The Ninth Doctor and Rose once had to hop for their lives. (Born Again)
The Doctor nearly lost his thumb when he helped Skylab fall to Earth. (Tooth and Claw)
When the Doctor previously met the Krillitanes they resembled humanoids with long necks. (School Reunion)
On an asteroid, a ‘weird munchkin lady’ with big eyes nearly frazzled Rose with her fiery breath. (Rise of the Cybermen)
The Doctor watched the 1948 Olympic opening ceremony – twice. (Fear Her)
Rose bought Jackie a bazoolium trinket from an asteroid bazaar. The metal got cold when rain was due and heated up when sun was on its way. (Army of Ghosts)
Martha and the Doctor watched the Moon landing four times. (Blink)
The Doctor and Martha got in a bit of a pickle with ‘four things and a lizard’. Sally Sparrow saw them running off with a bow and a quiver of arrows with only ‘twenty minutes to Red Hatching’. (Blink)
The Doctor was present at the birth of Christ. He got the last room in the inn. (Voyage of the Damned)
The Sibyl had a bit of a thing for the Doctor. The Doctor thought she was a hell of a woman. She had lovely teeth and could dance the tarantella. (The Fires of Pompeii)
The Doctor witnessed the war between China and Japan. (Planet of the Dead)
He visited the Court of King Athelstan in AD 924 when the King of the Welsh presented the Cup of Athelstan. (Planet of the Dead)
When summoned to the planet of the Ood, the Doctor went on a bit of a detour – he saw the Phosphorous Carousel of the Great Magellan Gestalt, saved a planet from the Red Carnivorous Maw, named a galaxy Alison and got married. To someone quite important (see ‘The Many Wives of the Doctor’). (The End of Time, Part One)
The Doctor once had dinner with the Aplan chief architect of Alfava Metraxis. He had two heads. The Architect, not the Doctor, that is. (The Time of Angels)
The Doctor and River had an unspecified adventure on Easter Island that ended with the islanders raising the famous statues in his honour. (The Impossible Astronaut)
The Doctor met the Silurian Madame Vastra while she was avenging the death of her sisters by killing workers in the London Underground at some point after 1863. (A Good Man Goes to War)
The Doctor arranged a birthday party for River under London Bridge in the Frost Fair of 1814. Stevie Wonder sang for them. (A Good Man Goes to War)
He played triangle in the recording of Carmen played by Oswin in the Asylum. (Asylum of the Daleks)
The Doctor rescued Queen Nefertiti from a swarm of alien locusts. He also met a big game keeper by the name of John Riddell. (Dinosaurs on a Spaceship)
THE LAST GREAT TIME WAR
‘There was a war. A Time War. The last Great Time War. My people fought a race called the Daleks, for the sake of all creation. And they lost. They lost. Everyone lost. They’re all gone now. My family, my friends, even that sky.’
The Doctor, Gridlock
Before meeting Rose Tyler, the Doctor fought in a mighty war between his people and the Daleks. Much of what happened is lost in the mists of time, but some things are known:
Millions died in every second of the conflict. (The End of Time)
The Doctor fought on the front line. It’s how he survived. (Doomsday)
He witnessed the fall of Arcadia – something he hoped to come to terms with one day. (Doomsday)
The Gelth lost their physical forms during the War, existing only as gaseous beings from that day forth. (The Unquiet Dead)
All of the Nestene Consciousness’s food stock was destroyed in the War. The Doctor couldn’t save the Nestene’s world. (Rose)
Sontaran legends say that the Doctor led the battle in the Time War. The Sontarans weren’t allowed to take part. (The Sontaran Stratagem)
Davros died in the first year of the Time War at the Gates of Elysium when his command ship flew into the jaws of the Nightmare Child. The Doctor tried to save him. (The Stolen Earth)
The Master was resurrected by the Time Lords during the War when they recognised he was the perfect warrior. He wasn’t – he ran when the Dalek Emperor took the Cruciform. (The Sound of Drums)
In the last days of the War, the Doctor witnessed such horrors as the Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, and the Could-Have-Been King and his army of Meanwhiles and Never-weres. (The End of Time)
President Rassilon aimed to end the War by destroying the universe itself. The Final Sanction would see the creation of a paradox so great it would rip the Time Vortex apart. The Time Lords would survive by becoming creatures of consciousness alone. (The End of Time)
It was Rassilon’s intent to use the Final Sanction that spurred the Doctor into action to end the War himself, sealing the conflict’s events within a time lock. (The End of Time)
The Doctor ended the Time War by using the Moment. (The End of Time)
All those fighting, including ten million Dalek ships, were wiped out in one second. (Dalek)
The Doctor was not the only survivor of the Time War. A lone Dalek crashed to Earth on the Ascension Islands, eventually ending up in the collection of Henry van Statten (Dalek); the Dalek Emperor fell through time and began rebuilding the Dalek Empire from human DNA (Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways); the Cult of Skaro escaped into the Void, having stolen the Genesis Ark, a Time Lord prison full of Daleks (Army of Ghosts / Doomsday); Dalek Caan of the Cult of Skaro penetrated the timelock and rescued Davros (The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End).
MID-LIFE CRISIS: THE CHANGING AGE OF THE DOCTOR
As River told Amy, rule number one is that the Doctor lies – but has he been lying about his age all these years? The Doctor never seems to be sure how old he is. Perhaps he doesn’t want to know…
Other clues to the Doctor’s age:
The Doctor was just 8 years old when he entered the Time Lord academy, as was the Master (The Sound of Drums).
In The Ribos Operation, Romana notes that the Doctor has been piloting the TARDIS for 523 years. If he’s really 759 by this point, that means he went joyriding at the tender age of 236.
This is backed up by Idris in The Doctor’s Wife. She says that the Doctor has been travelling with her for 700 years. If we believe he’s 909 in this story, they left Gallifrey not long into his 200s.
Before the Doctor faced his apparent death in Utah, 2011, he went on a ‘farewell tour’ lasting almost 200 years. That was some tour.
A MERE SLIP OF A GIRL?
Romana may have mocked the Doctor for massaging his true age, but the Time Lady has been economical with the truth herself at times. In The Ribos Operation she admits to being 140 (nearly), but by City of Death is running around claiming to be a mere 125. Is the 150 years stated in The Leisure Hive nearer the truth, Miss Romanadvoratrelundar?
A YOUNG, OLD FACE
Being involved with the Doctor can make you old before your years, and sometimes younger too.
Space agent Sara Kingdom was aged to death by the Daleks’ terrible Time Destructor on the planet Kembel