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The Seventh Doctor is the name given to the seventh incarnation of the Doctor seen on screen in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by the actor Sylvester McCoy.
Overview
In his first season, the Seventh Doctor started out as a comical character, mixing his metaphors and making pratfalls, but soon started to develop a darker nature and raising the profound question of who the Doctor actually is. The Seventh Doctor era is noted for the cancellation of Doctor Who after 26 years. It is also noted for the Virgin New Adventures, a range of original novels published from 1992 to 1997, taking the series on beyond the television serials.
The Seventh Doctor's final appearance on television was in the 1996 Doctor Who television movie, where he regenerated into the Eighth Doctor, played by Paul McGann.
Biography
When the TARDIS was attacked by the Rani, the Sixth Doctor was injured and forced to regenerate. After a brief period of post-regenerative confusion and amnesia (chemically induced by the Rani), the Seventh Doctor thwarted the Rani's plans, and rejoined his companion Mel for whimsical adventures in an odd tower block and a Welsh holiday camp in the 1950s.
On the planet Svartos, Mel decided to leave the Doctor's company for that of intergalactic rogue Sabalom Glitz. Also at this time, the Doctor was joined by time-stranded teenager Ace. Although he did not mention it at the time, the Doctor soon recognised that the ancient entity known as Fenric was responsible for the Time Storm which transported Ace from 1980s Perivale to Svartos in the distant future. The Doctor took Ace under his wing and began teaching her about the universe, all the while keeping an eye out for Fenric's plot. The Doctor began taking a more proactive approach to defeating evil, using the Hand of Omega as part of an elaborate trap for the Daleks which resulted in the destruction of their home planet, Skaro. Soon afterwards, the Doctor used a similar tactic and another Time Lord relic to destroy a Cyberman fleet.
The Seventh Doctor's manipulations were not reserved for his enemies. With the goal of helping Ace confront her past, he took her to a Victorian house which she had burned in 1983. Eventually, the Doctor confronted and defeated Fenric at a British naval base during World War II, revealing Fenric's part in Ace's history. The Doctor continued to act as Ace's mentor, returning her to Perivale; however, she chose to continue travelling with him. The circumstances of her parting from the Doctor were not shown on television.
Some time later, the Seventh Doctor was given the responsibility of transporting the remains of his former enemy the Master from the Skaro to Gallifrey. This proved to be a huge mistake: despite having a limited physical form, the Master was able to take control of the Doctor's TARDIS and cause it to land in 1999 San Franscisco, where the Doctor was shot in the middle of a gang shoot-out. He was taken to a hospital, where surgeons removed the bullets but mistook the Doctor's double heartbeat for fibrillation; their attempt to save his life instead caused him to regenerate.
Personality
The Seventh Doctor's personality started out as a somewhat clownish one not dissimilar to that of the Second Doctor, but soon became much darker and more manipulative, using his companion Ace in his own plans. Carrying on in the New Adventures, this dark trend continued — the Doctor would be prepared to destroy planets in the name of the greater good, and his companions were not always sure whether they could trust him.
The Seventh Doctor had a penchant for chess, and chess boards appeared in several of his televised adventures. This reflected a metaphorical — as well as literal — game of chess that he had been playing against Fenric, a game that culminated in the events of The Curse of Fenric. The chess metaphor extended to the Seventh Doctor's willingness to use his companions as pawns in a deeper game that he was playing of which they were unaware, as Ace was in that story.
Story style
In Season 24, the Seventh Doctor era began with a light-hearted approach, with stories like Delta and the Bannermen clearly aimed at a younger audience. However, in the final two seasons with Andrew Cartmel as script editor, the stories soon explored the true nature of the Doctor, hinting at dark secrets in his past. In Silver Nemesis, Lady Peinforte hints she knows the Doctor's secret of being more than just a Time Lord (deleted scenes in Remembrance of the Daleks and Survival also refer to this). With the cancellation of the series, these developments were never fully played out in the television series, but some of them were revealed in the New Adventures.
Marc Platt's novel Lungbarrow is usually considered to be the conclusion of the "Cartmel Masterplan". In that novel, the Doctor is revealed to be the reincarnation of "the Other", a shadowy figure and contemporary of Rassilon and Omega from Ancient Gallifrey. Lungbarrow was originally intended for Season 26, but producer John Nathan-Turner felt that it revealed too much of the Doctor's origins. It was reworked to become Ghost Light instead.
Other appearances
Television
The Seventh Doctor and Ace appeared twice on television between the time Doctor Who was cancelled and the 1996 television movie. The first was in 1990, in a special episode of the BBC2 educational programme Search Out Science. In this episode, the Doctor acted as a quiz show host, asking questions about astronomy; Ace, K-9 and "Cedric, from the planet Glurk" were the contestants. The Seventh Doctor then appeared in the 1993 charity special Dimensions in Time. Neither of these appearances are generally considered canonical.
There are also many Doctor Who spin-offs featuring the Seventh Doctor.
Novels
Virgin New Adventures
- Timewyrm: Genesys to Lungbarrow
Virgin Missing Adventures
- Cold Fusion by Lance Parkin
Past Doctor Adventures
- Illegal Alien by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry
- The Hollow Men by Martin Day and Keith Topping
- Matrix by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry
- Storm Harvest by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry
- Prime Time by Mike Tucker
- Independence Day by Peter Darvill-Evans
- Bullet Time by David A. McIntee
- Relative Dementias by Mark Michalowski
- Heritage by Dale Smith
- Loving the Alien by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry
- The Algebra of Ice by Lloyd Rose
- Atom Bomb Blues by Andrew Cartmel
Eighth Doctor Adventures
Telos Doctor Who novellas
- Citadel of Dreams by Dave Stone
- Companion Piece by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry