary in the TARDIS (his previous diary only spanned 500 years). Doctor Seven also looks a bit older and there's been a few radical changes to his costume. We saw something similar happen between Seasons 17 and 18 so this leads me to believe that several decades have probably passed between Ace and Seven parting ways and the Doctor going to Skaro to collect the Master's remains. By the time we witness the opening scene in the Mega Jules Vernes Console Room, the Doctor is probably a little past 1000 years old.
Just to create a bit of context for that even bigger age issue, I'm going to say this is roughly where the Big Lie starts happening. Remember this for later...
Of course, as the New Series starts, the Doctor appears to be freshly regenerated into his ninth body. He's claiming to only be 900. To all intents and purposes, he only appears to live for a year before he regenerates again. Doctor Ten also seems to have a pretty short lifespan. The "each season represents a year" rule seems to be still in effect. Until we get to the Specials of 2009 where it appears as though he traveled alone in his "10b body" for 2 or 3 years and then regenerates at the age of 906.
And then we reach Eleven. Mister Moffat is nice enough to give us an incarnation with a longer lifespan and some fairly obvious age gaps. The first one we'll look at is prominently displayed in The Impossible Astronaut where he invites himself to his own death. We see a gap of 909 to 1103. Almost 200 years there (even double-checked my math on that one!). We should point out that the age gap, technically, happens between God Complex and Closing Time. After dropping off Rory and Amy, he travels by himself for a bit before finally facing his fate in The Wedding of River Song.
Of course, we should also factor in another really minor gap. He states his age as 906 in The End of Time - Part 2 but claims to be 909 by Impossible Astronaut. That's only a season that's passed but he's gained three years. So let's assume he took Rory and Amy for a nice honeymoon spin during A Christmas Carol but then brought them back home shortly thereafter. He still stops in intermittently between the 2010 Christmas Special and the beginning of Series 6 (which seems to be the general indication the first time we see Amy and Rory as the season opens). When he does pop in, he only takes the Ponds travelling for short periods of time. He is bringing them back to their normal lives after only a month or two in the TARDIS. In between his visits to Rory and Amy, he travels by himself for quite a while. Cumulatively, that travelling alone adds up to nearly 3 years.
The next super-obvious Age Gap is in Time of the Doctor where he puts on a good 700 years at the bare minimum. Possibly more. Throughout the course of the story, he does a similar trick to Clara that he did to Rose in Bad Wolf. Like Rose, Clara keeps finding her way back to him. But each time she returns, he's put on a few more centuries.
But just before that giant easy-to-spot age gap there is, once more, a less noticeable one. When River "assassinates" him - he claims to be 1103. When the War Doctor confronts him in Day of the Doctor, he says he's "Twelve Hundred and something...". So, another century and some change has passed sometime between those adventures.
I would suggest that the dynamic we saw at the beginning of Series 6 happens again through the first half of Series 7. The Doctor takes Rory and Amy travelling with him for a few months, then travels on his own for a while. Then picks them back up again for some time - then travels by himself again. So, in between Asylum of the Daleks, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, A Town Called Mercy, Power of Three and Angels Take Manhatten the Doctor puts on a bunch of years travelling without companions.
Since Doctor Twelve took over, there seems to be no indication of age gaps. It's difficult to tell since he's not really stating a specific number of years that he's at. He's just been saying that he's 2 000 years old.
Okay, New Series age gaps sorted out. Let's finally address the proverbial Elephant on the Table.
GOING BACK TO 900
PART 2 - HOW DID THE DOCTOR LOSE A FEW CENTURIES?
Before we get to that Big Question, let's look at some other age gaps that occur in the New Series. Some of it's pretty straightforward, of course. Particularly in the 11th Doctor's Era. But there are a few other spots that bear closer scrutiny...
NEW SERIES AGE GAPS
It's likely that another significant age gap occurs between Survival and The 96 Telemovie. The Doctor's age isn't explicitly stated but there is a 900-year-old diary in the TARDIS (his previous diary only spanned 500 years). Doctor Seven also looks a bit older and there's been a few radical changes to his costume. We saw something similar happen between Seasons 17 and 18 so this leads me to believe that several decades have probably passed between Ace and Seven parting ways and the Doctor going to Skaro to collect the Master's remains. By the time we witness the opening scene in the Mega Jules Vernes Console Room, the Doctor is probably a little past 1000 years old.
Just to create a bit of context for that even bigger age issue, I'm going to say this is roughly where the Big Lie starts happening. Remember this for later...
Of course, as the New Series starts, the Doctor appears to be freshly regenerated into his ninth body. He's claiming to only be 900. To all intents and purposes, he only appears to live for a year before he regenerates again. Doctor Ten also seems to have a pretty short lifespan. The "each season represents a year" rule seems to be still in effect. Until we get to the Specials of 2009 where it appears as though he traveled alone in his "10b body" for 2 or 3 years and then regenerates at the age of 906.
And then we reach Eleven. Mister Moffat is nice enough to give us an incarnation with a longer lifespan and some fairly obvious age gaps. The first one we'll look at is prominently displayed in The Impossible Astronaut where he invites himself to his own death. We see a gap of 909 to 1103. Almost 200 years there (even double-checked my math on that one!). We should point out that the age gap, technically, happens between God Complex and Closing Time. After dropping off Rory and Amy, he travels by himself for a bit before finally facing his fate in The Wedding of River Song.
Of course, we should also factor in another really minor gap. He states his age as 906 in The End of Time - Part 2 but claims to be 909 by Impossible Astronaut. That's only a season that's passed but he's gained three years. So let's assume he took Rory and Amy for a nice honeymoon spin during A Christmas Carol but then brought them back home shortly thereafter. He still stops in intermittently between the 2010 Christmas Special and the beginning of Series 6 (which seems to be the general indication the first time we see Amy and Rory as the season opens). When he does pop in, he only takes the Ponds travelling for short periods of time. He is bringing them back to their normal lives after only a month or two in the TARDIS. In between his visits to Rory and Amy, he travels by himself for quite a while. Cumulatively, that travelling alone adds up to nearly 3 years.
The next super-obvious Age Gap is in Time of the Doctor where he puts on a good 700 years at the bare minimum. Possibly more. Throughout the course of the story, he does a similar trick to Clara that he did to Rose in Bad Wolf. Like Rose, Clara keeps finding her way back to him. But each time she returns, he's put on a few more centuries.
But just before that giant easy-to-spot age gap there is, once more, a less noticeable one. When River "assassinates" him - he claims to be 1103. When the War Doctor confronts him in Day of the Doctor, he says he's "Twelve Hundred and something...". So, another century and some change has passed sometime between those adventures.
I would suggest that the dynamic we saw at the beginning of Series 6 happens again through the first half of Series 7. The Doctor takes Rory and Amy travelling with him for a few months, then travels on his own for a while. Then picks them back up again for some time - then travels by himself again. So, in between Asylum of the Daleks, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, A Town Called Mercy, Power of Three and Angels Take Manhatten the Doctor puts on a bunch of years travelling without companions.
Since Doctor Twelve took over, there seems to be no indication of age gaps. It's difficult to tell since he's not really stating a specific number of years that he's at. He's just been saying that he's 2 000 years old.
Okay, New Series age gaps sorted out. Let's finally address the proverbial Elephant on the Table.
GOING BACK TO 900
Fandom went through a fair amount of shock when Doctor Nine claims to be only 900 years
old in Aliens of London. It made no sense to me, of course. I remembered the Doctor saying he was 953 in Time and the Rani. By my reckoning, the Ninth Doctor should be much older.
Even if the Eighth Doctor was a "shorter" incarnation (which is entirely possible since, at that time, we believed he was the one who fought in the
Time Wars), Doctor Nine should still be somewhere around 1020.
Of course, things get even more confusing as we witness the glorious 50th
anniversary celebration and the War Doctor claims he's about 400 years younger
than the Eleventh. This would put him in his 800s. How did he revert to the age he was during his fifth incarnation?
There are two principal schools of thought surrounding this controversy.
The first is that the Doctor has either become confused about his age or is
flat-out lying (or a combination of the two). This certainly seems feasible.
Particularly the idea that he loses count, sometimes. The fight between
the Doctor and Romana in Ribos Operation supports this. But the fact
that the Doctor is taking on young-looking bodies more and more frequently as
he gets older might also indicate some vanity is at play, too. Still, it can be
a bit of a stretch. Losing three years like he did in Ribos is
believeable. Could he really forget about a century or so? Or can he really be that
vain?
The second popular theory is that the Time Wars, somehow, messed up his
personal timeline and he's actually lost a part of his life. Some believe that,
since the Time Wars, Gallifrey has been retro-actively removed from the
Universe. Which means all the years that the Doctor lived on Gallifrey during
his youth no longer exist. Depending on when you think the Doctor left his home
planet, this would account for two to four centuries of his life. Perhaps the
Eighth and War Doctors both lived for a few centuries, each. So, by the end of
the Time Wars, he's around 1100 to 1300 years old. But then, he loses the years
he spent growing up on Gallifrey and this bumps him back to 900. Of course,
this theory becomes a bit more tenuous now that we've learnt that Gallifrey
wasn't truly destroyed during the war. But it's still feasible. Perhaps a weapon was used on the Doctor that erased his personal timeline. So Gallifrey still exists - but his time spent on it was, technically, removed from his life. This seems just as likely as him fibbing or forgetting about his age.
THE TYMECIAN THEORY
Okay, those are your two principal schools of thought on the matter. Where do I sit? Well, as usual, I've created a hybrid of the two.
The line of dialogue that I love to jump on is in The Empty Child: "900 years of travel in a phone box!", the Doctor grumbles after Rose goes missing, "You think I'd finally pick someone who listens!" (or words to that effect) He doesn't say he's 900 years old, that time. But rather, he states he's been travelling 900 years. We should also note that he's alone when he's admitting it.
So, here's what I'm thinking happened:
We're in the Wilderness Years. The Seventh Doctor is travelling around after Survival. Ace is gone. Maybe he's had another companion or two. But he's alone, now. His thousandth birthday is nearly upon him. This might be the Time Lord equivalent of turning 40. It's really eating away at the Doctor. He's sure people will think he's ancient if he admits his true age.
So the Doctor makes a decision. From hereon in, he's not going to count the time he spent on Gallifrey as part of his age. Just the time he spent travelling in the TARDIS. That will shave off a few centuries and let him feel young again for a while.
So, how long did the Doctor live on Gallifrey before he flew off on his adventures? Romana makes a claim in Ribos Operation but I say she was wrong and the Doctor just couldn't be bothered to correct her (there were far more pressing things to argue about, at the time). Judging by how the Doctor looks in the flashback sequence in Name of the Doctor and how he and Susan seem to be acting, in general, during Season 1, I'd say he was around 440 when he left Gallifrey. It seems to me that he was only travelling for a handful of years before he ran into Ian and Barbara. So, let's say he was about 445 when Unearthly Child begins. This way, his claim to be about 450 when Season 5 begins lines up fairly well.
As Doctor Seven is travelling alone between Survival and The 96 Telemovie, he cuts out 440 years of his life. Suddenly, he's 560 again. That's what he keeps telling everyone, at least, whenever he sites his age. When we finally reach Rose, the Doctor is saying he's 900. It's a lie, of course. But no one would know it. He's been maintaining this illusion for a good 340 years, now.
Within four or five years after he starts perpetuating the lie about his age, the Doctor goes through another regeneration. We see some more of his vanity kicking in. Doctor Eight is quite young and handsome. And more-than-happy to claim that he's only about 565 years old. I'd estimate that his eighth incarnation lasts a good 35 years or so before he makes the fateful decision on Karn to become the Doctor of War.
We see from the reflection on the wall at the end of Night of the Doctor, that this new incarnation is pretty young-looking, too. As we reach Day of the Doctor, he's looking a fair amount older. That's why I want to give this particular incarnation a good 300 years of existence (those Time Wars waged on for quite some time - they may have even had a special timestream of their own). From what we've seen of Time of the Doctor, 300 years still shouldn't be quite enough to look so much older but I'm going to say that the stress of constantly being in battle sped up his aging process.
So, now, as Doctor Eleven states he's "Twelve Hundred and something" - the War Doctor assumes it's the upper 1200s and the age difference of 400 years makes sense. He's probably around 895 or more, at that point. He regenerates at the end of the 50th anniversary tale and may even decide to just round things up to 900 as he steps into his ninth body. 1000 doesn't seem so scary anymore and he can deal with it. Just to help compensate a bit, his next few bodies after his ninth are nice and young-looking, again.
By his twelfth incarnation, the Doctor has grown comfortable with being old. So he regenerates into an older form again and has no problem admitting that he's 2000. But, in truth, he's actually closer to 2400. But it's been so long that he's been denying those three-hundred-and-some-change extra years that he doesn't even remember that he's lying about his age, anymore.
It would be awesome, of course, if we got a snippet of dialogue at some point in a future episode where the Doctor finally admits to his lie and starts putting himself at around 2400 when he states his age.
A fanboy can dream....
EPILOGUE: WHAT ABOUT HEAVEN SENT?
All right, everything regarding the discrepancies of the Doctor's aging process appears to be covered. Both in Classic and New Series.
But wait! There is one last issue we should probably talk about:
In the frankly phenomenal Heaven Sent, we learn that the Doctor spent about 4.5 billion years trapped in his confession dial. Re-setting his life over and over through a teleporter until he could smash his way through a harder-than-diamond wall and escape. It was a beautiful and awe-inspiring story. But does this mean that the Doctor is over four-and-a-half billion years old, now?
Moff was nice enough to address this in his column in a recent issue of Doctor Who Magazine. I'm in agreement with how he sees it.
Basically, because the Doctor is constantly re-setting his life with the teleporter, he's only truly aged the amount of time he's spent in the confession dial since the last time he re-set himself and the moment he smashes his way through the wall and escapes onto Gallifrey. That very last cycle he spends is the only real aging he's actually done. Yes, he's lived that cycle over and over for several billion years but, because he's being reborn each time, the last cycle is the only one that really counts.
According to Moff, that last cycle was only a matter of weeks. Or, a few months, at best. So the Doctor is still only at 2000 or so when he emerges from the confession dial onto the surface of Gallifrey. Not 4.5 billion years.
Okay, I think that's all, now. Any problem regarding the Doctor's aging process seems to have been addressed. No doubt, when some new episodes get made, more issues will present themselves'. Which is good. It'll give me new material to write.
Missed Part One? Here it is:
http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/03/fixing-continuity-glitches-doctors-age.html
THE TYMECIAN THEORY
Okay, those are your two principal schools of thought on the matter. Where do I sit? Well, as usual, I've created a hybrid of the two.
The line of dialogue that I love to jump on is in The Empty Child: "900 years of travel in a phone box!", the Doctor grumbles after Rose goes missing, "You think I'd finally pick someone who listens!" (or words to that effect) He doesn't say he's 900 years old, that time. But rather, he states he's been travelling 900 years. We should also note that he's alone when he's admitting it.
So, here's what I'm thinking happened:
We're in the Wilderness Years. The Seventh Doctor is travelling around after Survival. Ace is gone. Maybe he's had another companion or two. But he's alone, now. His thousandth birthday is nearly upon him. This might be the Time Lord equivalent of turning 40. It's really eating away at the Doctor. He's sure people will think he's ancient if he admits his true age.
So the Doctor makes a decision. From hereon in, he's not going to count the time he spent on Gallifrey as part of his age. Just the time he spent travelling in the TARDIS. That will shave off a few centuries and let him feel young again for a while.
So, how long did the Doctor live on Gallifrey before he flew off on his adventures? Romana makes a claim in Ribos Operation but I say she was wrong and the Doctor just couldn't be bothered to correct her (there were far more pressing things to argue about, at the time). Judging by how the Doctor looks in the flashback sequence in Name of the Doctor and how he and Susan seem to be acting, in general, during Season 1, I'd say he was around 440 when he left Gallifrey. It seems to me that he was only travelling for a handful of years before he ran into Ian and Barbara. So, let's say he was about 445 when Unearthly Child begins. This way, his claim to be about 450 when Season 5 begins lines up fairly well.
As Doctor Seven is travelling alone between Survival and The 96 Telemovie, he cuts out 440 years of his life. Suddenly, he's 560 again. That's what he keeps telling everyone, at least, whenever he sites his age. When we finally reach Rose, the Doctor is saying he's 900. It's a lie, of course. But no one would know it. He's been maintaining this illusion for a good 340 years, now.
Within four or five years after he starts perpetuating the lie about his age, the Doctor goes through another regeneration. We see some more of his vanity kicking in. Doctor Eight is quite young and handsome. And more-than-happy to claim that he's only about 565 years old. I'd estimate that his eighth incarnation lasts a good 35 years or so before he makes the fateful decision on Karn to become the Doctor of War.
We see from the reflection on the wall at the end of Night of the Doctor, that this new incarnation is pretty young-looking, too. As we reach Day of the Doctor, he's looking a fair amount older. That's why I want to give this particular incarnation a good 300 years of existence (those Time Wars waged on for quite some time - they may have even had a special timestream of their own). From what we've seen of Time of the Doctor, 300 years still shouldn't be quite enough to look so much older but I'm going to say that the stress of constantly being in battle sped up his aging process.
So, now, as Doctor Eleven states he's "Twelve Hundred and something" - the War Doctor assumes it's the upper 1200s and the age difference of 400 years makes sense. He's probably around 895 or more, at that point. He regenerates at the end of the 50th anniversary tale and may even decide to just round things up to 900 as he steps into his ninth body. 1000 doesn't seem so scary anymore and he can deal with it. Just to help compensate a bit, his next few bodies after his ninth are nice and young-looking, again.
By his twelfth incarnation, the Doctor has grown comfortable with being old. So he regenerates into an older form again and has no problem admitting that he's 2000. But, in truth, he's actually closer to 2400. But it's been so long that he's been denying those three-hundred-and-some-change extra years that he doesn't even remember that he's lying about his age, anymore.
It would be awesome, of course, if we got a snippet of dialogue at some point in a future episode where the Doctor finally admits to his lie and starts putting himself at around 2400 when he states his age.
A fanboy can dream....
EPILOGUE: WHAT ABOUT HEAVEN SENT?
All right, everything regarding the discrepancies of the Doctor's aging process appears to be covered. Both in Classic and New Series.
But wait! There is one last issue we should probably talk about:
In the frankly phenomenal Heaven Sent, we learn that the Doctor spent about 4.5 billion years trapped in his confession dial. Re-setting his life over and over through a teleporter until he could smash his way through a harder-than-diamond wall and escape. It was a beautiful and awe-inspiring story. But does this mean that the Doctor is over four-and-a-half billion years old, now?
Moff was nice enough to address this in his column in a recent issue of Doctor Who Magazine. I'm in agreement with how he sees it.
Basically, because the Doctor is constantly re-setting his life with the teleporter, he's only truly aged the amount of time he's spent in the confession dial since the last time he re-set himself and the moment he smashes his way through the wall and escapes onto Gallifrey. That very last cycle he spends is the only real aging he's actually done. Yes, he's lived that cycle over and over for several billion years but, because he's being reborn each time, the last cycle is the only one that really counts.
According to Moff, that last cycle was only a matter of weeks. Or, a few months, at best. So the Doctor is still only at 2000 or so when he emerges from the confession dial onto the surface of Gallifrey. Not 4.5 billion years.
Okay, I think that's all, now. Any problem regarding the Doctor's aging process seems to have been addressed. No doubt, when some new episodes get made, more issues will present themselves'. Which is good. It'll give me new material to write.
Missed Part One? Here it is:
http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/03/fixing-continuity-glitches-doctors-age.html
You bring up some good ideas on what has happened in regards the age of the Doctor. Lets hope that the new producer/showrunner straightens this mess out!
ReplyDeleteSad completist that I am, I'd love to see it, too. Although, truthfully, Moff did sort of address it in Day of the Doctor. But it would be nice if it was more specically addressed.
DeleteI'd say 8 probably lived a lot longer than 35 years. Given how slowly 11 aged (It took upwards of 400 years for it to be noticeable), I think 7 and 8 definitely had several centuries each.
ReplyDeleteThe thing with the Doctor's age is that, aside from the "thousands of years" thing with 3, it was pretty consistent in the classic series. I think the 759 Romana states for the Doctor is likely to be accurate, as she probably got it from the White Guardian or the Time Lords, who would have known. Although if we consider this with the 450 in Tomb of the Cybermen, we have him living 300 years during that time, which, giving the fact he spent most of this time with companions (Who obviously don't age enough for 300 years' worth of aging), would mean that Season 6B, and his companionless time before and after Leela lasted a rather long time. The jump to 953 in Time and the Rani I guess could have happened because of him and Romana being together a while, since there's obviously not the aging problem with her, and there's no other time before TATR when he's companionless.
Again in the modern series the Doctor's age was pretty consistent aside from losing a few centuries in the wilderness years. I have two theories. One is that the Doctor decided to not count the Time War years so he could forget about them, but he'd lost track of how long he was fighting for (Remember, 8 regenerates into a photo of a young John Hurt so War definitely lived a long time) so he just made up a number.
The other is that what the Doc first says in Aliens of London is "900 of time and space", and only when Rose questions him does he claim that's his age. It's possible at first he was referring to his 900 of TARDIS travel, and then he decided he'd rather appear younger so he claimed to be 900 years old.
That's a lot of what I said myself in both parts of the essay but I like your idea that the Doctor is not counting his time in the Time Wars. In a lot of ways, it would make sense. He doesn't want to remember that time. It does make the War Doctor knowing that the 11th is 400 years older than him a bit tricky, though. That's why I decided the decision to start lying about his age had to happen before the Time Wars. Still, thankyou for such a complete analysis in your comments.
Delete