Thank you. Great to see a compliment from one of my favourite channels, especially since it was Kuro’s video “Which Character had the Most Actors?” that served as one of the main inspirations for this video. Keep up the great work!
a doctors era starts when they are the one to say "remember to subscribe to the official doctor who youtube channel" and ends when there successor takes over
Its actually insane to me that Hartnell's runtime was not too dissimilar from Tom's despite the fact it was condensed into less than half the years. Absolutely no wonder Hartnell was exhausted, that's crazy.
Peter Cushing could be argued to win, since in his continuity, he was never replaced. As of writing, he has, from a certain point of view, been the incumbent doctor for 58 years, 5 months, 12 days, and I will be surprised if this ever stops counting.
Answers: Longest (in terms of episode counts) - Tom Baker (172) Longest (in terms of first/last appearance) - Tom Baker (43 years between Robot and Shada) Longest (in terms of tenure) - Paul McGann (8 years) Longest (in terms of seasons) - Tom Baker (7 seasons) Longest (on screen duration/no breaks) - Tom Baker (7ish years) Longest (production) - Tom Baker (6 years 9 months) Longest (in terms of height) - Tom Baker (6ft.3in) Longest (in terms of total combined screen time from first frame to last frame as the Doctor) - Tom Baker (3 days if you include Shada, Dimensions in Time, Superannuation, the Day of the Doctor)
A couple people in the comments mentioned an "In Universe" category. As in, how long did each incarnation of the Doctor live in universe before their regeneration. So I went and worked it out to the best of my ability. Note that there is simply not enough information to include Jodie's incarnation (or Tennant's 2nd incarnation as the 14th Doctor). This bit in brackets is where I got the data from... 1. 4,500,000,233 years - Peter Capaldi (Before the Flood, Heaven Sent, The Husbands of River Song, The Pilot) 2. 1194 years - Matt Smith (A Town Called Mercy, Tales of Trenzalore - Novel) 3. 720 years - Paul McGann (The Ancestor Cell - Novel, Escape Velocity - Novel, Orbis - Audio) 4. 450 years - William Hartnell (Tomb of the Cybermen) 5. 400 years - John Hurt - (Engines of War - Novel) 6. 250 years - John Pertwee (Tardis Wiki Estimate) 7. 153 years - Colin Baker (Time and the Rani) 8. 130 years - Christopher Ecclestone (Tardis Wiki Estimate) 9. 56 years - Sylvester McCoy (Vampire Science - Novel) 10. 54 years - Tom Baker (Cold Fusion - Novel) 11. 50 years - Patrick Troughton (Tardis Wiki Estimate) 12. 37 years - Peter Davison (The Ultimate Treasure - Novel) 13. 6 years - David Tennant (The End of Time Part 2) If you don't count the time the 12th Doctor spent in the confession dial then the ranking becomes: 1. 1194 years - Matt Smith 2. 720 years - Paul McGann 3. 450 years - William Hartnell 4. 400 years - John Hurt 5. 250 years - John Pertwee 6. 233 years - Peter Capaldi 7. 153 years - Colin Baker 8. 130 years - Christopher Ecclestone 9. 56 years - Sylvester McCoy 10. 54 years - Tom Baker 11. 50 years - Patrick Troughton 12. 37 years - Peter Davison 13. 6 years - David Tennant Some clarification on the process I used to work this out (for those that are interested): I started by working out the Doctor's overall age (including all incarnations) as of the time of each incarnation's regeneration and then calculated the difference between each one to figure out how long each version of the Doctor lasted in universe. The problem with this method is that the Doctor's age is often impossible to work out using information only from the show, so I did use information from other Doctor Who media to work out the Doctor's age when using only the show became impossible. In situations where information from the show contradicts that of other Doctor Who media, I favour the information from the show. Another issue is that the first age the 9th Doctor claims to be closest to his first on-screen appearance is 900 years, which is impossible given the timeline of the Classic Doctors. In order to handwave this, I am assuming the Doctor both lost track of his age in his 8th incarnation (this is attested to in the novel "Vampire Science") and that he chooses to not remember the War incarnation due to the horrors of the Time War. Even with all this, it is sometimes impossible to come up with a logical age for each period of the Doctor's life, so in these situations, I have used the Tardis Wiki's estimates. Furthermore, because the 9th Doctor's claim to being 900 years old is impossible, I am calculating his age based on the Tardis Wiki estimate and then using canonical data to work out the age for the rest of the Doctor's incarnation. (e.g., it is impossible for 9 to have been any younger than 2259 years old as of his regeneration into 10, but we know that 9 claimed to be 900 years old close to his regeneration and that 10 claimed to be 906, a difference of 6 years. As a result, I put the 10th Doctor's age at 2265 years old, 6 years more than the 9th Doctor's age.) Edit: Fixed a major mistake in the maths :P
It would be interesting to do a similar list for Companions. It could be argued that Cass would be the shortest tenure, since Eight did welcome her aboard and she died within minutes.
That’s an incredible set of estimations and really interesting to read through. The Doctor’s age is all over the place throughout the show so major props to you for working out all of this. Out of interest, what was the overall age you determined for the Doctor?
@@CritterKeeper01 Unfortunately I think this would be even more difficult to work out. It depends a lot on who you consider a companion and whether you count from the Doctor's perspective or from the companions. For example, it's fair to assume Clara is the longest lasting companion in universe from the Doctor's point of view due to the whole Trenzalore situation with 11. But from the companion's point of view, the companion that spent the most time with the Doctor is probably Romana. We never really see the Doctor's companions age, suggesting none of them can be with him all that long from their perspective, but Romana ages slowly since she's a Time Lord. As such for all we know they could have travelled together for most of the 4th Doctor's lifetime.
@@TBowenMedia Thanks man I appreciate it. If you count 12's time in the confession dial I worked the Doctor's overall age to roughly 4,500,003,692 or 3,692 if you ignore the confession dial years.
13:57 Ok this is going to be a technicality but didnt david Bradley play the doctor in 2013 an adventure in space and time. So it would be just over 10 years of bradley playing the part
@@pacotaco1246 ‘An Adventure in Space and Time’ was a standalone drama and not part of the main TV series so for me, Bradley’s performance in it is William Hartnell first and the Doctor second if at all. He’s only played the actual character since 2017.
Last I checked, Peter Davison has the most total hours of content with him performing as the Doctor (TV and audio added together). Last I checked Paul McGann was in second place, and then approximately a tie for third/fourth between Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy.
@@TBowenMedia My own calculations, but easy math. Add up how many episodes they had on TV, then multiply by the average number of minutes per episode. Then add the number of "discs" they did for Big Finish discs (typically two discs per release, and just shy of an hour per disc). There were some special episodes and special releases on Big Finish if you want to get precise, but you're awfully close even without doing so. (Though with the end of the monthly releases and most future Big Finish content being 3-4 disc box sets, that'll be more important in the future.)
For me it’s the actor’s first appearance onscreen as the Doctor to the moment the next canonical Doctor appears onscreen. Dates screened that is as things can get wibbly wobbly with multi Doctor stories, anniversary specials (8th regeneration) etc.
Doesn't matter. If we're counting actors who reprised the role of the Doctor then Peter Davison holds the record for 40 years due to Power of the Doctor. If you argue he wasn't playing the Doctor its Tom Baker with 39 due to Day of the Doctor. If you argue the Curator wasn't the Doctor, well Davison certainly played the Doctor in 2007 making the record 25 years. You can't even give Tennant second place. He only has 18 years while Troughton has 19.
@cameronjosephvideos5942 yeah but he could come back to the series at any point as 14. He could even reappear as 14 after finishing the bigeneration into 15 in some future episode and just be "on vacation from his retirement" with donnas family.
Thinking about the Big Finish Audios, i think its so beautiful that old doctors get to come back and/or actors get to come back to play one of their most significant roles. Espcially thinking about how many of them are such huge doctor who fans they are themselves its so lovely they get to continue their era in their own way!
Regardless on how we argue who has the longest runs in terms of the Doctor, we can all agree that Tom Baker would be THE actor to live the longest to play the Doctor!
lovely video! little note- at the end, you say "I am sure there is a generation of kids who site Jodie as their doctor" I am a teenager, and was rather young when Twice Upon a Time aired, and yes, she is my personal favorite. my doctor. (Yes, Chibnall's writing has some issues, (the morals of kerblam is one of my biggest issues), but I adore JODIE as the doctor, the peppy, happy, caring personality. I met her at a convention too! she is just like her doctor.)
That’s actually really heartwarming to hear. I think people in my age group were just the wrong age for Jodie’s Doctor so it’s lovely to see she has struck a chord with the kids watching at that time.
Very well done. The list at 11:16 doesn't say which Doctor goes with each rank and you have to figure it out from the titles, which many of us can do but not everyone. I like the reference to McGann's short episode (minsode?) culminating in a regeneration. Another ranking would be broadcast time. Episode count may not be the best measure since most of the classic episodes were a half hour long while the revival series episodes are mostly one hour long. Tom Baker would still win this way but it would be closer between classic and revival doctors.
Okay but who played the Doctor for longest from the perspective... of the Doctor? As in, roughly how old is the Doctor in each regeneration and which incarnation had the longest life. I remember it being wild that the first 9 Doctors lived collectively for about 900 years, with the 2nd Doctor noting at one point that he was 500 years old, then the 10th Doctor only lives a shockingly short 6 years (which counts two whole regenerations since he kept his face and caused the meta crisis), and then the 11th Doctor lived for around 1100 years, doubling his lifespan and then some, and although the 12th Doctor spent a billion years in the dial, those were composed of countless clones of himself and so he only really experienced it for a few hours, meaning that doesn't factor into his age. And then the 14th Doctor, with the same face as 10, somehow almost outdoes his incredibly short lifespan by regenerating literally less than 24 hours after his last regeneration, but luckily for him the bi-regeneration split him apart from the next Doctor, and so it's up for interpretation if you count that regeneration as the end of his time as the Doctor (from the perspective of 15 onwards, you would count it, but from the perspective of 14 and his future incarnations, you wouldn't). If you thought calculating who played the Doctor for the longest period of time from our perspective was hard, imagine trying to figure out the in-universe answer.
I think (call it headcanon) Doctor himself doesn't know how actually old he is (also he might not even remember his birthday, debatable). He might had somehow count years before the Time War but due to its nature I believe when Ninth said "900" he just tried to like "reset the counter" from some moment. Or maybe even counting every incarnation as mid ~100 years just for the sake of it. To have an answer. Like how alien timetraveler would count its age? Some special clock is needed here haha. That's why back on Trenzalor he counted whole 800 years. He was stack at one place with not so much to do besides periodic attacks and helping people with their regular life stuff. So he could actually count these years and then add it to his fake number he came up with before. And yeah: how long is a year on Trenzalor? Must be different from Earth or Gallifrey. These years on Trenzalor, and his "age", what each of these years according to? One night on Darillium is 24 years. Is it one night or is it 24 years?
@@StefanFlyerthe discrepancy can be chalked up to the second doctors gap adventures which are technically canon in so much that quite a few stories have been written in that time (and it’s more adventures than the second doctor had)
@@StefanFlyer True. I can very much see the Doctor just ignoring conventional aging systems, like when 14 said last week "Donna, I'm a billion years old" because it just doesn't matter, he's hella old by human standards and that's what's important. It can easily be brushed off in some interaction like this: Companion: "How old are you?" The Doctor: "Depends on how you calculate age, and what you consider a lifetime.” Companion: "Since birth?" The Doctor: "Define birth?" Companion: "My god you are an alien." The Doctor: "I lived many generations with quite a few resets, but there's so much I don't remember that I can't really count my age anymore. What I'm saying is that I could be two hundred years old, two thousand years old, or two million years old, or possible more." Companion: "You can't start over with your age!" The Doctor: "Why not? You humans do it every generation." Companion: "Yeah, because we're different people." The Doctor: "So am I, more or less. Is your personality right now the same as the personality you had when you were a teenager? Are you the same exact person?" Companion: "Oh."
This is the question I came to ask! Though I think 12 should get some credit for all those years. He could have given up at any point, but he kept at it
Here is what the 8th Doctor has to say about his age in Orbis, after having spent 600 years trapped there: "I'm not all that old, you know. I may have been here a few hundred years, but we're an ancient lot us Time Lords. And to be honest I lost track of how old I really was eons ago. I tend to round it down a bit making a few adjustments for variations in year length across the cosmos. I could be 400 years old, 700, 900, or in some parts of a particularly obscure galaxy I'd be just... ah.. 2. But however old I am, I wasn't born yesterday."
As pointed out by one of you already, there's an error at 19:54 where David Tennant is listed below Peter Davison despite having a greater screentime. Slipped by me in the writing process.
Actually the shortest time of a Doctor is Michael Jayston as the Valyard is one of the future doctors and was in 14 episodes namely Trial of a timelord
It’s amazing to me that Big Finish has surpassed the TV show in total hours of content. They did so around the time of the 50th anniversary, if memory serves, and the gap grows steadily every year. All of it officially licensed by the BBC, so to me Big Finish *IS* Doctor Who. Freed from special effects budget limitations, and with impassioned performances from actors getting second chances at their roles, and new actors possibly getting their only chance at being part of Doctor Who. There are some amazing new companions (Evelyn Smythe and Charlie Pollard are two of my favourites), and it’s often amazing stuff. I listen to Big Finish every day.
I love the BF Companions! Esp Liv Chenka & Helen Sinclair, but Constance Clark, and Flip are up there too. Wonder if we'll ever find out how Flip was saved from falling to Earth from orbit? I think they forgot about it.😅
@@R.senals_Arsenal I've listened to a lot of 8th Doctor stuff with Liv and Helen, and they're definitely good too. But not quite as iconic for me. :) I'm not yet introduced to Constance Clark or Flip yet, but some of their audios are in my queue!
@@ScrapKing73 I'm relistening to all of 8th stuff now, got through all of Mary Shelley, Charlie, C'rizz, Lucy, Tamsin, Molly, and now I'm again in the long haul of Liv & Helen stuff, up to currently Ravenous 2 and listening to the Liv spinoff Robots that takes place in a year she was left behind on Kaldor. Great stuff, I just love her sarcasm and banter. One of my favorite all time lines when she asks the Doctor what the plan is while running for her life, and she doesn't like his answer: "Hadn't really thought about it? Do you think you could regenerate into someone clever?" 🤣
@@R.senals_Arsenal LOL, yes that was a good line for Liv. I own the various The Robots releases and look forward to listening to them. I recently started at the very beginning of my expansive Big Finish collection, much of which I haven't even heard yet, and started from the earliest Benny releases and am listening to everything in release order. :)
@@ScrapKing73 Oh wow, that's gonna take awhile. I have everything except Benny stuff, Iris stuff, Torchwood, Unbound, or the non-WHO stuff, Everything else, I think I have, and it is a struggle to keep up. I'm behind like 4 War Master box sets on listening, they are over there looking at me now, laughing at me. LOL Glad to meet a fellow dedicated collector!
That's a rather complicated topic and I even count it a little bit different but I tend to stick to first and last regular appearence as the Doctor in a TV episode. For when it starts and ends I tend to look at it as if it were a job and who someone would consider "THE DOCTOR" at that point in time. - For me Troughton starts beeing the Doctor at the end of "The tenth planet" and stops being the Doctor at the end of "The war games" because that is when he is forced to regenerate. It's like being fired as a janitor. You can't run around still claiming to be the janitor just because the new guy hasn't been announced yet. - McCoy stopped being the Doctor when the show was canceled after "Survival". Otherwise he would have been the Doctor forever if the show had not been revived. If you had asked someone in 1995 who the current Doctor was, they would have said "nobody" because there was no Doctor Who. His appearance in the TV movie is merely a cameo in my eyes. You can't be the janitor of a company that doesn't exist. - Tennant has two tenures added together. Back to the metaphor: If I get back to an old job I had several years ago, I can't claim to have worked there the entire time. It's the time then and the time now added. That's how I see it anyway :)
I've calculated some of these results myself for companions: Companion with most episodes: Jamie McCrimmon - 112 episodes (116 episodes if appearances in The Five Doctors & Two Doctors included) Companion with the most stories: Clara Oswald - 33 stories Companion with the longest tenure: first appearance-last (regular) appearance: Yasmin Khan: 4 years, 16 days
@@DoctorVision Shortest tenure as Companion would be a very close race between Cass (who Eight told "Welcome aboard!" less than a minute before she backed out, maybe another minute before she died) and the Victorian echo of Clara, who was given a key less than a minute before she was pulled off the cloud and fell to her death, although since she took a couple more minutes to actually die, Cass probably wins this dubious honor….
I mean, most modern/newer fans of the series probably don’t factor in the supplemental material, be it the missing adventures books, the new adventures books, the audio dramas, theres good reasons to why people would probably think tennant or baker(Tom, not colin, who technically comes in at least 3rd place with the most audio dramas, 2nd being McCoy and 1st being mcgann.) but Sylvester McCoy does indeed have the most technical appearances in the series, especially factoring in the gap between 1989 and 1996. The seventh doctor also has the most novels to his name as well. Sure, Tom baker has the most televised stories, but he’s not exactly the longest in the books or audio dramas.
I'd say the only metric that makes sense is the amount of screen time the show has had with the actor in the lead role. This would exclude guest appearances later when they aren't the current lead. By that standard, the answer is Tom Baker with 172 episodes or 71 hours 40 minutes (presuming 25 minutes per episode on average). If you want to include Big Finish it isn't really my thing but I'd guess that outstrips others who've done far more audio episodes than he has. The argument that pre-broadcast filming and promotional appearances count is nonsense. Stage performances don't include rehearsal time and interviews in the length of the run. Albums that took years to record aren't somehow regarded as longer.
It could be possible to reconcile the differences between classic Who, where each story/adventure was multi-episode and new Who generally being one story per episode or two episodes. You could look at how many story arcs/adventures each actor had playing the Doctor. This could be within the broadcast show and/or, within expanded media where the actor has an active role (i.e. not in books or comic scrips where generally, only their image is used). In instances such as the Trial of a Time Lord where the whole season was one over all story arc, the individual blocks of stories could be used.
There's an awful lot of dross and negativity in TH-cam Doctor Who videos, so it's a genuine delight to randomly watch one that is both positive and informative. Really good video :)
I just started doctor who for the first time 2 months ago. I wanted to start from the 1st doctor but finding old doctor who is a pain so I just do hbo which starts on the 9th Doctor, It’s crazy to think the 9th doctor was only 1 season because of difficult shooting, yet for me it’s what really hooked me to start the show. Tenant made me a fan and I just finished the 10th doctor and just started the 11th and I’m already missing Tenant.
I missed Eccleston when he left (even on my second viewing), then I missed Tennant, and then I really missed Smith, and I'll probably miss Capaldi when I finish his run (time will tell, but that's my expectation).
I think what would make this topic more interesting would be comparing this to each regeneration's in-world lifespan. Tennant for example, has used up 3 whole regenerations but only was the doctor in-world for a few years. Whereas Matt's one regeneration spans over 900 years
Now calculate how long each Doctor was the Doctor... And whether or not to include all the time 12 spent in the confession dial : D I think it's kinda funny how it's so hard to calculate how long each actor played the Doctor given that it's a time travel show! very timey wimey
I believe that the winner (not including the confession dial) is Matt Smith. At the beginning he said he was over 900, but on Capaldi's first episode he says he's over 2000. Then again Capaldi and Jodi don't really mention how old they are with both of them only saying they've forgotten exactly how old they are.
@@BelacDarkstorm For some mindless trivia to muddy things even further: 8th Doctor says in Orbis after having spent 600 years trapped there: "I'm not all that old, you know. I may have been here a few hundred years, but we're an ancient lot us Time Lords. And to be honest I lost track of how old I really was eons ago. I tend to round it down a bit making a few adjustments for variations in year length across the cosmos. I could be 400 years old, 700, 900, or in some parts of a particularly obscure galaxy I'd be just... ah.. 2. But however old I am, I wasn't born yesterday."
Another fun way to count it would maybe be raw number of stories. Like, counting it all: TV episodes, Books, Comics, Audio Dramas, Video Games, everything. I wonder who would win there? Probably either Tom Baker or Paul McGann. Maybe David Tennant would be up there too. There's a ton of 10th Doctor expanded universe content at this point.
I wonder which Doctor lasted the longest in the Doctor's timeline? Probably Matt Smith (Trenzalore) or Capaldi if you count his recurrances (Heaven Sent)?
Hartnell and Troughton were credited only in episodes, as they was on holiday, keys of marinus e4-e5, the space museum ep3, the time meddler ep 2, the celesrial toymaker e2 and e3. The Massacre the doctor is only in e1 and e4 quick count 10 less that 137 = 127 putting him behind pertwee
I use two methods based on context: First is your fourth, when they first appear to when the next one first appears. The other is episode & season count.
Great analysis. I like the first appearance to first appearance of successor metric. But it's definitely a stupid question without defining how you are measuring. I've always been amazed that William Hartnell appeared in only slightly fewer episodes than Tom Baker, but recorded them in only 3 years compared to Tom's 7.
Tom Baker was Dr. Who for 170+ episodes. A better question would have been, "who played Dr. Who for the most episodes while they were the actual doctor?".
The Screen Time one really DOES feel like the reality … it tells you “who got a long run, who got a short run.” The ones who were < 24 hours got a short run. Anyone 24 - 48 hours felt like they could’ve had more. Anyone over 48 hours felt like they had a good innings.
The question should have been written as "Which actor had the longest screen-time portraying The Doctor?" That would have both prevented the confusion, and added with a bit well-known trivia for Doctor Who.
In my eyes, the answer will always be Tom. As logical as it is, I don't count Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann's tenures as being the longest because the show was not broadcasting officially during those years so their tenures started and ended with the final episode of their regular run, though I would add an extra day for McCoy for his return in the TV movie. Also, while Jodie Whittaker is technically the longest-serving Doctor of the revival, I do believe David Tennant has reclaimed that title because yes, whilst he is playing a new incarnation, it's still the same actor playing the Doctor so his two tenures will be combined and as a result he is second behind Tom once again - in terms of first appearance-final appearance. He also overtakes Whittaker again if you take into account the time between first story and last story - the two weeks added by Fourteen's tenure increasing that lead again. Then, in terms of episode count, Tennant's appearances as 14 brings his total to 50 (51 if you include his return as Ten in Day of the Doctor). But that increases once again if you include episodes in which Tennant is officially credited as the Doctor. In terms of official episodes, that increases from 50 to 53 (if you include his appearances at the end of Parting of the Ways and The Power of the Doctor in which he is introduced as the Doctor) and increases once again if you include the two animated episodes: The Infinite Quest and Dreamland, as well as the charity sketches Born Again and Time Crash for Children in Need and interactive episode Attack of the Graske - all perfectly feasible because a title sequence is used for each of these and David Tennant's name is included - so technically a credit - bringing his total to 58 - so Tennant has certainly been one of the most prolific Doctors in more ways than one.
I wonder if the new way of filming new new who is better for the actors now. In our point of view were still waiting to get ruby Sunday and 15 but in real life there already filming season 2 with possibly the next companion. Perhaps itll give the actors a chance to breath better between seasons. Although I think the 3 season rule is best not including returns.
I think we should count the time between regenerations as all multi episode and special episodes could be considered as part of the original run but just off screen stuff they didn’t film being filmed.
ok now lets hear a ranking of who played the doctor the longest according to how long their respective incarnations lived in canon 😁 (awesome video btw)
Great video! The only one to add would be the in-universe time they have spent as the doctor. I could be wrong here, but given heaven sent, that would go down as Capaldi.
Great job covering all the bases! I was going to say, my opinion on who played the Doctor the longest would would exclusively depend on how many hours of screen time they had. If I'm not mistaken - and maybe it was mentioned in the video - I thought that sometime during the original incarnation of the show, they changed the run time of each episode from an hour to 30 minutes. That's a moot point anyway as the longevity of each actor by hours of programming is still ranked the same when compared to overall number of episodes they made.
David Bradley you say played the doctor for 5 years, 3 months and 22 days between The Doctor Falls and the centinary special and this means he played the doctor longer than William Hartnell. This is not true - William Hartnell first played the Doctor in November 1963 and his last outing was The Three Doctors in December 1972 / January 1973 which is over 9 years!
Its the same with Bond ir Batman, the one you grew up with is always going to be *your* doctor, or if you didn't watch it growing up, then the one who was doctor when you first started watching.
I'd be interested to see how the screentime stats change if you include big finish and the reprisals. I'm sure paul mcganns stat probably shoots up, but i'd be interested to see how everyone else's stats change
Even if the show decides to canonically confirm that character as being one and the same as the eponymous hero, wouldn’t him retiring and putting the name of “the Doctor” behind him exclude him from being counted here?
You screwed up the list at @20:10. Both Smith and Tennant were in the series longer than Davison. Tennant outlasted his father-in-law by 5 hours, 11 minutes and Smith outlasted Davison by 1 hour 51 minutes.
I'll watch the video still but there's gotta be at least a few answers: 1. Longest contiguous run as the doctor (I'm imagining this is Tom Baker) 2. Longest span between appearances of the actor as the Doctor (I want to say Tom Baker here for the 2014 special, but now with it having been about a decade ago - yikes - Peter Davidson's appearance in one of Jodie's specials probably edges this out) 3. Longest span between appearances of the regeneration (which will obviously be Doctor #1 played by David Bradley in Capaldi's last episode) 4. Number of episodes (Tom Baker easily wins here from what I understand) 5. Longest span between appearances of the actor (which would include Capaldi, Baker, and Davidson's preexisting appearances as other characters - but probably wouldn't skew anything) I'm including the holograms in Jodie's special since they had the actors in to film it (and kind of showed them 'in person' in a sort of 'regeneration netherworld'), and throwing out reused footage (i.e. Day of the Doctor, Eleventh Hour, Twice Upon A Time, and the episode with Clara in the Doctor's timestream).
Technically now with the Marvel tenure record it goes to Wesley Snipes. Blade (released 1998) To Deadpool and Wolverine (2024) He beats Hugh bc X-men came out in 2000
Technically Paul McGann is the longest running actor to play the Doctor if you count all of his Big Finish audio stories but do not know if that is canon or not.
Well in "Night of the Doctor", a canon prequel to the 50th Anniversary "Day of The Doctor", it shows the regeneration between 8th Doctor and the War Doctor, and before he dies McGann cites the names of multiple past companions that were exclusive to novels, comics, Big Finish So it's unclear how much of it is canon, but at least a part of it is
Question for me is whether David's 10th and 14th Doctors should be counted as one as it's the same actor, or kept aparf due to being different incarnations.
@@anonymoussaid9970 we learn in smith's finale that they are two seperate regenerations. but the characters are exactly the same. the same can be said for tennant's third regeneration. he is the exact same character as 10. therefore, if we do not seperate pre and post metacrisis doctors, we should also not seperate this flashback doctor.
@@the_alex_ellis_channel6923 actually, tennant's doctors have been the 11th, 12th, and 16th doctors (if we start counting from hartnell onwards). but we don't tecnically number hurt cos he was a retcon, nor tennant since he was playing the same character and therefore tennant only was 10. it is one or the other, not both. either they're all 10, cos they're all the same character played the same by the same actor, or they all count as seperate doctors cos they were seperate regenerations. choose.
I did consider doing a similiar discussion for companions and from what I gather it's between Jamie McCrimmon, Clara Oswald and Yasmin Khan since the later remained throughout her Doctor's entire tenure.
Cool video! lots of info. I am going to vote the only Doctor with 7 (full) seasons. Tom Baker. I know especially now, David Tenant has so many specials (10 or more?) plus 3 seasons. Patrick Troughton is my favorite Doctor. So let’s just argue him for fun. From power of the Daleks 1966 to the two doctors 1985. lol
When are we gonna get a multi First Doctor Story? Wonder if that would have to include all the times Big Finish has used Fraser Hines and William Russell etc.
Interesting video. Really well researched. I always look at how many seasons each doctor did. Just because, the landscape of tv, is different, in say, 1973, compared to 2011.. also, I tend to look at how many serials a doctor did in the Classic Era, and how many episodes a doctor did in the Modern Era. Due to Classic being serialised, and Modern being episodic. For example, Tom Baker had a total of 42 serials(stories).. and Peter Capaldi had a total of 40 episodes, it’s make it more fun to compare in my opinion. As every time I watch a Classic serial/story, I’ll watch it in full. Anyways, hope that made sense. Good video mate🙌
That’s a good way of looking at it. I decided not to do a round on story numbers because of the ongoing debate about whether The Trial of a Time Lord, Flux and the Series 3 finale are one story each.
@@TBowenMediaYeah that makes sense! I like to look at Trial of a Time Lord as 4 stories, with one overarching story in the background, same with Flux being 6 episodes with one ongoing storyline. But yeah, that makes sense. Appreciate the reply. Great video all the same🙌
Less impactful, but you could also measure by how long a doctors lifespan was in universe. And that's a conundrum in itself because immediately I think Smith since he stayed on trenzalore for hundreds of not a thousand years, but you could also argue Capaldi since he was trapped in the confession dial for over 4 billion years but also note he was cloned regularly, so is it consistent enough to call it a lifespan?
That's extremely hard to determine because of how it jumps around and effects like that in Heaven Sent (and I think there was a similar thing for 6 or 7).
Presumably it's either 1 or 11. Both grew so old that they died from just that, but 1 started as a child and 11 couldn't regenerate and so kept getting older.
@@awesomedavid2012The 11th Doctor spent 700 years on Trenzalore, while the first doctor wasn’t even that old when he regenerated. Then again, while not aging physically, the 12th Doctor spent 4.5 billion years in the confession dial, so he could beat everyone
In universe, it’s a toss up between Matt smith (300 years on trenzalore) or Peter Capaldi (like ten billion years in the confession dials) but Capaldi might not count because technically he was only there for a a few days.
you can't judge the Doctor's life length based on what we see on screen. Look at the Ninth Doctor's first episode. It's clear that when he enter's Rose's flat he's never seen his current reflection before, yet later Rose is shown three images of the Doctor at various points in Earth's past. There's very little likelihood of him visiting all three periods and yet never catching a glimpse of his own reflection at least in a window at some point. So when did he visit those times? For me the answer might be between him leaving Rose in the alley when she chooses to stay and look after Mickey and the Tardis reappearing a few seconds later. He left, tried being on his own but the loneliness he felt prompted him to return and ask her again. Something similar to this happens in the Eleventh Doctor's first episode and I don't believe him for a moment when he says he just popped to the Moon and back, he's been gone for a very long time trying to solve the mystery behind Amy Pond and has only returned because he can't solve it without her. Or so I think.
I'm going to see if I can figure this out, my prediction however is that Tennant is the shortest lived incarnation and Capaldi is the longest. Edit: I did it :) Put the results in a separate comment.
I can always appreciate when someone looks at things _from a certain point of view._ ;-) But quick question, is there an error at 19:54? Tennent listed is below Davison but his screentime is higher.
Their is another measure, one I believe is used in the book Who-ology is the numbers of stories. Though that runs in to the issue of how you count the Flux mini series.
19:54 you list David Tennant (1 day, 14 hours…) _under_ Peter Davison (1 day, 9 hours…) despite David having 5 more hours over his father-in-law. Or were the numbers backwards?
The 11th doctor is my personal favorite with his adventure with Amy pond and Clara Oswald I'm 22 and it was the first doctor I saw at his first appearance somehow So even though I saw the 9th with bad wolf arc with rose , the 10th with donna the 12th with still Clara When the doctor is mentioned I always see the 11th doctor with his Bow tie on his neck very extravagant British a bit crazy full of energy that he can even stand still for 2 seconds His regeneration was heartbreaking when I saw Amy walking down the stairs I couldn't accept this grumpy old skotish old man so k hold on to Clara until I learn to love this one too
Oftentimes a persons first exposer to something they like, ends up becoming what one pictures, thinks of, and likes. For example one will almost always like the music or type of music they grew up listing to.
Definitely- all the surviving Doctors are still The Doctor and always will be. I guess that would be a morbid way to make a longest serving list though; how long did they live after being cast (!)
If you’re counting “twice upon a time” as David Bradley’s first appearance as the first doctor, and the cameo in “power of the doctor” as David Bradley’s final appearance as the doctor, then wouldn’t you also count the cameo in “the three doctors” as William hartnells final appearance? That means there’s 6,977 days in between William Hartnell’s first appearance in the show, and his final appearance in the show, and only 1,763 days in between David Bradley’s first appearance as the doctor in the show and his last… So actually David Bradley didn’t last longer in the role than William hartnell…
And that’s only if you don’t count the flashbacks or the edited “name of the doctor” Clara scene, or edited “war counsel of gallifrey scene created for “day of the doctor”….
I love the effort put into this. Who doesn't love a good nerdy over-think! I don't think there is an objectively true answer unless you get hyper specific, but first appearance to first appearance of successor is definitely my preferred metric. However, my partner and I had a discussion about this a few months ago and they have the (not unreasonable) opinion that Paul McGann was the Doctor for one night in 1996, and no longer. Their reasoning was essentially based on public perception- Doctor Who just didn't exist any more because it wasn't on TV. (Except for repeats, which were mostly Pertwee-McCoy, the latter of which felt like the current Doctor to me when I was growing up because I didn't know any different). I came up, therefore, with two slightly different alternatives. 1- First appearance to first appearance of PROPOSED successor. (So, for example, The Curse of Fatal Death Doctors or the Shalka Doctor mark the end of Paul McGann). 2- First appearance to last regular appearance before first appearance of successor (So belated regeneration's count as a regular appearance, but only if the next Doctor hasn't taken over). That second alternative (if I remember correctly) ends with the longest to shortest being: McCoy Baker (T) Whittaker Tennant (as 10) Pertwee Capaldi Smith Davison Hartnell Baker (C) Troughton Eccleston McGann Which feels right to me. It's essentially an overly complicated way of explaining the instinctively correct answer! The current Doctor is the current Doctor for as long as the general public think of them as the current Doctor, and the rules for that will shift and change. For example, lord knows how Tennant as 14 fits in, probably just a case of adding 1 and a bit years to take him one place higher, but if rumours about when and how Ncuti appears next week are true, the decision on whether he replaces David Tennant as the Doctor immediately, or only at Christmas, will not necessarily be simple. Heavens help future quiz show writers!
I don't know all the Doctors, but I know that if we're counting Heaven Sent alone, the 12th wins for in-universe time since that episode has 12 imprisoned over the course of multiple billion years. There is an argument that doesn't exactly count since 12 keeps dying and resetting. Next up would be the 8th who also got locked away for like thousands of years, followed by the 11th for all the time he spent on the planet of Trenzelore. But that was said to be only like 900 years or something like that. As I recall, when I figured this out based on broadcast appearances and Big Finish only, the 10th Doctor is close to last in in-universe years specifically because RTD always has his productions occur in real time, which means that the 10th Doctor only existed as long as David Tennant was the Doctor, meaning the poor guy was "born" in 2005 and "died" in 2009. No wonder he didn't want to go.
@@parallax3d , no, no, no. Each of a million Doctors spent a week in the Dial. The last one transmatted in, spent a week figuring out all the riddles (with no memory of the previous versions, hence his having to work it out every time) and emerging onto Galifray. He only KNEW he’d spent 4.5 million years in the Doal because of stellar drift.
The Doctor's age is widely inconsistent, especially if you take into account the expanded universe. In my mind, the Eleventh Doctor lived for the longest, protecting Trenzalore for 900 years (according to the 2014 'Tales of Trenzalore' book) while the 4.5 billion years of Heaven Sent were contained in a closed loop meaning they don't impact their actual age. Its a fun debate but is a bit too complex and open to too much interpretation.
@@TBowenMedia, my only modification to that is that the War Doctor lived for 800 years, slightly longer than he should have, owing to his slightly test tube nature. In “Time of the Doctor”, he says he’s 800 years old. Given that the 7th Doctor was 953 at last mention, that 800 years doesn’t make sense. It makes sense in NuWho chronology (he and 11 are the only two Doctors to live out their entire lives, and last relatively the same length of time), but it doesn’t account for Classic Who. Which means, the War Doctor ( not being the Doctor anymore) started counting over at zero. HE lasted 800 years. 9 lasted 100. 10 lasted 6. 11 lasted 200+50+50+300+100=700. 12 lasted . . . 200, 300 ? Since he regenerated into an older body, 300 years (30 by human standards) might have been close to a full regeneration.
Such an interesting video!
Thank you. Great to see a compliment from one of my favourite channels, especially since it was Kuro’s video “Which Character had the Most Actors?” that served as one of the main inspirations for this video. Keep up the great work!
Epic crossover moment
hi ben 10 guy
a doctors era starts when they are the one to say "remember to subscribe to the official doctor who youtube channel" and ends when there successor takes over
So you mean that Silence is tecnically the Doctor?
@@lux_feronow there's a theory 😂
This means the first 8 were never truly the Doctor
@@Rognikexcept Tom, Colin and Sylvester all have now, and Matt didn’t
If you ask @DontForgetDaily then Peter Capaldi never stopped being the doctor by that metric
Its actually insane to me that Hartnell's runtime was not too dissimilar from Tom's despite the fact it was condensed into less than half the years. Absolutely no wonder Hartnell was exhausted, that's crazy.
I think when an actor starts as the Doctor is a pretty open and shut case. It's when they first appear on-screen as the lead character to the public.
Agreed. Production has no relevance, this is one area that we do *not* need to see from a different point of view.
Peter Cushing could be argued to win, since in his continuity, he was never replaced. As of writing, he has, from a certain point of view, been the incumbent doctor for 58 years, 5 months, 12 days, and I will be surprised if this ever stops counting.
Also because he's a legend
I want Paul to get a spinoff, so badly! More people need to discover his incredibleness.
Just that mini-episode from 10 years ago is already making wanting for more! Give us all the Whoniverse spinoffs.
Answers:
Longest (in terms of episode counts) - Tom Baker (172)
Longest (in terms of first/last appearance) - Tom Baker (43 years between Robot and Shada)
Longest (in terms of tenure) - Paul McGann (8 years)
Longest (in terms of seasons) - Tom Baker (7 seasons)
Longest (on screen duration/no breaks) - Tom Baker (7ish years)
Longest (production) - Tom Baker (6 years 9 months)
Longest (in terms of height) - Tom Baker (6ft.3in)
Longest (in terms of total combined screen time from first frame to last frame as the Doctor) - Tom Baker (3 days if you include Shada, Dimensions in Time, Superannuation, the Day of the Doctor)
Me seeing the title of the video without having all the hard data presented in the video yet: TOM BAKER
Me after the video: TOM BAKER
Peter Capaldi, 4.5billion years.
3:44 I took that picture of Colin (some 14 or 15 years ago, I think!) I'm so tickled to see it's still on Wikipedia. Great video!
That’s really cool! Always wonder how those pictures are decided on.
A couple people in the comments mentioned an "In Universe" category. As in, how long did each incarnation of the Doctor live in universe before their regeneration. So I went and worked it out to the best of my ability. Note that there is simply not enough information to include Jodie's incarnation (or Tennant's 2nd incarnation as the 14th Doctor).
This bit in brackets is where I got the data from...
1. 4,500,000,233 years - Peter Capaldi (Before the Flood, Heaven Sent, The Husbands of River Song, The Pilot)
2. 1194 years - Matt Smith (A Town Called Mercy, Tales of Trenzalore - Novel)
3. 720 years - Paul McGann (The Ancestor Cell - Novel, Escape Velocity - Novel, Orbis - Audio)
4. 450 years - William Hartnell (Tomb of the Cybermen)
5. 400 years - John Hurt - (Engines of War - Novel)
6. 250 years - John Pertwee (Tardis Wiki Estimate)
7. 153 years - Colin Baker (Time and the Rani)
8. 130 years - Christopher Ecclestone (Tardis Wiki Estimate)
9. 56 years - Sylvester McCoy (Vampire Science - Novel)
10. 54 years - Tom Baker (Cold Fusion - Novel)
11. 50 years - Patrick Troughton (Tardis Wiki Estimate)
12. 37 years - Peter Davison (The Ultimate Treasure - Novel)
13. 6 years - David Tennant (The End of Time Part 2)
If you don't count the time the 12th Doctor spent in the confession dial then the ranking becomes:
1. 1194 years - Matt Smith
2. 720 years - Paul McGann
3. 450 years - William Hartnell
4. 400 years - John Hurt
5. 250 years - John Pertwee
6. 233 years - Peter Capaldi
7. 153 years - Colin Baker
8. 130 years - Christopher Ecclestone
9. 56 years - Sylvester McCoy
10. 54 years - Tom Baker
11. 50 years - Patrick Troughton
12. 37 years - Peter Davison
13. 6 years - David Tennant
Some clarification on the process I used to work this out (for those that are interested):
I started by working out the Doctor's overall age (including all incarnations) as of the time of each incarnation's regeneration and then calculated the difference between each one to figure out how long each version of the Doctor lasted in universe.
The problem with this method is that the Doctor's age is often impossible to work out using information only from the show, so I did use information from other Doctor Who media to work out the Doctor's age when using only the show became impossible. In situations where information from the show contradicts that of other Doctor Who media, I favour the information from the show.
Another issue is that the first age the 9th Doctor claims to be closest to his first on-screen appearance is 900 years, which is impossible given the timeline of the Classic Doctors. In order to handwave this, I am assuming the Doctor both lost track of his age in his 8th incarnation (this is attested to in the novel "Vampire Science") and that he chooses to not remember the War incarnation due to the horrors of the Time War.
Even with all this, it is sometimes impossible to come up with a logical age for each period of the Doctor's life, so in these situations, I have used the Tardis Wiki's estimates. Furthermore, because the 9th Doctor's claim to being 900 years old is impossible, I am calculating his age based on the Tardis Wiki estimate and then using canonical data to work out the age for the rest of the Doctor's incarnation. (e.g., it is impossible for 9 to have been any younger than 2259 years old as of his regeneration into 10, but we know that 9 claimed to be 900 years old close to his regeneration and that 10 claimed to be 906, a difference of 6 years. As a result, I put the 10th Doctor's age at 2265 years old, 6 years more than the 9th Doctor's age.)
Edit: Fixed a major mistake in the maths :P
It would be interesting to do a similar list for Companions. It could be argued that Cass would be the shortest tenure, since Eight did welcome her aboard and she died within minutes.
That’s an incredible set of estimations and really interesting to read through. The Doctor’s age is all over the place throughout the show so major props to you for working out all of this. Out of interest, what was the overall age you determined for the Doctor?
@@CritterKeeper01 Unfortunately I think this would be even more difficult to work out. It depends a lot on who you consider a companion and whether you count from the Doctor's perspective or from the companions. For example, it's fair to assume Clara is the longest lasting companion in universe from the Doctor's point of view due to the whole Trenzalore situation with 11. But from the companion's point of view, the companion that spent the most time with the Doctor is probably Romana. We never really see the Doctor's companions age, suggesting none of them can be with him all that long from their perspective, but Romana ages slowly since she's a Time Lord. As such for all we know they could have travelled together for most of the 4th Doctor's lifetime.
@@TBowenMedia Thanks man I appreciate it. If you count 12's time in the confession dial I worked the Doctor's overall age to roughly 4,500,003,692 or 3,692 if you ignore the confession dial years.
This makes the 10th doctors regeneration and "I CAN DO SO MUCH MORE!" hit harder
13:57 Ok this is going to be a technicality but didnt david Bradley play the doctor in 2013 an adventure in space and time. So it would be just over 10 years of bradley playing the part
David Bradley was playing William Hartnell in Adventure rather than the Doctor which is why I didn’t include it.
@@TBowenMedia fair enough
@TBowenMedia but what about when he was playing Hartnell playing the First Doctor?
@@pacotaco1246 ‘An Adventure in Space and Time’ was a standalone drama and not part of the main TV series so for me, Bradley’s performance in it is William Hartnell first and the Doctor second if at all. He’s only played the actual character since 2017.
@@TBowenMedia it's a weird paradox thingy stuff
This was the wrong video to watch when I already had a headache...
Can’t blame you 🤣 too many bloody numbers
A related question on counting episodes including regeneration would be how we count the 6th doctor regeneration, when 6 was played by McCoy in a wig.
Last I checked, Peter Davison has the most total hours of content with him performing as the Doctor (TV and audio added together). Last I checked Paul McGann was in second place, and then approximately a tie for third/fourth between Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy.
That's really interesting. Is this based on your own calculations or something else?
@@TBowenMedia My own calculations, but easy math. Add up how many episodes they had on TV, then multiply by the average number of minutes per episode. Then add the number of "discs" they did for Big Finish discs (typically two discs per release, and just shy of an hour per disc). There were some special episodes and special releases on Big Finish if you want to get precise, but you're awfully close even without doing so. (Though with the end of the monthly releases and most future Big Finish content being 3-4 disc box sets, that'll be more important in the future.)
For me it’s the actor’s first appearance onscreen as the Doctor to the moment the next canonical Doctor appears onscreen.
Dates screened that is as things can get wibbly wobbly with multi Doctor stories, anniversary specials (8th regeneration) etc.
It’s even MORE complicated now. David Tennent is STILL The Doctor!!
Doesn't matter. If we're counting actors who reprised the role of the Doctor then Peter Davison holds the record for 40 years due to Power of the Doctor.
If you argue he wasn't playing the Doctor its Tom Baker with 39 due to Day of the Doctor.
If you argue the Curator wasn't the Doctor, well Davison certainly played the Doctor in 2007 making the record 25 years.
You can't even give Tennant second place. He only has 18 years while Troughton has 19.
@@cameronjosephvideos5942 I think he's arguing a plot point from the final 60th special. Don't want to spoil if you haven't seen it yet
@@R.senals_Arsenal Doesn't change the fact that he still hasn't played him the longest.
@cameronjosephvideos5942 yeah but he could come back to the series at any point as 14. He could even reappear as 14 after finishing the bigeneration into 15 in some future episode and just be "on vacation from his retirement" with donnas family.
@@pacotaco1246 Sure, he could play him the longest. Right now though, he hasn't.
Thinking about the Big Finish Audios, i think its so beautiful that old doctors get to come back and/or actors get to come back to play one of their most significant roles. Espcially thinking about how many of them are such huge doctor who fans they are themselves its so lovely they get to continue their era in their own way!
What’s going on at 19:55? Is Davison “1 days” and why is his “1 days 9 hours” higher than Tennant’s “1 day 14 hours”?
Regardless on how we argue who has the longest runs in terms of the Doctor, we can all agree that Tom Baker would be THE actor to live the longest to play the Doctor!
lovely video!
little note- at the end, you say "I am sure there is a generation of kids who site Jodie as their doctor"
I am a teenager, and was rather young when Twice Upon a Time aired, and yes, she is my personal favorite. my doctor.
(Yes, Chibnall's writing has some issues, (the morals of kerblam is one of my biggest issues), but I adore JODIE as the doctor, the peppy, happy, caring personality. I met her at a convention too! she is just like her doctor.)
That’s actually really heartwarming to hear. I think people in my age group were just the wrong age for Jodie’s Doctor so it’s lovely to see she has struck a chord with the kids watching at that time.
Very well done. The list at 11:16 doesn't say which Doctor goes with each rank and you have to figure it out from the titles, which many of us can do but not everyone. I like the reference to McGann's short episode (minsode?) culminating in a regeneration.
Another ranking would be broadcast time. Episode count may not be the best measure since most of the classic episodes were a half hour long while the revival series episodes are mostly one hour long. Tom Baker would still win this way but it would be closer between classic and revival doctors.
I'm so glad you did screen time, that was the question on my mind the entire video 😅😅
Okay but who played the Doctor for longest from the perspective... of the Doctor?
As in, roughly how old is the Doctor in each regeneration and which incarnation had the longest life.
I remember it being wild that the first 9 Doctors lived collectively for about 900 years, with the 2nd Doctor noting at one point that he was 500 years old, then the 10th Doctor only lives a shockingly short 6 years (which counts two whole regenerations since he kept his face and caused the meta crisis), and then the 11th Doctor lived for around 1100 years, doubling his lifespan and then some, and although the 12th Doctor spent a billion years in the dial, those were composed of countless clones of himself and so he only really experienced it for a few hours, meaning that doesn't factor into his age.
And then the 14th Doctor, with the same face as 10, somehow almost outdoes his incredibly short lifespan by regenerating literally less than 24 hours after his last regeneration, but luckily for him the bi-regeneration split him apart from the next Doctor, and so it's up for interpretation if you count that regeneration as the end of his time as the Doctor (from the perspective of 15 onwards, you would count it, but from the perspective of 14 and his future incarnations, you wouldn't).
If you thought calculating who played the Doctor for the longest period of time from our perspective was hard, imagine trying to figure out the in-universe answer.
I think (call it headcanon) Doctor himself doesn't know how actually old he is (also he might not even remember his birthday, debatable). He might had somehow count years before the Time War but due to its nature I believe when Ninth said "900" he just tried to like "reset the counter" from some moment. Or maybe even counting every incarnation as mid ~100 years just for the sake of it. To have an answer.
Like how alien timetraveler would count its age? Some special clock is needed here haha.
That's why back on Trenzalor he counted whole 800 years. He was stack at one place with not so much to do besides periodic attacks and helping people with their regular life stuff. So he could actually count these years and then add it to his fake number he came up with before.
And yeah: how long is a year on Trenzalor? Must be different from Earth or Gallifrey. These years on Trenzalor, and his "age", what each of these years according to?
One night on Darillium is 24 years. Is it one night or is it 24 years?
@@StefanFlyerthe discrepancy can be chalked up to the second doctors gap adventures which are technically canon in so much that quite a few stories have been written in that time (and it’s more adventures than the second doctor had)
@@StefanFlyer True. I can very much see the Doctor just ignoring conventional aging systems, like when 14 said last week "Donna, I'm a billion years old" because it just doesn't matter, he's hella old by human standards and that's what's important.
It can easily be brushed off in some interaction like this:
Companion: "How old are you?"
The Doctor: "Depends on how you calculate age, and what you consider a lifetime.”
Companion: "Since birth?"
The Doctor: "Define birth?"
Companion: "My god you are an alien."
The Doctor: "I lived many generations with quite a few resets, but there's so much I don't remember that I can't really count my age anymore. What I'm saying is that I could be two hundred years old, two thousand years old, or two million years old, or possible more."
Companion: "You can't start over with your age!"
The Doctor: "Why not? You humans do it every generation."
Companion: "Yeah, because we're different people."
The Doctor: "So am I, more or less. Is your personality right now the same as the personality you had when you were a teenager? Are you the same exact person?"
Companion: "Oh."
This is the question I came to ask! Though I think 12 should get some credit for all those years. He could have given up at any point, but he kept at it
Here is what the 8th Doctor has to say about his age in Orbis, after having spent 600 years trapped there: "I'm not all that old, you know. I may have been here a few hundred years, but we're an ancient lot us Time Lords. And to be honest I lost track of how old I really was eons ago. I tend to round it down a bit making a few adjustments for variations in year length across the cosmos. I could be 400 years old, 700, 900, or in some parts of a particularly obscure galaxy I'd be just... ah.. 2. But however old I am, I wasn't born yesterday."
As pointed out by one of you already, there's an error at 19:54 where David Tennant is listed below Peter Davison despite having a greater screentime. Slipped by me in the writing process.
Davison should be below Smith there also
Actually the shortest time of a Doctor is Michael Jayston as the Valyard is one of the future doctors and was in 14 episodes namely Trial of a timelord
Colin Baker didn't refuse to film his regeneration scene he wasn't even invited back to film it
You've done some work on this mate 💯 well done 👏👏👏👏👏👏
@@thethinkingcatakaneonormie3527😂😂😂 💪💯👍
It’s amazing to me that Big Finish has surpassed the TV show in total hours of content. They did so around the time of the 50th anniversary, if memory serves, and the gap grows steadily every year. All of it officially licensed by the BBC, so to me Big Finish *IS* Doctor Who. Freed from special effects budget limitations, and with impassioned performances from actors getting second chances at their roles, and new actors possibly getting their only chance at being part of Doctor Who. There are some amazing new companions (Evelyn Smythe and Charlie Pollard are two of my favourites), and it’s often amazing stuff. I listen to Big Finish every day.
I love the BF Companions! Esp Liv Chenka & Helen Sinclair, but Constance Clark, and Flip are up there too. Wonder if we'll ever find out how Flip was saved from falling to Earth from orbit? I think they forgot about it.😅
@@R.senals_Arsenal I've listened to a lot of 8th Doctor stuff with Liv and Helen, and they're definitely good too. But not quite as iconic for me. :) I'm not yet introduced to Constance Clark or Flip yet, but some of their audios are in my queue!
@@ScrapKing73 I'm relistening to all of 8th stuff now, got through all of Mary Shelley, Charlie, C'rizz, Lucy, Tamsin, Molly, and now I'm again in the long haul of Liv & Helen stuff, up to currently Ravenous 2 and listening to the Liv spinoff Robots that takes place in a year she was left behind on Kaldor. Great stuff, I just love her sarcasm and banter. One of my favorite all time lines when she asks the Doctor what the plan is while running for her life, and she doesn't like his answer: "Hadn't really thought about it? Do you think you could regenerate into someone clever?" 🤣
@@R.senals_Arsenal LOL, yes that was a good line for Liv. I own the various The Robots releases and look forward to listening to them. I recently started at the very beginning of my expansive Big Finish collection, much of which I haven't even heard yet, and started from the earliest Benny releases and am listening to everything in release order. :)
@@ScrapKing73 Oh wow, that's gonna take awhile. I have everything except Benny stuff, Iris stuff, Torchwood, Unbound, or the non-WHO stuff, Everything else, I think I have, and it is a struggle to keep up. I'm behind like 4 War Master box sets on listening, they are over there looking at me now, laughing at me. LOL Glad to meet a fellow dedicated collector!
That's a rather complicated topic and I even count it a little bit different but I tend to stick to first and last regular appearence as the Doctor in a TV episode. For when it starts and ends I tend to look at it as if it were a job and who someone would consider "THE DOCTOR" at that point in time.
- For me Troughton starts beeing the Doctor at the end of "The tenth planet" and stops being the Doctor at the end of "The war games" because that is when he is forced to regenerate. It's like being fired as a janitor. You can't run around still claiming to be the janitor just because the new guy hasn't been announced yet.
- McCoy stopped being the Doctor when the show was canceled after "Survival". Otherwise he would have been the Doctor forever if the show had not been revived. If you had asked someone in 1995 who the current Doctor was, they would have said "nobody" because there was no Doctor Who. His appearance in the TV movie is merely a cameo in my eyes. You can't be the janitor of a company that doesn't exist.
- Tennant has two tenures added together. Back to the metaphor: If I get back to an old job I had several years ago, I can't claim to have worked there the entire time. It's the time then and the time now added.
That's how I see it anyway :)
Makes the more sense
the classic Pat troughton filmed his regeneration scene before the 3rd doctor was cast but by the time they finished studio they did
I would be interested in a break down of all the companions like this.
I've calculated some of these results myself for companions:
Companion with most episodes: Jamie McCrimmon - 112 episodes (116 episodes if appearances in The Five Doctors & Two Doctors included)
Companion with the most stories: Clara Oswald - 33 stories
Companion with the longest tenure: first appearance-last (regular) appearance: Yasmin Khan: 4 years, 16 days
@@DoctorVision Shortest tenure as Companion would be a very close race between Cass (who Eight told "Welcome aboard!" less than a minute before she backed out, maybe another minute before she died) and the Victorian echo of Clara, who was given a key less than a minute before she was pulled off the cloud and fell to her death, although since she took a couple more minutes to actually die, Cass probably wins this dubious honor….
I mean, most modern/newer fans of the series probably don’t factor in the supplemental material, be it the missing adventures books, the new adventures books, the audio dramas, theres good reasons to why people would probably think tennant or baker(Tom, not colin, who technically comes in at least 3rd place with the most audio dramas, 2nd being McCoy and 1st being mcgann.) but Sylvester McCoy does indeed have the most technical appearances in the series, especially factoring in the gap between 1989 and 1996. The seventh doctor also has the most novels to his name as well. Sure, Tom baker has the most televised stories, but he’s not exactly the longest in the books or audio dramas.
19:52 Is Davison meant to be 1 day 19 hours here? Otherwise the position makes no sense.
I'd say the only metric that makes sense is the amount of screen time the show has had with the actor in the lead role. This would exclude guest appearances later when they aren't the current lead. By that standard, the answer is Tom Baker with 172 episodes or 71 hours 40 minutes (presuming 25 minutes per episode on average). If you want to include Big Finish it isn't really my thing but I'd guess that outstrips others who've done far more audio episodes than he has. The argument that pre-broadcast filming and promotional appearances count is nonsense. Stage performances don't include rehearsal time and interviews in the length of the run. Albums that took years to record aren't somehow regarded as longer.
some of these measures are so interesting to think about after the airing of the giggle
It could be possible to reconcile the differences between classic Who, where each story/adventure was multi-episode and new Who generally being one story per episode or two episodes. You could look at how many story arcs/adventures each actor had playing the Doctor. This could be within the broadcast show and/or, within expanded media where the actor has an active role (i.e. not in books or comic scrips where generally, only their image is used). In instances such as the Trial of a Time Lord where the whole season was one over all story arc, the individual blocks of stories could be used.
There's an awful lot of dross and negativity in TH-cam Doctor Who videos, so it's a genuine delight to randomly watch one that is both positive and informative. Really good video :)
Very happy to hear that. I find the artificial outrage and moaning on DW TH-cam very off putting so try to keep my videos fun and informative
I just started doctor who for the first time 2 months ago. I wanted to start from the 1st doctor but finding old doctor who is a pain so I just do hbo which starts on the 9th Doctor, It’s crazy to think the 9th doctor was only 1 season because of difficult shooting, yet for me it’s what really hooked me to start the show. Tenant made me a fan and I just finished the 10th doctor and just started the 11th and I’m already missing Tenant.
I missed Eccleston when he left (even on my second viewing), then I missed Tennant, and then I really missed Smith, and I'll probably miss Capaldi when I finish his run (time will tell, but that's my expectation).
I also started two months ago and I'm about to start watching the 12th :)
It’s not a pain. They’ve all had DVD releases, and more than half of them have had BD releases as well.
I think what would make this topic more interesting would be comparing this to each regeneration's in-world lifespan. Tennant for example, has used up 3 whole regenerations but only was the doctor in-world for a few years. Whereas Matt's one regeneration spans over 900 years
For me there's 2 answers.
1. Tom baker
2. Paul mcgann
Now calculate how long each Doctor was the Doctor... And whether or not to include all the time 12 spent in the confession dial : D
I think it's kinda funny how it's so hard to calculate how long each actor played the Doctor given that it's a time travel show!
very timey wimey
I believe that the winner (not including the confession dial) is Matt Smith. At the beginning he said he was over 900, but on Capaldi's first episode he says he's over 2000. Then again Capaldi and Jodi don't really mention how old they are with both of them only saying they've forgotten exactly how old they are.
@@BelacDarkstorm For some mindless trivia to muddy things even further: 8th Doctor says in Orbis after having spent 600 years trapped there: "I'm not all that old, you know. I may have been here a few hundred years, but we're an ancient lot us Time Lords. And to be honest I lost track of how old I really was eons ago. I tend to round it down a bit making a few adjustments for variations in year length across the cosmos. I could be 400 years old, 700, 900, or in some parts of a particularly obscure galaxy I'd be just... ah.. 2. But however old I am, I wasn't born yesterday."
Another fun way to count it would maybe be raw number of stories. Like, counting it all: TV episodes, Books, Comics, Audio Dramas, Video Games, everything. I wonder who would win there? Probably either Tom Baker or Paul McGann. Maybe David Tennant would be up there too. There's a ton of 10th Doctor expanded universe content at this point.
Hi just got back from the last 60th anniversary special, give it a couple years and your gonna have a hard time with David Tennant 😂
I wonder which Doctor lasted the longest in the Doctor's timeline? Probably Matt Smith (Trenzalore) or Capaldi if you count his recurrances (Heaven Sent)?
Yes we could the heaven sent years, he experienced and remembers them
That's what I was thinking; having not seen either actual episodes, I would guess Eleven, since he had the time to grow to old age.
Eleven or Eight. Both lived for centuries, each around a thousand years
Hartnell and Troughton were credited only in episodes, as they was on holiday, keys of marinus e4-e5, the space museum ep3, the time meddler ep 2, the celesrial toymaker e2 and e3. The Massacre the doctor is only in e1 and e4 quick count 10 less that 137 = 127 putting him behind pertwee
This goes to prove that time is relative - but before watching I would have said Tom Baker
I use two methods based on context:
First is your fourth, when they first appear to when the next one first appears.
The other is episode & season count.
Great analysis.
I like the first appearance to first appearance of successor metric.
But it's definitely a stupid question without defining how you are measuring.
I've always been amazed that William Hartnell appeared in only slightly fewer episodes than Tom Baker, but recorded them in only 3 years compared to Tom's 7.
Tom Baker was Dr. Who for 170+ episodes. A better question would have been, "who played Dr. Who for the most episodes while they were the actual doctor?".
An incredible video! Great work!
Yo, it's you
Very well researched and put together. Well done ❤❤
I'd argue capaldi was the doctor the longest. He was the doctor for around 4.5 billion years
He wasn’t alive for 4.5 billion years inside the dial. He kept dying and coming back so it didn’t actually live 4.5 billion years
@jonathin9369 didnt each lifetime's memories fuse back into the last version at the end?
Consecutive and unbroken, Tom Baker. Peter Davison first appearance 1981 (end of Logopolis), last appearance 2022.
The Screen Time one really DOES feel like the reality … it tells you “who got a long run, who got a short run.” The ones who were < 24 hours got a short run. Anyone 24 - 48 hours felt like they could’ve had more. Anyone over 48 hours felt like they had a good innings.
The question should have been written as "Which actor had the longest screen-time portraying The Doctor?" That would have both prevented the confusion, and added with a bit well-known trivia for Doctor Who.
David Tennant's claim to the record includes his off-screen reprisals such as audio stories
i got baked as hell and watching this incredible video has only improved my day
Best way to watch my stuff mate
In my eyes, the answer will always be Tom. As logical as it is, I don't count Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann's tenures as being the longest because the show was not broadcasting officially during those years so their tenures started and ended with the final episode of their regular run, though I would add an extra day for McCoy for his return in the TV movie.
Also, while Jodie Whittaker is technically the longest-serving Doctor of the revival, I do believe David Tennant has reclaimed that title because yes, whilst he is playing a new incarnation, it's still the same actor playing the Doctor so his two tenures will be combined and as a result he is second behind Tom once again - in terms of first appearance-final appearance. He also overtakes Whittaker again if you take into account the time between first story and last story - the two weeks added by Fourteen's tenure increasing that lead again.
Then, in terms of episode count, Tennant's appearances as 14 brings his total to 50 (51 if you include his return as Ten in Day of the Doctor). But that increases once again if you include episodes in which Tennant is officially credited as the Doctor. In terms of official episodes, that increases from 50 to 53 (if you include his appearances at the end of Parting of the Ways and The Power of the Doctor in which he is introduced as the Doctor) and increases once again if you include the two animated episodes: The Infinite Quest and Dreamland, as well as the charity sketches Born Again and Time Crash for Children in Need and interactive episode Attack of the Graske - all perfectly feasible because a title sequence is used for each of these and David Tennant's name is included - so technically a credit - bringing his total to 58 - so Tennant has certainly been one of the most prolific Doctors in more ways than one.
I wonder if the new way of filming new new who is better for the actors now. In our point of view were still waiting to get ruby Sunday and 15 but in real life there already filming season 2 with possibly the next companion. Perhaps itll give the actors a chance to breath better between seasons. Although I think the 3 season rule is best not including returns.
I think we should count the time between regenerations as all multi episode and special episodes could be considered as part of the original run but just off screen stuff they didn’t film being filmed.
ok now lets hear a ranking of who played the doctor the longest according to how long their respective incarnations lived in canon 😁 (awesome video btw)
Great video! The only one to add would be the in-universe time they have spent as the doctor. I could be wrong here, but given heaven sent, that would go down as Capaldi.
Great job covering all the bases! I was going to say, my opinion on who played the Doctor the longest would would exclusively depend on how many hours of screen time they had. If I'm not mistaken - and maybe it was mentioned in the video - I thought that sometime during the original incarnation of the show, they changed the run time of each episode from an hour to 30 minutes. That's a moot point anyway as the longevity of each actor by hours of programming is still ranked the same when compared to overall number of episodes they made.
Don’t forget Tom as the curator…. Though not confirmed on screen he does indicate that he is indeed the Doctor.
David Bradley you say played the doctor for 5 years, 3 months and 22 days between The Doctor Falls and the centinary special and this means he played the doctor longer than William Hartnell. This is not true - William Hartnell first played the Doctor in November 1963 and his last outing was The Three Doctors in December 1972 / January 1973 which is over 9 years!
Its the same with Bond ir Batman, the one you grew up with is always going to be *your* doctor, or if you didn't watch it growing up, then the one who was doctor when you first started watching.
tl;dw: Tom Baker. Tom Baker wins everything. Tom Baker is God.
All hail the god of jelly babies
I'd be interested to see how the screentime stats change if you include big finish and the reprisals. I'm sure paul mcganns stat probably shoots up, but i'd be interested to see how everyone else's stats change
No mention of the Curator?
That’s my thinking! Technically it would be good ol’ baker!
Even if the show decides to canonically confirm that character as being one and the same as the eponymous hero, wouldn’t him retiring and putting the name of “the Doctor” behind him exclude him from being counted here?
@@gemmafire8628 No.
I love David Tennant...but Tom Baker IS Doctor Who. He is the Sean Connery of the role against which all others will be judged.
As someone who started watching Doctor Who regularly during the Jon Pertwee era, Tom Baker is a johnny-come-lately...
Very good to hear Johnny and Dee managed to get the prize money they deserved! 😁
Tennant - 5 years
Tom Baker (not an option but the point still stands) - 7 years
McGann - 9 years
McCoy - 9 years
Not even close
You screwed up the list at @20:10. Both Smith and Tennant were in the series longer than Davison. Tennant outlasted his father-in-law by 5 hours, 11 minutes and Smith outlasted Davison by 1 hour 51 minutes.
I'll watch the video still but there's gotta be at least a few answers:
1. Longest contiguous run as the doctor (I'm imagining this is Tom Baker)
2. Longest span between appearances of the actor as the Doctor (I want to say Tom Baker here for the 2014 special, but now with it having been about a decade ago - yikes - Peter Davidson's appearance in one of Jodie's specials probably edges this out)
3. Longest span between appearances of the regeneration (which will obviously be Doctor #1 played by David Bradley in Capaldi's last episode)
4. Number of episodes (Tom Baker easily wins here from what I understand)
5. Longest span between appearances of the actor (which would include Capaldi, Baker, and Davidson's preexisting appearances as other characters - but probably wouldn't skew anything)
I'm including the holograms in Jodie's special since they had the actors in to film it (and kind of showed them 'in person' in a sort of 'regeneration netherworld'), and throwing out reused footage (i.e. Day of the Doctor, Eleventh Hour, Twice Upon A Time, and the episode with Clara in the Doctor's timestream).
Technically now with the Marvel tenure record it goes to Wesley Snipes.
Blade (released 1998)
To Deadpool and Wolverine (2024)
He beats Hugh bc X-men came out in 2000
A debate that would never end and yet, interesting.
Technically Paul McGann is the longest running actor to play the Doctor if you count all of his Big Finish audio stories but do not know if that is canon or not.
Well in "Night of the Doctor", a canon prequel to the 50th Anniversary "Day of The Doctor", it shows the regeneration between 8th Doctor and the War Doctor, and before he dies McGann cites the names of multiple past companions that were exclusive to novels, comics, Big Finish
So it's unclear how much of it is canon, but at least a part of it is
Question for me is whether David's 10th and 14th Doctors should be counted as one as it's the same actor, or kept aparf due to being different incarnations.
if the s4 specials count as the same doctor as tennant's previous seasons, then the 60th specials should also count
@@RevCuck but the s4 specials were the same incarnation? i don't follow your logic aside from them both not being conventional episodes
@@RevCuck That logic doesn't work, since in the S4 specials, David was still the 10th Doctor, in the 2023 Specials, he is the 14th,
@@anonymoussaid9970 we learn in smith's finale that they are two seperate regenerations. but the characters are exactly the same. the same can be said for tennant's third regeneration. he is the exact same character as 10. therefore, if we do not seperate pre and post metacrisis doctors, we should also not seperate this flashback doctor.
@@the_alex_ellis_channel6923 actually, tennant's doctors have been the 11th, 12th, and 16th doctors (if we start counting from hartnell onwards). but we don't tecnically number hurt cos he was a retcon, nor tennant since he was playing the same character and therefore tennant only was 10. it is one or the other, not both. either they're all 10, cos they're all the same character played the same by the same actor, or they all count as seperate doctors cos they were seperate regenerations. choose.
I would ask which companion had the most appearances, but then 10 seconds later thought, Jamie McCrimmon
I did consider doing a similiar discussion for companions and from what I gather it's between Jamie McCrimmon, Clara Oswald and Yasmin Khan since the later remained throughout her Doctor's entire tenure.
Cool video! lots of info.
I am going to vote the only Doctor with 7 (full) seasons. Tom Baker.
I know especially now, David Tenant has so many specials (10 or more?) plus 3 seasons.
Patrick Troughton is my favorite Doctor. So let’s just argue him for fun. From power of the Daleks 1966 to the two doctors 1985. lol
When are we gonna get a multi First Doctor Story? Wonder if that would have to include all the times Big Finish has used Fraser Hines and William Russell etc.
i know it was reused footage, but I feel like eccleston in day of the doctor should be counted as his last appearance
Interesting video. Really well researched. I always look at how many seasons each doctor did. Just because, the landscape of tv, is different, in say, 1973, compared to 2011.. also, I tend to look at how many serials a doctor did in the Classic Era, and how many episodes a doctor did in the Modern Era. Due to Classic being serialised, and Modern being episodic.
For example, Tom Baker had a total of 42 serials(stories).. and Peter Capaldi had a total of 40 episodes, it’s make it more fun to compare in my opinion. As every time I watch a Classic serial/story, I’ll watch it in full.
Anyways, hope that made sense. Good video mate🙌
That’s a good way of looking at it. I decided not to do a round on story numbers because of the ongoing debate about whether The Trial of a Time Lord, Flux and the Series 3 finale are one story each.
@@TBowenMediaYeah that makes sense! I like to look at Trial of a Time Lord as 4 stories, with one overarching story in the background, same with Flux being 6 episodes with one ongoing storyline. But yeah, that makes sense. Appreciate the reply. Great video all the same🙌
They are all since the Doctor is always the Doctor.
Less impactful, but you could also measure by how long a doctors lifespan was in universe. And that's a conundrum in itself because immediately I think Smith since he stayed on trenzalore for hundreds of not a thousand years, but you could also argue Capaldi since he was trapped in the confession dial for over 4 billion years but also note he was cloned regularly, so is it consistent enough to call it a lifespan?
Yes. Capaldi lived the longest as cloning with original memories is not dying.
How about 1 more round, most years of the doctors age
That's extremely hard to determine because of how it jumps around and effects like that in Heaven Sent (and I think there was a similar thing for 6 or 7).
Presumably it's either 1 or 11. Both grew so old that they died from just that, but 1 started as a child and 11 couldn't regenerate and so kept getting older.
@@awesomedavid2012The 11th Doctor spent 700 years on Trenzalore, while the first doctor wasn’t even that old when he regenerated.
Then again, while not aging physically, the 12th Doctor spent 4.5 billion years in the confession dial, so he could beat everyone
In universe, it’s a toss up between Matt smith (300 years on trenzalore) or Peter Capaldi (like ten billion years in the confession dials) but Capaldi might not count because technically he was only there for a a few days.
Eleven lived for 1200 years (300 years before trenzalore and 900 on it)
With his only competition being 8 who also lived for 1,000 years or so
you can't judge the Doctor's life length based on what we see on screen. Look at the Ninth Doctor's first episode. It's clear that when he enter's Rose's flat he's never seen his current reflection before, yet later Rose is shown three images of the Doctor at various points in Earth's past. There's very little likelihood of him visiting all three periods and yet never catching a glimpse of his own reflection at least in a window at some point. So when did he visit those times? For me the answer might be between him leaving Rose in the alley when she chooses to stay and look after Mickey and the Tardis reappearing a few seconds later. He left, tried being on his own but the loneliness he felt prompted him to return and ask her again. Something similar to this happens in the Eleventh Doctor's first episode and I don't believe him for a moment when he says he just popped to the Moon and back, he's been gone for a very long time trying to solve the mystery behind Amy Pond and has only returned because he can't solve it without her. Or so I think.
You could include how long the doctor had that face in universe as a category
But finding that out is probaly nearly impossible
I'm going to see if I can figure this out, my prediction however is that Tennant is the shortest lived incarnation and Capaldi is the longest.
Edit: I did it :) Put the results in a separate comment.
I can always appreciate when someone looks at things _from a certain point of view._ ;-)
But quick question, is there an error at 19:54? Tennent listed is below Davison but his screentime is higher.
Glad someone liked that gag. Yep, that's an error. My bad.
@@TBowenMedia How could I not like gag? I essentailly invented that gag. 😉
You’re really overthinking this.
When did they regenerate in? When did they regenerate out.
Paul McGann regenerated in 1996 and out in 2013.
@@InternetStorm, yep. 17 years.
Which means, in-universe, his incarnation lasted 170 years.
But that’s a different topic.
Their is another measure, one I believe is used in the book Who-ology is the numbers of stories. Though that runs in to the issue of how you count the Flux mini series.
Tom Baker the 4th as he's the longest on his Tele run and BF audio range collectively wise the last time I personally checked
19:54 you list David Tennant (1 day, 14 hours…) _under_ Peter Davison (1 day, 9 hours…) despite David having 5 more hours over his father-in-law. Or were the numbers backwards?
If you want to be that guy Paul Mccann. In the BBC 4X radio plays.
He was the Doctor in the era when Doctor Who almost didn't exist, and that's crazy.
The 11th doctor is my personal favorite with his adventure with Amy pond and Clara Oswald
I'm 22 and it was the first doctor I saw at his first appearance somehow
So even though I saw the 9th with bad wolf arc with rose , the 10th with donna the 12th with still Clara
When the doctor is mentioned I always see the 11th doctor with his Bow tie on his neck very extravagant British a bit crazy full of energy that he can even stand still for 2 seconds
His regeneration was heartbreaking when I saw Amy walking down the stairs
I couldn't accept this grumpy old skotish old man so k hold on to Clara until I learn to love this one too
Oftentimes a persons first exposer to something they like, ends up becoming what one pictures, thinks of, and likes. For example one will almost always like the music or type of music they grew up listing to.
I can’t wait for Jodie to come back as the 17th Doctor and she’s written right and for Matt to come back as the 18th Doctor
How did u know?
Don't forget the Curator for the 16th Doctor
Can't wait for the 18th Doctor to regenerate into Peter Capaldi and say "I know these eyebrows"
@@AnAnimatorsWorld"kidneys! I know these kidneys!"
A Doctor is a Doctor for life
Definitely- all the surviving Doctors are still The Doctor and always will be.
I guess that would be a morbid way to make a longest serving list though; how long did they live after being cast (!)
If you’re counting “twice upon a time” as David Bradley’s first appearance as the first doctor, and the cameo in “power of the doctor” as David Bradley’s final appearance as the doctor, then wouldn’t you also count the cameo in “the three doctors” as William hartnells final appearance?
That means there’s 6,977 days in between William Hartnell’s first appearance in the show, and his final appearance in the show, and only 1,763 days in between David Bradley’s first appearance as the doctor in the show and his last…
So actually David Bradley didn’t last longer in the role than William hartnell…
And that’s only if you don’t count the flashbacks or the edited “name of the doctor” Clara scene, or edited “war counsel of gallifrey scene created for “day of the doctor”….
Good point. I should’ve made it clear that I meant David Bradley had played the Doctor longer than William Hartnell did in Round 1
I love the effort put into this. Who doesn't love a good nerdy over-think!
I don't think there is an objectively true answer unless you get hyper specific, but first appearance to first appearance of successor is definitely my preferred metric. However, my partner and I had a discussion about this a few months ago and they have the (not unreasonable) opinion that Paul McGann was the Doctor for one night in 1996, and no longer.
Their reasoning was essentially based on public perception- Doctor Who just didn't exist any more because it wasn't on TV. (Except for repeats, which were mostly Pertwee-McCoy, the latter of which felt like the current Doctor to me when I was growing up because I didn't know any different).
I came up, therefore, with two slightly different alternatives.
1- First appearance to first appearance of PROPOSED successor. (So, for example, The Curse of Fatal Death Doctors or the Shalka Doctor mark the end of Paul McGann).
2- First appearance to last regular appearance before first appearance of successor (So belated regeneration's count as a regular appearance, but only if the next Doctor hasn't taken over).
That second alternative (if I remember correctly) ends with the longest to shortest being:
McCoy
Baker (T)
Whittaker
Tennant (as 10)
Pertwee
Capaldi
Smith
Davison
Hartnell
Baker (C)
Troughton
Eccleston
McGann
Which feels right to me. It's essentially an overly complicated way of explaining the instinctively correct answer! The current Doctor is the current Doctor for as long as the general public think of them as the current Doctor, and the rules for that will shift and change.
For example, lord knows how Tennant as 14 fits in, probably just a case of adding 1 and a bit years to take him one place higher, but if rumours about when and how Ncuti appears next week are true, the decision on whether he replaces David Tennant as the Doctor immediately, or only at Christmas, will not necessarily be simple.
Heavens help future quiz show writers!
Tom Baker he didn't have years between his run he played it for 7 years straight
3:05 Oh, brilliant use of groovy. Can we bring back groovy? Not enough stuff is groovy nowadays.
I think it should be measured by episodes in which the actor appears as the character as opposed to any measurement of time.
Or perhaps runtime, more precisely
What about in universe time? Admittedly that might may be more difficult to work out but would be very interesting
I don't know all the Doctors, but I know that if we're counting Heaven Sent alone, the 12th wins for in-universe time since that episode has 12 imprisoned over the course of multiple billion years. There is an argument that doesn't exactly count since 12 keeps dying and resetting. Next up would be the 8th who also got locked away for like thousands of years, followed by the 11th for all the time he spent on the planet of Trenzelore. But that was said to be only like 900 years or something like that. As I recall, when I figured this out based on broadcast appearances and Big Finish only, the 10th Doctor is close to last in in-universe years specifically because RTD always has his productions occur in real time, which means that the 10th Doctor only existed as long as David Tennant was the Doctor, meaning the poor guy was "born" in 2005 and "died" in 2009. No wonder he didn't want to go.
In-universe, the War Doctor racks up 800 years, while The 11th Doctor lasted 700 years.
@@parallax3d , no, no, no. Each of a million Doctors spent a week in the Dial.
The last one transmatted in, spent a week figuring out all the riddles (with no memory of the previous versions, hence his having to work it out every time) and emerging onto Galifray. He only KNEW he’d spent 4.5 million years in the Doal because of stellar drift.
The Doctor's age is widely inconsistent, especially if you take into account the expanded universe. In my mind, the Eleventh Doctor lived for the longest, protecting Trenzalore for 900 years (according to the 2014 'Tales of Trenzalore' book) while the 4.5 billion years of Heaven Sent were contained in a closed loop meaning they don't impact their actual age. Its a fun debate but is a bit too complex and open to too much interpretation.
@@TBowenMedia, my only modification to that is that the War Doctor lived for 800 years, slightly longer than he should have, owing to his slightly test tube nature.
In “Time of the Doctor”, he says he’s 800 years old. Given that the 7th Doctor was 953 at last mention, that 800 years doesn’t make sense. It makes sense in NuWho chronology (he and 11 are the only two Doctors to live out their entire lives, and last relatively the same length of time), but it doesn’t account for Classic Who.
Which means, the War Doctor ( not being the Doctor anymore) started counting over at zero.
HE lasted 800 years.
9 lasted 100.
10 lasted 6.
11 lasted 200+50+50+300+100=700.
12 lasted . . . 200, 300 ? Since he regenerated into an older body, 300 years (30 by human standards) might have been close to a full regeneration.