Timeless Legacy: Charting the Time Lords of the Past ahead of Ncuti Gatwa’s Debut as Doctor Who
As Doctor Who reaches its landmark 60th birthday with a brand new face in the lead role, Casinos.win takes a look back at the earlier incarnations of the Doctor to see how the latest actor to play the role, Sex Education star Ncuti Gatwa, measures up to the previous actors who have played the part.
One of the most startling findings shows that Ncuti, or any future contemporary Doctor, will have to remain in the role of Doctor Who for 21 seasons in the current format to beat Tom Baker’s on-screen appearance record of 172 episodes.
While his casting has been hailed as diverse, Ncuti isn’t the first black actor to play the Doctor. That honour goes to Jo Martin as the Fugitive Doctor who first appeared in the show in 2020 when she was 40 years of age.
Our analysis shows that this is in keeping with the most popular age for an actor to take on the role. Tom Baker, the fourth Doctor, Colin Baker who played the sixth incarnation and Christopher Eccleston, the ninth, were also at this age when they first began playing the Time Lord. As Ncuti is technically the sixteenth actor in the role this means a quarter of all actors to take on the legendary role have been 40 at the time.
| Series Lead | DOCTOR | Tenure | Age when Joined Dr Who | Episodes | Film Roles | TV Roles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| William Hartnell | First | 1963–1966 | 55 | 134 | 71 | 17 |
| Patrick Troughton | Second | 1966–1969 | 46 | 119 | 26 | 193 |
| Jon Pertwee | Third | 1970–1974 | 50 | 128 | 40 | 30 |
| Tom Baker | Fourth | 1974–1981 | 40 | 172 | 22 | 60 |
| Peter Davison | Fifth | 1982–1984 | 29 | 69 | 16 | 70 |
| Colin Baker | Sixth | 1984–1986 | 40 | 31 | 22 | 59 |
| Sylvester McCoy | Seventh | 1987–1989 | 44 | 42 | 30 | 49 |
| Paul McGann | Eighth | 1996 | 36 | 3 | 37 | 47 |
| Christopher Eccleston | Ninth | 2005 | 40 | 13 | 27 | 48 |
| David Tennant | Tenth | 2005–2010 | 34 | 47 | 28 | 95 |
| Matt Smith | Eleventh | 2010–2013 | 27 | 44 | 14 | 16 |
| Peter Capaldi | Twelfth | 2014–2017 | 55 | 40 | 44 | 94 |
| Jodie Whittaker | Thirteenth | 2018–2022 | 35 | 31 | 32 | 24 |
| David Tennant | Fourteenth | forthcoming | As Above | 3 | As Above | As Above |
| Ncuti Gatwa | Fifteenth | forthcoming | 31 | TBD | 3 | 5 |
Although just 31 years of age Ncuti is not the youngest actor to tackle the role. That honour lies with Matt Smith, who was 27 when he took on the mantle of the eleventh incarnation of the sci-fi icon. He appeared in three series and five specials of the show.
Meanwhile, the next youngest actor to take on the part, Peter Davison, was 29 when he landed the role. He appeared in the show from 1981 until 1984 making his tenure three seasons. Not counting specials and one-off appearances, we discovered that three seasons is the most popular length of time for actors to play the Doctor.
Alongside Peter, the original Doctor, William Hartnell, and Patrick Troughton, who played the second Doctor from 1966-1969, all stayed for three seasons. David Tennant, who played the tenth Doctor and is soon to be seen as the fourteenth also stayed true to this pattern although he also appeared in several specials.
The most recent Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, who was 35 when she took on the part of the thirteenth Doctor, making her the fifth youngest incarnation, also stayed for three seasons. Ditto Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, who was 43 when he began playing the seventh Doctor. Peter Capaldi also did three full seasons as the twelfth Doctor alongside his specials.
Ncuti, who is the third youngest actor to take on the role, has completed filming on his first season and has signed a contract for another series. However, with over half of his predecessors adhering to three seasons, it seems likely that he will sign for at least one more season and possibly a few one-off specials going by recent trends.
Viewers will still have to wait a while to see him in the role though, as when the first of three 60th anniversary specials lands on November 25, it won’t be Ncuti in the role but rather David Tennant, who is somewhat reprising the role albeit in a different incarnation.
Aged 33 when he first took on the role of the tenth Doctor, he has been nudged into fourth place for the youngest actor to play the role by Ncuti’s casting. However, having returned to play the fourteenth Doctor in the anniversary specials at 51 he is now the same age as Jon Pertwee was when he took on the role of the third Doctor in 1970. Jon played the role for five seasons between 1970 and 1974, which gives him the second-longest onscreen run in the role. He is not the oldest actor to play the role though.
William Hartnell held the title of the oldest actor to play the Doctor, beginning at age 55 in 1963, until the 2013 golden anniversary special. Although Peter Capaldi, also 55, took on the role in 2013 and made a brief appearance in the anniversary special, he was a few months younger than Hartnell at the time, so didn’t steal William’s thunder.
That honour goes to veteran actor John Hurt, who was introduced in the 50th anniversary special as The War Doctor. Since his Doctor, who sits between eight and nine, is canon, technically he becomes the oldest-ever actor to play the role at the age of 77.
John has another record as his tenure remains the shortest. Although, like the eighth Doctor Paul McGann, he appeared in one feature-length special and one mini-episode on screen, Paul’s tenure is longer on a technicality. Aged 36 when he was cast as the Doctor in the movie special in 1996, he reprised the role in 2013 in a mini-episode that showed how he regenerated into the War Doctor.
Casinos.win analysis shows that this inadvertently made Paul the longest-serving Doctor with 17 years under his belt, having not played the role since the 1996 movie. He took the title from Sylvester McCoy who had been the previous longest serving Doctor.
The show was cancelled in 1989 when Sylvester was in the role, but he appeared in the 1996 TV movie to show the regeneration into Paul’s eighth Doctor. This means that technically he was the Doctor for eight and a half years even though the show was off-air.
Even if you take the 2005 reboot as the end of McGann’s tenure, though he wasn’t seen on screen, then he still beats McCoy’s record by one month. The rebooted show featured Christoper Eccleston in the lead role as the ninth Doctor.
He only stayed for one season, which is the shortest tenure for any actor who appeared in a full series. Fourth Doctor Tom Baker featured in the most seasons of any Doctor Who actor having appeared in seven series, making him the longest-serving on-screen Doctor Who.
If Ncuti were to remain in the role for seven seasons, and assuming there is a season each year, he would be around 38 years old when he leaves the show. This would still make him younger leaving the role than Tom Baker was when he began it. But despite matching his season count our analysis shows that he would have appeared in fewer episodes than Tom.
During Tom’s time playing the Doctor one story would stretch over several episodes played out over a week, unlike the current format of one story per week. This means that in total Tom has 172 episodes of the show under his belt.
If the show continues with eight episodes per season, as is already filmed for Ncuti’s first series, this would give him 56 episodes at the end of his run, not allowing for specials and guest appearances.
As that is less than a third of Tom’s record it seems unlikely that Ncuti, or any future contemporary Doctor, will beat this record as they would need to stay over 21 seasons in the current format to do so.