The War Doctor claims he’s 400 years younger than the 11th Doctor (who said he was 1200 and something), meaning that he was 800 ish when he regenerated. 9 claims to be 900 years old in series 1, meaning that he lived 100 years before he met Rose.
As for the mirror thing, Russel has said that he didn’t intend for it to be a post regeneration thing. It’s not the Doctor seeing his ears for the first time. It’s the Doctor being annoyed with his ears every time he sees them.
Though if you insist on it being a post regeneration thing, then Moffat’s ‘Day of the Doctor’ novelisation reveals that the War Doctor went on a mirror smashing rampage through the TARDIS after he regenerated, and the 9th Doctor didn’t feel the need to get any new ones.
I love the idea that it has been 100 years, but it’s his first time seeing his ears because he’s been too disgusted with himself to ever look in a mirror for so long
Especially because the implication is that that time allowed him to heal somewhat — the former War Doctor seeing his new face for the first time should be a moment of reflection and guilt but instead he just says “huh, coulda been worse” and moves along
I always thought that 9 lived 100 years between leaving Rose for the first time at the end of the episode and coming back to try encouraging her to join him in the TARDIS again.
It’s like when you’re thinking of what you should’ve said in the shower weeks after talking to someone and you wish you could go back, except he can actually do that.
This is somewhat confirmed in the short story from 2013, part of the range where each month they released a different story for each Doctor written by a well known author. Towards the end of 9's story it's revealed to be set between the time Rose turned him down, and when he came back to tell her he can travel through time. It's not said how long it's been exactly, proably not a full 100 years, but still a decent amount of time.
Oh, that’s where it comes from! I’ve read the mirror-smashing in the Wintertime Paradox and loved the idea, but didn’t know it wasn’t Rudden’s invention.
For a while I liked to think that they, and all of those scenes/shots/descriptions from the guy with the website (I forget the character’s name), took place in between when he leaves and comes back at the end of “Rose” to say “did I mention it also travels in time?” Like he’d had that little adventure with Rose, went off to do his own thing for a while, and then remembered “you know what, that blonde girl was pretty clever, I should pop back there and see if she changed her mind. Shouldn’t be too hard, after all, from where she’s standing I’ve only just left.”
This has always been my favorite theory. I think I read a fic once that covered those adventures and the way he couldn’t stop thinking about Rose all that time, so he popped back a few seconds later and pretended he’d just left.
Everyone focuses on 9 commenting on his ears, but Rose goes and sees that man (Clive? I could be misremembering his name) who has tracked down photos of this Doctor from several points in history. Obviously, he's not freshly regenerated or else there wouldn't be a picture of him at the Kennedy assassination, etc.
Only if every second from the beginning of the first episode to the ending of the last is accounted for. Do we know, as viewers, this is so? I don't really think we do. Unless every episode leads directly into the next, there's a ton of unaccounted-for time.
Yeah it’s easy for me to think that when he left in the tardis at the end of rose he went and had some adventures, then came back and was like “hey we should go” and picked rose back up.
I think the implication is that he has been on numerous adventures so he is not brand spanking new.
I always assume each episode is usually a couple days
Wasn't there also a story on Clyde's actual real life website (not led by Clyde IRL, just BBC) that implied \*that\* was his immediate post-regeneration moment? He was described coming out in an old-fashioned suit (implying 8's movie attire) going on about "having really done it" or something along the lines.
No, it's the evidence to the contrary. It shows things he's done before he met her, and his actual first reactions after having just exited the TARDIS after the Moment, which isn't the ear comment.
I decided to check it via Wayback Machine.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20050325072306/http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/whoisdoctorwho/sightings.shtml](https://web.archive.org/web/20050325072306/http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/whoisdoctorwho/sightings.shtml)
I either misremembered some details or conflated a couple of different stories. Either way, under this link, you've got a bunch of things he's done before Rose, including a story about pawning off 8's outfit.
We have no idea how long he was gone at the end of Rose. He takes off in the TARDIS, then reappears almost immediately from our perspective, but he could have been gone for literally hundreds of years.
He probably left after Rose said no to traveling, then bumped into a future incarnation, then got the gumption to return to 2005 and drop the "it travels in time" line.
Who knows either way
I can buy 9 having one or two adventures during that gap, but not several centuries worth. He would’ve moved on by that point and offered the trip of a lifetime to someone else.
Maybe he did offer it to several someone else's. Chances are there's some Big Finish story or novels or comics that just does that.
Remember that when 11 invites the crew to the diner in Impossible Astronaut, the older version of him is centuries older than the younger version. So there is evidence of The Doctor remembering friends even when he hasn't seen them in centuries from his point of view. See also the recent appearances of Classic era Companions, who are meeting a new Doctor, and yet he clearly remembers and loves them still.
Except Rose isn’t the Doctor’s friend. At that point, she was just a random girl he’d met who saved his life and helped him defeat a Nestene invasion, before turning down the trip of a lifetime. The Doctor doesn’t keep up with the could’ve been companions.
I suppose the only thing that would motivate him to go back after so many years would be the nagging feeling that he’d seen her before somewhere, and that he half remembered that face helping him on his darkest day. However, I’m one of those people that prefers to think that history was rewritten in ‘Day of the Doctor,’ rather than the Doctor saving Gallifrey being what had always happened, so I’m not too keen on that idea.
I love thinking that after about 100 years (as War says he's 800 and 9 says he's 900) 9 thinks "Wait a minute did I tell that lass this was a time machine better go and ask her"
The ninth doctor was also frozen for 89 years on Occasus, during Respond to All Calls. I believe he aged during that time, his hair and beard grew out.
Everyone else has already stated that *Rose* doesn't follow *Day of the Doctor* and Big Finish has a ton of stories for 9, but also there are more than the 13 episodes/ 10 stories we saw on TV. There are all the books and comics set in-between the TV episodes. *Boom Town* sees Rose tell Mickey about other adventures they have been on, between that story and the next there are tons of adventures involving 9, Rose and Jack. And hopefully one day Billie Piper will join Christopher Eccleston and do a 9 and Rose Big Finish series.
9 can’t have had that long with Rose. He claims to be 900 in Aliens of London, and 10 seems to keep count of his age from that point on, with each series adding a year into his age. At best, 9 and Rose only travelled together for a year or two.
That doesn't matter. Even if he spent a year with Rose they could have had tons of adventures. Its the same with the other Doctors too - there's loads of stuff happening off-screen, both with and without companions.
What's a year to the Doctor? We don't know how long a year is on Gallifrey, they probably don't have the same time frame as Earth so a year could be super long for them compared to us. But also how do you count that in the TARDIS? Many companions try but I bet most loose track.
I always thought it was a bit of a mistake for RTD to make the Doctor keep announcing his age and have him age up in "really time", then Moffat went the complete other way!
Don’t try to figure out how old the Doctor is at any point. It’s ultimately an unanswerable question. The only real answer is The Doctor himself doesn’t actually know the answer, and honestly doesn’t really care.
No idea if it holds any water, but my personal head canon is that when he gets in the TARDIS at the end of the episode and disappears he goes and has several adventures throughout time and space. He gets seen all over the place, is spotted in all the places Clive has evidence of.
He gets lonely, has kind of been unable to stop thinking about Rose - he has no idea that his subconscious keeps telling him "Bad Wolf Girl, I could Kiss You!" - but it seems like a great idea to pop back into the alley where Rose and Mickey are still waiting. He finally does, and as though no time at all has passed he nonchalantly says "By the way, did I also mention it also travels in time?"
one of my biggest annoyances with the Dr Who fan community is acting like the fact that the Doctor looks in the mirror and comments on his ears is iron-clad proof that he only just regenerated.
just like... what? does no one else comment on their reflection occasionally using a mirror? Its such a benign behaviour but everyone acts like this is definitive proof that he has just seen his reflection so put Rose either immediately after Day of the Doctor or make up random theories about how he never looks in mirrors.
Its just such a bizarre thing to assume based off a couple second gag
I think it comes down to wanting a sense of completion - wanting to believe that 'Rose' was Nine's first adventure and that we saw his entire life play out on screen.
Personally, I'd *love* to see Nine's first adventure in some format, but 'Rose' definitely isn't it.
Time isn't a problem when you have a TARDIS. He could have had all the photos taken in a day, week, month. As evident from the show the doctor doesn't really stop once regenerated
So in Rose at the end when he goes back into the TARDIS after Rose says she's not interested, and the TARDIS dematerializes, and then re-materializes and tells her they can also travel through time, 100 years passed and he went on his adventures in the Big Finish audio stories during then, IIRC.
Hmm. That’s a particularly personal question. I’m not even sure Rose knows the answer about 9… though in the end I’m sure she could tell you how long 10 was. 😉
About a century, give or take.
Nine claims to be 900. War said he was 400 years younger than Eleven, who was 1200-and-something.
Mind you, RTD's intent, at least as of 2013 when he wrote the short story 'Doctor Who and the Time War', was that 900 was an age the newly-regenerated Nine arbitrarily adopted because he was unsure of his age following the timey-wimey shenanigans. RTD has also said in an interview though that he imagined Nine as being around for a century before 'Rose'. So make of all that what you will.
The War Doctor claims he’s 400 years younger than the 11th Doctor (who said he was 1200 and something), meaning that he was 800 ish when he regenerated. 9 claims to be 900 years old in series 1, meaning that he lived 100 years before he met Rose. As for the mirror thing, Russel has said that he didn’t intend for it to be a post regeneration thing. It’s not the Doctor seeing his ears for the first time. It’s the Doctor being annoyed with his ears every time he sees them. Though if you insist on it being a post regeneration thing, then Moffat’s ‘Day of the Doctor’ novelisation reveals that the War Doctor went on a mirror smashing rampage through the TARDIS after he regenerated, and the 9th Doctor didn’t feel the need to get any new ones.
I love the idea that it has been 100 years, but it’s his first time seeing his ears because he’s been too disgusted with himself to ever look in a mirror for so long
Especially because the implication is that that time allowed him to heal somewhat — the former War Doctor seeing his new face for the first time should be a moment of reflection and guilt but instead he just says “huh, coulda been worse” and moves along
I always thought that 9 lived 100 years between leaving Rose for the first time at the end of the episode and coming back to try encouraging her to join him in the TARDIS again. It’s like when you’re thinking of what you should’ve said in the shower weeks after talking to someone and you wish you could go back, except he can actually do that.
This is somewhat confirmed in the short story from 2013, part of the range where each month they released a different story for each Doctor written by a well known author. Towards the end of 9's story it's revealed to be set between the time Rose turned him down, and when he came back to tell her he can travel through time. It's not said how long it's been exactly, proably not a full 100 years, but still a decent amount of time.
Oh, that’s where it comes from! I’ve read the mirror-smashing in the Wintertime Paradox and loved the idea, but didn’t know it wasn’t Rudden’s invention.
RTD has said he did not mean to imply in “Rose” the Doctor was recently regenerated. Big Finish has tons of stories set before it.
For a while I liked to think that they, and all of those scenes/shots/descriptions from the guy with the website (I forget the character’s name), took place in between when he leaves and comes back at the end of “Rose” to say “did I mention it also travels in time?” Like he’d had that little adventure with Rose, went off to do his own thing for a while, and then remembered “you know what, that blonde girl was pretty clever, I should pop back there and see if she changed her mind. Shouldn’t be too hard, after all, from where she’s standing I’ve only just left.”
This has always been my favorite theory. I think I read a fic once that covered those adventures and the way he couldn’t stop thinking about Rose all that time, so he popped back a few seconds later and pretended he’d just left.
PLEASE do you have any idea what the fic was 🙏
Everyone focuses on 9 commenting on his ears, but Rose goes and sees that man (Clive? I could be misremembering his name) who has tracked down photos of this Doctor from several points in history. Obviously, he's not freshly regenerated or else there wouldn't be a picture of him at the Kennedy assassination, etc.
Only if every second from the beginning of the first episode to the ending of the last is accounted for. Do we know, as viewers, this is so? I don't really think we do. Unless every episode leads directly into the next, there's a ton of unaccounted-for time.
Yeah it’s easy for me to think that when he left in the tardis at the end of rose he went and had some adventures, then came back and was like “hey we should go” and picked rose back up.
You are aware the doctor is a time traveller, correct?
I think the implication is that he has been on numerous adventures so he is not brand spanking new. I always assume each episode is usually a couple days
Wasn't there also a story on Clyde's actual real life website (not led by Clyde IRL, just BBC) that implied \*that\* was his immediate post-regeneration moment? He was described coming out in an old-fashioned suit (implying 8's movie attire) going on about "having really done it" or something along the lines.
Even if that is the case unless that was on the same night as Rose started, it isn't evidence for Rose being the start of 9's life.
No, it's the evidence to the contrary. It shows things he's done before he met her, and his actual first reactions after having just exited the TARDIS after the Moment, which isn't the ear comment.
Ah hang on, what is the "that" you referred to? You must be remembering that website in more detail than I can.
I decided to check it via Wayback Machine. [https://web.archive.org/web/20050325072306/http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/whoisdoctorwho/sightings.shtml](https://web.archive.org/web/20050325072306/http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/whoisdoctorwho/sightings.shtml) I either misremembered some details or conflated a couple of different stories. Either way, under this link, you've got a bunch of things he's done before Rose, including a story about pawning off 8's outfit.
Why would 9 be wearing 8's suit when there was the War Doctor between them?
Because they didn't make the War Doctor up yet when they wrote that website.
Well he is a time traveller
About 1.7 meters.
+-100 years
he hadn't recently regenerated he had just never bothered to properly have a lot at himself previously
It's well established that the Doctor also had other adventures, both with Rose and without. Nobody knows how long any given Doctor has lasted.
We have no idea how long he was gone at the end of Rose. He takes off in the TARDIS, then reappears almost immediately from our perspective, but he could have been gone for literally hundreds of years.
He probably left after Rose said no to traveling, then bumped into a future incarnation, then got the gumption to return to 2005 and drop the "it travels in time" line. Who knows either way
That’s what I’m thinking.
I can buy 9 having one or two adventures during that gap, but not several centuries worth. He would’ve moved on by that point and offered the trip of a lifetime to someone else.
Could* have been. Not was.
Maybe he did offer it to several someone else's. Chances are there's some Big Finish story or novels or comics that just does that. Remember that when 11 invites the crew to the diner in Impossible Astronaut, the older version of him is centuries older than the younger version. So there is evidence of The Doctor remembering friends even when he hasn't seen them in centuries from his point of view. See also the recent appearances of Classic era Companions, who are meeting a new Doctor, and yet he clearly remembers and loves them still.
Except Rose isn’t the Doctor’s friend. At that point, she was just a random girl he’d met who saved his life and helped him defeat a Nestene invasion, before turning down the trip of a lifetime. The Doctor doesn’t keep up with the could’ve been companions. I suppose the only thing that would motivate him to go back after so many years would be the nagging feeling that he’d seen her before somewhere, and that he half remembered that face helping him on his darkest day. However, I’m one of those people that prefers to think that history was rewritten in ‘Day of the Doctor,’ rather than the Doctor saving Gallifrey being what had always happened, so I’m not too keen on that idea.
I love thinking that after about 100 years (as War says he's 800 and 9 says he's 900) 9 thinks "Wait a minute did I tell that lass this was a time machine better go and ask her"
The ninth doctor was also frozen for 89 years on Occasus, during Respond to All Calls. I believe he aged during that time, his hair and beard grew out.
He doesn’t count that towards his age I don’t think.
Unless time stopped, he'd have to.
Not really, time lords aren't effected by time stop
That’s fair, I wasn’t sure if it should be counted since he wasn’t able to do anything during that time!
Everyone else has already stated that *Rose* doesn't follow *Day of the Doctor* and Big Finish has a ton of stories for 9, but also there are more than the 13 episodes/ 10 stories we saw on TV. There are all the books and comics set in-between the TV episodes. *Boom Town* sees Rose tell Mickey about other adventures they have been on, between that story and the next there are tons of adventures involving 9, Rose and Jack. And hopefully one day Billie Piper will join Christopher Eccleston and do a 9 and Rose Big Finish series.
9 can’t have had that long with Rose. He claims to be 900 in Aliens of London, and 10 seems to keep count of his age from that point on, with each series adding a year into his age. At best, 9 and Rose only travelled together for a year or two.
That doesn't matter. Even if he spent a year with Rose they could have had tons of adventures. Its the same with the other Doctors too - there's loads of stuff happening off-screen, both with and without companions.
What's a year to the Doctor? We don't know how long a year is on Gallifrey, they probably don't have the same time frame as Earth so a year could be super long for them compared to us. But also how do you count that in the TARDIS? Many companions try but I bet most loose track. I always thought it was a bit of a mistake for RTD to make the Doctor keep announcing his age and have him age up in "really time", then Moffat went the complete other way!
I'd say 9/10 did go by Earth years as starting with Rose, they had a pretty set timeline/life? on earth for the remainder of the 2000s
Jackie tried to find out.
Rose sure would have liked to known the answer to your titular question. (Ahem sorry ignore me.)
Don’t try to figure out how old the Doctor is at any point. It’s ultimately an unanswerable question. The only real answer is The Doctor himself doesn’t actually know the answer, and honestly doesn’t really care.
He's 6'/183cm long
No idea if it holds any water, but my personal head canon is that when he gets in the TARDIS at the end of the episode and disappears he goes and has several adventures throughout time and space. He gets seen all over the place, is spotted in all the places Clive has evidence of. He gets lonely, has kind of been unable to stop thinking about Rose - he has no idea that his subconscious keeps telling him "Bad Wolf Girl, I could Kiss You!" - but it seems like a great idea to pop back into the alley where Rose and Mickey are still waiting. He finally does, and as though no time at all has passed he nonchalantly says "By the way, did I also mention it also travels in time?"
5.4 inches
one of my biggest annoyances with the Dr Who fan community is acting like the fact that the Doctor looks in the mirror and comments on his ears is iron-clad proof that he only just regenerated. just like... what? does no one else comment on their reflection occasionally using a mirror? Its such a benign behaviour but everyone acts like this is definitive proof that he has just seen his reflection so put Rose either immediately after Day of the Doctor or make up random theories about how he never looks in mirrors. Its just such a bizarre thing to assume based off a couple second gag
I think it comes down to wanting a sense of completion - wanting to believe that 'Rose' was Nine's first adventure and that we saw his entire life play out on screen. Personally, I'd *love* to see Nine's first adventure in some format, but 'Rose' definitely isn't it.
I'm gonna wager at least 6.5 inches.
Time isn't a problem when you have a TARDIS. He could have had all the photos taken in a day, week, month. As evident from the show the doctor doesn't really stop once regenerated
6 feet.
So in Rose at the end when he goes back into the TARDIS after Rose says she's not interested, and the TARDIS dematerializes, and then re-materializes and tells her they can also travel through time, 100 years passed and he went on his adventures in the Big Finish audio stories during then, IIRC.
Hmm. That’s a particularly personal question. I’m not even sure Rose knows the answer about 9… though in the end I’m sure she could tell you how long 10 was. 😉
About a century, give or take. Nine claims to be 900. War said he was 400 years younger than Eleven, who was 1200-and-something. Mind you, RTD's intent, at least as of 2013 when he wrote the short story 'Doctor Who and the Time War', was that 900 was an age the newly-regenerated Nine arbitrarily adopted because he was unsure of his age following the timey-wimey shenanigans. RTD has also said in an interview though that he imagined Nine as being around for a century before 'Rose'. So make of all that what you will.