Day / Night of the Doctor – I’m Confused Possible Spoilers

[Angelus Lupus]

Maybe the Sisterhood's potion did more than just regenerate him~? They did say that Timelord Science was perfected or some-such, suggesting they new more than just what we saw. What if their elixir rejuvenated (i.e. knocking a century or two of the Doctor's age) at the expense of a body that burned out quicker? That would explain why Eccleston was 'younger' than McCoy, and also how Hurt aged so quickly.

 

[Michael Bergeron]

Maybe the Sisterhood's potion did more than just regenerate him~? They did say that Timelord Science was perfected or some-such, suggesting they new more than just what we saw. What if their elixir rejuvenated (i.e. knocking a century or two of the Doctor's age) at the expense of a body that burned out quicker? That would explain why Eccleston was 'younger' than McCoy, and also how Hurt aged so quickly.

Regarding age, the Doctor often lies or just plain makes stuff up. I highly doubt I'd remember my specific age if I lived that long. :lol

 

[Solo4114]

Well, what I am most confused over is how old The Doctor really is. Hurt was young, and in how many years, grew old? So old that his body was 'wearing a bit thin' and he regenerated.

Now, when locked up in the dungeon, he states that he was 800 years old. Tenant was 904 at the time. And Smith was 1200. Tennant said....400 years, that's all it takes to forget? Some thing like that.

So that means that the Hurt Doctor grew old and too 'thin' that he regenerated in just 100 years, yet one episode later, we see Smith, who already went from 907 years old to 1200 in his timestream, now age an additional 500 years?

Not to mention that the 7th Doctor was 950 years old a long time ago......

Maybe the Sisterhood's potion did more than just regenerate him~? They did say that Timelord Science was perfected or some-such, suggesting they new more than just what we saw. What if their elixir rejuvenated (i.e. knocking a century or two of the Doctor's age) at the expense of a body that burned out quicker? That would explain why Eccleston was 'younger' than McCoy, and also how Hurt aged so quickly.

Regarding age, the Doctor often lies or just plain makes stuff up. I highly doubt I'd remember my specific age if I lived that long. :lol

Yeah, I think it's inexact figures. He's old. Really old. Maybe he forgot just how old. Or maybe he guesstimates. Or maybe he loses track. I expect time travel can do that to you, particularly if you do something like instruct the Tardis not to remind you of your birthday or somesuch.

As for why the War Doctor aged out so quickly...I'd say it's either something about the sisterhood's potion, or because, you know, he was IN A WAR. War, I expect, can age you prematurely.

 

[Michael Bergeron]

As for why the War Doctor aged out so quickly...I'd say it's either something about the sisterhood's potion, or because, you know, he was IN A WAR. War, I expect, can age you prematurely.

Well, despite the very lack luster representation of it on screen so was Smith's Doctor at Christmas.

 

[drcraig13]

As far as being so old you forget how old you are we do have a president set for that in Highlander the series. Methos was so old he didn't remember exactly how old he was. As far as an exact number I like Micheal's explanation. But I'm sure Moffat will define it sooner or later and **** us all off.

 

[Usagi Pilgrim]

11 said in the 50th that he was either lying, or just didn't remember exactly how old he was. I'm taking this as Moffat's way of getting around 'The Doctor's Age'. He's now accounted for the Doctor's lack of control of the TARDIS (She takes him where he NEEDS to go), the 12 regens, & the Doctor's age. These are all things that, IMO, free up the entire future of the show. Writer's no longer have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the past canon of the show to refer to.

I like Moffat's run, & although I don't think everything has been gold, I appreciate what he's tried to do. He's taken a fan's eye to the mythos of the character, & tried to give a writer's perspective to clean up some of the 'errors' in the canon. He did what he said he wanted to do- set the show up for the NEXT 50 years.


BTW...there's a new ebook coming out called Tales from Trenzalore that confirms that the Doctor spent 900 years fighting that war. I was sure I'd read that after the episode aired, but now there's an official word on it.

 

[DuneMuadDib]

Moffat has said that the Doctor by all rights shouldn't know how old he is because he's a time traveler. I don't particularly care for that explanation, but it works. In my head I also just added 236 to whatever he gave, assuming that Nine's "900 years of time and space" meant how long he'd be traveling in the Tardis, but he went with Rose's misunderstanding for simplicity or out of vanity. War Doctor's claim of being 800 throws a bit of a spanner into that since he wouldn't be lying about his age to that effect yet, but I'm not super worried about it.

Assuming that War Doctor was 800-something when he regenerated, and Nine was 900 during his series that would seem to indicate that Nine went a while without looking in the mirror. Makes sense given he thought he'd destroyed his home planet and race, just an interesting tidbit.

900 years fighting on Trenzalore? I thought it'd been only 500. Gonna have to rewatch it.

 

[Michael Bergeron]

900 years fighting on Trenzalore? I thought it'd been only 500. Gonna have to rewatch it.

Both of those numbers seem downright laughable to me. Reminds me of a kid just trying to be better...

"My dad is 40 years old"

"Oh ya? Well MY dad is 400 years old!"

Especially since we never see him fighting off more than a couple guys at a time (except the final Dalek attack) that must have been a VERY tedious 900 years. Not to mention we've just come off a 50th Anniversary special that shows us that the Daleks were able to overpower the entire Timelord race even with the Doctor's help. It's really a joke.

 

[Muldwych]

Lets add a bit of science to this shall we? And think away from our own little planet and restrictions. 900 Trenzalore years? What are they? Dont forget they are most likely not the same as earth years! Now when The Doctor says how old he is, he may be talking in Earth years or Gallifreyian years or years of the planet he is on at the time, depending who the person is, or his mood. Look how he tries to calculate his age in Tomb for Victoria.

Re Hurts Dr ageing quicker in a short space of years, easy! Weapons, time thingys, Machine lash-ups and any other horrors and alien tech he's had to battle could have not only aged him prematurely, but aged him in the way that the 4th Dr was aged in the Leisure Hive.

 

[Usagi Pilgrim]

Both of those numbers seem downright laughable to me. Reminds me of a kid just trying to be better...

"My dad is 40 years old"

"Oh ya? Well MY dad is 400 years old!"

Especially since we never see him fighting off more than a couple guys at a time (except the final Dalek attack) that must have been a VERY tedious 900 years. Not to mention we've just come off a 50th Anniversary special that shows us that the Daleks were able to overpower the entire Timelord race even with the Doctor's help. It's really a joke.

I really wasn't trying to one up anyone. I was just sharing what Moffat had said in some interviews. I didn't remember exactly when & where, so I didn't mention it before. Here's the description from the ebook coming out in Feb 27th-

'Tales of Trenzalore

As it had been foretold, the armies of the Universe gathered at Trenzalore. Only one thing stood between the planet and destruction — the Doctor. For nine hundred years, he defended the planet, and the tiny town of Christmas, against the forces that would destroy it.

He never knew how long he could keep the peace. He never knew what creatures would emerge from the snowy night to threaten him next. He knew only that at the end he would die on Trenzalore.

Some of what happened during those terrible years is well documented. But most of it remains shrouded in mystery and darkness.'

 

[Michael Bergeron]

I really wasn't trying to one up anyone.

You misunderstand me.

I mean that effectively doubling the Doctor's age smacks of Moffat being the "one up" kid. It's such a ludicrously large number.

He's telling us the Doctor has 11 lives over his first thousand years but for the second thousand just one? Silly!

Sent from my SGH-I317M using Tapatalk 2

 

[DuneMuadDib]

He's just got to balance out Ten living for only three years before he regenerated the first time then another three or four before he regenerated the second time

 

[Bronson BB]

I just go by this.

Now, was the change from Smith to Capaldi Cycle2 regen 1 or was it a freebie to begin the second cycle?
To put it another way... On the chart I linked above, (regen column only) is he the new Hartnell or the new Troughton?


How about a new argument?
This has been bothering me for weeks.
In his first full episode, when 11 first saved the Earth with adult Amy and 'borrowed' a bow tie in exchange, he tossed his burned-out '10' stye sonic carelessly over his shoulder in the grass and retrieved a replacement from the TARDIS console upon walking in at the end of the episode. (This did not all happen at once)

War Doctor started that 'wooden door program' to get the three of them out of the dungeon, 10 could still hear it whirring away. OK, no problem there.
But so could 11? With his replacement sonic? Something just doesn't add up for me there.

Also, 11 should have kept that old sonic and rebuilt it for River.
We never did see her get her sonic from any of the Doctors.

 

[Solo4114]

He went back and picked it up later. He just threw it for dramatic effect.

 

[DuneMuadDib]

I just go by this.

Now, was the change from Smith to Capaldi Cycle2 regen 1 or was it a freebie to begin the second cycle?
To put it another way... On the chart I linked above, (regen column only) is he the new Hartnell or the new Troughton?

As far as the new cycle of regenerations is concerned Capaldi is the Troughton to Smith's Hartnell. The Doctor should have 11 regenerations left now.

 

[Solo4114]

As far as the new cycle of regenerations is concerned Capaldi is the Troughton to Smith's Hartnell. The Doctor should have 11 regenerations left now.

that's what I'd say, yeah.

However, I think that, were teh show to continue for another several decades, they'll find another way to dodge that issue. Given that the average Doctor's show lifespan seems to be about 3-4 seasons (or "seasons" taking the form of specials or whathaveyou), I'd expect that if we get to, oh, 33 years from now...they'll find a way for the Doctor to get yet another cycle of regenerations.

 

[Avery]

How about a new argument?
This has been bothering me for weeks.
In his first full episode, when 11 first saved the Earth with adult Amy and 'borrowed' a bow tie in exchange, he tossed his burned-out '10' stye sonic carelessly over his shoulder in the grass and retrieved a replacement from the TARDIS console upon walking in at the end of the episode. (This did not all happen at once)

War Doctor started that 'wooden door program' to get the three of them out of the dungeon, 10 could still hear it whirring away. OK, no problem there.
But so could 11? With his replacement sonic? Something just doesn't add up for me there.

This bothers me too. 10 also had his screwdriver destroyed in "Smith and Jones". How does the program keep running when the hardware is burnt up?

 

[Angelus Lupus]

Even ignoring my dislike for shoe-horning in Hurt, there's two explanations that have already been hinted that could/should have been used:

He got extra regeneration energy from River (seen on screen and an easy answer)
The Master was ressurected (and, apparently so was Rassilon) for the Timewar, so The Doctor may have been given extra regens then.

Either way there was no need to 'sort of' bring back Gallifrey and then hide it again (cos they already did that in the 50th)

 

[Angelus Lupus]

This bothers me too. 10 also had his screwdriver destroyed in "Smith and Jones". How does the program keep running when the hardware is burnt up?

Cos the sonic is like the Doctor's smartphone, and he syncs it with the Tardis console every time he goes back inside, thereby backing-up. All he had to do for a new Sonic was restore his operating system from the most recent backup.

 

[DuneMuadDib]

The Master was ressurected (and, apparently so was Rassilon) for the Timewar, so The Doctor may have been given extra regens then.

The Master and Rassilon were both dead at the start of the Time War, so they had to be resurrected and likely got new regeneration cycles in the process. War Doctor still had four regens left, so at the time there wasn't a need to give him more.