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The Fifth Doctor was the fifth incarnation of the Time Lord known as the Doctor. Appearing younger than his predecessors, the fifth incarnation expressed a new and more Human side to the Doctor's alien nature.
Biography
Post-regeneration
The Doctor's fourth regeneration was a problematic one, and nearly failed. (DW: Logopolis) Mentally, he alternated between assuming the personalities of his previous selves and reverting into states of fear and vagueness. He recovered in the TARDIS' Zero Room and after Nyssa and Tegan piloted the TARDIS to Castrovalva; where he could recover, he found himself captured by the Portreeve's men. An amnesiac, confused and vague, he regained his memory and sense of purpose and ended up once more succeeding against the Master. (DW: Castrovalva)
Attempts to return to Heathrow
Tegan demanded that he return her to 1981 Earth, which he attempted many times without success. (DW: Four to Doomsday, The Visitation) Along the way, Nyssa collapsed (DW: Four to Doomsday) and spent the next few days recovering, during which the Mara possessed Tegan (DW: Kinda) and they took time out to attend Lord Cranleigh's ball, where danger lurked once more. (DW: Black Orchid)
Somewhere around this time, the Doctor met his tenth incarnation due to their respective TARDIS' crashing into one another. (DW: Time Crash)
On 26th century Earth he discovered a plan by Cybermen to use Captain Briggs' space freighter as a giant bomb. The freighter shifted through time to the distant past, killing the dinosaurs and Earth's history proceeded as normal. However, Adric, still on the freighter, died. (DW: Earthshock)
Adventuring with Nyssa
Shortly after Adric's death and a further encounter with the Master, the Doctor successfully delivered Tegan back to Heathrow in the year that she required. (DW: Time-Flight) Following this encounter the Doctor and Nyssa continued to travel together, returning to Earth a few times; in Earth's past following an accident with a teleportion experiment and in an alternate version following the Dalek Emperor's attempt to manipulate a Mutant Phase infection. (BFA: Winter for the Adept, The Mutant Phase)
He was forced to return to Traken, prior to its destruction by the Master to find the cause of her psychic sensitivity, finding it in the individual Kwundaar, who caused her illness deliberately. (BFA: Primeval)
He faced some horror, when finding himself on the planet Mondas during its passage through space, that he and his body might have been some of the inspiration for the Cybermen. (BFA: Spare Parts)
After loosing his TARDIS he spent some time in Victorian London, before travelling back to Earth and the lands of the Scorpion King discovering that someone he thoughts was dead had very much survived. (BFA: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster, The Boy That Time Forgot)
Return to Gallifrey
Following contact with an anti-matter universe the Doctor was summoned to Gallifrey following his encounter with an anti-matter being near the Arc of Infinity. Following a ruling by the High Council, a Warrant of Termination was issued for the Doctor to be terminated. Following an encounter with Omega, and strangely Tegan Jovanka within the Matrix, he escaped Gallifrey to locate Omega and Tegan on Earth. Upon finding them the Doctor used the Ergon's matter converter gun to destroy Omega's body before it could revert to anti-matter. (DW: Arc of Infinity)
Travels with Nyssa and Tegan
When the Mara reemerged within Tegan the Doctor took them to the Mara's homeworld; Manussa to seek a method of purging the Mara from Tegan completely, at the end of his ordeal, he thought he had succeeded. (DW: Snakedance)
In an encounter with Mawdryn and his people who had abused Time Lord technology the Doctor was willing to give up his remaining regenerations, had it not been for a discharge of temporal energy from two versions of Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart meeting providing the energy at the precise moment. (DW: Mawdryn Undead)
After a breakdown of the TARDIS's internal dimensions locked the TARDIS onto Terminus and an encounter with the Lazars, Nyssa departed the Doctor to pursue a method of curing the disease. (DW: Terminus)
Enlightenment and the Guardians
Following the White Guardian's instructions the Doctor piloted his TARDIS to what appeared at first to be a sea-going yacht, but was a space-ship, piloted by Eternals in the ultimate race for Enlightenment. Turlough, the young man who had accompanied he and Tegan from Earth became the decider of the prize at the race's end he endeared himself to the Doctor for his choices, even though Tegan was less trustworthy attempting to force him out of the TARDIS following their departure from the race. (DW: Enlightenment, BFA: Cobwebs)
Reunited with Nyssa
to be added
The Game of Rassilon
The Doctor met three of his previous incarnations when they were summoned to the Death Zone on Gallifrey by President Borusa, who was attempting to gain Rassilon's secret of immortality. (DW: The Five Doctors)
Departures and new beginnings
While dropping off Gravis the Doctor was drawn to the planet Artaris, meeting Iris Wildthyme once more. (DW: Frontios, BFA: Excelis Dawns)
After several increasingly distressing encounters Tegan departed the Doctor and Turlough in a sea of tears following the increased amount of death she witnessed . (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks)
Following Tegan's departure the Doctor and Turlough continued to travel together for short amount of time visiting Earth's past and future before returning Turlough returned to his home planet of Trion. (DW: Planet of Fire)
Egyptian discoveries
to be added
Hunt for the Key to Time
Assigned a mission to seek out the pieces of the Key to Time once more, this time, because the pieces were degrading the Doctor was provided a sentient tracer, whom he named Amy (BFA: The Judgement of Isskar, The Destroyer of Delights, The Chaos Pool)
Regeneration
Ultimately, the Doctor and his last companion, Peri Brown, were exposed to Spectrox toxaemia on Androzani Minor which was, at the time, caught in the midst of a power struggle between gun runners, a fiendish masked madman called Sharaz Jek, government troops and crooked politicians, all over the precious mineral Spectrox. With only one dose of the antidote available to cure Spectrox toxamia, the fifth incarnation sacrificed his own life to save Peri, regenerating into his sixth incarnation. (DW: The Caves of Androzani) During his regeneration the Master tried to interfere via Kamelion's connection to the TARDIS, but the Doctor was saved by an older Nyssa who connected with him in his mindscape. (BFA: Circular Time)
- For a list of Fifth Doctor stories in the order in which he experienced them, see Fifth Doctor - Timeline.
Personality
The fifth incarnation was probably the most Human and vulnerable of all the Doctors. He was less pretentious and selfish, often reacting to situations rather than initiating them and openly expressing his hopes and fears to his companions. He could decipher the ingredients of a drink by smell alone and rosemary made him sneeze. His young appearance was reflected in the youthfulness of his companions as well, whom he treated more like parts of a team than their usual subordinate role under previous incarnations. The death of Adric affected him and the rest of his companions deeply. (DW: Earthshock)
Despite his youthful body and love of cricket, he was one of the least physical Doctors, preferring to use communication and diplomacy to solve a problem. In contrast to some of his more aggressive predecessors, he preferred to gain people's trust by honestly proving himself, instead of using his vast experience as an excuse to take charge. Indeed, he often willingly participated in situations under the leadership of someone else who had the strong command presence that he lacked. However this does not mean to say that he did not take charge in moments of frustration, as demonstrated during his encounter with a "skinny idiot". In an occasional reminder of his actual age, this Doctor would sport a pair of glasses when examining something, though these would later be revealed by his future self to be vanity "brainy specs", which he wore just to make him look "a bit clever". (DW: Time Crash)
At the same time, this humanity made him prone to panic under pressure and become occasionally indecisive. He was unable to execute Davros in cold blood, (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks) and reluctantly killed Kamelion only at the android's request. (DW: Planet of Fire)
Of all the incarnations of the Doctor, the fifth was the one who showed the greatest abhorrence for violence and needless bloodshed as well as the pain and suffering of others. Despite this, violence and bloodshed continued to dog his footsteps, as in the massacre in Sea Base 4 (DW: Warriors of the Deep) and the number of deaths of anonymous soldiers which led to Tegan's departure. The Doctor acknowledged that he perhaps had to mend his ways. (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks) Although this incarnation greatly disliked violence, he took part in gunning down a few foes when the situation deemed it necessary. (DW: Earthshock)
It was perhaps a combination of realizing that his lifestyle begot violence and the weighing of Adric's death on his mind that led him ultimately to sacrifice his own existence to save Peri. It was telling that this incarnation's last word before his regeneration into his sixth incarnation was "Adric". (DW: The Caves of Androzani)
Clothes
This Doctor had two different, though similar, outfits. He wore his first one in the first stages of his life and his second one in the later stages. His usual attire was a traditional cricket outfit. His very first outfit was a long beige coat with red lining along the collars, sleeves and pockets. (DW: Castrovalva) On his left lapel he wore a stick of celery, for he was allergic to certain gases in the praxis range of the spectrum and if he was near any, it would turn purple and he would eat it, and a white long sleeve cricket jumper with a red and black V-Neck pattern. Under that would be a white dress shirt with a red interior and embroidered question marks on the collars. His trousers were a unique pattern consisting of brown and beige stripes. Often he would top the look off with a Panama hat with a red band studded with sparkling stones.
He wore his second outfit after his first one was ruined. (DW: Warriors of the Deep) For this outfit, he made a few changes. The colour of the coat was slightly faded and the collar was made shorter. The jumper had a pattern of thick red and black lines on the bottom of the sweater, the V-neck and sleeves, the dress shirt had a green interior instead of a red one, and the pattern of the trousers changed to thick orange lines. He had been seen wearing suspenders adorned with question marks with this outfit. (DW: Planet of Fire)
Influence on later incarnations
The ninth, tenth and eleventh incarnations also seemed to have inherited his poor piloting skills. While inside the Doctor's dreamscape, Ace discovered that this incarnation in the Doctor's subconscious had come to personify the conscience of his future selves, reflecting his strong sense of compassion. (NA: Timewyrm: Revelation)
Whilst it was implied that his immediate successor hated being this incarnation, his tenth incarnation expressed a fond enjoyment whilst living as this incarnation. He looked upon his fifth incarnation as a turning point in his life. According to the Doctor's tenth incarnation it was in his fifth incarnation where he truly began to enjoy himself, an ironic statement considering the darkness surrounding the death of Adric and the departures of Tegan and Nyssa. He admitted to his earlier self that certain aspects of his wardrobe and personality were influenced by his fifth incarnation. (DW: Time Crash)
Behind the scenes
- Richard Griffiths was considered for the role of the fifth incarnation before Peter Davison was cast.
- After the famous and 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 ever officially play the Doctor, beating his predecessor Tom Baker. Davison was reluctant to accept the role because of his age.
- The fifth incarnation's era was notable for a "back to basics" attitude, in which humour, and, to an extent, horror, was kept to a minimum, but more scientific accuracy was encouraged by the producer, John Nathan-Turner. It was also notable for the reintroduction of many of the Time Lord's enemies, such as the Cybermen, Omega, the Black and White Guardians, the Sea Devils, and the Silurians, while the Master, who had been reintroduced at the end of the Baker era, became a regular adversary, appearing at least once, and often more than once, per season.
- In 2007, the fifth incarnation became the first past incarnation to appear in the 2005 series revival when he appeared in the mini-episode Time Crash.
- In several DVD commentaries, Peter Davison claims the reason that he abandoned the use of his half-moon glasses was because Janet Fielding mercilessly teased him when he used them. Fielding seemed to agree with this assessment on at least the commentary for Earthshock.