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{{retitle|"Fred"}}{{subpage tabs}}
{{NCmaterial}}
{{ImageLink}}
{{Infobox Individual
{{Infobox Individual
|individual name= The Doctor
|image      = Party Animals Briggs Doctor.jpg
|image=[[file:Nth Doctor.jpg]]
|aka        = [[The Doctor]]
|alias=
|species    = The Doctor's species
|race= [[Gallifreyan]] ([[Time Lord]])
|origin      =  
|home planet= [[Gallifrey]]
|affiliation =  
|home era= [[Rassilon Era]]
|first cs    = Party Animals (comic story)
|appearances= <ul><li>[[DWM]]: ''[[Party Animals]]''</li><li>[[BBV]]: ''[[Cyber-Hunt]]''</li><li>[[BBV]]: ''[[Vital Signs]]''</li></ul>
|appearances = {{il|[[COMIC]]: {{cs|The Incomplete Death's Head (comic story)}}|[[COMIC]]: {{cs|Doctor Whoah! (DWM 376 comic story)|''Doctor Whoah!'' 376}}|[[PROSE]]: {{cs|Cyber-Hunt (novelisation)}}}}
|actor= [[Nicholas Briggs]]
}}
}}'''The Doctor''' was a future incarnation of [[The Doctor|himself]] first encountered by [[Seventh Doctor|his seventh incarnation]] at [[Bonjaxx]]'s birthday party.
{{Doctors}}
"'''Fred'''" was the name eventually chosen by a [[time travel]]ler ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Cyber-Hunt (novelisation)|Cyber-Hunt]]'') who was a potential future of the [[Seventh Doctor]]. When he met the Seventh Doctor at [[Bonjaxx]]'s birthday party on [[Maruthea]], travelling with [[Ria (Party Animals)|Ria]], he openly called himself '''[[the Doctor]]'''. ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|Party Animals (comic story)}})


==Biography==
However, the same man ultimately made a deal with a mysterious [[man in black (Cyber-Hunt)|man in black]] to restore [[Gallifrey|his homeworld]] after it was destroyed. The price he paid was to be separated from his past completely, with his former name taken from him and a [[Eighth Doctor|different individual]] being brought into existence to fill the void he'd left. He continued travelling in time and space, now exclusively under the name of Fred, though as a side-effect of the process he was prone to [[amnesia]] about his former life. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Cyber-Hunt (novelisation)}})
Accompanied by his companion, [[Ria]], this version of the Doctor greeted his [[Seventh Doctor|incarnation]] and [[Ace]] at [[Maruthea]] during Bonjaxx's birthday celebration. Though close-mouthed about it, he implied that the [[Time Lord]]s no longer had the power to impose the [[First Law of Time]] over him, so that he could converse with his seventh self with impunity. ([[DWM]]: ''[[Party Animals]]'')
==Appearance==
This Doctor had short, dark hair with a receding hairline.


His style of dress leaned toward 1920s-style formal wear. His neckwear of choice was a bow-tie. He occasionally wore a jumper or waistcoat.
== Biography ==
=== As the Doctor ===
==== Travels with Greg ====
An incarnation of the Doctor travelling with Greg Holmes and Nadia was aged to death by waves from [[Dalek]] experiments with the [[Temperon]], [[Regeneration|regenerating]] into this Doctor. The newly regenerated Doctor went to the planet Temperos with Greg and Nadia and freed the Temperon from the Daleks. ([[NOTCOVERED]]: {{cs|Audio Visuals (fan work)|The Time Ravagers}})


His outerwear consisted of a dark suit jacket with light-coloured piping along the lapels, and was known to carry a toothbrush in his outer breast pocket for reasons unknown. He was also known to wear a badge shaped like a [[tea]]pot. ([[DWM]]: [[Party Animals]])
They then travelled to [[1990]] [[Earth]] and helped [[UNIT]] stop the [[Rigellon]]s from taking over Earth with a network of satellites. After being taken hostage, Nadia sacrificed her life in order to destroy the Rigellons. ([[NOTCOVERED]]: {{cs|Audio Visuals (fan work)|Connection Thirteen}})


While traveling alone, the Doctor developed [[amnesia]] and re-named himself Fred. ([[BBV]]: ''[[Cyber-Hunt]]'', ''[[Vital Signs]]'')
The TARDIS brought the Doctor and Greg to a deserted [[Conglomerate]] city. They managed to escape after several confusing and dangerous encounters with Conglomerate technology, including [[Drudger]]s. ([[NOTCOVERED]]: {{cs|Audio Visuals (fan work)|Conglomerate}})


==Other information==
The Doctor and Greg encountered the [[Psionovore]]s and were subjected to various [[nightmare]]s born from their minds. ([[NOTCOVERED]]: {{cs|Audio Visuals (fan work)|Cloud of Fear}})
*In an alternate timeline, this incarnation of the Doctor may have committed suicide and regenerated into a [[The Doctor (Exile)|woman]] to hide from the [[Time Lord]]s. ([[DWU]]: ''[[Exile]]'')


==Behind the scenes==
Arriving on the planet Kelfer, the Doctor and Greg met the stranded Time Lord Askran and his assistant Miranda.
===[[Audio Visuals]]===
Askran was distributing the drug [[Sargol]] among the planet's people in order to access the "Shadow World". The Doctor and Greg stopped this scheme, but they were both exposed to the Sargol, gaining a physical dependence on the drug. ([[NOTCOVERED]]: {{cs|Audio Visuals (fan work)|Shadow World}})
This incarnation of the Doctor, played by [[Nicholas Briggs]], first appeared in ''The Time Ravagers'', the second of the [[AudioVisuals]] series of fan audio plays. The opening of the story portrayed the previous AudioVisuals version of the Doctor [[regenerating]] into him.


During the course of the AudioVisuals story ''Planet of Lies'', the [[Dalek]]s succeed in destroying [[Gallifrey]]. When this version of the Doctor meets the [[Seventh Doctor]], he obliquely hints at this.
To save Greg from Sargol withdrawl, the Doctor took him to [[Cal-Med 1]], which orbited [[Calfadoria]]. From here, the Doctor himself struggled with withdrawl and stopped a scheme to abuse the prisoners of [[Cal-Med 2]]. The Doctor befriended the artificial being [[Ria (Party Animals)|Ria]] and asked her to join him in his travels. ([[NOTCOVERED]]: {{cs|Audio Visuals (fan work)|Maenad}})


In illustrations of this Doctor, this Doctor's physical appearance is modelled on that of Briggs himself. His costume was initially designed by Paul Lunn to resemble "a guy returning from an all-night party in the 1920s." [http://www.justyce.org/nick-briggs-03-april-2000.html]
==== Travels with Ria ====
Accompanied by his [[companion]] [[Ria (Party Animals)|Ria]], this version of the Doctor bumped into his [[Seventh Doctor|seventh incarnation]] and [[Ace]] at Maruthea during Bonjaxx's birthday celebration. ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|Party Animals (comic story)}}) When [[Hob]] viewed over the events of this party, he briefly saw an image of the two Doctors and [[Death's Head]]. ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|The Incomplete Death's Head (comic story)}}) The two Doctors reminisced over [[the Doctor's graduation party|their graduation party]], involving "[[First Rani|the Rani]] and her [[giant mouse]]". The Seventh Doctor also asked his future self "if [[Time Lord|they]] ever repealed the [[First Law of Time]]", with him answering that they hadn't done so yet, at least in his time. ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|Party Animals (comic story)}})


===Other appearances ===
The time traveller who would become "Fred" also travelled with [[Truman Crouch]] for a time.
[[Gary Russell]], the writer of the ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]'' comics story ''[[Party Animals]]'', had previously worked with Nicholas Briggs on the Audio Visuals series and had his Doctor appear in the story.


Though not explicitly identified as the same version of the Doctor, Nicholas Briggs also played the Doctor in a flashback sequence in ''[[Exile]]'' as [[The Doctor (Exile)|the current Doctor's]] past incarnation.
Eventually, at a point prior to Fred's deal with the [[man in black (Cyber-Hunt)|man in black]], his [[Gallifrey|homeworld]] was destroyed in traumatic circumstances. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Cyber-Hunt (novelisation)}})


Briggs' Doctor also had a cameo in ''The Dalek Masterplan'', a stage play adaptation of ''[[The Daleks' Master Plan]]'', which starred Nick Scovell as an original incarnation of the Doctor and Briggs as the voice of the [[Dalek]]s. The play concluded with the use of the [[Time Destructor]], which forced the Doctor's regeneration into a new incarnation played by Briggs.
=== As Fred ===
The time-traveller made his way to [[Carson's Planet]], where he met with the [[man in black (Cyber-Hunt)|man in black]]. The two brokered an agreement, with the man in black pledging to restore his homeworld if the time-traveller successfully held back the [[Cyberon]]s' technological development. After the man in black left him to his own devices, he met a [[Lewis (Cyber-Hunt)|damaged Cyberon unit]] and made the mistake of repairing him. He managed to evade the creature by hiding in a bomb creature, but did get shot, whereupon the man in black reappeared to put him into a hypnotic sleep to help him recover.


A false incarnation of the Doctor appearing in [[DWM]]: ''[[The Final Chapter]]'' and [[DWM]]: ''[[Wormwood (comic strip)|Wormwood]]'' was modelled upon this Doctor.
He was found in a half-delirious state by [[Olivia (Cyber-Hunt)|Olivia]], whom he briefly confused for [[Ria (Party Animals)|Ria]], having gained a temporary [[amnesia]] from the trauma of the wound and hypnosis. When he told her that he did not even remember her name, she decided to dub him "Fred", after her [[Fred (goldfish)|old goldfish]] who likewise kept forgetting who he was. Now well enough to walk, Fred joined Olivia and the military group she was following around as "embedded [[journalist]]", [[Halloran (Cyber-Hunt)|Captain Halloran]]'s, in their further explorations of the planet. They found an abandoned Cyberon laboratory where the Cyberons were developing [[nanite]]s that could convert any humanoids by entering any wound in their body, however small, with no need for the cumbersome [[surgery|surgical]] process on which the Cyberons had previously relied to expand their numbers.


===The Wanderer/Fred===
After the group managed to reprogram the nanite cloud to destroy cybernetics instead of converting flesh, thus turning it into a powerful weapon against the Cyberons themselves, ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Cyber-Hunt (novelisation)}}) which put an effective end to the [[Cyber-War (Flight of the Cyberons)|Cyberon War]], ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Blue Scream of Death (short story)}}) they escaped the planet in a Cyberon escape pod. Olivia put in a good word for him with [[Galactic Net News]] to give him the opportunity to get a new job as a reporter himself, although he was hesitant to take the offer.  
Nicholas Briggs appeared as "the Wanderer" or "Fred" in the [[BBV]] audio stories ''[[Cyber-Hunt]]'' and ''[[Vital Signs]]''. Implicitly, these continue the adventures of the AudioVisuals Doctor past the concluding story of the productions.


==External links==
After they returned to Carson's Planet to give the original wounded Cyberon, whose human name had been [[Lewis (Cyber-Hunt)|Lewis]], a decent burial, Fred met with the man in black one last time. Acknowledging that Fred had held up his end of the bargain, the man in black used a [[knife]] to sever Fred from his past identity, erasing his timeline in the process and therefore restoring [[Gallifrey|his homeworld]] as promised, while [[Eighth Doctor|a different individual]] filled the void of his [[The Doctor|former identity]]. As a side-effect, Fred's amnesia became permanent, with him only remembering the broadest of details about his former life. Choosing to take this as a chance for a fresh start, he invited Olivia to travel with him in [[Fred's ship|his ship]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Cyber-Hunt (novelisation)}})
*[[w:c:dwexpanded:Nicholas Briggs Doctor|The Doctor]] at [[w:c:dwexpanded:Doctor Who Expanded|Doctor Who Expanded]]
 
[[Category:Incarnations of the Doctor|Doctor]]
=== Legacy ===
[[File:Shayde as the Fred Doctor.jpg|thumb|left|[[Shayde]] poses as the balding Doctor and, allegedly, the [[Eighth Doctor]]'s [[The Doctor's ninth incarnation|successor]], even fooling [[Fey Truscott-Sade|Fey]] and [[Izzy Sinclair|Izzy]]. ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|Wormwood (comic story)}})]]After the [[Eighth Doctor]] decided to sacrifice himself to save [[Gallifrey]] by throwing himself into the heart of [[Luther (The Final Chapter)|Luther]]'s Watchtower, [[Fey Truscott-Sade]] and [[Izzy Sinclair]] witnessed him seemingly [[regeneration|regenerating]] into the bald Doctor. ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|The Final Chapter (comic story)}}) However, after keeping up the pretence partway through the subsequent adventure, the "new Doctor" revealed that he was actually the shapeshifting construct [[Shayde]], who had switched place with the real Eighth Doctor at the Doctor's suggestion as part of a plot to defeat the [[Threshold]]. [[The Pariah]] speculated that Shayde pulled a persona imprint from [[The Matrix|the Matrix]] in order to impersonate this Doctor so well. ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|Wormwood (comic story)}})
 
== Appearance ==
This Doctor had short, dark hair and a receding [[hairline]]. His outerwear consisted of a dark suit jacket with light-coloured piping along the lapels, and he carried a toothbrush in his outer breast pocket. He also wore a badge shaped like a [[tea]]pot. ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|Party Animals (comic story)}}) As "Fred", he wore a business suit with a floral pattern, with a black shirt underneath. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Cyber-Hunt (novelisation)}})
 
== Behind the scenes ==
=== Origins ===
[[file:The Nicholas Briggs Doctor and Ria.jpg|thumb|right|Nicholas Briggs and [[Patricia Merrick]] dressed as the Nth Doctor and [[Ria (Party Animals)|Ria]].]]
"Fred" started out as the so-called "Nth Doctor", an unofficial incarnation of the Doctor portrayed, and modeled after, [[Nicholas Briggs]] in the fan ''[[Audio Visuals (fan work)|Audio Visuals]]'' productions that were more-or-less contemporaneous with {{cs|Party Animals (comic story)}}.<ref name="justyce-briggs" >[http://www.justyce.org/nick-briggs-03-april-2000.html Nick Briggs interview, 3 April 2000]</ref><ref>[http://www.justyce.org/comicav.html Justyce Illustrations]</ref>
 
Briggs would later portray other unique incarnations of the Doctor in licenced ''Doctor Who'' audios, including in {{cs|Exile (audio story)}} and {{cs|Seven Keys to Doomsday (audio story)}}, with no clear links with this previous character.
 
=== After the Audio Visuals ===
After the ''Audio Visuals'' ceased production, Nicholas Briggs resurrected the character in two commercial audio plays that were part of [[BBV Productions]]' ''[[Audio Adventures in Time & Space]]'', ''Cyber-Hunt'' and ''Vita Signs'' (the former also notable as the introduction of the [[Cyberon]]s). Although Briggs freely discussed in interviews the fact that this was a continuation of the Nth Doctor's adventures, the stories used only the aspects of the character [[List of DWU concepts not owned by the BBC|created and owned]] by Briggs, using an [[amnesia]] plot point to have him go by a different name, "Fred", and unable to recall much of his past history.<ref>[http://www.justyce.org/nick-briggs-03-april-2000.html Nick Briggs interview, 3 April 2000]</ref><ref>[http://www.justyce.org/comicav.html Justyce Illustrations]</ref> The two Fred audios were also sold under the series title of ''The Wanderer'', although he never actually used this as a title within the narratives.<ref>[https://bbvproductions.co.uk/products/The-Wanderer-Vital-Signs-AUDIO-DOWNLOAD-p338642815 ''The Wanderer: Vital Signs'' on BBV Productions]</ref> However, though not ''strictly'' fan fiction, these stories did not use the licenses to any concepts which had debuted in licensed DWU sources, and thus still fall outside the [[T:VALID|scope of this Wiki]].
 
=== Into the licensed DWU ===
On the other hand, the character also appeared in the ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]'' comic story {{cs|Party Animals (comic story)}}, which confirmed him as an "official" future incarnation of the Doctor, postdating the [[Seventh Doctor|seventh]]. He made a cameo in {{cs|The Incomplete Death's Head (comic story)}} (which showed the events of ''Party Animals'' from another perspective) and was then impersonated, in a multi-part arc, by [[Shayde]] in {{cs|Wormwood (comic story)}}. While ''Wormwood'' was being serialised, and prior to the reveal that the [[Eighth Doctor]] who had regenerated into this Nth Doctor was not the real one, ''Doctor Who Magazine'' briefly acted as though they had indeed perennially regenerated the Eighth Doctor into this official successor incarnation, and would carry on using the Nicholas Briggs Ninth Doctor as their "default" Doctor from now on, as a type of [[hoax]]. Briggs recalled that this had been [[Gary Gillatt]]'s idea.<ref>[https://doctorwhocomicsblog.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/nicholas-briggs/ Nicholas Briggs interview by by Finlay Hamilton-Sardesai and Ben Morton].</ref>
 
[[File:Nicholas Briggs Doctor in Doctor Woah.jpg|thumb|left|The ''Audio Visuals''{{'}} Doctor as seen in {{cs|Doctor Whoah! (DWM 376 comic story)|''Doctor Woah!'' 376}} in [[DWM 376]].]]The ''Audio Visuals'' Doctor made a final licensed appearance in the pages of ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]'' in [[2006 (releases)|2006]], in the {{cs|Doctor Whoah! (DWM 376 comic story)|''Doctor Whoah!'' strip}} printed in [[DWM 376]]. He appeared as part of a congregation of "not-really-the-Doctor Doctors", alongside [[the Valeyard]], [[Dr. Who (Dr. Who and the Daleks)|Peter Cushing's Doctor]], [[Rowan Atkinson]]'s [[Ninth Doctor (The Curse of Fatal Death)|Ninth Doctor]], [[Richard Hurndall]]'s [[First Doctor]] as seen in {{cs|The Five Doctors (TV story)}}, and the "[[Ninth Doctor (Scream of the Shalka)|Shalka Doctor]]". Standing next to the Atkinson Ninth Doctor, he complained of the smell as Atkinson's Doctor spoke [[Tersuran]].
 
In [[2021 (releases)|2021]], BBV released {{cs|Cyber-Hunt (novelisation)|a novelisation|noital=y}} of ''Cyber-Hunt''. Unlike the audio version, it is covered by this Wiki, as it also made use of the license to the planet [[Aurichall]], which had debuted in a DWU story, ''[[The Blue Scream of Death (short story)|The Blue Scream of Death]]''. Like the original version, the book took pains to avoid using any BBC-copyrighted elements of the character, going so far as to further distinguish them in-universe: the book reveals that Fred becomes "untethered" from his past identity as part of his deal with a mysterious [[Man in black (Cyber-Hunt)|man in black]] to undo the destruction of "his homeworld" (Gallifrey, which, in the ''Audio Visuals'' continuity, was destroyed by the [[Dalek]]s in ''Planet of Lies''). This simultaneously explained how the ''Audio Visuals'' could coexist with mainstream ''Doctor Who'' continuity, and gave an in-universe meaning to the fact that Fred as used in BBV products was "no longer" the same person as the Doctor, but had used to be.
 
== External links ==
* '''{{iw|dwexpanded|Nicholas Briggs Doctor|The Nth Doctor}}''' at {{iw|dwexpanded|Doctor Who Expanded}}
 
== Footnotes ==
{{reflist}}
 
{{Audio Visuals}}
{{Maruthea}}
 
[[Category:Incarnations of the Doctor]]
[[Category:Renegade Time Lords]]
[[Category:Time Lords who have been to Maruthea]]

Latest revision as of 20:05, 26 November 2024

Fred
A journal of impossible things . . .

This page includes information about Fred from sources that are not valid on this wiki.

"Fred" was the name eventually chosen by a time traveller (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt) who was a potential future of the Seventh Doctor. When he met the Seventh Doctor at Bonjaxx's birthday party on Maruthea, travelling with Ria, he openly called himself the Doctor. (COMIC: Party Animals [+]Loading...["Party Animals (comic story)"])

However, the same man ultimately made a deal with a mysterious man in black to restore his homeworld after it was destroyed. The price he paid was to be separated from his past completely, with his former name taken from him and a different individual being brought into existence to fill the void he'd left. He continued travelling in time and space, now exclusively under the name of Fred, though as a side-effect of the process he was prone to amnesia about his former life. (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt [+]Loading...["Cyber-Hunt (novelisation)"])

Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]

As the Doctor[[edit] | [edit source]]

Travels with Greg[[edit] | [edit source]]

An incarnation of the Doctor travelling with Greg Holmes and Nadia was aged to death by waves from Dalek experiments with the Temperon, regenerating into this Doctor. The newly regenerated Doctor went to the planet Temperos with Greg and Nadia and freed the Temperon from the Daleks. (NOTCOVERED: The Time Ravagers [+]Loading...["Audio Visuals (fan work)","The Time Ravagers"])

They then travelled to 1990 Earth and helped UNIT stop the Rigellons from taking over Earth with a network of satellites. After being taken hostage, Nadia sacrificed her life in order to destroy the Rigellons. (NOTCOVERED: Connection Thirteen [+]Loading...["Audio Visuals (fan work)","Connection Thirteen"])

The TARDIS brought the Doctor and Greg to a deserted Conglomerate city. They managed to escape after several confusing and dangerous encounters with Conglomerate technology, including Drudgers. (NOTCOVERED: Conglomerate [+]Loading...["Audio Visuals (fan work)","Conglomerate"])

The Doctor and Greg encountered the Psionovores and were subjected to various nightmares born from their minds. (NOTCOVERED: Cloud of Fear [+]Loading...["Audio Visuals (fan work)","Cloud of Fear"])

Arriving on the planet Kelfer, the Doctor and Greg met the stranded Time Lord Askran and his assistant Miranda. Askran was distributing the drug Sargol among the planet's people in order to access the "Shadow World". The Doctor and Greg stopped this scheme, but they were both exposed to the Sargol, gaining a physical dependence on the drug. (NOTCOVERED: Shadow World [+]Loading...["Audio Visuals (fan work)","Shadow World"])

To save Greg from Sargol withdrawl, the Doctor took him to Cal-Med 1, which orbited Calfadoria. From here, the Doctor himself struggled with withdrawl and stopped a scheme to abuse the prisoners of Cal-Med 2. The Doctor befriended the artificial being Ria and asked her to join him in his travels. (NOTCOVERED: Maenad [+]Loading...["Audio Visuals (fan work)","Maenad"])

Travels with Ria[[edit] | [edit source]]

Accompanied by his companion Ria, this version of the Doctor bumped into his seventh incarnation and Ace at Maruthea during Bonjaxx's birthday celebration. (COMIC: Party Animals [+]Loading...["Party Animals (comic story)"]) When Hob viewed over the events of this party, he briefly saw an image of the two Doctors and Death's Head. (COMIC: The Incomplete Death's Head [+]Loading...["The Incomplete Death's Head (comic story)"]) The two Doctors reminisced over their graduation party, involving "the Rani and her giant mouse". The Seventh Doctor also asked his future self "if they ever repealed the First Law of Time", with him answering that they hadn't done so yet, at least in his time. (COMIC: Party Animals [+]Loading...["Party Animals (comic story)"])

The time traveller who would become "Fred" also travelled with Truman Crouch for a time.

Eventually, at a point prior to Fred's deal with the man in black, his homeworld was destroyed in traumatic circumstances. (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt [+]Loading...["Cyber-Hunt (novelisation)"])

As Fred[[edit] | [edit source]]

The time-traveller made his way to Carson's Planet, where he met with the man in black. The two brokered an agreement, with the man in black pledging to restore his homeworld if the time-traveller successfully held back the Cyberons' technological development. After the man in black left him to his own devices, he met a damaged Cyberon unit and made the mistake of repairing him. He managed to evade the creature by hiding in a bomb creature, but did get shot, whereupon the man in black reappeared to put him into a hypnotic sleep to help him recover.

He was found in a half-delirious state by Olivia, whom he briefly confused for Ria, having gained a temporary amnesia from the trauma of the wound and hypnosis. When he told her that he did not even remember her name, she decided to dub him "Fred", after her old goldfish who likewise kept forgetting who he was. Now well enough to walk, Fred joined Olivia and the military group she was following around as "embedded journalist", Captain Halloran's, in their further explorations of the planet. They found an abandoned Cyberon laboratory where the Cyberons were developing nanites that could convert any humanoids by entering any wound in their body, however small, with no need for the cumbersome surgical process on which the Cyberons had previously relied to expand their numbers.

After the group managed to reprogram the nanite cloud to destroy cybernetics instead of converting flesh, thus turning it into a powerful weapon against the Cyberons themselves, (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt [+]Loading...["Cyber-Hunt (novelisation)"]) which put an effective end to the Cyberon War, (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death [+]Loading...["The Blue Scream of Death (short story)"]) they escaped the planet in a Cyberon escape pod. Olivia put in a good word for him with Galactic Net News to give him the opportunity to get a new job as a reporter himself, although he was hesitant to take the offer.

After they returned to Carson's Planet to give the original wounded Cyberon, whose human name had been Lewis, a decent burial, Fred met with the man in black one last time. Acknowledging that Fred had held up his end of the bargain, the man in black used a knife to sever Fred from his past identity, erasing his timeline in the process and therefore restoring his homeworld as promised, while a different individual filled the void of his former identity. As a side-effect, Fred's amnesia became permanent, with him only remembering the broadest of details about his former life. Choosing to take this as a chance for a fresh start, he invited Olivia to travel with him in his ship. (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt [+]Loading...["Cyber-Hunt (novelisation)"])

Legacy[[edit] | [edit source]]

Shayde poses as the balding Doctor and, allegedly, the Eighth Doctor's successor, even fooling Fey and Izzy. (COMIC: Wormwood [+]Loading...["Wormwood (comic story)"])

After the Eighth Doctor decided to sacrifice himself to save Gallifrey by throwing himself into the heart of Luther's Watchtower, Fey Truscott-Sade and Izzy Sinclair witnessed him seemingly regenerating into the bald Doctor. (COMIC: The Final Chapter [+]Loading...["The Final Chapter (comic story)"]) However, after keeping up the pretence partway through the subsequent adventure, the "new Doctor" revealed that he was actually the shapeshifting construct Shayde, who had switched place with the real Eighth Doctor at the Doctor's suggestion as part of a plot to defeat the Threshold. The Pariah speculated that Shayde pulled a persona imprint from the Matrix in order to impersonate this Doctor so well. (COMIC: Wormwood [+]Loading...["Wormwood (comic story)"])

Appearance[[edit] | [edit source]]

This Doctor had short, dark hair and a receding hairline. His outerwear consisted of a dark suit jacket with light-coloured piping along the lapels, and he carried a toothbrush in his outer breast pocket. He also wore a badge shaped like a teapot. (COMIC: Party Animals [+]Loading...["Party Animals (comic story)"]) As "Fred", he wore a business suit with a floral pattern, with a black shirt underneath. (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt [+]Loading...["Cyber-Hunt (novelisation)"])

Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]

Origins[[edit] | [edit source]]

Nicholas Briggs and Patricia Merrick dressed as the Nth Doctor and Ria.

"Fred" started out as the so-called "Nth Doctor", an unofficial incarnation of the Doctor portrayed, and modeled after, Nicholas Briggs in the fan Audio Visuals productions that were more-or-less contemporaneous with Party Animals [+]Loading...["Party Animals (comic story)"].[1][2]

Briggs would later portray other unique incarnations of the Doctor in licenced Doctor Who audios, including in Exile [+]Loading...["Exile (audio story)"] and Seven Keys to Doomsday [+]Loading...["Seven Keys to Doomsday (audio story)"], with no clear links with this previous character.

After the Audio Visuals[[edit] | [edit source]]

After the Audio Visuals ceased production, Nicholas Briggs resurrected the character in two commercial audio plays that were part of BBV Productions' Audio Adventures in Time & Space, Cyber-Hunt and Vita Signs (the former also notable as the introduction of the Cyberons). Although Briggs freely discussed in interviews the fact that this was a continuation of the Nth Doctor's adventures, the stories used only the aspects of the character created and owned by Briggs, using an amnesia plot point to have him go by a different name, "Fred", and unable to recall much of his past history.[3][4] The two Fred audios were also sold under the series title of The Wanderer, although he never actually used this as a title within the narratives.[5] However, though not strictly fan fiction, these stories did not use the licenses to any concepts which had debuted in licensed DWU sources, and thus still fall outside the scope of this Wiki.

Into the licensed DWU[[edit] | [edit source]]

On the other hand, the character also appeared in the Doctor Who Magazine comic story Party Animals [+]Loading...["Party Animals (comic story)"], which confirmed him as an "official" future incarnation of the Doctor, postdating the seventh. He made a cameo in The Incomplete Death's Head [+]Loading...["The Incomplete Death's Head (comic story)"] (which showed the events of Party Animals from another perspective) and was then impersonated, in a multi-part arc, by Shayde in Wormwood [+]Loading...["Wormwood (comic story)"]. While Wormwood was being serialised, and prior to the reveal that the Eighth Doctor who had regenerated into this Nth Doctor was not the real one, Doctor Who Magazine briefly acted as though they had indeed perennially regenerated the Eighth Doctor into this official successor incarnation, and would carry on using the Nicholas Briggs Ninth Doctor as their "default" Doctor from now on, as a type of hoax. Briggs recalled that this had been Gary Gillatt's idea.[6]

The Audio Visuals' Doctor as seen in Doctor Woah! 376 [+]Loading...["Doctor Whoah! (DWM 376 comic story)","''Doctor Woah!'' 376"] in DWM 376.

The Audio Visuals Doctor made a final licensed appearance in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine in 2006, in the Doctor Whoah! strip [+]Loading...["Doctor Whoah! (DWM 376 comic story)","''Doctor Whoah!'' strip"] printed in DWM 376. He appeared as part of a congregation of "not-really-the-Doctor Doctors", alongside the Valeyard, Peter Cushing's Doctor, Rowan Atkinson's Ninth Doctor, Richard Hurndall's First Doctor as seen in The Five Doctors [+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"], and the "Shalka Doctor". Standing next to the Atkinson Ninth Doctor, he complained of the smell as Atkinson's Doctor spoke Tersuran.

In 2021, BBV released a novelisation [+]Loading...{"noital":"y","1":"Cyber-Hunt (novelisation)","2":"a novelisation"} of Cyber-Hunt. Unlike the audio version, it is covered by this Wiki, as it also made use of the license to the planet Aurichall, which had debuted in a DWU story, The Blue Scream of Death. Like the original version, the book took pains to avoid using any BBC-copyrighted elements of the character, going so far as to further distinguish them in-universe: the book reveals that Fred becomes "untethered" from his past identity as part of his deal with a mysterious man in black to undo the destruction of "his homeworld" (Gallifrey, which, in the Audio Visuals continuity, was destroyed by the Daleks in Planet of Lies). This simultaneously explained how the Audio Visuals could coexist with mainstream Doctor Who continuity, and gave an in-universe meaning to the fact that Fred as used in BBV products was "no longer" the same person as the Doctor, but had used to be.

External links[[edit] | [edit source]]

Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  1. ↑ Nick Briggs interview, 3 April 2000
  2. ↑ Justyce Illustrations
  3. ↑ Nick Briggs interview, 3 April 2000
  4. ↑ Justyce Illustrations
  5. ↑ The Wanderer: Vital Signs on BBV Productions
  6. ↑ Nicholas Briggs interview by by Finlay Hamilton-Sardesai and Ben Morton.
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