A Guide to Classic Who references in New Who and the Doctor.
How old are you? Whatever your age was at your last birthday? But what about time travellers? A simple today's date minus your DOB isn't going cut it. Some for a Time Lord, it is far more complex.
The Second Doctor
The Tomb of the Cybermen
The Doctor claims to be "something like" 450, implying that the First Doctor was that age when he died, seemingly of old age.The War Games
"The Time Lords are an immensely civilised race. We can control our own environment - we can live forever, barring accidents and we have the secret of space/time travel."
We later learn that Time Lords could regenerate 12 times, and since (as stated above) the First Doctor died of old age, it gives a theoretical age of 5,850 years. Sure that's not forever, but for a human being it's pretty close. It is suggested at other times that the Time Lords can grant extensions, so forever may be possible.
The Third Doctor
The Planet of Spiders
Although the Doctor was mostly stuck on Earth with little time or space travel and spent a lot of time with humans who seemed to age in roughly real time his age at the time of regeneration was stated to be 748. He had previously mentioned during this regeneration about being a scientist for several thousand years.
The Fourth Doctor
His age is mentioned a couple of times, usually seemingly in real time, aging from around 748 to 760.
The Sixth Doctor
Claims to have been 900 a couple of times.
The Seventh Doctor
Time and the Rani
Fellow Time Lord the Rani's lab's access code is her and ther Doctor's shared age of 953.
~ DUG.
this just reminds me of the line in TDOTD... "1200 and something, I think, unless I'm lying."
ReplyDeleteTrue. The Age thing continues to be an issue.
DeleteI wonder if it is an issue that could be solved by some 'fandom' math, some headcannon. I knew it was an issue, even though I have watched the episodes through doctor's six and seven I hadn't remembered him saying he was 900 or over, which causes the larger continuity issue... if he's not lying.
DeleteAlthough maybe we could reason that as the pompous 6 and mischievous 7 and 11 he would be more inclined to lie about his age, but as the war hardened WD it would come from a more truthful heart.
I think that the current writers have pretty much left as "he's a time traveller he can't keep track", "the Doctor lies" and "it doesn't matter that much." All ways of acknowledging the issue but admitting they can't do anything about it. The big problem is the old series is he's aging too fast. Most of his time is spent with human companions, who even if say their adventures weren't in real time would be limited to, say, 10 years at most (something that Moffat actually did with Amy & Rory). There are sometimes gaps between companions, but they imply hundreds of years between stories, which is possible but feels like a cheat to the viewer.
DeleteSome try to claim differences between Gallifrey years and Earth years, but that's a bit of a cheat, too.
Then again, I was walking home one night last month and the police stopped me and asked my age. I replied "Twenty tw... ah, forty one, I don't know where twenty two came from."
To me (and thus "head canon") at this point, the Doctor was talking about around 900 years in the TARDIS, and confirming 900 as his age was just him trying to simplify the conversation. But later stuff contradicts that a little, too.