How old is the Doctor? This is something that fans have often debated, as the Time Lord’s age has gone up and down over the decades. For instance, the Seventh Doctor revealed he was 953 but, when the show came back in 2005, the Ninth Doctor said he was 900, with the Tenth Doctor then updating us as he passed a birthday throughout his tenure, with him regenerating into the Eleventh at the tender age of 906. So, how do we make sense of this? Well, Doctor Who season 12 may have provided a simple solution.
The season’s fifth episode, “Fugitive of the Judoon,” proved to be an extremely significant installment for the series. Not only did Captain Jack return, but the Thirteenth Doctor encountered a whole other incarnation of herself that she doesn’t remember existing. At the end of the episode, the Doctor comes clean to her friends about this shocking experience, which turns her whole conception of her life on its head. Here, she acknowledges that she’s lived “for thousands of years” so she’s “lost count” of exactly how old she is.
This essentially tells us all we need to know about the Doctor’s varying, conflicting ages over the years: they just kept forgetting how old they really were. The Ninth Doctor, for instance, must have attempted to make sense of his age again and randomly chose 900. The Tenth then kept track of things for a while before the Eleventh Doctor let things slip, largely because he lived for over 1000 years himself. Most recently, the Twelfth Doctor told us he was around 2000 years old. But this figure is clearly a lie, or at least, a very rough estimate.
In any case, we’re no doubt in for some further major revelations as Doctor Who season 12 unfolds and we may even get a definitive answer for the Doctor’s age – or else find out that it’s even more complicated than we thought. Likely the latter, seeing as there’s at least one extra lifetime she’s had that she didn’t remember living.
