Doctor Who mythology: How long after his regeneration did the Ninth Doctor meet Rose?

We know a lot about the Ninth Doctor. But there is one key question that hasn’t been definitively answered on-screen: how long did he travel as that incarnation before he met Rose?

(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.

Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)

We know that the Ninth Doctor first met Rose in the first episode of Doctor Who’s revival. But how long did he live for as that incarnation before he met her?

There’s something that I’ve always been curious about regarding Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor in Doctor Who. The episode we saw him in was, naturally, the first episode of Doctor Who‘s revival in 2005: Rose. When you watch it compared to other “new Doctor” stories, one thing instantly leaps out: unlike most other episodes that introduce a new incarnation, it doesn’t begin straight after his regeneration. So it’s not immediately clear how long the Ninth Doctor has been around for.

There is one hint in Rose that he’s still fairly new at this point. When he looks at himself in the mirror, he makes a curious quote:

"Oh, could have been worse! Look at the ears!"

Now, the implication is fairly obvious: at this point, the Ninth Doctor is “new”, and he’s still getting used to his new body. So for him, the regeneration has been fairly recent.

However, there are a couple of interesting points regarding this.

Clive’s photos

The first is the number of photos that Clive shows to Rose later in the episode. We see the Ninth Doctor having a number of adventures in a variety of different times and places. These locations include Dallas in 1963; the Titanic in 1912, and the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883.

The simplest explanation here is that, if the Ninth Doctor is new, then these could easily be glimpses of adventures from his own future – adventures that we never got to see. After all, for every adventure that we see or hear of the Doctor having, we usually hear about ten other adventures or visits that he or she’s shared across their many lifetimes.

While this works, there is a rather curious point. In absolutely none of the photos or sketches, we don’t see Rose. Just the Ninth Doctor. Considering that she traveled with him from the end of this episode onwards, wouldn’t we have likely seen her with him in at least one of the appearances?

However, that’s a very small point. Maybe she was separated from the Doctor (as most companions are at some point), or perhaps the Doctor specifically told her not to be with him when any photographs were taken or sketches drawn, so that history would happen exactly as it was meant to.

That’s certainly one possibility. But it doesn’t account for a key discrepancy raised in The Day of the Doctor…

The Doctor’s age

This point has always been something of a key continuity issue in the show. The Third Doctor once said in Doctor Who and the Silurians that he had lived for “several thousand years”, while later on, the Fourth Doctor said that he was just “seven hundred and fifty years” old in Pyramids of Mars. So it’s always been something of an issue, one that we’ll explore in more detail at a later date.

Regardless, if we just take the new series into account, then we have already been given an answer as to how long the Ninth Doctor has been around. Specifically, in the fiftieth anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor.

When the Eleventh, Tenth and the War Doctors share a cell together, War asks Eleven how old he is. Eleven answers that he’s “twelve hundred and something” (unless he’s “lying”). War then states that Eleven is “four hundred years older” than him.

So we know that the War Doctor was approximately eight hundred years old during that story. What’s particularly important about this fact is that at the very end of the special, we see the War Doctor start to regenerate into Eccleston’s Doctor. So at the very start of the Ninth Doctor’s life, he’s about eight hundred years old.

However, there is a key discrepancy with this. Just four episodes into Series One, while Rose is still fairly new as a companion, the Ninth Doctor reveals that he’s “nine hundred years old” in Aliens of London. If we take The Day of the Doctor into account (as well as ignore all the other facts about the Doctor’s age in the Classic Series, which again, we’re saving for another article), then the Ninth Doctor has already been around for approximately one hundred years. How does this tie up to his reaction to his new look in Rose?

Perhaps it can be tied to a key moment from the end of his first episode…

“By the way, did I mention…?”

At the very end of Rose, the Ninth Doctor offers her the opportunity to join him on his travels. Initially, as I’m sure we all remember, Rose turns him down. We see the Ninth Doctor accept her answer before saying, “See you around”, and departing in the TARDIS.

Of course, just seconds later, the Ninth Doctor immediately comes back and asks Rose a life-changing question:

"By the way, did I mention? It also travels in time!"

This was enough to change Rose’s mind (and we were able to see a key reason why in Father’s Day). But, while it was just a few seconds for her (and for the audience), was the same true of the Doctor?

Possibly not. It’s not hard to imagine the young Ninth Doctor travelling around the universe, having adventures and trying to enjoy his companion-less life at this point, before eventually deciding that he needed to try one more time with Rose. In fact, in the short story The Beast of Babylon, written by Charlie Higson for Doctor Who‘s fiftieth anniversary year, that’s exactly what happens.

A short (but long) gap

This would explain a great deal. The Doctor doesn’t state his age in Rose, so it’s not hard to imagine him being closer to eight hundred at the start of the episode.

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And while he could’ve have had a couple of adventures at least between the time of The Day of the Doctor and Rose, perhaps not so many that not knowing what he looked like is too far-fetched. Especially during the aftermath of the Time War, and what he believed he had done. It’s easy to believe that in his first few days of life at least, he was reluctant to face himself in the mirror.

It also explains all the photographs and pictures that Clive had shown to Rose. They were all from the Doctor’s future, but only just. Happening between the two times he had asked Rose to be his companion also explains why she’s not there.

I’d still love to get a story set before Rose. Specifically, one taking place directly after The Day of the Doctor. I’d love to see exactly how Nine was after such traumatic events, and of course, find out how he adjusted to his new body, as well as learning how to be the Doctor again. (There is an enjoyable story in The Ninth Doctor Chronicles, The Bleeding Heart, that does explore Nine at some point between The Day of the Doctor and Rose, at least.)

But I still think that, in terms of gaps that can be explored in the expanded universe, the very end of Rose is the best place to explore. It would be interesting to know what the Ninth Doctor got up to during that hundred years, and what made him go back for her. Which reminds me: I think it’s time that I read The Beast of Babylon…

Do you agree with this theory? Or do you think the gap of one hundred years happened before the Doctor met Rose? Do you have your own theory that explains the discrepancy? Is this just a case of Steven Moffat not worrying too much about the details? Let us know in the comments below.