Fact vs fiction: Aging in sci-fi and fantasy
By WiC Staff
Picture Shows: Yasmin Khan (MANDIP GILL), Graham O’Brien (BRADLEY WALSH), The Doctor (JODIE WHITTAKER), Ryan Sinclair (TOSIN COLE)
The Doctor — (Doctor Who) — 2,000+ years old
When Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant were playing the Doctor, he referred to himself as being 903 years old several times. Things start to become more complicated when the eleventh and twelfth Doctors (Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi respectively) take over. Events in several of their episodes would suggest that the Doctor surpasses the 1,000 year mark.
But in one episode titled “Heaven Sent,”, Capaldi’s doctor is imprisoned for much of the Universe’s existence, which would technically mean he was around 4.6 billion years old.
In later episodes, the Doctor speaks on the subject of his age and gives the much lower figure of “over two thousand.” This happens in the twelfth Doctor’s final appearance in “Twice Upon a Time” during a conversation with his younger self, the first Doctor. It would appear that the writers wanted to disregard the much higher age of 4.6 billion years old.
But even if the Doctor is aged around the two-millennium mark, this is still an extraordinary feat. The Doctor is able to reach this age because of their ability to regenerate, originally a tool employed by the producers to keep the show alive after the first Doctor, William Hartnell left the show due to health problems. He would later reprise the character in “The Three Doctors,” which aired in 1972, three years before his death.
The way regeneration is portrayed in the show is vastly unlike anything we have ever encountered medically or biologically. However, this isn’t to say our bodies aren’t capable of “regeneration” to some degree. Our livers are a prime example – the main function of the liver is to filter blood from the digestive tract before it passes into the rest of our bodies. The liver is also an organ of detoxification, filtering harmful chemicals out of the blood by expelling them in urine.
It provides such an important function that evolution has granted us the ability to regenerate our liver should it become damaged or wounded. Even if as little as 25% of a person’s total liver remains, complete regeneration can still be possible — this means the cells grow and multiply until it has grown back to its original size.