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I just watched Day of the Doctor! My God, what a brilliant episode. Tomorrow, I'm watching Time of the Doctor.

I was wondering if there's a breakdown of how many total hours of Doctor Who there are. Like if I start watching the 2005 Doctor Who, how many total hours will it take to watch every episode? What about the classic Doctor Who?

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  • 5
    N.B. not all of Classic Doctor Who is actually available to watch
    – OrangeDog
    Jul 10, 2019 at 9:49
  • @Orange: some of the unwatchables have audio only, or summaries though.
    – MikeC
    Jul 10, 2019 at 14:24
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    Are you including Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures, etc?
    – CSM
    Jul 10, 2019 at 18:49
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    Do you watch through every title and closing sequence? Do you only watch through these when it differs from the previous episode?
    – Shorlan
    Jul 10, 2019 at 21:41
  • 1
    30 seconds: overlay them and run at a few thousand frames per second. You may have some data interpretation problems, but the Tardis can handle that.
    – Carl Witthoft
    Jul 11, 2019 at 15:31

2 Answers 2

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I added up the episodes and times from the Wikipedia list of Doctor Who episodes. This excludes movies and the 2013 50th anniversary docudrama as well as web episodes, animated features, etc.

Classic Who

694 episodes and 1 special over 26 seasons with a total run time of 295 hours. As noted in the comments, some of the early episodes are no longer available in video form.

Seas  Year     Eps  Spec  Mins
   1  1963-4    42        1050
   2  1964-5    39         975
   3  1965-6    45        1125
   4  1966-7    43        1075
   5  1967-8    40        1000
   6  1968-9    44        1100
   7  1970      25         625
   8  1971      25         625
   9  1972      26         650
  10  1972-3    26         650
  11  1973-4    26         650
  12  1974-5    20         500
  13  1975-6    26         650
  14  1976-7    26         650
  15  1977-8    26         650
  16  1978-9    26         650
  17  1979-80   20         500
  18  1980-1    28         700
  19  1982      26         650
  20  1983      22     1   640
  21  1984      24         600
  22  1985      13         585
  23  1986      14         350
  24  1987      14         350
  25  1988-9    14         350
  26  1989      14         350

1996 Made-for-TV movie

1 special with a run time of 89 minutes

Seas  Year     Eps  Spec  Mins
      1996             1    89

New Who (through July 2019)

139 episodes and 16 specials over 11 seasons with a run time of 125.75 hours. The Wikipedia article includes most specials with the previous or following season. The exception is the 5 specials that were run between seasons 4 and 5 and the 2013 specials. I have followed the same pattern.

Seas  Year     Eps  Spec  Mins
   1  2005      13         579
   2  2005-6    13     1   645
   3  2006-7    13     1   652
   4  2007-8    13     1   690
      2008-10          5   315
   5  2010      13         625
   6  2010-11   13     1   660
   7  2011-13   14     1   710
      2013             2   137
   8  2014      12         586
   9  2014-15   12     2   697
  10  2016-17   12     2   681
  11  2018-19   11         568

If you had access to all those episodes and wanted to watch them all, you would need 295 + 1.5 + 125.75 = 422.25 hours or nearly 18 days (if you could watch them non-stop).

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    Note, however, that some of the early episodes no longer exist and so can’t be watched.
    – Mike Scott
    Jul 10, 2019 at 6:14
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    (To save doing the maths: 294+125+419 = 838 hours, or just under 35 days if you wanted to watch non-stop)
    – BruceWayne
    Jul 10, 2019 at 17:58
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    Should we also include the Peter Cushing films? I mean, they're not very good, but if you're going to be a completist...
    – Darrel Hoffman
    Jul 10, 2019 at 20:30
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    @DarrelHoffman I had to draw the line somewhere. I realise it's arbitrary, but I decided to only include complete episodes that were broadcast on TV as Doctor Who.
    – Blackwood
    Jul 10, 2019 at 20:32
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    @Blackwood I think your answer would be improved by including BruceWayne's calculation in bold at the bottom.
    – Nacht
    Jul 11, 2019 at 6:41
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According to Binge Clock, 2005 Doctor Who is 5 days, 18 hours, and 45 minutes long (138:45).

Not sure if this is the series in total or just the stuff before 2005, but 1963 Doctor Who is 12 days, one hour, and 10 minutes (288:10).

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    The length for 1963 Dr. Who is approximately equal to the 695 episodes lasting 294 hours for "classic" Doctor Who (1963-89) given in Blackwood's answer. 12 days, 1 hour and 10 minutes total exactly 17,350 minutes, while Blackwood's 294 hours, if exact, would be exactly 17,640 minutes. A difference of 290 minutes divided by 695 episodes makes a difference of 0.417 minutes in the length of the average episode, which seems within the limits of reasonable uncertainty. So both sources for "Classic" Dr. seem to be fairly correct about the total length.
    – M. A. Golding
    Jul 10, 2019 at 15:44
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    @M.A.Golding Note also orangedog's comment about season 22 being 45 minute episodes instead of the usual 23-ish for that era... it's possible stormblessed's source overlooked that, and it would about cover the difference...
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Jul 10, 2019 at 22:31

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