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The Doctor (Doctor Who)

The Doctor is the only known name of the central 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.

Contents

Who is The Doctor?


"The Doctor" is a Time Lord, an extraterrestrial from the planet Gallifrey, who travels in a time machine called the TARDIS - Time And Relative Dimensions (or Dimension) In Space - that allows him to reach any point in time and space. For the most part, and usually because the vessel's navigation system is old and unreliable, he 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 companions who have chosen to travel with him for a variety of reasons.

The Doctor is considered a renegade by his people, 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. His 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). In the end, though, he has always seemed quite content to remain a renegade and an exile.

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, eight actors have played the Doctor on television, with perhaps the most enduring incarnation being the fourth, played by Tom Baker. Christopher Eccleston will play the Ninth Doctor in a new series to debut in 2005.

When the series begins, nothing is known of the Doctor at all, not even his name. In the very first serial, 100,000 BC, two teachers from the Coal Hill School in London, Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton, become intrigued by one of their students, Susan Foreman, who exhibits high intelligence and unusually advanced knowledge. Trailing her to a junkyard at 76 Totter's Lane, they see her enter what appears to be a police box. Following her inside, the two not only discover the police box's exterior is camouflage for the TARDIS, but encounter an elderly gentleman whom Susan calls "Grandfather". He introduces himself simply as the Doctor, and subsequently whisks them all away for an adventure in time and space.


"Doctor who?"

In the first episode, Barbara addresses the Doctor as "Doctor Foreman," as the junkyard in which they find him bears the sign "I.M. Foreman". The Time Lord responds, "Eh? Doctor who?" Although referred to in the on-screen credits for nearly twenty years as "Doctor Who", the Doctor is never really referred to by that name, except in the tongue-in-cheek manner of the first episode. The only exception has been a computer in the serial, The War Machines, which commanded that "Doctor Who is required." 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. On at least one occasion the Doctor is about to give a name after the title "Doctor..." but is interrupted.

In The Highlanders he adopts the alias "Doctor von Wer" (a German approximation of "Doctor Who"), and signs himself as "Dr. W" in The Underwater Menace . When pressed, he sometimes gives the name "Dr. John Smith". In the 1988 serial Remembrance of the Daleks, the Doctor is asked to sign a document, which he does by using a question mark. The recently regenerated Doctor briefly used the alias "Dr. Bowman" in the 1996 Doctor Who television movie, known informally as Enemy Within.

In The Armageddon Factor , the Time Lord Drax addresses him as "Thete", short for "Theta Sigma", apparently a University nickname. He has also been mocked by his fellow Time Lords for adhering to such a "lowly" title as "Doctor".

Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor
Enlarge
Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor

In many spin-off comic strips, books, films and other media, the character is often called "Doctor Who" (or just "Dr. Who") as a matter of course, though this has declined in more recent years. From the first story through to Logopolis (the last story of the 18th season and also of the Tom Baker era), the lead character was listed as "Doctor Who". Starting from Peter Davison's first story, Castrovalva (the first story of the series' 19th season), the lead character is credited simply as "The Doctor". 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".

Discontinuities

A common contention 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 Lords, early histories of races such as the Daleks 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 is 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 is implied that the Doctor is more than "just" a Time Lord. The suspension of the series in 1989, however, meant that none of these hints were ever resolved.

The 1996 television movie created even more uncertainty about the character, revealing (among other things) that his mother was human. Fans, however, seemed to be more upset about the fact that the Doctor was shown kissing Dr. Grace Holloway, breaking the series' longstanding taboo against the Doctor having any romantic involvement with his companions.

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 will be considered canon in the new series to be broadcast in 2005.

Changing faces

Eight actors (with a ninth to follow) have officially played the Doctor on television. The changing of actors playing the part of the Doctor is explained within the series by the Time Lords' 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 process was not developed until producers had to find a way to replace the elderly 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 .

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

  1. First Doctor - William Hartnell: (November 23, 1963 - October 29, 1966)
  2. Second Doctor - Patrick Troughton: (November 5, 1966 - June 21, 1969)
  3. Third Doctor - Jon Pertwee: (January 3, 1970 - June 8, 1974)
  4. Fourth Doctor - Tom Baker: (December 28, 1974 - March 21, 1981)
  5. Fifth Doctor - Peter Davison: (March 21, 1981 - March 16, 1984)
  6. Sixth Doctor - Colin Baker: (March 22, 1984 - December 6, 1986)
  7. Seventh Doctor - Sylvester McCoy: (September 7, 1987 - December 6, 1989)
  8. Eighth Doctor - Paul McGann: (May 27, 1996) - in the Doctor Who television movie
  9. Ninth Doctor - Christopher Eccleston: - the Ninth Doctor as announced by BBC on March 19, 2004 for the series revival in 2005.

Despite the fact that the Doctor is supposed to be the same person throughout his regenerations, each actor to play the Doctor has purposely imbued their 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 Second Doctor was a superficially clownish 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, the Seventh darker and more manipulative and the Eighth possessed of an infectious enthusiasm about the universe. It remains to be seen what personality traits the Ninth Doctor will exhibit.

Following is a list of how each Doctor has regenerated, thus far. With two exceptions (Patrick Troughton to Jon Pertwee and Colin Baker to Sylvester McCoy) it has been traditional for the previous Doctor to be seen regenerating into the next in a symbolic handing over of the role.

  • First Doctor: apparently succumbs to old age, steadily growing weaker throughout The Tenth Planet and collapsing at the serial's end.
  • Second Doctor: a forced regeneration and exile to Earth by the Time Lords in the closing moments of The War Games.1
  • Third Doctor: radiation posioning from the Great One's cave of crystals at the end of Planet of the Spiders .
  • Fourth Doctor: falls from the the Pharos Project radio telescope in Logopolis.
  • Fifth Doctor: spectrox toxaemia, contracted near the start of The Caves of Androzani.
  • Sixth Doctor: injured as The Rani attacks the TARDIS at the start of Time and the Rani.2
  • Seventh Doctor: gunned down by a Chinatown mob at the start of the 1996 TV movie.

It is not yet known how the Eighth Doctor regenerates into the Ninth.

Regeneration lore


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, as when the renegade Time Lord called the Master reached the end of his regenerative cycle and possessed the body of another person to continue living. The Doctor's regenerations are usually traumatic events - either 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.

In the 20th Anniversary special The Five Doctors the High Council of Time Lords offers the Master a new cycle of regenerations, implying that it is possible to grant them to a non-Gallifreyan, albeit one inhabited by a Time Lord mind. Non-Gallifreyans are also seen to regenerate in Underworld and Mawdryn Undead, but with adverse side effects. In the 1996 television movie it is stated that a Time Lord can "change species" during regeneration.

In the Sixth Doctor story The Trial of a Time Lord, a Time Lord with the title of the Valeyard (played by Michael Jayston ) is 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) is shown to exist as a corporeal projection that assists his current incarnation. In Logopolis, a mysterious white-cloaked figure known as the Watcher assists in the transition between the Fourth and Fifth Doctors. Nyssa comments 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.

Reprising the role

On a few occasions, previous Doctors have returned to the role, guest-starring with the incumbent:

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.

Notes

  1. We do not see Patrick Troughton turn into Jon Pertwee's Doctor. The War Games has Troughton spinning away into nothingness as the serial ends and the next time we see the Doctor in Spearhead from Space it is Jon Pertwee who stumbles out of the TARDIS. This leaves a possible gap between War Games and Spearhead which some have inserted a hypothetical "Season 6B" for the Second Doctor as an agent of the Time Lords (see The Two Doctors).
  2. Colin Baker did not actually appear in the regeneration scene from Time and the Rani, as he declined to participate. Instead, Sylvester McCoy is seen briefly from behind in a blond wig before he regenerates into the Seventh Doctor.

References

  • Howe, David J; Stammers, Mark & Walker, Stephen James (1996). Doctor Who: The Eighties (1st ed.). London: Virgin Publishing. ISBN 1-85227-680-0.
  • Howe, David J & Walker, Stephen James (1998). Doctor Who: The Television Companion (1st ed.). London: BBC Books. ISBN 0-563-40588-0.
  • Parkin, Lance (1996). Doctor Who: A History of the Universe - From Before The Dawn of Time and Beyond The End of Eternity. London: Virgin Publishing. ISBN 0-426-20471-9.

See also


Last updated: 05-03-2005 17:50:55