I like to post in threads without reading them.

Notice how people don't age until later in their lives? They grow up, sure, but they don't start to get wrinkles until their late thirties. That's when their cell's regeneration cycles start to run out and they are no longer able to maintain their bodies near-perfectly the way healthy kids, teenagers and twenty-somethings are. Mitosis in multicellular organisms is a lossy format of cellular reproduction, so there are telomeres on the ends of the chromosomes which shorten each time. When the run out, it eats into the genetic code, the cell lineage falters and comes to an end, and the organism they belong to begins to show visible signs of ageing. One of the few ways to renew telomeres and thus the regeneration cycle is to recombine the DNA, which is how children are born (and why clones come with a health risk), and apparently also how Time Lords regenerate.

My suggestion is that Eleven was never going to visible age until those last few centuries in that body (fighting those incursions probably didn't help either, War certainly showed his age after spending his whole regeneration in combat). Ten also aged the same way when the Master forced those centuries on him.

It makes sense to me, though I only award those marks to the writers if they thought of that themselves. They shouldn't be depending in me to make their work make sense!

What about in School Reunion where the Doctor says "I don't age, I regenerate"?

Sorry, forget it. Let's just pretend that line didn't exist and go with BM's explanation.
I know that arguing with you is a silly thing to do, but, I thought it was meiosis?

The Doctor lies, the Doctor jokes. Look at how old the first Doctor was. You don't think he was born that way, do you?

Meiosis is what produces four genetically unique daughter gametes rather than two genetically identical clone cells. Apparently telomeres are restored during embryogenesis, so clones should be fine.

I've always wondered if the first Doctor was his longest incarnation? If he went from a baby to the old man?

The First Doctor was about 450 years old when he regenerated due to old age. The Eleventh had been around for 600 years, so he did pretty well considering.

The Eighth Doctor was 1600 years old. He died of old age as the War Doctor, then became the Ninth Doctor and was 900 years old again. It's safe to say that the multiple times the Doctor says the age he gives is meaningless is the only meaningful thing he has to say about his age.

Didn't Smith say the War Doctor was a regeneration in the Christmas episode though?

Also, this. Looks like he lost a few hundred years during the Time War, but other than that it's reasonably consistent, give or take a few hundred.

But yeah, Eleven had 300 years in Season 6 and 300 + ? in the Christmas special.

I wasn't saying Eight and the War Doctor were the same, but I certainly wrote that sentence poorly enough to make it seem like I was.

That's what I said before. But why would he lie or joke about his age? It's not like there's any point to it.

He's forgotten. He's encountered countless worlds and civilisations with different years and dating systems, his brains are probably slightly addled from being changed so often, his own history has been re-written more than once, plus he's a time-traveller so no calendar can help him. The chances are that he simply has no idea how old he really is, so he picked a number that felt right.

This isn't me being a dick, but I wanted to point out that this is one of the reasons that I don't like the show. It makes up the rules as it goes along, and the fan base is......kind (nerdy) enough to make up justifications for the rules that are about 100 times more clever than the ones that the writers themselves made up.

When you have been going for 50 years, there's bound to be a few plot holes here and there. What's wrong with the show trying to fill them in? And what's wrong with the fanbase trying to if the show itself hasn't yet?

Because it's clear that they don't care that there are plot holes. Based on reading this thread, they obviously retcon anything and everything whenever they feel like it so that they can half way make each week's wacky caper sort of make sense.

You can't make that judgement after watching only a couple of episodes.

For starters, yes I can. But I didn't. I made that judgement based on watching a couple of episodes, and reading what you guys write about the show. It's pretty obvious.

Well, you're wrong.

Fanboy says criticism is wrong because reasons.

The show has had countless writers and directors. Not really surprised that they make it up as they go along and vaguely connect it to the past. I'm pretty sure that's how Star Trek was as well.

Plus I like the fact the community make the lore up as well.The fans know more about the show than the writers.

I'm not really a fanboy, but I already explained why you were wrong in a previous post, which I'm not going to find because you should have read it?

No, you didn't.

A show about time travel will always have plot holes unless you plan the entirety of the show in advance. Then you can stick in references to future events and time-line crossovers more than one story arc ahead. It is especially problematic when it has had as many writers and stories as it has had.

There also the fact that the target audience of the show are kids who don't notice, parents who don't mind, and nerds who can fix it.

Plot holes aren't the issue. Willfully making up the rules of the universe as we go along is. Knowing that the fan base is comprised of A. People too stupid to notice, B. Fanboys too in love to care, and C. Nerds willing to make up justifications, is not an excuse for sloppy writing.

Except the majority of the writers have not been sloppy. I'm not saying they all weren't, and Moffat towards the end got pretty bad, but you're saying they don't care, which is clearly not the case, which you'd know if you'd have followed the show.

Actually a lot of the rules already exist, but they've only come up once, decades ago.

You guys need to go back and read your own posts in this thread. The reason I stated is obviously valid, based on your own observations. You don't have to stop loving it because of these things. It's possible to love a thing not only in spite of its flaws, but sometimes because of them. But lets not pretend that the problem isn't really there. That's fanboy shit.

What I find really weird is how throughout this thread there’s been a ton of “I didn’t like this episode/thought this plot was dumb/didn’t enjoy the writing/thought the ending was unsatisfying” posts.

From a bunch of people who continue to watch the show anyway.

???

Ever visited a Star Wars forum?

It's almost like they got hooked on the series and continue watching out of habit, or stay for the good bits, or keep watching because they're curious to see what happens next no matter how shitty what happens next may be. Whoa crazy stuff

I get people loving a bad, campy show. I'm fucking obsessed with Dark Shadows. That doesn't mean that I don't understand why other people wouldn't like it. Especially people who didn't grow up watching it.

No because I don’t expose myself to things I know I won’t enjoy oh snap


Well yeah, but doesn’t that just mean “we used to enjoy it but not really any more, we just watch out of habit”? Not really a great attitude, which is my point.