Doctor (Doctor Who) - Changing Faces

Changing Faces

See also: Regeneration (Doctor Who) See also: List of actors who have played the Doctor

The changing of actors playing the part of the Doctor is explained within the series by the Time Lords' ability to regenerate after suffering illness, mortal injury or old age. The process repairs all damage and rejuvenates his body, but as a side effect it changes his physical appearance and personality. This ability was not introduced until producers had to find a way to replace the ailing William Hartnell with Patrick Troughton and was not explicitly called "regeneration" until Jon Pertwee's transformation to Tom Baker at the climax of Planet of the Spiders (1974). On screen, the transformation from Hartnell to Troughton was called a "renewal" and from Troughton to Pertwee a "change of appearance".

The original concept of regeneration or renewal was that the Doctor's body would rebuild itself in a younger, healthier form. The Second Doctor was intended to be a literally younger version of the First; biological time would turn back, and several hundred years would get taken off the Doctor's age, rejuvenating him. In practice, however, after the Doctor stated his age in the Second Doctor serial The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967), the Doctor's age has been recorded progressively, however many regenerations the Doctor goes through (but see below). In six out of ten transitions, the new actor was younger than his predecessor had been when he began the role. In the revived series the pattern is resumed with the transition of the Ninth to the Tenth and the Tenth to the Eleventh Doctor, although current showrunner Steven Moffat is on record stating the intention was to cast an actor in his mid 30s to 40s for the role of the Eleventh Doctor, despite casting Matt Smith who is the youngest actor to ever have played the role.

The actors who have played the Doctor in the series, and the dates of their first and last regular television appearances in the role, are:

Order	Actor	Start		End
		Date	Age	Date	Age
First Doctor	William Hartnell	23 November 1963	55	29 October 1966	58
Second Doctor	Patrick Troughton	29 October 1966	46	21 June 1969	49
Third Doctor	Jon Pertwee	3 January 1970	50	8 June 1974	54
Fourth Doctor	Tom Baker	8 June 1974	40	21 March 1981	47
Fifth Doctor	Peter Davison	21 March 1981	29	16 March 1984	32
Sixth Doctor	Colin Baker	16 March 1984	40	6 December 1986	43
Seventh Doctor	Sylvester McCoy	7 September 1987	44	27 May 1996	53
Eighth Doctor	Paul McGann	27 May 1996	36	27 May 1996	36
Ninth Doctor	Christopher Eccleston	26 March 2005	41	18 June 2005	41
Tenth Doctor	David Tennant	18 June 2005	34	1 January 2010	38
Eleventh Doctor	Matt Smith	1 January 2010	27	current