Archive for Doctor Who From Earth to Gallifrey, come here and chat about your favourite Doctor
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Zhord
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The Doctor's Age... A debateThe Doctor's age has been stated (or estimated) in several stories. In the serial The Tomb of the Cybermen the Second Doctor told Victoria that he was around 450 years old. The Second Doctor was also seen to carry around a 500-year diary in which he kept notes.
By the time of The Brain of Morbius, the Fourth Doctor was stated to be 749 years old ("something like 750 years" in the prior Pyramids of Mars). In The Ribos Operation, the first Romana said the Doctor was 759 years old and had been piloting the TARDIS for 523 years, making him 236 when he first "borrowed" it. In Revelation of the Daleks the Sixth Doctor was 900 years old, and in Time and the Rani, the Seventh Doctor's age was the same as the Rani's, namely 953. In Remembrance of the Daleks the Seventh Doctor said that he had "900 years’ experience" rewiring alien equipment. In the 1996 television movie, the Eighth Doctor kept a 900-year diary in his TARDIS.
The large gap in years between the Fourth and Sixth Doctors can be partially covered by the fact that the Fourth Doctor travelled alone for a time or with an equally long-lived Time Lady as a companion, allowing for several decades or centuries of untelevised stories to take place. Such gaps occur between the stories The Deadly Assassin and The Face of Evil when he travelled without a companion and between The Invasion of Time and The Ribos Operation when he was accompanied by K-9. Another potential gap occurs between The Horns of Nimon and The Leisure Hive when he travelled with Romana. The Face of Evil also revealed that the Fourth Doctor travelled on his own at a point prior to that serial (the chronology of this is not revealed in the story, but the novelisation places it within the events of Robot, right after his regeneration).
While the Fifth Doctor was never seen without a companion, there was a period where he was travelling with Nyssa of Traken, who, not being human, may not have aged normally. There was also a gap just after The Trial of a Time Lord which can account for the difference in ages between the Sixth Doctor in Revelation of the Daleks and the Seventh Doctor in Time and the Rani.
In the spin-off novels, the Seventh Doctor celebrated his 1000th birthday in Set Piece by Kate Orman, and the Eighth Doctor declared his age to be 1,012 in Vampire Science by Orman and Jonathan Blum. The Eighth Doctor also spent nearly a century on Earth during a story arc spread over several novels.
In the 2005 series, the Doctor's age is stated in publicity materials as 900 years, and in Aliens of London, he says, "Nine hundred years of time and space, and I've never been slapped by someone's mother." Rose follows up by asking him if he is 900 years old, and he replies affirmatively. He restates his age as 900 in The Doctor Dances.
How this figure is to be reconciled with the Doctor's age in the rest of the series and other (arguably non-canon) sources is uncertain. Possibilities include the Doctor estimating his age or lying about it out of vanity (in The Ribos Operation he gave his age at 756, although Romana insisted it was 759).
Another possibility is that the Doctor is simply referring to the years he has been travelling for simplicity's sake, as opposed to his physical age. In The Empty Child he speaks of 900 years of "phone box" travel, which, if he began at 236, would make him 1,136 years old. This figure does fit roughly with the Eighth Doctor's period as chronicled in the spin-off media. In fact, considering that the TARDIS did not acquire its police box shape until it landed in London prior to "An Unearthly Child", he may be even older. Of course, all this also presupposes that the figures given correspond to Earth years and not Gallifreyan.
What does anyone else think? Is he 900 years old, or even older?
(Sources from wikipedia)
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The Doctor
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I reckon that the writers of the old series just changed his age to fit in with the story. The new team seemed to have settled on 900, as this is somewhere in the middle of all the previous ages used..
Just my thought...
P.S - Zhord, I was amazed by that, until i scrolled to the bottom to find it was of Wikipedia! 
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Zhord
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I shouldn't have put wikipedia at the bottom...
Back to the debate. In the new series, the Doctor says "...900 years of phone box travel.." So surely, those 900 years could have been when he first "borrowed" the TARDIS and not when he was born, as you don't fly the TARDIS as soon as you are born (I hope!).
So, I am guessing that the Doctor's age is around 1,300 years old, but doesn't want to tell Rose that so he narrows it down.
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Der Martin
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Well just to mix things up a bit, it can be assumed that the Doctor´s Tardis wasn´t always a phone box. It could be 900 years of phone box travel and the odd century of Fridge/Dishwasher travel before that.  
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Zhord
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Oh yeah!
I am guessing that it was a phone box since the first episode, so he must be 900 years old FROM THAT POINT.
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Deako
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There's nothing to say that he isexactly 900. For example, I reply "I'm 13"; when asked my age. Not "13 and 2 thirds on Christmas day!*"; nor "Nearly 14"
I think the Doctor may just round his age down.... 
*Although this is true.
Anyways, please don't go off-topic and blame me because of the stuff above!
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Guest
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Time?!?Ok, first thing first, time is relitive, and to a time lord, its almost irelivent, due to the issue of time travel in the tardis and his almost infinite age span due to his "nifty little trick". When he says he is 1000+ years old, on what planet is that? In mercurean years I'm about 50 odd (I think)when tallking about space, time is erelivent, for the doctor is just another signpost
and, how would you like to have it rubbed in your face that you are over 300 times the age of your darling assistant?
I wouldn't!
well, thats my 2 cents...
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kat
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a very good point about mercurian years (about 54 earth days i think) there who ever you were 
what are the years the doctor works in? earth years? unlikely... galifreyan years? how long is a galifreyan year???
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Deako
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What i would give to be The Doctor and 1000.
"I HAVE WALKED THIS UNIVERSE FOR OVER FIFTY TIMES AS MANY YEARS AS YOU. NOW BOW TO ME; AND RECONGISE MY POWER." 
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