Wearing A Bit Thin: A Theory on Time Lord Ageing
Guest contributor Jose Sanchez shares a theory on how Time Lords age and regenerate as a result.
Disclaimer: This is purely a theory and therefore is not to be taken as a definite right one.
Three incarnations of the Doctor have regenerated of old age to date: the First Doctor, the War Doctor and the Eleventh Doctor. We as humans see old age as purely ageing over time, but what if Time Lord’s age differently? I put it to you that Time Lord’s age through physical and emotional activity as well as time, due to the different cases of these three Doctors.
The Eleventh Doctor is one of the easiest to compare this theory with, due to his time in Trenzalore. The Doctor spent a total of 900 years in Trenzalore at which point we as the audience see him age physically from a young vibrant Time Lord to a very old one. The Doctor spent most of his time fighting aliens and stopping them from killing him and destroying the town of Christmas. Although there are many different alien species in the universe hell bent on killing the Doctor, it is somewhat doubtful that they all arrived one after the other and there would have been long periods during which not much would have happened till the next invasion as 900 years is a long time. In general the Doctor’s usual life in the TARDIS is quite full on so in this theory the Doctor would have aged slower on Trenzalore meaning it would be another 900 years after his arrival on Trenzalore that the Eleventh Doctor’s body would ‘wear thin’ and regenerate so to speak.
Looking at the War and First Doctor is where it gets a little complicated as both incarnations lived for almost the same length of time. The War Doctor claimed to have been 400 years younger than the Eleventh Doctor making his incarnation’s life span 400 years. It seems hardly surprising when compared with the Eleventh Doctor as the events of the Time War would have taken an extreme toll on the Doctor both physically and emotionally from the beginning of his regeneration therefore ageing him to the point of regeneration after only 400 years since his regeneration in “The Night of the Doctor” thus proving the theory.
The First Doctor’s case is a bit more troublesome as not all of it was spent travelling on the TARDIS. The First Doctor ‘borrowed’ the TARDIS when he was approximately 296 (as worked out from TV: The Pirate Planet) so the Doctor would have theoretically reached the physical appearance that we know of from the TV series at that point. The First Doctor is supposedly to have regenerated at the age of approximately 400 where the phrase “This old body of mine’s wearing a little thin” is first uttered. So this means that the First Doctor travelled in the TARDIS for approximately 104 years.
There is one theory that can be applied to this situation, which is that the First Doctor had already reached a point in his body close to the Time Lord equivalent for the First Doctors incarnation of old age when he was 296. We see during this time in the TARDIS that the Doctor is not exactly at his body’s peak condition unable to run long distances in a getaway or climb mountains from low beaches. After 100 years of TARDIS travel the First Doctor finally reached the point in his body where he regenerates of old age.
You may ask how the Doctor reached old age in such a short period since birth on Gallifrey. This we cannot tell due to all the different accounts of the First Doctor’s life on Gallifrey, though this period would have been made up of the Doctor’s time at the academy. Another factor is that we still don’t know fully of Time Lord biology and maybe first incarnations of Time Lords do not live for very long from birth, or loosely share similar ageing process as humans do, and only from their second incarnation do they live out their Time Lord like lives.
The rules of Time Lord old age, such as strict life spans or physiognomy, are hard to comprehend or even if there are any due to lack of information as the cases seen in the Doctor’s incarnations are so different in nature. This theory provides an indefinite answer that the general rule is devised by each incarnation’s extent of lifestyle, adventures and travels. So like most things Doctor who, we can but theorize which is what I suggest you share in the comments below and any other ideas you may have on this topic.
