is the central
Fictional Character in the long-running
BBC Television Science-fiction series ''
Doctor Who '', and also featured in a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series.
This article is specifically about the character of the Doctor. For a more general overview of the series, please see the main ''
Doctor Who '' article. For more about the production history of the show, please see
History Of Doctor Who .
To date, ten actors have played the role in the television series, with these changes being explained by his ability to
Regenerate . Several other actors, and several others have played the character on stage and film, in audio dramas, and in occasional special episodes of the series.
David Tennant currently portrays the
Tenth Incarnation of the Doctor.
The Doctor is a
Time Lord , an
Extraterrestrial from the planet
Gallifrey , who travels in a
Time Machine called the
TARDIS — ime '''A'''nd '''R'''elative '''D'''imension (or '''D'''imensions) '''I'''n '''S'''pace — that allows him to reach any point in
Time and
Space and is dimensionally transcendental (larger on the inside than on the outside). The TARDIS originally had the ability to disguise itself according to its environment, but became "stuck" in the form of a
Police Box after landing in London in 1963 and has remained in that shape ever since due to a malfunctioning
Chameleon Circuit . The Doctor has since given up attempting to repair or replace the circuit as he has grown fond of the police box shape.
For the most part, and usually because the vessel's navigation system is old and unreliable, the Doctor explores the universe at random and uses his extensive knowledge of science and advanced technology to heroically avert the crises that he encounters. The Doctor has, at various times, been accompanied by who have chosen to travel with him for a variety of reasons.
Although he physically resembles a human, as a Time Lord his physiology is different. Like other members of his race, he has two
Heart s, a respiratory bypass system that allows him to go without breathing for periods of time, and on occasion exhibits greater strength and stamina than
Human s. He has also exhibited a resistance to temporal distortions and a sensitivity to changes in time as well as limited telepathic abilities, though this is rarely addressed. He also claimed that a pill (intended to be
Aspirin ) could kill him (''
The Mind Of Evil '').
''.]]
In ''
The War Games '', the
Second Doctor stated that Time Lords could live forever, "barring accidents." When accidents do occur, they can
Regenerate into new bodies, giving them extremely long life-spans. The 1996
''Doctor Who'' Television Movie stated that the Doctor was half-human, a revelation that continues to cause controversy among fans (see
Below ).
The Doctor is considered a renegade by the Time Lords for his penchant of getting "involved" with the universe, in direct violation of official Time Lord policy. However, most of the time his actions are tolerated, especially when he has saved not just Gallifrey, but the universe, several times over. The Time Lords were also partial to sending him on missions when deniability or expendibility was needed. The Doctor's standing in Time Lord society has waxed and waned over the years, from being a hunted man to even being appointed Lord President of the High Council (an office he did not assume for very long and eventually was removed from in his absence). However, some Time Lords respect him to some degree for his heroic deeds. This included even
The Master , who, when told in the episode ''
The Five Doctors '' of a crisis threatening the Doctor's existence in the timestream, noted with concern, "A cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about." In the end, though, the Doctor has always seemed quite content to remain a renegade and an exile. Ultimately, the Doctor found himself, by the time of his
Ninth Incarnation , the last known surviving Time Lord.
The character was first portrayed by
William Hartnell in 1963, who played him as an irascible, grandfatherly figure. When Hartnell left the series, the role was taken over by
Patrick Troughton in 1966. To date, ten actors have played the Doctor on television (not including
Richard Hurndall , who played the
First Doctor in ''
The Five Doctors '' due to Hartnell's death), with perhaps the most enduring incarnation being the fourth, played by
Tom Baker .
David Tennant currently plays the
Tenth Doctor beginning his tenure at the end of ''
The Parting Of The Ways '', which was first aired on
18 June 2005.
When the series began, nothing was known of the Doctor at all, not even his name. In the very first serial, ''
An Unearthly Child '', two teachers from the
Coal Hill School in
London ,
Barbara Wright and
Ian Chesterton , became intrigued by one of their students,
Susan Foreman , who exhibited high intelligence and unusually advanced knowledge. Trailing her to a junkyard at 76 Totter's Lane, they encountered a strange old man and heard her voice coming from inside what appeared to be a
Police Box . Pushing their way inside, the two found that the exterior was actually camouflage for the dimensionally transcendental interior of the TARDIS. The old man, whom Susan called "Grandfather" but simply termed himself "the Doctor", subsequently whisked them away on an adventure in time and space.
As a time traveller, the Doctor has been present at or directly involved in countless major historical events on the planet
Earth and on other worlds — sometimes more than once. In the
2005 Series premiere, ''
Rose '', it is revealed that the
Ninth Doctor was instrumental in preventing a family from boarding the ''
Titanic '' prior to her fateful voyage. In ''
The End Of World '' the Doctor claimed to have been on board and survived the ''Titanic'''s sinking to find himself "clinging to an iceberg."
Many historical figures on Earth have also encountered the Doctor. In ''
City Of Death '' it was revealed that the Doctor had met
Leonardo Da Vinci and
William Shakespeare and that the first folio of the latter's ''
Hamlet '' was transcribed by the Doctor himself. In ''
Timelash '', he met a young
H. G. Wells ,
Albert Einstein in ''
Time And The Rani '', and
Marco Polo was the subject of an
Adventure Of The Same Name during the first season. Most recently, the Doctor shared an adventure with
Charles Dickens (''
The Unquiet Dead ''). In the
2006 Series , the Doctor met
Queen Victoria in the episode ''
Tooth And Claw '' and will meet
Madame De Pompadour in ''
The Girl In The Fireplace ''.
The Doctor is an adventurer and a scientist with a strong moral sense. He usually solves problems with his wits rather than with force, and is more likely to wield a
Sonic Screwdriver than a gun.
'').]]
In the first episode, Barbara addressed the Doctor as "Doctor Foreman", as the junkyard in which they find him bore the sign "I.M. Foreman". When addressed by Ian with this name in the next episode, the Time Lord responded, "Eh? Doctor who? What's he talking about?" Later, when he realized that "Foreman" was not the Doctor's name, Ian asked Barbara, "Who is he? Doctor who?"
Although listed in the on-screen credits for nearly twenty years as "Doctor Who" or "Dr. Who", the Doctor is never really called by that name in the series, except in that same tongue-in-cheek manner (for example, in ''The Five Doctors'' when one character referred to him as "the Doctor", another character asked, "Who?"). The only real exception was the computer
WOTAN in the serial, ''
The War Machines '', which commanded that "Doctor Who is required." This was later revealed as a scripting error, although it still stands in the continuity of the series. Some fans believe that the computer in question was simply misinformed — it also claimed the Doctor was human. "Doctor Who" was also used in the title of the serial ''
Doctor Who And The Silurians '', but this was a captioning mistake and not an in-story mention. The only other time this occurred was the title of Episode 5 of ''
The Chase '': "The Death of Doctor Who".
In ''
The Gunfighters '', the First Doctor used the alias
Dr. Caligari . In ''
The Highlanders '' the Second Doctor assumed the name of "Doctor von Wer" (a
German approximation of "Doctor Who"), and signed himself as "Dr. W" in ''
The Underwater Menace ''. In ''
The Wheel In Space '', his companion
Jamie , reading the name off some medical equipment, told the crew of the Wheel that the Doctor's name was "
John Smith ". The Doctor subsequently adopted this alias several times over the course of the series, often prefixing the title "doctor" to it. The
Third Doctor 's automobile, dubbed "Bessie", carried the licence plate WHO 1, the only ongoing reference to the "Doctor Who" enigma in the original series. (The Third Doctor also later drove an outlandish vehicle called the "Whomobile". However, this name was only applied to it in publicity and it was never referred to as such in the series, being simply known as "the Doctor's car".)
In ''
The Armageddon Factor '', the Time Lord Drax addressed the
Fourth Doctor as "Thete", short for "Theta Sigma", apparently an Academy nickname (or perhaps an achieved grade). In the 1988 serial ''
Remembrance Of The Daleks '', the
Seventh Doctor was asked to sign a document, which he did using a question mark. Later in the same serial he also produced a calling card with a series of pseudo-
Greek letters inscribed on it (as well as a stylised question mark). The
Eighth Doctor briefly used the alias "Dr. Bowman" in the 1996
''Doctor Who'' Television Movie . He has also been mocked by his fellow Time Lords for adhering to such a "lowly" title as "Doctor".
In the early years of the
Spin-off comic strips, books, films and other media, the character was initially called "Doctor Who" (or just "Dr. Who") in the stories as a matter of course. This usage declined as the years went by. From the first television serial through to ''
Logopolis '' (the last story of the
Season 18 and also of the Tom Baker era), the lead character was listed as "Doctor Who" (or sometimes "Dr. Who"). Starting from
Peter Davison 's first story, ''
Castrovalva '' (the first story of the series'
Season 19 ) to the end of the
Season 26 , he was credited simply as "The Doctor".
This format was continued in the
1996 ''Doctor Who'' Television Movie for Paul McGann's credit, while Sylvester McCoy's incarnation is credited as "The Old Doctor". For the 2005 revival starring
Christopher Eccleston , the credit reverted to "Doctor Who". However, in ''
The Christmas Invasion '', and subsequent stories featuring
David Tennant , the character was once again referred to in the closing credits as "The Doctor". According to ''Doctor Who Magazine'' #367 this reversion was specifically requested by Tennant.
Some fans have speculated, taking off from the fact that the full name of the Time Lady
Romana is Romanadvoratrelundar, that the first syllable of the Doctor's true name is "Who". It should be noted that, although it is often asserted that "Doctor Who" is ''not'' the character's name, there is nothing in the series itself that actually confirms this. In the first episode of ''
The Mysterious Planet '', the Doctor was about to give a name after the title "Doctor..." but was interrupted.
In the 2005 series premiere, ''Rose'', when asked his name, the Doctor replies, "Just 'the Doctor'." New companion , Rose's boyfriend (having taken over the site following the death of its originator). In ''
The Empty Child '', for want of a better name, Rose introduces the Doctor to
Jack Harkness as "
Mr. Spock ". (According to the DVD commentary for this episode, the Doctor was originally to have responded "I'd rather have Doctor Who than Star Trek" which would have been the first direct use of the Doctor Who name by the Doctor himself.)
In
The Christmas Invasion when the doctor collapses,
Mickey Smith asks Rose "Who is he? Where's the Doctor?". She replies "That's him, right in front of you. That's the Doctor".
Jackie Tyler then looks up at rose confused and asks "What do you mean he's the Doctor? Doctor Who?".
To his greatest enemies, the
Dalek s, the Doctor is known as the , the "Bringer of Darkness" or "Destroyer of Worlds". This was first mentioned in the novelisation of ''
Remembrance Of The Daleks '' by
Ben Aaronovitch and subsequently taken up in the spin-off media, particularly the
Virgin New Adventures books and the ''
Doctor Who Magazine '' comic strip. In ''
The Parting Of The Ways '', the Doctor claims that the Daleks call him "The Oncoming Storm" — this name was used by the
Draconians to refer to the Doctor in the Virgin New Adventures novel ''Love and War'' by
Paul Cornell . In ''
New Earth '', it is implied that the Doctor is part of the prophecy of the
Face Of Boe and referred to as "The Lonely God".
In ''
Tooth And Claw '', he was knighted by
Queen Victoria as "Sir Doctor of TARDIS".
Quite apart from his name, why the Doctor uses the title of "The Doctor" has never been explained on screen. The
Telos Novella ''Frayed'' by
Tara Samms (which takes place prior to "An Unearthly Child") has the
First Doctor being given that title by the staff of a besieged human medical facility on the planet Iwa, suggesting at the end that the Doctor liked the official title so much that he adopted it. However, this does not quite explain why the Time Lords use the same title in addressing him. The same story also has Jill, a young girl living in the facility, naming the Doctor's granddaughter "Susan" after Jill's mother. The
Canonicity of all non-television sources is unclear.
As the Doctor had a granddaughter, it was implicit from the beginning that he probably had, at some point, romantic or at least sexual relations with someone. However, Hartnell's age precluded any involvement of the character with the only other female lead. The First Doctor did flirt with and was accidentally engaged to the character Cameca in ''
The Aztecs ''; although this was part of a ploy to get the TARDIS back, there was a hint of mutual attraction in Hartnell's performance. The fact that the TARDIS crew kept pressing forward in their travels was probably also a factor in preventing any romantic attachments.
As the series progressed and grew more popular among children, the Doctor was firmly established as an avuncular figure to his younger companions. Despite the press (and, occasionally, the production team) trying to play up the sexiness of some of the female companions or suggesting "hanky panky" in the TARDIS, the series reached the point where any suggestion of the Doctor as a sexual being was avoided altogether. This was true even if there was on-screen chemistry between the actors (as there was between the Fourth Doctor and
Romana II ), or when the Doctor's apparent age was closer to those of his companions.
The perception of the Doctor as an essentially sexless character, uninterested in romance, is why some portions of fandom reacted so strongly to the Eighth Doctor kissing Dr.
Grace Holloway in the 1996 television movie, breaking the series' long-standing taboo against the Doctor having any romantic involvement with his companions (also see
Here ).
However, the spin-off media both before and after that have toyed with the idea in various ways. In the 1995
Virgin New Adventures novel ''
Human Nature '' by
Paul Cornell , the Seventh Doctor takes on the human guise of "Dr John Smith" and has a romance with a history teacher in 1914, albeit as a means to understand the human condition and with the Doctor's own memories as a Time Lord suppressed. In various novels it is also established that
Time Lord s do not reproduce sexually, although in equivocal fashion later books also hint that the Doctor's birth was an exception.
In the
Big Finish Productions audio play ''
Loups-Garoux '' the
Fifth Doctor reluctantly agrees to marry the
Werewolf Ileana De Santos and although he gets out of it later there is, like in Cameca's case, a degree of mutual attraction present. In the plays involving the Eighth Doctor, his companion
Charley confesses her romantic feelings for him (in ''
Zagreus ''), but although he admits he loves her, the relationship does not appear to progress beyond the platonic.
The 2005 series also played with the idea of a romantic relationship between the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler, with many people assuming they were a couple (although they both denied it). In the episode ''
The Doctor Dances '', which used dancing as a metaphor for sex, Rose said Jack Harkness was like the Doctor, "only with dating and dancing." The Doctor responded testily, "I'm 900 years old. I think you can assume that at some point I've... danced." He also showed some jealousy about Rose's attraction towards Jack. In the series finalé, ''
The Parting Of The Ways '', the Doctor even kissed Rose (although the kiss also served a plot purpose). Earlier in the same episode, the
Bisexual Jack kissed both the Doctor and Rose full on the mouths before he left to fight the Daleks.
In the
Ninth Doctor Adventures novel ''Only Human'' by Gareth Roberts, Rose asks the Doctor how he would know that marrying for love is overrated, to which he cryptically answers, "Who says I don't? You ask the
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ." In a December 2005 interview on
BBC 4 , actor
David Tennant described the relationship between the Doctor and Rose as "basically a love story without the shagging", and indicated that the romantic elements would continue in the 2006 series; he also suggested that the Doctor's sexuality would be "gently explored". The Doctor and Rose kiss in ''New Earth'', but Rose is possessed by
Cassandra . In ''
School Reunion '', the arrival of the Doctor's previous companion,
Sarah Jane Smith , and his reaction to seeing her again prompts jealousy and worry from Rose. The Doctor also hints at deeper feelings for his companions when he remarks that humans wither and die, and it is hard to watch that "happen to someone you..." but leaves the rest unsaid.
Clips shown as part of ''
Doctor Who Confidential '' indicate that the Doctor and
Madame De Pompadour kiss in ''
The Girl In The Fireplace ''.
The changing of actors playing the part of the Doctor is explained within the series by the
Time Lord s' ability to
Regenerate after suffering mortal injury, illness, or old age. The process repairs and rejuvenates all damage, but as a side-effect it changes the
Time Lord's physical appearance and personality semi-randomly. 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 ''. 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 '', the Doctor's age has been recorded progressively, however many regenerations the Doctor goes through (but see
Below ). Coincidentally or otherwise, in most cases, the trend has been toward increasingly younger actors for the role.
The actors who played the Doctor in the series, and the dates of their first and last regular television appearances in the role, are:
#''',
1963 –
October 29 ,
1966 )
#''',
1966 –
June 21 ,
1969 )
#''',
1970 –
June 8 ,
1974 )
#''',
1974 –
March 21 ,
1981 )
#''',
1981 –
March 16 ,
1984 )
#''',
1984 –
December 6 ,
1986 )
#''',
1987 –
December 6 ,
1989 in the series, and
May 27 ,
1996 , in the
''Doctor Who'' Television Movie )
#''',
1996 , in the
''Doctor Who'' Television Movie ).
#''',
2005 –
June 18 ,
2005 )
#''',
2005 –present)
Despite the fact that the Doctor is supposed to be the same person throughout his regenerations, each actor playing the Doctor has purposely imbued his incarnation with distinct quirks and characteristics. These distinguish one incarnation from the other, not just in physical appearance but personality as well. For example, the First Doctor was an elderly, distinguished grandfather figure with an impish sense of humour. The Second Doctor was a superficially clownish and sometimes cowardly-appearing figure while the Third was an action-oriented adventurer and the Fourth more bohemian in his manner. The Fifth Doctor was a human, vulnerable figure, while the Sixth was bombastic and blustering, the Seventh at first clownish but later darker and more manipulative, and the more romantic Eighth Doctor possessed of an infectious enthusiasm about the universe.
The Ninth Doctor was a more enigmatic figure, impulsive and almost manic on the surface but hiding a deep sadness and loneliness. He had a colder, less forgiving personality, perhaps hardened by the
Time War that destroyed Gallifrey and left him the last of the Time Lords sometime prior to ''
Rose ''. He was also haunted by his actions during the war, when he was responsible for wiping out ten million
Dalek warships, an action that apparently also destroyed the Time Lords. At his core, however, the Doctor continues to be an heroic figure, fighting the evils of the universe wherever he finds them, even if his values and motives are sometimes alien.
Though additional facets of the Tenth Doctor's personality will doubtless be revealed as the second series unfolds, ''
The Christmas Invasion '' showed him to be lighter and more cheeky and easygoing than the Ninth, although he was still quick to anger when he perceived an injustice. He is also more gregarious, being friendlier with Rose's friends and family than his predecessor.
Different actors have used different /
Cockney accent. According to producer
Russell T. Davies , this is a consequence of spending so much time with Rose. ''The Christmas Invasion'' would have alluded to this, but the line was cut.
{Link without Title} .
Save for the unseen transition between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors, the regeneration has so far always been worked into the story. Also, most regenerations (with the exception of the transition from the Second to Third Doctors and from the Eighth to the Ninth) have been seen on screen, in a symbolic handing over of the role. Following is a list of how each Doctor to date has regenerated:
# apparently succumbed to old age, steadily growing weaker throughout ''
The Tenth Planet '' and collapsing at the serial's end. The writer's intent was that this was due to the energy drain from the planet Mondas, but this was not made clear in the transmitted story.
# a forced regeneration and exile to Earth by the Time Lords in the closing moments of ''
The War Games ''.
# radiation poisoning from the Great One's cave of crystals at the end of ''
Planet Of The Spiders ''.
# fell from the Pharos Project radio telescope in ''
Logopolis ''.
# spectrox toxaemia, contracted near the start of ''
The Caves Of Androzani ''.
# suffered unspecified injuries when the
Rani attacked the TARDIS and caused it to crash land at the start of ''
Time And The Rani ''.
# died on the operating table while undergoing surgery in the
1996 Television Movie .
# not revealed as yet.
# cellular degeneration caused by absorbing the energies of the space time vortex from Rose, which she in turn had absorbed through the heart of the
TARDIS in ''
The Parting Of The Ways ''.
In the original series, with the exception of the change from Troughton to Pertwee, regeneration usually occurred immediately following the "death" of the previous Doctor. The changeover from McCoy to McGann was handled differently, with the Doctor actually dying and being dead for quite some time before regeneration occurred. The Eighth Doctor comments at one point that the anesthesia interfered with the regenerative process, and that he had been "dead too long," accounting for his initial
Amnesia .
The 2005 series began with the Ninth Doctor already regenerated, with no explanation given. In his first appearance in ''Rose'', the Doctor looked in a mirror and commented on the size of his ears, suggesting that the regeneration may have happened shortly prior to the episode. However, the Ninth Doctor's appearances in old photographs, without being accompanied by Rose, may also suggest that he had been regenerated for some time.
Russell T. Davies , writer/producer of the new series, stated in ''
Doctor Who Magazine '' that he has no intention of showing the regeneration in the series, and that he believed the story of how the Eighth Doctor became the Ninth is best told in other media. In ''
Doctor Who Confidential '' Davies revealed his reasoning that, after such a long hiatus, a regeneration in the first episode would not just be confusing for new viewers but also lack dramatic impact, as there would be no emotional investment in the character before he was replaced.
After the BBC commissioned a second series on the strength of the ratings for ''Rose'', they further announced that Eccleston would step down from the role after the 2005 season. At first, the BBC cited fears of
Typecasting as a reason for his departure
{Link without Title} , though they later admitted they had failed to contact Eccleston before responding to the press, and had broken an agreement made in January not to disclose his impending departure.
The BBC announced on
April 16 ,
2005 that
David Tennant would play the Tenth Doctor.
{Link without Title} In that same press release, Davies commented "Regeneration is a huge part of the programme's mythology, and I'm delighted that new, young viewers can now have the complete Doctor Who experience, as they witness their hero change his face."
Although early reports referenced the 2005
Christmas special as Eccleston's final performance,
{Link without Title} the changeover occurred in the final episode of the 2005 series. It remains to be seen whether the Ninth Doctor will appear again, although Russell T. Davies has stated that he does not intend to bring back former Doctors.
It was established in ''
The Deadly Assassin '' that a Time Lord can regenerate twelve times before permanently dying, though as with most such "rules" there were occasionally exceptions (for more on this see
Time Lord ). In ''The Christmas Invasion'' it was stated the regenerative cycle creates a large amount of energy that suffuses the Time Lord's body. As demonstrated by the Tenth Doctor for the first time in that story, in the first fifteen hours of regeneration this energy is enough to even rapidly regrow a severed hand.
In ''
The Brain Of Morbius '' (produced shortly before ''Assassin''), it was implied through visual images displayed during a mental battle between the Doctor and Morbius that the Doctor had at least eight incarnations prior to the First Doctor. However, multiple dialogue references throughout the series (particularly in ''
The Three Doctors '' and ''The Five Doctors'') contradict this, as well as the fact that the Doctor has regenerated five times since Peter Davison. Explanations by fans have included theories that the images were of Morbius's previous incarnations or that they were false images induced by the Doctor. The ''Doctor Who'' novels have suggested that these may have been faces of the
Other , a figure from Gallifrey's ancient past and the genetic predecessor of the Doctor (although being from the spin-off novels, the
Canonicity of this character is debatable).
The Doctor's regenerations are usually as a result of his previous incarnation sustaining mortal injury or (in one case) having the regeneration forced on him by the Time Lords. Other Time Lord regenerations, like
Romana 's, have not been as dramatic or painful. A commonly held piece of
Fan Continuity (referenced in the novel ''The Man in the Velvet Mask'' by Daniel O'Mahony) is that Time Lords only grow their second heart during their first regeneration.
The Doctor frequently experiences a period of instability and partial
Amnesia following regeneration. Some post-regeneration experiences have been more difficult than others. In particular, the Fifth Doctor began reverting to his previous personalities and required the healing powers of the TARDIS's "Zero Room" to survive (''
Castrovalva ''). The Sixth Doctor experienced extreme
Paranoia and flew into a murderous rage, nearly killing his companion (''
The Twin Dilemma ''). The Eighth Doctor not only experienced amnesia, but some fans attribute his romantic actions towards his companion to post-regeneration trauma (1996 ''Doctor Who'' television movie).
The regeneration from the Ninth to the Tenth Doctor at first seemed smooth, with the Doctor regenerating standing up for the first time (''
The Parting Of The Ways ''). However, shortly afterwards he began to experience spasms and became somewhat manic, frightening Rose as he pushed the TARDIS to dangerous extremes (''
Children In Need Special ''). After crash-landing the TARDIS, the Doctor collapsed and remained unconscious for most of the next fifteen hours (''The Christmas Invasion''). The experience was traumatic enough to cause one of his hearts to temporarily stop beating.
As noted above, the newly regenerated Tenth Doctor was able to regrow his hand when it was severed at the wrist during a swordfight with the
Sycorax leader. This ability had never been exhibited before, but no previous Doctor had ever suffered an injury of this nature so soon after regeneration. The Tenth Doctor's lack of reaction to the injury may also point to increased pain tolerance during this period, although humans do not always register pain immediately after losing a limb, due to the effects of
Shock .
In the Sixth Doctor story arc ''
The Trial Of A Time Lord '', a Time Lord with the title of the
Valeyard (played by
Michael Jayston ) was revealed to be a potential future Doctor, existing somewhere between his twelfth and final incarnations and embodying all the evil and malevolence of the Doctor's dark side. The Valeyard was defeated in his attempt to actualize himself by stealing the Sixth Doctor's remaining regenerations, however, and so may never actually come to exist.
The idea of an "in-between" version of the Doctor has its precedents. In ''Planet of the Spiders'', a Time Lord's future self (described as a "distillation" of the future incarnation) was shown to exist as a
Corporeal Projection that assisted his then-current incarnation. In ''Logopolis'', a mysterious white-cloaked figure known as the Watcher assisted in the transition between the Fourth and Fifth Doctors.
Nyssa commented that the Watcher "was the Doctor all the time," but there is no real evidence to back up this assertion and the actual nature of the character has never been made clear.
Quite apart from the kisses mentioned earlier, the revelation in the 1996 television movie that the Doctor was half-human (on his mother's side) also proved controversial among fans. Some have suggested that ''only'' the Eighth Doctor was half-human due to the particularly traumatic circumstances of his regeneration, rather than the Doctor having been half-human all along, despite the Doctor's clear reference to his mother having been human - and thus something which would have been part of all his regenerations. The Time Lord ability to change species during regeneration is referenced by the Eighth Doctor in relation to the , published to coincide with the new series, refers to the Doctor as half-human.
The spin-off novels have also tried to explain this revelation in various ways, suggesting that the Doctor retained some human
DNA from his time as Dr John Smith in ''Human Nature''. In the
Ninth Doctor Adventures novel ''The Deviant Strain'' by Justin Richards, the Doctor comments that his DNA is "close" to that of humans. However, as noted above, the canonicity of the novels is uncertain.
Due to time travel, it is possible for the Doctor's various incarnations to encounter and interact with each other, although this is supposed to be prohibited by the First Law of Time (as stated in ''
The Three Doctors ''), or only in the "gravest of emergencies" (''
The Five Doctors ''). In the television series, such encounters have been seen on three occasions, in ''The Three Doctors'' (1973), ''The Five Doctors'' (1983) and ''
The Two Doctors '' (1985). In ''
Day Of The Daleks '' (1972), the Third Doctor and
Jo Grant very briefly met their future selves due to a glitch during a temporal experiment. In ''
Father's Day '' (2005), the Ninth Doctor and Rose observed but did not interact with past versions of themselves; when Rose changed history, the earlier selves vanished and a temporal paradox was created that summoned the extradimensional
Reapers .
Physical contact between two versions of the same person can lead to an energy discharge that shorts out the "time differential". This is apparently due to a principle known as the Blinovitch Limitation Effect, and was seen when the past and future versions of
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart touched hands in ''
Mawdryn Undead '' (1983). Oddly, the Doctor's incarnations do not appear to suffer this effect when encountering each other and shaking hands. Why this is has never been explained; fan theories include the possibility that this may have something to do with regeneration rendering the different incarnations effectively different people. An essay in the ''About Time'' series by
Lawrence Miles and
Tat Wood suggests that Time Lords are somehow exempt from the effect by their very nature.
Rose Tyler is seen holding an infant version of herself in ''Father's Day'', with no visible energy discharge, but the contact does allow the Reapers to enter the church.
The interaction of the Doctor's various incarnations produces a continuity anomaly that requires
Suspension Of Disbelief on the part of viewers, as one may assume that his past selves would forget that he would later regenerate. In ''
Castrovalva '', the newly-regenerated Fifth Doctor clearly indicates that the outcome of his regeneration can not be predicted; however, the Fifth Doctor should have had memories from his earlier incarnations of having met himself. It has been suggested in fanon that the Time Lords erase the Doctor's memory after such encounters.
The Doctor's age has been stated (or estimated) in several stories. In the serial ''
The Tomb Of The Cybermen '', the Second Doctor told
Victoria that he was around 450 years old. The Second Doctor was also seen to carry around a 500-year diary in which he kept notes. The Third Doctor implied that he had a lifetime that covered several thousand years, but he may have been referring to the time span he had seen on his travels rather than actually lived through.
By the time of ''The Brain of Morbius'', the Fourth Doctor was stated to be 749 years old ("something like 750 years" in the prior ''
Pyramids Of Mars ''). In ''
The Ribos Operation '', the first
Romana said the Doctor was 759 years old and had been piloting the TARDIS for 523 years, making him 236 when he first "borrowed" it. In ''
Revelation Of The Daleks '' the Sixth Doctor was 900 years old, and in ''
Time And The Rani '', the Seventh Doctor's age was the same as the
Rani 's, namely 953. In ''
Remembrance Of The Daleks '' the Seventh Doctor said that he had "900 years’ experience" rewiring alien equipment. At the beginning of the 1996 television movie, the Seventh Doctor was seen to have a 900-year diary in his TARDIS.
The large gap in years between the Fourth and Sixth Doctors can be partially covered by the fact that the Fourth Doctor travelled alone for a time or with an equally long-lived Time Lady as a companion, allowing for several decades or centuries of untelevised stories to take place. Such gaps occur between the stories ''The Deadly Assassin'' and ''
The Face Of Evil '' when he travelled without a companion and between ''
The Invasion Of Time '' and ''
The Ribos Operation '' when he was accompanied by
K-9 . Another potential gap occurs between ''
The Horns Of Nimon '' and ''
The Leisure Hive '' when he travelled with Romana. ''The Face of Evil'' also revealed that the Fourth Doctor travelled on his own at a point prior to that serial (the chronology of this is not revealed in the story, but the novelisation places it within the events of ''
Robot '', right after his regeneration).
While the Fifth Doctor was never seen without a companion, there was a period (between ''
Time-Flight '' and ''
Arc Of Infinity '') where he was travelling with
Nyssa Of Traken , who, not being human, may not have aged normally. There was also a gap just after ''
The Trial Of A Time Lord '' which can account for the difference in ages between the Sixth Doctor in ''Revelation of the Daleks'' and the Seventh Doctor in ''Time and the Rani''.
In the spin-off novels, the Seventh Doctor celebrated his 1000th birthday in ''Set Piece'' by
Kate Orman , and the Eighth Doctor declared his age to be 1,012 in ''
Vampire Science '' by Orman and
Jonathan Blum . The Eighth Doctor also spent nearly a century on Earth during a story arc spread over several novels.
In the 2005 series, the Doctor's age is stated in publicity materials as 900 years, and in ''
Aliens Of London '', he says, "Nine hundred years of time and space, and I've never been slapped by someone's mother." Rose follows up by asking him if he is 900 years old, and he replies affirmatively. He restates his age as 900 in ''
The Doctor Dances ''.
How this figure is to be reconciled with the Doctor's age in the rest of the series and other (arguably non-
Canon ) sources is uncertain. Possibilities include the Doctor estimating his age or lying about it out of vanity (in ''The Ribos Operation'' he gave his age at 756, although Romana insisted it was 759).
Another possibility is that the Doctor is simply referring to the years he has been travelling for simplicity's sake, as opposed to his physical age. In ''The Empty Child'' he speaks of 900 years of "phone box" travel, which, if he began at 236, would make him 1,136 years old. This figure does fit roughly with the Eighth Doctor's period as chronicled in the spin-off media. In fact, considering that the TARDIS did not acquire its police box shape until it landed in London prior to "An Unearthly Child", he may be even older. Of course, all this also presupposes that the figures given correspond to Earth years and not Gallifreyan.
The Doctor's clothing has also been equally distinctive, from the First Doctor's distinguished
Edwardian suit, to the Second Doctor's slightly rumpled,
Chaplinesque appearance to the frilly shirts and velvet coats of the dashing Third Doctor's era. The Fourth Doctor's long coat and trailing scarf accentuated his bohemian image, the Fifth's
Cricket er's outfit suited to his youthful, more aristocratic air (although still eccentric as he insisted on wearing a
Celery stalk on the lapel), and the Sixth's multi-coloured and mismatched jacket reflected the excesses of 1980s fashion (instead of celery, the Sixth Doctor wore a series of cat-shaped pins on his lapel). Throughout the 1980s, the
Question Mark was a motif of the Doctor's clothing, usually on the shirt collars or, in the case of the Seventh Doctor, on his woolly jumper.
The Seventh Doctor's clothing was more subdued, also sporting an umbrella with a question mark for a handle and in later seasons a dark brown jacket as his personality grew darker and more mysterious. The Eighth Doctor harked back to the Edwardian dandy of earlier Doctors, and had a
Byronesque air about him appropriate to his more
Romantic personality.
In contrast to the distinctive looks of his predecessors, the Ninth Doctor wore a non-descript, worn black leather jacket, V-neck jumper and dark trousers. Eccleston stated that he felt that such definitive "costumes" were passé and that the character's trademark eccentricities should show through their actions and clever dialogue, not through gimmicky costumes. Despite this, there is a
Running Joke about his character that the only piece of clothing he changes is his jumper, even when trying to "blend into" an historical era. The one exception, a picture of him in 1912 wearing period clothing, resembles the style of the
Eighth Doctor ; some speculate that this may have been immediately after his regeneration and he was still wearing his predecessor's clothes.
When the Tenth Doctor regenerated at the end of the 2005 series he was still dressed in the clothes of the Ninth Doctor. By the end of ''The Christmas Invasion'', he had selected a new outfit from the TARDIS wardrobe: a brown pinstriped suit with tie, a light brown long coat and white tennis shoes, the latter being not dissimilar to the foot-sense of his fifth incarnation.
On a few occasions, previous Doctors have returned to the role, guest-starring with the incumbent:
- William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton with Jon Pertwee in '' The Three Doctors ''. Originally Hartnell's role had been intended to be more extensive, but his health had deteriorated to the extent that he could only make a limited appearance. In the end, it turned out to be his last television role.
- Troughton , Pertwee with Davison in '' The Five Doctors '', the twentieth anniversary special, with another actor, Richard Hurndall , standing in for the late William Hartnell . The story began with a clip featuring Hartnell. Tom Baker declined to appear, feeling that the role came too soon after he had left the programme (a decision he later said he regretted) and the narrative was reworked to use clips from '' Shada '', an intended six-part story from the Fourth Doctor's era that was never completed due to industrial action. A waxwork dummy of Baker was used in the publicity photographs. ''Shada'' was remade in 2003 as an animated webcast and audio play with Paul McGann and a different cast.
- Patrick Troughton with Colin Baker in '' The Two Doctors ''.
- Jon Pertwee , Tom Baker , Colin Baker , Peter Davison and Sylvester McCoy — with rubber dummy heads standing in for William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton — in '' Dimensions In Time '', a charity special in aid of Children In Need in 1993, the programme's 30th anniversary year.
- Sylvester McCoy in the 1996 television movie, to hand over the role to Paul McGann .
Other actors have portrayed the character of the Doctor outside of the television series. For details on this see under
Adaptations And Other Appearances in the main article and
Doctor Who Spin-offs .
For a list of all actors who have played the Doctor see
List Of Actors Who Have Played The Doctor .
as the
Fourth Doctor ]]
A common contention among fans and producers of the series is that a large part of the Doctor's appeal comes from his mysterious and alien origins. While over the decades several revelations have been made about his background — that he is a Time Lord, that he is from Gallifrey, among others — the writers have often strived to retain some sense of mystery and to preserve the eternal question, "Doctor who?" This backstory was not rigidly planned from the beginning, but developed gradually (and somewhat haphazardly) over the years, the result of the work of many writers and producers.
Understandably, this has led to
Continuity problems. Characters such as the
Meddling Monk were retroactively classified as
Time Lord s, early histories of races such as the
Dalek s were rewritten, and so on. The creation of a detailed backstory has also led to the criticism that too much being known about the Doctor limits both creative possibilities and the sense of mystery.
Some of the stories during the Seventh Doctor's tenure, part of the so-called "
Cartmel Masterplan ", were intended to deal with this issue by suggesting that much of what was believed about the Doctor was wrong and that he was a far more powerful and mysterious figure than previously thought. In both an untelevised scene in ''Remembrance of the Daleks'' and the subsequent ''
Silver Nemesis '' it was implied that the Doctor was more than "just another Time Lord." The suspension of the series in 1989 meant that none of these hints were ever resolved. The "Masterplan" was used as a guide for the
Virgin New Adventures series of novels featuring the Seventh Doctor, and the revelations about the Doctor's origins were written into the novel ''
Lungbarrow '' by
Marc Platt . However, the
Canonicity of these novels, like all
Doctor Who Spin-offs , is unclear.
While some fans regard discontinuities as a problem, others regard it as a source of interest or humour (an attitude taken in the book ''
The Discontinuity Guide ''). A common fan explanation is that a universe with time travellers is likely to have many historical inconsistencies. There has also been much fan speculation centred on exactly which aspects of the television series, books, radio dramatisations, and other sources were considered canon in the 2005 series.
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- [http://www.whosdw.com/ Who's Doctor Who] — biography based on the TV series only
- [http://www.whoniverse.org/biography/ The Doctor's Biography] — biography based on the TV series plus other media
- Marvel Appendix: ''Doctor Who'' entry
