The Fifth Doctor was the fifth incarnation of the Time Lord known as the Doctor. He looked younger than his predecessors and expressed a new, more human aspect of his alien nature.
He began with three companions: Adric, Nyssa and Tegan Jovanka. All had joined the TARDIS crew near the end of his fourth incarnation. His relationship with Adric grew rocky over their lack of common interests. After the Cybermen's attack on Earth in the 26th century, the Doctor felt guilty over Adric's death and his inability to save his friend.
The Doctor took Nyssa in after the Master destroyed Traken. He gave her a home in the TARDIS until she left to find a cure for Lazar's disease.
The Doctor tried repeatedly to return Tegan to Heathrow Airport in the early 1980s. He succeeded eventually but she soon rejoined him. They parted finally when she grew weary of the death and destruction the TARDIS crew continually found themselves amidst.
The Black Guardian pursued the Fifth Doctor and sent Turlough to kill him. However, the Doctor won over Turlough and defeated the Guardian. Turlough accompanied the Doctor until his exile from his home ended.
In an encounter with the Master, the Doctor gained a companion in the android Kamelion. However, by the time Turlough had left and Peri joined, Kamelion had died, too weak to resist the Master.
Peri Brown joined the Doctor for a "vacation", but the arrangement became more permanent. They were joined by the Egyptian pharaoh Erimem for a while.
Soon after Erimem had left, the Doctor and Peri were exposed to unrefined spectrox on Androzani Minor and contracted spectrox toxaemia. The Doctor gave their single dose of vaccine to Peri and regenerated into his sixth incarnation.
Biography
Post-regeneration
His companions took the newly-regenerated Doctor to the Zero Room, to stabilise. While he was recovering, a message came from Adric, whom the Master had abducted, saying the TARDIS was heading for Event One. The Doctor left Tegan and Nyssa instructions on how to escape by ejecting mass from the TARDIS.
Much of the Zero Room was ejected. The Doctor needed to find a peaceful place to stabilise and went to Castrovalva. After he had recovered, he learned the city was artificial, created by block transfer computations. The Master, in the guise of the Portreeve, had created the city with Adric's brilliant mind. The Doctor rescued Adric and the TARDIS crew fled Castrovalva as it collapsed in on itself, leaving the Master to be erased from existence. (DW: Castrovalva)
Looking for Heathrow
Tegan insisted he return her to 1981 Earth. He tried and failed many times. (DW: Four to Doomsday, The Visitation)
A trip to an unspecified colony in the 28th century, brought the Doctor face to face with himself two regenerations later, and the misguided Ferutu. (MA: Cold Fusion)
The Doctor got to 1981, but in the wrong place: Monarch's spaceship. The TARDIS crew stopped Monarch's mad scheme for time travel with cyborgs. Nyssa had almost been converted into a cyborg and was greatly weakened. (DW: Four to Doomsday) While she rested, Adric and the Doctor visited the planet Deva Loka and were arrested by a madman undergoing a nervous breakdown. After escaping and pacifying him, the Doctor found Tegan had been possessed by the Mara. The Kinda and the Doctor cured her and removed the humans from the Kinda's planet. (DW: Kinda)
The TARDIS landed at Heathrow three hundred years early. The locals accused the Doctor of carrying the plague. He found that aliens called Terileptils were enhancing the plague in carrier rats to rid the planet of humans so they could take over. In stopping them, the Doctor accidentally caused the Great Fire of London and destroyed his sonic screwdriver. (DW: The Visitation) He would not use one again for almost two incarnations. (DW: Snakedance, DW: Doctor Who)
On a side trip, the Doctor was mistaken by Lord Cranleigh for a cricket player. He helped Cranleigh win a match. Cranleigh invited the Doctor and his friends to a fancy-dress ball to celebrate their victory. The Doctor's costume was stolen and used as a disguise for a murderer and the Doctor was accused of the crime. He cleared his name by showing off his TARDIS and finding that Cranleigh's supposedly deceased son was the culprit. (DW: Black Orchid)
About this time, the Doctor met his tenth incarnation when their TARDISes crashed into each other. The Fifth Doctor found his future self annoying and called him a "skinny idiot". The Tenth Doctor poked fun at some of the Fifth Doctor's quirks. They saved the universe from being sucked into a black hole by blowing up the TARDIS at the same time as the black hole imploded and bonded over their success. (DW: Time Crash)
Adric was growing distant from the Doctor and wanted to return to E-space. Before he could leave, Adric discovered a plan by Cybermen to use Captain Briggs' space freighter as a giant bomb. He tried to stop the freighter by cracking logic codes on the ship's controls. The freighter shifted through time to the distant past. When a surviving Cyberman destroyed the controls, the freighter hit the Earth and killed the dinosaurs. Adric, trapped on the freighter, died trying to save the Earth. The Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan never ceased to mourn him. (DW: Earthshock)
After another encounter with the Master, the Doctor finally returned Tegan to Heathrow in the year she had come from. He was enlisted to help find a lost plane and found the Master was trying to repair his TARDIS, damaged at their last meeting. The Doctor sent the Master to a world full of people who loathed him. (DW: Time-Flight)
Journeys with Nyssa
The Doctor and Nyssa returned to Earth a few times: in the past, after an accident with a teleportation experiment; and in an alternative Earth where the Dalek Emperor tried to manipulate a Mutant Phase infection. (BFA: Winter for the Adept, The Mutant Phase)
The Doctor returned to Traken before its destruction to find the cause of Nyssa's psychic sensitivity. They learned Kwundaar had caused her illness deliberately. (BFA: Primeval) On the planet Mondas while it travelled through interstellar space, he learned that he might have been part of the inspiration for the Cybermen. (BFA: Spare Parts)
The Doctor and Nyssa become embroiled in Time Lord politics on an alien world ruled by intelligent but flightless birds. (BFA: Spring) They fell afoul of Sir Isaac Newton and were arrested for having counterfeit coins, actually genuine coins from Earth’s future. (BFA: Summer) The Doctor set down in the English village, Stockbridge, to play cricket while Nyssa tried her hand at writing a novel. She caught the attention of a local boy, fell in love and contemplated life on Earth, left by the Doctor to grow old and die. However, she decided to continue travelling with the Doctor (BFA: Autumn)
While Nyssa was undertaking a solo expedition to 13th century Rhodes, (BFA: Renaissance of the Daleks) the Doctor returned to Stockbridge to continue playing cricket. Meanwhile, Melanicus, having seized control of the Event Synthesizer from the Prime Mover and used it to wreak havoc on time. While investigating the cause of the distortion, the Doctor met Sir Justin, who was plucked from a joust in his own time. Justin accompanied the Doctor to the Gallifrey and the Althrace system to attend a meeting with the High Evolutionaries of Althrace who explained the situation. Eventually, with the help of Rassilon, Merlin the Wise and Shayde, the Doctor confronted Melanicus, who had hidden the Event Synthesizer in a time-altered version of the local church. Justin, the Doctor and Shayde fought Melanicus. Justin gave the killing blow at the cost of his own life, restoring the universe to normal. (DWM: The Tides of Time)
While in Stockbridge, the Doctor met Maxwell Edison and Shayde again. (DWM: Stars Fell on Stockbridge, The Stockbridge Horror)
While travelling in the TARDIS, the Doctor arrived on an island in the Pacific Ocean, where he meets Fuji and Angus "Gus" Goodman. (DWM: Lunar Lagoon) The Doctor was forced to take Gus away from the island at gunpoint, using him, he discovered that he arrived in 1963, in an alternative timeline, where World War II hadn't finished. The Doctor subsequently found that the alternative timeline was created by the interventions of the Meddling Monk and the Ice Warriors. The Doctor, however, managed to prevent this timeline coming to pass, and defeated the Ice Warriors and the Monk. (DWM: 4-Dimensional Vistas)
The Doctor and Gus travelled to the planet Celeste, where they were captured by the malevolent, frog-like businessman, Josiah W. Dogbolter. The Doctor had offended Dogbolter by refusing to sell the TARDIS to him, so Dogbolter sent the Moderator, a hitman, after him. Just as the Doctor had dropped Gus off at someplace like home, the Moderator ambushed them and shot Gus. In the ensuing hail of gunfire, Gus shot and incapacitated the Moderator. Gus died from his wounds. The Doctor left Gus where he had fallen, but eventually encountered Dogbolter again. (DWM: The Moderator)
The Doctor was eventually reunited with Nyssa, and had an encounter with the Daleks from an alternative timeline. After this adventure, the two continued to travel together. (BFA: Renaissance of the Daleks)
The Doctor spent time in Victorian London. Where Thomas Brewster stole the TARDIS. The Doctor and Nyssa then managed to arrive on the land of the Scorpion King, where he found that someone he thought dead had survived. (BFA: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster, The Boy That Time Forgot) Thomas Brewster subsequently left the TARDIS, to live on Earth in 2008, with his lover, Connie. (BFA: A Perfect World)
In 1199, the Doctor and Nyssa found a Rutan inhabiting the Stockbridge Castle on Earth. They managed to defeat the Rutan, but were caught in an explosion. (BFA: Castle of Fear) However, they survived, and arrived in Stockbridge during the late 20th century, where the Doctor met Maxwell Edison again. (BFA: The Eternal Summer) The Doctor and Nyssa were swept up by a time storm to the futuristic village of Stockbridge. A strange rain was mutating the villagers into slaves of the Daleks. The Daleks tried to turn the Doctor into a Dalek and use his TARDIS to help conquer the universe, but failed (BFA: Plague of the Daleks)
The Doctor and Nyssa continued their travels. They woke with no memory of where they were or how they had arrived. After escaping to a cabin in the woods and learning the date — 1624 — they met aliens who were assimilating/cloning the locals. The Doctor's Binary vascular system helped them save the world. (BFA: The Demons of Red Lodge) They went to hear some of the last Traken music in the universe and uncovered a plot involving a musical piece called "White Waves, Soft Haze". (BFA: The Entropy Composition)
On a planet where the Doctor used his "John Smith" alias, he was mistaken for a local criminal, arrested and sent to prison. While Nyssa tried to free him, the Doctor tried to warn the prison authorities of an explosion that was destined to destroy them. (BFA: Doing Time). After getting out of that fix, he took part in a DVD commentary of a horror film from the 1970s. In the film was an alien parasite that possessed people who watched a specific part of the movie. The Doctor destroyed all the parasitical footage. (BFA: Special Features)
Old Foes Return Again
The Doctor was summoned to Gallifrey after dealing with an anti-matter being near the Arc of Infinity. The High Council ordered a Warrant of Termination issued; the Doctor was to be killed. He had an encounter with Omega and, oddly, Tegan Jovanka in the Matrix. He escaped to Earth and found Tegan and Omega, who had created a new body for himself, copying the Doctor's biodata and appearance. The Doctor used the gun of one of Omega's creations to destroy him before Omega could will his self-destruction. He also took Tegan back as his companion; she wished to resume travelling after losing her job. (DW: Arc of Infinity)
While Tegan and Nyssa were relaxing in Amsterdam, (BFA: The Elite) the Time Lords called upon the Doctor to answer a telepathic message sent by "the Doctor" in the Sector of Forgotten Souls. Upon arrival, the Doctor discovered that Omega had been reconstructed from his biodata, and developed a split personality, believing himself to be both "the Doctor" and Omega. However, the Doctor managed to defeat Omega, and exile him back to his universe of anti-matter. (BFA: Omega)
When Tegan began having precognitive dreams of the Mara, the Doctor decided to deal with the problem on the Mara's home planet, Manussa; it seemed the dangerous entity would be returning very soon. The Doctor sought help from a snakedancer named Dojjen. According to him, the Doctor had to find his "still point"; the Mara fed on negative emotions, but if one found this internal spot, they would be safe from being fed on. Taking advantage of this knowledge, the Doctor starved the Mara to death, freeing Tegan from its influence for good. (DW: Snakedance)
The Doctor was attacked by a baby vampire sent by his old Time Lord friend, Ruath; Nyssa was bitten and became a vampire in his place. Ruath wanted his blood to resurrect the powerful vampire Yarven. The Doctor found Ruath, who was also a vampire, building a machine to freeze time in eternal night to allow vampires to feed forever. The Doctor allowed Nyssa to convert him, then destroyed the machine and Yarven, changing himself, Nyssa and Ruath back to normal, then trapped Ruath in the time vortex. (MA: Goth Opera)
The TARDIS got stuck in a warp ellipse and materialised on a starliner in 1983. The Doctor met a young man named Turlough; an old foe persuaded him to kill the Doctor in return for being taken home. The Doctor found a transmat capsule was responsible; it exploded, sending the TARDIS to 1977. He also reunited with the Brigadier, who'd forgotten their time at UNIT; the Doctor jogged his memory. The Doctor and the Brigadier went to the spaceship, where the Brigadier from 1977 also was. Mawdryn, one of nine aliens who abused Time Lord technology to become immortal, now wished to die. At first it seemed the Doctor would have to use his remaining lives to power a machine to save his companions and kill Mawdryn. However, the Brigadiers met; the resulting effect gave the younger Brigadier amnesia and provided power for the machine. The Doctor returned the Brigadiers to their proper times and welcomed Turlough onboard. (DW: Mawdryn Undead)
Turlough sabotaged the TARDIS on the Black Guardian's orders, something that could tear the TARDIS apart at the seams if it had been done properly. It locked onto a spaceship carrying victims of Lazar's disease to Terminus. Terminus had originally caused the Big Bang and was about to reverse it, destroying the universe. The Doctor charmed the Garm, who prevented the engines from blowing up. Nyssa decided to stay on Terminus to help perfect a cure for Lazar's disease; the only cure for it lacked stability, which was needed to ensure those treated would live. (DW: Terminus)
While fixing Turlough's sabotage, the Doctor was ordered by the White Guardian to what seemed to be a yacht; it was a space-ship piloted by Eternals in a race for Enlightenment. One Eternal, Wrack, sought the prize to end her boredom; she cheated, using the other guardian's power to destroy other ships. Tegan became infatuated with Marriner, but he was only interested in the emotions she gave off; she sent him away. The Doctor and Turlough won the race. Both Guardians offered them the prize, but the Doctor offered it to Turlough to test his virtue. Though the evil guardian tempted him with anything he wanted in exchange for the Doctor, Turlough did as the Doctor had hoped; he rejected the offer, making the Black Guardian vanish. The White Guardian explained Enlightenment was the choice; Turlough chose wisely. (DW: Enlightenment)
Two days after meeting the Guardians, the TARDIS is forced down to the planet Helheim, where they meet Nyssa, who is fifty years older than when they left her on Terminus. Nyssa arrived on Helheim to find a cure for Richtes Disease, which lead her to an abandoned base, where they find robotic Cractids, and four bodies covered in cobwebs, which resemble the Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and Nyssa. To discover what happened to the base, they all travelled in the past, where they discovered that the Cractids were attempting to construct clone of the TARDIS crew, explaining why their bodies were left in the base. The Doctor then used his TARDIS, to divert his TARDIS in the past, to arrive on Helheim in the first place. After the Doctor failed to return her home, Nyssa decide to resume her travels through time and space. (BFA: Cobwebs)
The Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and Nyssa arrived on Cherdor in the 28th century, where they found a society which was obsessed with cleanliness, and live under the menace of the Takers. After discovering the truth behind the origins to the corrupt society, the TARDIS crew returned to the TARDIS, but discovered that Tegan is still possessed by the Mara. (BFA: The Whispering Forest)
When the Doctor attempted to drive it out, it changed its tactics and entered into the Doctor's mind, leaving Tegan completely. It then consulted a book in the TARDIS library to find out about its history. Piloting the TARDIS to Manussa (under the pretence of having Tegan examined by a Manussan doctor), it landed the ship about one hundred years prior to the rise of the Sumaran Empire, and embarked on a scheme to bring about the subjugation of Manussa in that time period intsead. In the process, keeping the Doctor as its primary host, it possessed several Manussans. It used an experimental Manussan technology (using Manussan blue crystals) to project the thoughts of its hosts into solid matter, manifesting itself physically as a giant snake. However, Tegan and Turlough were able to free the Doctor using a circle of television cameras and screens (similar to the circle of mirrors used on Deva Loka). The Doctor linked the crystal the Mara was using as a link to the material world to the TARDIS so he could reverse the creature's physical manifestation. However, the process required that the crystal be in physical contact with the Mara, and the giant snake, fueled by the despair of the many Manussans it had managed to possess, had swallowed the TARDIS whole. In the end, a young man who had been brought into existence by the crystal technology sacrificed himself by going out into the snake's belly with the crystal, destroying it by "restoring the balance", as one of the snakedancers put it. Before its destruction, the Mara had managed to possess not only numerous Manussans, but Nyssa and Turlough as well. The Doctor stated that the Mara could not be said to have been fully destroyed, as it is inside all human beings. (BFA: The Cradle of the Snake)
After landing in Calcutta, 1926, the Doctor and his companions joined an expedition to locate the fabled emerald tiger. During this adventure, Nyssa regains her youth again. (BFA: The Emerald Tiger) Then they landed on the Eight slash Q Panenka comet in 2329, where they met a crew of a space freight. (BFA: The Jupiter Conjunction)
With the intent of arriving in Brisbane, at Tegan's request, the TARDIS encounters a beam of Zygma energy, which separates Nyssa and Turlough from the TARDIS, where they arrive in Brisbane during the 51st century. They find that it is an icy wasteland covered in bodies, and they find an old man who has already met Nyssa and Turlough before, and has been subjected to the zygma experiments, and dies. They are then taken away by a group of rebels, who are attempting to over through Magnus Greel and the Supreme Alliance. Nyssa and Turlough then find out that one of the rebels is the old man who recognised them. The Doctor and Tegan arrive three years in the future, where they find a giant, which the Doctor believes was subjected to the zygma experiments. Confirming the Doctor's theory that he is on 51st century Earth, where his old enemy, Magnus Greel is based before he escaped to the 1880s. Tegan is taken by the same rebel who took Nyssa and Turlough three years earlier, while the Doctor is taken by genetically engineered coyotes, one of whom is called Chops. Tegan discovers that Nyssa and Turlough have been working for the rebels for three years, and they are undercover as Greel's bride and Nyssa's personal assistant. Meanwhile, the Doctor is taken to Dr Sa Yy Findecker, to used be in his zygma experiments, however, the Doctor escapes by coercing Chops into working for him, and join the rebels. While at a conference with the Icelandic Alliance in Peking, Magnus Greel and Nyssa give the commissioner the gift of Mr Sin, although Nyssa doesn't know Mr Sin's true purpose. Greel is then met by Dr Findecker, who tells him that he successfully invented the time cabinet. Mr Sin then attacks the commissioners children and kills the commissioner, prompting Greel to kidnap Nyssa, and take her to Reykjavik. Leaving Turlough with the rebels. Discovering Greel's plan to escape to Reykjavik, Findecker takes the time cabinet there, with the Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and Chops in hot pursuit. Finding out about the commissioners death, the Filipino Army advance on Reykjavik. While attempting to infiltrate Greel's base in Reykjavik, Chops sacrifices himself to kill the other coyotes guarding Greel. The Doctor confronts Greel on the roof of the base, where the time cabinet materialses. Greel kills Findecker, while he and Mr Sin escape in the time cabinet. The Doctor leaves in the TARDIS with Nyssa, Tegan and Turlough, but not before calling off the Filipino Army, by contacting a previous incarnation of his in the army at the time. (BFA: The Butcher of Brisbane)
After Nyssa left the TARDIS again, the TARDIS arrived on 13th century Earth, the Doctor met the Master in disguise yet again. After defeating his old foe in a jousting match, the Doctor was given the choice of either saving the innocent Geoffrey de Lacy or the Master by King John of England. Choosing Geoffrey, the Doctor couldn't stop the master from escaping in his TARDIS. It transpired that John was, actually, a peace-loving, weak-willed, shape-changing android called Kamelion; the Master found and acquired this unique android after being stranded by the Doctor in their previous encounter. The Doctor took Kamelion with him. (DW: The King's Demons)
The Game of Rassilon
The Doctor took Tegan and Turlough to the Eye of Orion for a rest. However, all four of the Doctor's previous lives had been taken out his timestream; he began to fade away. Having his TARDIS forced to the Death Zone on Gallifrey, the Doctor stabilized thanks to the presence of his original incarnation, who mistook the TARDIS for the one in his time. The Doctor eventualy went back to Gallifrey, where he learned President Borusa was trying to gain Rassilon's secret of immortality; he used the Doctors to clear the way past traps, even hiring the Master to assist. With the help of his orginal incarnation, the Doctor tricked Borusa into falling for Rassilon's final trap. (DW: The Five Doctors)
Departures
During a trip to the near future, the Doctor found that the Silurians had teamed up with a brood of Sea Devils to instigate nuclear war against humanity. He had to kill the Silurians and Sea Devils with poison gas. (DW: Warriors of the Deep)
The Doctor materialised the TARDIS in Little Hodcombe in 1984, to meet Tegan's grandfather Andrew Verney. While in Little Hodcombe, the Doctor discovered that a being called the Malus had been feeding off psychic energy generated by the negative emotions caused by the war games being held there, and was being assisted by Sir George Hutchinson. However, the Doctor managed to defeat the Malus and Hutchinson with the help of a schoolteacher called Jane Hampden, and Will Chandler from Little Hodcombe in 1643, who was removed from his time by the Malus. (DW: The Awakening)
While Tegan and Turlough remained in Little Hodcombe, the Doctor and Jane, tried to take Will back to 1643. Soon after leaving Little Hodcombe, the Doctor, Jane and Will encountered a race of giant lizards. The Doctor succeeded in returning Will home after about a month of trying. (PDA: The King of Terror, The Hollow Men)
After retrieving Tegan and Turlough, the TARDIS was pulled to the planet Frontios, where it was torn apart by the Tractators, led by the Gravis. These aliens were stranded on the planet. They needed wreckage to make a functional ship. The Doctor tricked the Gravis into rebuilding the TARDIS, with him inside, separating him from the rest of the Tractators and leaving them without their hive mind. He left the Gravis on a barren, rocky planet called Kolkokron. (DW: Frontios, ST: Life After Queth)
Before retrieving Turlough, the Doctor and Tegan crash landed on the planet Artaris. While Tegan was left in the TARDIS, the Doctor met Lord Grayvorn, who was on a quest to look for the Relic. After arriving in a nunnery to get the maps to find the Relic, the Doctor found out that Iris Wildthyme was working for the nunnery, and accompany them on their quest. When they discovered the location of the Relic, they found that it was being guarded by zombies, that were resurrected by the Relic. However, they managed to steal the Relic, and arrived back at the convent. but upon their return to the convent, Grayvorn and the Mother Superior fought over the Relic and fell off the convent bell tower to their apparent deaths. The Relic was lost again. The Doctor and Iris departed, unaware that Grayvorn had not died. The Relic merged Grayvorn and the Mother Superior's minds into one, making Grayvorn immortal (BFA: Excelis Dawns)
The Doctor ran into the Daleks again. These Daleks were loyal to Davros, the scientist who had created them. After defeating them, the Doctor was dismayed when Tegan chose to remain in her home time. She was tiring of the violence and death she had encountered during their adventures. (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks)
Kamelion received a distress signal and they went to Lanzarote in 1984. Turlough brought onboard an American girl, Peri Brown, whom he had saved from drowning. The Doctor piloted the TARDIS to Sarn, a colony world of banished Trions.
Kamelion had fallen under the Master's control again and was fronting for him as the god Logar. The Doctor was almost burned alive. Kamelion brought the real Master (who had accidentally shrunk himself while upgrading his Tissue Compression Eliminator) to the Control Room. Though he could not prevent the Master from using the gas to return to his proper size, the Doctor fiddled with the controls, leaving his old foe to the mercy of the flames.
Now free of the Master's control, Kamelion begged for death. The Doctor used the TCE on him. Turlough wished to return home; his exile from Trion had long been ended. The Doctor tok Peri on as his new companion for the last three months of her summer vacation. (DW: Planet of Fire)
Arrival of Peri and Erimem
On a trip to Egypt with Peri, the Doctor became involved in a struggle with an alien parasite that infected people by touch and controlled them as a hive mind. They saved the young pharaoh Erimem from rebels and a conspiracy. Erimem decided to leave her throne to a distant relative and travel with them. (BFA: The Eye of the Scorpion)
Tracking members of the Celestial Intervention Agency, they set up a restaurant. They served the CIA food spiked with a vaccine to a virus the CIA members picked up while investigating the Doctor's recent actions on the planet Pointy. (BFA: Exotron)
They went to Paris in the 17th century. Peri was kidnapped after being mistaken for the French queen. (BFA: The Church and the Crown) They visited a market in the Garazone system. Erimem learned of a mystery in the Necromanteia system, where a war between humanoid soldiers and witches was being fought. The witches killed the Doctor. He entered a dreamlike plain and learned that the war was over a device to make someone immortal. The god of the witches resurrected him and they escaped before the planet exploded. (BFA: Nekromanteia)
A giant robot from the 64th century appeared in the TARDIS and pressured the Doctor into fulfilling his writing contract. They went to 1485 and met Richard III. Peri and Erimem were lost in time; the Doctor found the truth about who killed the princes in the tower and faced an unlikely enemy — William Shakespeare. (BFA: The Kingmaker)
Alone and an Old Friend
The Doctor dropped Erimem and Peri off for a party in Monte Carlo in 1966 and told them to prevent the theft of the "Veiled Leopard". They spent most of the evening with the thief. (BFA: The Veiled Leopard) The Doctor, in the meantime, went to the Gogglebox instead of the ice caves of Shabadabadoda. He learned of a mystery involving 1984 and 2006. Another version of him was investigating in 1984, so he went to Brisbane in 2006.
He met an older Tegan Jovanka and a mysterious doctor, Katherine Chambers, who seemed to know about him. Tegan had contracted an alien brain tumour that was killing her. He offered to take her some place her tumour could be cured, but she was kidnapped by Katherine and an accomplice.
Katherine had been Peri's best friend when they were kids. In a later incarnation, the Doctor would be involved in a plot involving the Cybermen that would result in the paralysis of Katherine’s brother Nate and the death of her father. Katherine kidnapped Tegan for the first patient of her new medical computer. The Doctor stopped Katherine and offered Tegan a chance to travel with him again, but she refused. She had grown accustomed to her life on Earth. (BFA: The Gathering)
Before collecting Peri and Erimem from 1966, the Doctor was involved in a plot involving time leakage and the Vault of Interstellar Curios. He was attacked by a legion of Daleks helped by a man named Ulrick. The Daleks were trying to steal the Vault's contents. He met another Timelord (his Eighth self) and used their TARDISes to form a temporal loop. An older Ulrick appeared before him and sacrificed himself to help the Doctor defeat the Daleks. The Doctor joined his Sixth, Seventh and Eighth incarnations briefly before being returned to his own timeline. (BFA: The Four Doctors)
After collecting Peri and Erimem, the TARDIS crew encountered Dracula, (BFA: Son of the Dragon), and materialised on YT45, (BFA: The Mind's Eye) before landing on Peladon.
Upon landing on Peladon, the Doctor encountered Sekhmet, one of the last Osirians, and defeated her. But the newly crowned king, Pelleas proposed to Erimem, and she accepted. So she parted company from Peri and the Doctor. (BFA: The Bride of Peladon)
Second Quest For the Key to Time
The Doctor was assigned a mission by the White Guardian to seek out the segments of the Key to Time once more, because they were degrading, due to the Doctor scattering them again. He was given a sentient tracer, whom he named Amy. The first search for a segment of the Key led to Mars during Ancient Ice Warrior society. (BFA: The Judgement of Isskar) The following location in the quest was Sudan in the 9th century. (BFA: The Destroyer of Delights) After collecting some of the segments of the Key to Time, the Doctor discovered that another sentient tracer, Zara had been collecting the other segments. Meanwhile, the final piece was found on the planet, Chaos, where he met Romana and Princess Astra. The Doctor discovered that after the key was scattered the last time, Romana became the final segment of it. But to save Romana's life, Astra offered to become the final segment instead, even if it involved her dying to do so. When the White and Black Guardians arrived to try and take the Key away from the Doctor, the Doctor through it into the Chaos Pool, were it was destroyed, preventing the degradation that it was causing to the universe. While the Guardians left empty handed, Romana returned to Gallifrey, allowing Amy and Zara to accompany her. (BFA: The Chaos Pool)
Death
The Doctor and Peri arrived on Androzani Minor and were caught in a struggle over the precious mineral spectrox. As they dealt with gun runners, government troops, crooked politicians and a masked madman called Sharaz Jek, the Doctor and Peri were exposed to raw spectrox and contracted Spectrox toxaemia. They had only one dose of the cure to the fatal condition. The Doctor gave his own life to save Peri and regenerated into his sixth incarnation. (DW: The Caves of Androzani)
During his regeneration, the Master tried to interfere via Kamelion's lingering connection to the TARDIS, but the Doctor was saved by an older Nyssa who connected with him in his mindscape. (BFA: Winter)
Unrecorded adventures
- The Doctor attended Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart's funeral, as did all his incarnations. (ST: The Gift)
- River Song met the Fifth Doctor, noting his obsession with the Eye of Orion, which she believed was a night club. As with all her trips into the Doctor's past, she wiped his memory with mnemosine recall-wipe vapour to not contaminate the timeline. (VG: The Eternity Clock)
- The Doctor and Tegan once visited the planet Nocturne. The Seventh Doctor later told his companions Ace and Hex that it was "a particularly lively visit." (BFA: Nocturne)
Personality
This incarnation was probably the most open and vulnerable of all the Doctors. He was neither pretentious nor selfish and reacted to situations rather than starting them. He expressed his hopes and fears to his companions. His young appearance was reflected in the youthfulness of his companions, whom he treated like friends rather than subordinates. Adric's death affected him deeply. (DW: Earthshock)
Despite his youthful body and love of cricket, he was one of the least physical Doctors. He preferred to use talk and diplomacy to solve a problem. He gained trust by proving himself instead of using his vast experience as an excuse to take charge. Indeed, he worked willingly under the leadership of others who had the strong command presence that he lacked. He could also decipher the ingrediants of a drink by smell alone and rosemary made him sneeze.
This did not mean he did not take charge in moments of frustration, as when confronted with a "skinny idiot". In an occasional reminder of his actual age, this Doctor would sport a pair of glasses when examining something. These were vanity "brainy specs", which he wore to make him look "a bit clever". (DW: Time Crash)
His humanity made him panicky and indecisive under pressure. He failed to execute Davros in cold blood (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks) and killed Kamelion reluctantly and only at the android's request. He did not move to help the Master. However, he seemed deeply upset by this after the Master's apparent death. (DW: Planet of Fire)
Of all the incarnations of the Doctor, the fifth showed the greatest abhorrence for violence, needless bloodshed and the pain and suffering of others. Despite this, violence and bloodshed dogged his footsteps in the massacre in Sea Base 4 (DW: Warriors of the Deep) and the deaths of anonymous soldiers which led to Tegan's departure. The Doctor acknowledged he had to mend his ways. (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks) Although this incarnation hated violence, he gunned down foes when he deemed it necessary. (DW: Earthshock)
Towards the end of his life, the Doctor displayed a more relaxed and controlled side. Even as he awaited execution on Androzani Minor he was fiercely curious about the spectrox mined there. He also developed a sarcastic side, mocking Chellak's insistence on being addressed as "sir". Perhaps a combination of realising that his lifestyle begat violence and the weight of Adric's death led him to sacrifice himself to save Peri. It was telling that his last word was "Adric". (DW: The Caves of Androzani)
When meeting his seventh incarnation, he was repulsed by his future self's manipulative nature. (MA: Cold Fusion)
Clothes
This Doctor had two similar outfits. Both were based on traditional cricket whites. So close were they to whites that he could take off his coat and play the sport without comments on his appearance. (DW: Black Orchid, DWM: The Tides of Time)
His first outfit (DW: Castrovalva) was a long beige coat with red lining along the collars, sleeves and pockets. He wore a stick of celery on his left lapel for his allergy to gases in the praxis range of the spectrum. If any were near, the celery would turn purple and he would eat it. He wore a white, long-sleeved cricket jumper with a red and black V-Neck pattern. Under that was a white dress shirt with a red interior and embroidered question marks on the collars. His trousers were a unique pattern of brown and beige stripes. He wore white socks and white plimsolls. He would top the look with a Panama hat with a red band studded with sparkling stones.
His second outfit debuted after his first was ruined. (DW: Warriors of the Deep) The coat's colour was slightly faded and the collar was shorter. The jumper had a pattern of thick red and black lines on the bottom, the V-neck and sleeves; the dress shirt had a green interior and the pattern of the trousers changed to thick, orange lines. He sometimes wore suspenders adorned with question marks with this outfit. (DW: Planet of Fire)
When his first incarnation was placed on trial for murder in London in 1963 as a result of killing a werewolf with a silver bullet, he served as one of the jurors, as did his second, third and eighth incarnations. On that occasion, he dressed more conservatively, wearing an ill-fitting grey suit. (ST: The Juror's Story)
Influence on later incarnations
After his regeneration, the Sixth Doctor hated having been this incarnation, telling Peri that "he had a feckless charm that was never really [him]." (DW: The Twin Dilemma) The Sixth Doctor's companion Evelyn Smythe said that he "seemed lovely" after observing him from afar. The Sixth Doctor was irritated by this statement. In spite of this, he admitted grudgingly that he enjoyed his fifth incarnation as "being him was like a holiday. A very wonderful holiday." (BFA: The 100 Days of the Doctor)
His seventh incarnation described him as "bland" and "not even one of the good ones." The Fifth Doctor returned the compliment, repulsed by his manipulative nature. (MA: Cold Fusion)
While inside the Doctor's dreamscape, Ace discovered that this incarnation in the Doctor's subconscious had come to personify his future selves' conscience with his strong sense of compassion. (NA: Timewyrm: Revelation)
The Eighth Doctor was more fond of his fifth incarnation than his two immediate predecessors. He once described him as "terribly polite." (BFA: The Four Doctors)
His tenth incarnation expressed a fondness for this life. (DW: Time Crash) He saw him as a turning point. It was in his fifth incarnation when he began to enjoy himself, an ironic statement considering the darkness of Adric's death (DW: Earthshock) and the departures of Nyssa (DW: Terminus) and Tegan (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks). He admitted to his earlier self that certain aspects of his wardrobe and personality were influenced by his fifth incarnation. (DW: Time Crash)
His eleventh incarnation made at least two references that may have been influenced by this incarnation: he asked for some celery after a physically distressing decontamination (DW: Cold Blood) and encouraged Canton Delaware with the words "Brave heart" as he often had done with Tegan (DW: The Impossible Astronaut).
Behind the scenes
- Richard Griffiths was considered for the role before Peter Davison was cast.
- After the popular fourth incarnation, it was decided that the next incarnation should be played by an actor who was already firmly established in the British public's mind. Peter Davison was chosen, due in no small part to his popular and critically acclaimed role as Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small, a BBC series based on the books of James Herriot.
- Until the announcement in 2009 of 26-year-old Matt Smith as the eleventh incarnation, Davison, age 29 when he began the role, held the record as the youngest actor to play the Doctor officially. He beat his predecessor Tom Baker by eleven years. Davison was reluctant to accept the role because of his age.
- The fifth incarnation's era was notable for a "back to basics" attitude. Humour and horror were kept to a minimum, Scientific accuracy was encouraged by the producer, John Nathan-Turner. It saw the reintroduction of many of the Time Lord's enemies, such as the Cybermen, Omega, the Black and White Guardians, the Silurians and the Sea Devils, while the Master, who had been reintroduced at the end of the Baker era, became a recurring adversary, appearing at least once per season.
- In 2007, the fifth incarnation became the first and only past incarnation to appear in the 2005 series revival when he appeared in the mini-episode Time Crash.
- As a result of this, the Fifth Doctor is tied for second place (after the Second Doctor and tied with the Third Doctor) for canonically meeting the most other incarnations: Richard Hurndall, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and David Tennant (DW: The Five Doctors, Time Crash).
- In several DVD commentaries, Peter Davison claims he abandoned his half-moon glasses because Janet Fielding teased him when he used them. Fielding seemed to agree with this assessment on the commentary for Earthshock.
