"The Doctor"

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"The Doctor", a title which embodied their promise to the universe, was the main alias used by a mysterious renegade Time Lord from Gallifrey who travelled through time and space with various companions in an obsolete and "borrowed" Type 40 TARDIS. They were the universe's "greatest defender", having saved the cosmos thousands of times throughout a long life, becoming a great legend across the universe.

Though largely a believer in non-violent conflict resolution, they were, when absolutely necessary, a great warrior. Indeed, some civilisations in the universe (e.g. the denizens of the Gamma Forests) translated the word doctor as warrior, (TV: A Good Man Goes to War) whilst others saw the Doctor as a compassionate benefactor, worthy of their admiration and compassion. (TV: Last of the Time Lords, The Wedding of River Song)

Although they had saved untold numbers on their travels, the Doctor was thought to have caused the deaths of billions at the conclusion to the Last Great Time War. (TV: Dalek) Though most of the Daleks were killed in the crossfire, Gallifrey — disappearing, rather than being burned — was hidden thanks to the efforts of the first thirteen of the Doctor's incarnations, the first eleven of whom retained no memory of the event. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) For their actions, the Time Lords granted the Doctor a new regeneration cycle, allowing them to live on after using up all available regenerations in their first cycle. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)

The Doctor's personal history was constantly changing and contradicting itself. (PROSE: Unnatural History) Their early life and their true species were matters of much contention, in part due to shifting timelines. (PROSE: Celestial Intervention - A Gallifreyan Noir) The Doctor's own memories were unclear regarding their early life and origins, (COMIC: The World Shapers; PROSE: Who is Dr Who?, Unnatural History) and several accounts even suggested that they had non-Gallifreyan origins.

According to one account, the Doctor was some form of reincarnation of the Other, a mysterious figure from Gallifrey's past who helped form Time Lord society and perfect time travel technology. The Other would later become the Doctor via looming. (PROSE: Lungbarrow) Indeed, the Doctor explicitly told Davros that they were "far more than just another Time Lord", (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) and Lady Peinforte claimed knowledge of the Doctor's actions during the Dark Times of early Gallifrey, well before their assumed birth date, as gathered from the Nemesis statue. (TV: Silver Nemesis)

According to another account, the Doctor was originally "the Timeless Child", a being from another dimension or universe, who was discovered by the First Tecteun early in Gallifreyan history. The Child had a natural ability to regenerate, which the Shobogans studied and eventually replicated. Eventually becoming Time Lords, they would later redact much of the Doctor's memories in favour of a "noble creation myth". This resulted in the Doctor being unaware of their true nature. (TV: The Timeless Children)

From the latter years of their first incarnation onward, the Doctor had a pronounced affinity for Earth and the human race. After departing Gallifrey, they voluntarily chose to spend time on the planet, (TV: An Unearthly Child, AUDIO: Summer, The Haunting of Thomas Brewster) choosing it as the place of their exile during most of their third incarnation, (TV: Spearhead from Space - The Three Doctors) and even owning property in Kent (COMIC: Fellow Travellers, PROSE: Verdigris, Warlock, Warchild, The Dying Days, Mad Dogs and Englishmen) and New York City. (PROSE: The Forgotten Army) They favoured Great Britain as a frequently visited location, taking most of their companions from there. (TV: An Unearthly Child, Spearhead from Space, The Time Monster, Rose, Smith and Jones, Partners in Crime, et al.) Even before the disappearance of Gallifrey, the Doctor spent much more time on Earth than on their homeworld.

Despite the varying personality traits of each incarnation, the Doctor always retained "a bit of adrenaline, a dash of outrage and a hint of panic", which helped define who they were, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) and a questionable fashion sense according to most, (TV: The Power of Three) along with the promise of sticking to everything that their name stood for: duty, compassion, and resourcefulness. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)

Though particular taste in fashion did change with each Doctor, one thing that was nearly a constant was the coat or jacket, worn either as part of an outfit (TV: An Unearthly Child, The Power of the Daleks, Spearhead from Space, Castrovalva, The Twin Dilemma, Doctor Who, Rose, The Eleventh Hour, Deep Breath) or as an extra layer, like a trench coat. (TV: The Christmas Invasion, The Woman Who Fell to Earth)

Name

Main article: The Doctor's aliases

The Doctor's true name remained unknown to all but a very few individuals, such as Sam Jones, (PROSE: Vanderdeken's Children) River Song, (TV: Forest of the Dead, The Name of the Doctor) and the Master. (TV: World Enough and Time) Though the Time Lords knew the genuine name of the Doctor, (TV: The Time of the Doctor) they did not use it, even in the formal setting of legal trials. (TV: The War Games, The Trial of a Time Lord)

According to the Saxon Master, he chose the name "Doctor" to reflect his constant desire to make people "better". (TV: The Sound of Drums) Missy claimed to know the Doctor's real name from their time together on Gallifrey; she said it was "Doctor Who", and the Doctor had chosen it to be mysterious but dropped the "Who" when he realised it was too on-the-nose. (TV: World Enough and Time)

The Eleventh Doctor told Clara Oswald that his real name was not so important, since he specifically chose in its place the title of "Doctor", "like a promise you make". (TV: The Name of the Doctor) This promise was, as the Tenth and War Doctor recited together, "Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up, never give in." (TV: The Day of the Doctor) The Twelfth Doctor claimed that when he originally adopted the title it was "just a name," which held no real significance until his first visit to Skaro. It was through his opposition to the Daleks that the Doctor was able to define himself and realise who he was. (TV: Into the Dalek)

The title "Doctor" was not undeserved; they did hold one or more doctorates of some sort, (TV: The Armageddon Factor, The God Complex) formally studied medicine on at least 19th century Earth at Glasgow University, (TV: The Moonbase) and frequently displayed detailed medical knowledge. (TV: The Ark, Frontios, The Empty Child, New Earth, The Time of Angels, The Curse of the Black Spot) At least some versions of their sonic screwdriver performed medical scans and healed minor wounds. (TV: The Empty Child, The Vampires of Venice, A Good Man Goes to War) The Seventh Doctor showed knowledge on how to help someone thrown by an explosion recover quickly. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) Although their first, (TV: "The Forest of Fear", "Mighty Kublai Khan") second, (TV: The Krotons) fourth (TV: The Ark in Space) and fifth incarnations (AUDIO: Red Dawn) had claimed not to be a doctor of medicine, their third, (TV: Spearhead from Space) eighth, (AUDIO: Sword of Orion) ninth (COMIC: The Cruel Sea) and tenth incarnations (TV: Utopia) claimed to be a doctor of practically "everything", and by their eleventh incarnation, the Doctor claimed to hold doctorates in at least medicine and cheesemaking. (TV: The God Complex) In their thirteenth incarnation, they claimed to be a doctor of "Medicine, science, engineering, candyfloss, Lego, philosophy, people, [and] hope. Mostly hope." (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum)

According to Evelina, the Doctor's name was written in the stars of the Medusa Cascade. (TV: The Fires of Pompeii) Members of an unidentified race of pan-dimensional beings also knew the Time Lord's real name, at one point. (AUDIO: The Last Voyage)

In one account, he had taken the moniker after his first contact with humans. Colonists on the medical/penal colony of Iwa began calling him "Doctor" after his arrival. He failed to correct them. After they left the planet, "the Doctor" simply kept the name he had been given by the humans. (PROSE: Frayed) In another, he had already been introducing himself by that name after his first trip in the TARDIS, which gave an alternative account of meeting humans for the first time on the Moon. (AUDIO: The Beginning) The First Doctor responded to the name when an echo of Clara Oswald put it to him before even departing Gallifrey. (TV: The Name of the Doctor)

River Song believed that the Doctor had influenced the etymology of the word doctor itself; and in multiple cultures was the first recorded use of "Doctor" (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)

According to Dorium Maldovar and the Silence, the oldest and most dangerous question in the universe was "Doctor who?" The Doctor's true name was apparently the answer. Dorium claimed the Doctor had been running from the question all his life. According to the Silence, "silence must fall when the question is asked," (TV: The Wedding of River Song) because if the question was answered, it could lead to destruction on a universal scale; through several methods, each of which were located on the planet Trenzalore. The first was that the Doctor's name could be used to open his grave and alter his timeline, potentially undoing the countless times the Doctor had saved the universe. (TV: The Name of the Doctor) The second was that his name could be used to confirm to the Time Lords, who were sealed in a pocket universe and had been broadcasting the question throughout the entirety of time and space, that it was safe for them to return; which could result in another Time War. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)

At some point River Song learned his name, prompting the Doctor to claim that there was only one reason he ever would or could reveal it. (TV: Forest of the Dead) Indeed, even while spending hundreds of years in a town permeated by a Truth Field and hearing the question asked multiple times, the Doctor would not or could not answer. (TV: The Time of the Doctor) However, River later stated that she "made him" tell her his true name and that it "took a while". (TV: The Name of the Doctor)

Clara Oswald viewed the Doctor's name in a book on the Time War, contained in the TARDIS library. She subsequently lost the information when time was rewound. (TV: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS)

The Seventh Doctor mentioned to Trevor Sigma that his nickname at college was Theta Sigma. (TV: The Happiness Patrol) His classmate Drax called him by this nickname. (TV: The Armageddon Factor)

Moments before regenerating into the Thirteenth Doctor, the Twelfth Doctor used his last words to leave his future self some advice. Amongst these last words was that the future Doctor must not tell anyone their name, but that they couldn't understand it even if the Doctor did tell them. The Doctor went on to state that "children can hear it, sometimes. If their hearts are in the right place and the stars are too. Children can hear your name. But nobody else, nobody else ever." (TV: Twice Upon a Time)

The Thirteenth Doctor later learned from the Spy Master that in early Gallifreyan history, she had been known as the Timeless Child, the being from whom the Time Lords' ability to regenerate originated. (TV: The Timeless Children)

Age

Main article: The Doctor's age

The Doctor's age was a matter of great confusion, as they provided many inconsistent statements. The Second Doctor once gave his age in Earth terms as 450. (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen) On two separate occasions, the Third Doctor implied that he may have been several thousand years old. (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Mind of Evil) The Fourth Doctor, however, gave his age as "something like 750 years". (TV: Pyramids of Mars) Immediately after his sixth regeneration, the Seventh Doctor claimed to be 953. (TV: Time and the Rani) The War Doctor considered himself 400 years younger than the Eleventh Doctor, who was purportedly 1,200 at that time. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) The Ninth Doctor claimed to be 900 years old. (TV: Aliens of London) The Tenth Doctor claimed to be 903. (TV: Voyage of the Damned) Also, at least prior to leaving Amy and Rory behind, (TV: The God Complex) the Eleventh Doctor maintained an age of 909, less than his seventh incarnation. (TV: Flesh and Stone, The Impossible Astronaut)

The Eleventh Doctor later claimed to the Ponds that he was 1,200 years old (TV: A Town Called Mercy) but clarified to Clara Oswald that he'd lived so long he'd forgotten whether or not he was lying about his age. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) The Twelfth Doctor, after spending 900 years defending Trenzalore, stated his age to be over 2,000. (TV: Deep Breath)

The Twelfth Doctor spent approximately four and a half billion years (TV: Hell Bent) trapped inside his confession dial in an energy loop. In each loop, the Doctor would die, providing energy to a teleporter which would "print" another copy of himself as he was when he first arrived. Although this kept his body from ageing, he claimed to remember the living through every single version of the loop. (TV: Heaven Sent) He later stated to the Master that he was, in fact, four billion years old. (COMIC: Doorway to Hell)

Romana I once caught the Fourth Doctor "rounding down" his age, (TV: The Ribos Operation) while the Eighth Doctor once flatly admitted that he didn't necessarily use the same definition of the word year each time he gave his age to someone, usually changing his age depending where he was in the universe. (AUDIO: Orbis)

The Eleventh Doctor once told Solomon that he was probably a Sagittarius. (TV: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship)

The Thirteenth Doctor once told her companions that she was thousands of years old and was so old she didn't even remember her true age anymore. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon) She later discovered that she had once been the Timeless Child, a being with infinite regenerative capabilities that led to the Time Lords developing the ability themselves early in their history. The Doctor had her memories of this time redacted however, meaning she was far older than she thought. (TV: The Timeless Children) Rassilon had previously stated that the Time Lords "held a billion years of Time Lord history on [their] backs". (TV: The End of Time) Since the Timeless Child dated back to the beginning of the Time Lords, this would make the Doctor, counting their many forgotten lives as the Timeless Child, at least a billion years old. (TV: The Timeless Children)

Family

This section needs a cleanup.

Proper references to the Doctor's father and mother are to be made.

The Doctor's familial relations were unclear at best. According to one account, the Doctor was one of the forty-five cousins created by the Loom of the House of Lungbarrow on Gallifrey. (PROSE: Lungbarrow, Celestial Intervention - A Gallifreyan Noir) At other times, the Doctor stated that he had parents, including a Time Lord father (TV: Doctor Who, PROSE: The Infinity Doctors, Unnatural History, Matrix) and a human mother. (TV: Doctor Who, PROSE: Alien Bodies, The Infinity Doctors, Grimm Reality, Unnatural History, The Shadows of Avalon, Celestial Intervention - A Gallifreyan Noir)

The Thirteenth Doctor recalled once having had sisters, (TV: Arachnids in the UK) though another account indicated the Doctor at least never had an older sister. (PROSE: Dragonfire)

The Doctor had at least one brother, Irving Braxiatel[source needed], who became an associate of the Doctor's companion Bernice Summerfield. (PROSE: Tears of the Oracle) Braxiatel was also a Cardinal of Gallifrey (AUDIO: Weapon of Choice) and was the owner of the Braxiatel Collection, (PROSE: Tears of the Oracle) which the Doctor and Romana once compared to the Louvre in Paris. (TV: City of Death) The Doctor had one niece by Irving Braxiatel, Maggie Matsumoto. (AUDIO: The Empire State)

At the Doctor's wedding to Scarlette in the post-War universe, the Man with the Rosette sat at the table reserved for the Doctor's family. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)

The Tenth Doctor told Sally Sparrow that he was "rubbish at weddings, especially [his] own". (TV: Blink) In an alternate universe, an earlier incarnation had been wed (PROSE: Cold Fusion) to Patience and they were said to have had fifteen children and a granddaughter, Susan. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)

The Doctor had, in the Tenth Doctor's own words, been "a dad" (TV: Fear Her) and "a father". (TV: The Doctor's Daughter) These children were "sons or daughters, or both." (PROSE: The Eleventh Tiger) The Twelfth Doctor claimed he had "dad skills". (TV: Listen) Clara Oswald also claimed the Doctor had "children". (TV: Death in Heaven)

The Doctor also had several grandchildren, (TV: Death in Heaven) including Susan Foreman (TV: An Unearthly Child, et al.) and John and Gillian Who. (COMIC: The Klepton Parasites, PROSE: Beware the Trods!, et al.) Some accounts referred to Susan as "the Other's" granddaughter. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)

At one point, the Doctor became the adoptive father to a female Time Lord named Miranda Dawkins, whom the Eighth Doctor reared until her mid-teens. (PROSE: Father Time) Miranda later gave birth to a daughter, Zezanne, and died while trying to protect the Doctor. (PROSE: Sometime Never...)

The Doctor also had a great-grandson named Alex, the son of Susan and David Campbell. (AUDIO: An Earthly Child) Alex went on several adventures with the Eighth Doctor and backpacked around the Earth with Lucie Miller before they were both killed by the Daleks. (AUDIO: Lucie Miller, To the Death) Susan and David also had adopted children, Barbara, Ian and David Junior. (PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks)

Much of the Doctor's family died or went missing. (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Curse of Fenric, AUDIO: To the Death, TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) After the last day of the Time War, the Tenth Doctor, while telling Donna that he'd been a father before, explained that he "lost all that a long time ago along with everything else." (TV: The Doctor's Daughter) The Eleventh Doctor involuntarily reacted to Corc's accusation that he had never lost a child. (PROSE: Dark Horizons) Even after the Doctor realised that Gallifrey and the Time Lords were not destroyed at the end of the Time War, the Doctor still believed their missing children and grandchildren to be dead. (TV: Death in Heaven, The Woman Who Fell to Earth)

Genetic material from the Doctor in their tenth incarnation was used to create a daughter, Jenny, via progenation. The Doctor explained to Donna Noble and Martha Jones that due to the way his DNA was processed, he was Jenny's "biological mother and father". Although initially spurning her, he soon considered Jenny his daughter and invited her to travel with him in the TARDIS. Before she could join him, however, she was shot by General Cobb. The Doctor believed Jenny to have died, and departed. (TV: The Doctor's Daughter) Unbeknownst to him, she survived and set out on her own life of adventure. (TV: The Doctor's Daughter, AUDIO: Stolen Goods, et al.)

When the Earth was relocated to the Medusa Cascade, an instantaneous biological meta-crisis was created from the Doctor’s aborted eleventh regeneration ; this meta-crisis Doctor was later was exiled by the Time Lord to an alternate universe. Technically, the meta-crisis could be considered a relative of the Doctor's. Sarah Jane Smith referred to the Doctor's companions as his family, saying, "You act like such a lonely man, but you've got the biggest family on Earth!" (TV: Journey's End)

Affairs

The First Doctor was accidentally engaged to Cameca in the 15th century. (TV: The Aztecs)

After Gallifrey was destroyed in the War in Heaven, the Eighth Doctor married Scarlette in order to ceremonially tie himself to the planet Earth. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)

The Tenth Doctor romanced and later married Elizabeth I. (TV: The End of Time, The Day of the Doctor, PROSE: Suspicious Minds) She later declared him an enemy after he failed to return as promised. (TV: The Shakespeare Code) The Tenth Doctor implied he had been married several times prior to Queen Elizabeth, as he remarked to Sally Sparrow about being "rubbish at weddings, especially [his] own". (TV: Blink) In his eleventh incarnation, the Doctor accidentally became engaged to Marilyn Monroe, and married her the same night in what he later claimed was not a real chapel. (TV: A Christmas Carol)

River Song often hinted that she and the Doctor had a physical relationship somewhere in her past and his future relative to the Eleventh Doctor's encounter with the Silence in Florida. (TV: Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead, The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone, The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang, Day of the Moon) The Eleventh Doctor, operating a Teselecta shaped like himself, performed a "quick version" of a wedding ceremony with River because they were in the middle of a combat zone in an alternate reality. They repeatedly referred to each other as husband and wife after the ceremony. (WC: Asylum of the Daleks Prequel, TV: The Wedding of River Song, The Angels Take Manhattan, The Name of the Doctor, The Time of the Doctor, The Husbands of River Song, AUDIO: The Boundless Sea, Five Twenty-Nine, The Eye of the Storm, PROSE: Suspicious Minds)

According to Clara Oswald, by the time of the Doctor's twelfth incarnation, he had been "married four times, all deceased". (TV: Death in Heaven)

Knowledge

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Please help by adding some more information.

The Second Doctor successfully convinced an Ice Warrior to spare his life by claiming to be a genius. (TV: The Seeds of Death) The Tenth Doctor told John Lumic that he would call him a genius "except I'm in the room". (TV: The Age of Steel)

Cassandra O'Brien.Δ17 had reason to believe the Ninth Doctor was the school swot. (TV: The End of the World) While recalling an incident in which he escaped death at the hands of Android Assassins, Missy described the Doctor as a swot. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)

The Abzorbaloff valued the Tenth Doctor's experience and knowledge, and sought to absorb him to acquire it. (TV: Love & Monsters)

Languages

The Ninth Doctor said he could speak five billion languages. (TV: The Parting of the Ways) The Doctor's native language was probably Modern Gallifreyan,[source needed] but they seemed to prefer speaking English, (TV: The Mind Robber) always with an accent that was similar to accents used in the British Isles. (TV: An Unearthly Child, The Power of the Daleks, Spearhead from Space, Robot, Castrovalva) This accent changed from incarnation to incarnation. For example, both the Seventh (TV: Time and the Rani) and the Twelfth Doctor (TV: The Time of the Doctor) spoke with an accent similar to one used in Scotland. Rose Tyler noted the accent of the Ninth Doctor made him sound like he came from "the north", (TV: Rose) while Harriet Jones described it as "a northern accent", (TV: World War Three) both of them referring to the north of England. The Doctor once retorted to Rose that "lots of planets have a north". (TV: Rose) American Grace Holloway once told a San Franciscan policeman that the Eighth Doctor was "British". (TV: Doctor Who)

The Doctor could read and write Old High Gallifreyan, (TV: The Time of Angels) a skill unusual even among Time Lords. (TV: The Five Doctors) They also spoke the language of the Judoon, (TV: The Stolen Earth) Delphon (a language "spoken" using only eyebrow movements), (TV: Spearhead from Space) several Chinese languages, (TV: The Mind of Evil, The Talons of Weng-Chiang) Ancient North Martian, (TV: The Waters of Mars) Venusian, (TV: The Curse of Peladon) Vietnamese, (PROSE: Interesting Times) Portuguese (TV: Black Orchid) and Tritovore. (TV: Planet of the Dead) They knew at least some Sycoraxic (TV: The Christmas Invasion) and a language of Tiaanamat, which sounded like canine barking to human ears. (TV: The Rings of Akhaten) The Second Doctor did not seem to understand French, (TV: The War Games) but later became fluent in it across several periods of French history. (TV: The Girl in the Fireplace) They also claimed to speak "sabre-toothed tiger", (PROSE: Sick Building) "baby", (TV: A Good Man Goes to War, Closing Time) "cat", (TV: The Lodger) "horse" (TV: A Town Called Mercy) and "dinosaur". (TV: Deep Breath) The Eleventh Doctor claimed that he "spoke everything". (TV: A Good Man Goes to War, Closing Time) The Doctor once understood British Sign Language; by their twelfth incarnation, though, they had lost the skill, saying that it had been "deleted" and replaced with semaphore. (TV: Under the Lake) The Tenth Doctor claimed to never have learnt to speak Welsh but did carry a pocket Gallifreyan-Cymraeg phrasebook on at least one occasion when he visited Arcopolis. (PROSE: The Eyeless)

Influence

The Doctor belonged to the Prydonian Chapter, the most important chapter of Time Lord society. (TV: The Deadly Assassin) They had a profound influence on many worlds and was written into their histories; (TV: Forest of the Dead) as a result, the Doctor was the recipient of many honours, including being made a noble of Draconia (TV: Frontier in Space) and a knight (and enemy) of the British Empire. (TV: Tooth and Claw) An incarnation of the Doctor once pulled Excalibur from the stone. The Twelfth Doctor told Clara Oswald that he became "King of England for a day" before abdicating in order to give King Arthur the throne. (PROSE: Silhouette)

Several of the enemies the Doctor faced over their life, including the Daleks. (COMIC: The First)

Having broken the Time Lords' non-interference policy, the Second Doctor was put on trial as a renegade. (TV: The War Games) Subsequently, for a time, he acted as an agent of the Time Lords' Celestial Intervention Agency before the beginning of his sentence on 20th century Earth. (PROSE: Players, World Game) Following his defeat of Omega, which saved Gallifrey, he was granted a pardon and given his freedom. (TV: The Three Doctors)

The Fourth Doctor, as part of a ploy to outwit invaders of Gallifrey, was a candidate for the position of Lord President of the Supreme Council. (TV: The Invasion of Time) The Fifth Doctor was put on trial again for recklessness. (COMIC: The Stockbridge Horror) He was later given the title of Lord President by Councillor Flavia, against his wishes. He pretended to accept the office but ran away in his TARDIS. (TV: The Five Doctors) Prior to the Sixth Doctor's trial, he was deposed in absentia and put on trial for breaking the non-interference policy and later in the same trial, for genocide. The validity of the trial was called into question when it was discovered it had been orchestrated by an evil future manifestation of the Doctor, the Valeyard, and mooted. (TV: The Trial of a Time Lord) As the War Doctor he also fell out of favour with the Time Lords during the Last Great Time War. However, due to the Doctor's efforts to save Gallifrey and the Time Lords, they seemed to forgive his actions. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) During the Siege of Trenzalore, when the Eleventh Doctor was on the verge of his final death, the Time Lords responded to Clara Oswald's plea to help him, a plea in which she stated that after all he'd done he'd earned their help and if they loved him, which they should, then to help. In this instance, the Time Lords saved the Doctor by giving him a new regeneration cycle (TV: The Time of the Doctor) rather than letting him die permanently as had happened in an alternate timeline. (TV: The Name of the Doctor) After returning to Gallifrey by means of his confession dial, the Twelfth Doctor stood against Lord President Rassilon who tried to execute him. However, the Gallifreyan military hailed him as the man who ended the Time War and also respected him for his reputation during the Time War as someone who didn't need to go into battle armed to win and sided with him. Rassilon's own firing squad, the Eleventh General and a squadron of military ships backed the Doctor against Rassilon who was overthrown and exiled from Gallifrey along with the High Council. The Doctor used his new position as Lord President of Gallifrey to save Clara Oswald's life before once more fleeing Gallifrey in a stolen TARDIS, a fugitive once more. (TV: Hell Bent)

The Doctor's influence on the universe was seen most notably while in River Song's World: desperate to save the Doctor from his impending death, River Song built a timey-wimey distress beacon telling all of time and space that the Eleventh Doctor was dying and needed their help, causing the entire universe to reply that they would help. River told the Doctor that his impact on the universe was so profound that if he ever needed its help, he just had to ask. This was also shown in how the crew of the Teselecta, though formerly enemies of the Doctor, were willing to aid him in any way they could and kept his secret of being alive from the rest of the universe despite their past, just because he asked them to. (TV: The Wedding of River Song) By the time the Vashta Nerada took over the Library, the Doctor was so well known he was in the Library's books and whatever they read there scared the Vashta Nerada (who the Tenth Doctor didn't think could be stopped) enough that they agreed to his demands. River Song also stated that she believed that "all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark" if the Doctor ever gave up on helping people. (TV: Forest of the Dead) Nardole told the Twelfth Doctor that, if he died, "everybody in the universe might just go cold". (TV: Twice Upon a Time)

When the Great Intelligence changed time so that the Doctor's victories were negated, Madame Vastra said that the universe was going to be a much darker place without him and entire star systems were shown disappearing as a result of his victories being negated. (TV: The Name of the Doctor) When the Time Beetle created a parallel world around Donna Noble where the Doctor never met Donna, the Earth at least was shown to be a much darker place without the Doctor there to defend it. When the apparently unstoppable Darkness started approaching, Rose Tyler was sure the only one who could stop it was the Doctor, stating that they needed him "more than ever" to stop this reality-threatening event, although she later realised that both the Doctor and Donna together were needed. (TV: Turn Left) During the Last Great Time War, when the Eighth Doctor died during a spaceship crash, the Sisterhood of Karn resurrected him and offered to help him control his regeneration precisely because they believed only the Doctor could stop a war that threatened the existence of the entire universe. Ohila told the Doctor specifically that he was the universe's last hope and indicated that if he took on a more active role in the Time War, which he had avoided doing up to that point, it could be stopped without everything being destroyed. (TV: The Night of the Doctor)

Perhaps the Doctor's greatest influence was on their companions, who were inspired by the Time Lord to fight injustice and help those in need. (TV: Death of the Doctor) Even those who hadn't ever met the Doctor were inspired by their exploits (TV: Planet of the Dead, The Power of Three, The Day of the Doctor, etc) even though they never considered themselves to be a hero. (TV: The God Complex, Robot of Sherwood, Death in Heaven)

While talking with the First Doctor, a glass avatar of Bill Potts learned that he had originally started travelling in hopes of finding an answer to how despite overwhelming odds, good always triumphs over evil in the universe. Bill suggested that it was "some bloke", "wandering around, putting everything right when it goes wrong". The First Doctor expressed doubt over this theory, not realising that Bill was referring to the Doctor himself. Bill understood that the Doctor could not see his own impact on the universe, on everyone who ever met him though she knew everyone else could see it. The Twelfth Doctor told his predecessor that "our lives are woven throughout time and space," and the two of them trying to die twice in the same lifetime was enough to cause an error in the timeline. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)

Biographical summary

Origins

Main article: The Doctor's early life

The Doctor had a variety of different and contradictory origins: (PROSE: Unnatural History, Celestial Intervention - A Gallifreyan Noir) most often, they had always been a Time Lord from Gallifrey, (TV: The War Games, et al.) but sometimes they had always been a human-Gallifreyan hybrid (TV: Doctor Who, et al.) or possibly a human from Earth (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Daleks, et al.) or from "some planet" the 49th century. (PROSE: Unnatural History) Sometimes, the Doctor believed they had been woven from a loom, and sometimes they believed there had been a mother and father. (PROSE: The Scarlet Empress) The Doctor could not remember which was true and which was a dream. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)

All of these origins were equally and paradoxically true due to the Doctor's biodata being retroactively manipulated (PROSE: Unnatural History) by subconscious regeneration influences (PROSE: The Blue Angel) as well as powerful beings such as Omega, (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors) the enemy, (PROSE: Unnatural History) the Great Intelligence, (TV: The Name of the Doctor) and Faction Paradox. (PROSE: Unnatural History, Interference - Book Two, The Shadows of Avalon)

While in bed inside a barn and crying over not wishing to join the army, a young Doctor heard Clara Oswald assuring him that it was all just a dream, that it was OK to be afraid of the dark and that "if you're very wise and very strong, fear doesn't have to make you cruel or cowardly". (TV: Listen) This was an ontological paradox from when the Doctor's tenth incarnation told Clara about the promise he made about the Doctor being "never cruel or cowardly", which the Doctor had originally heard from Clara as a child. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)

This was the promise they made in becoming the Doctor, a chosen identity built upon this commitment to "never [be] cruel, never [be] cowardly, never give up, [and] never give in." (TV: The Day of the Doctor)

Overview

This section's awfully stubby.

Need to go over Doctors 5-8. The goal here is to focus on the turning points: periods of the Doctor's life which either spanned the most time, had lasting emotional effect, or which had the greatest impact on their overall timeline.

The First Doctor and his first companions. (TV: An Unearthly Child)

The Doctor left Gallifrey and became a figure who fought evil and injustice across the universe in violation of the Time Lords' non-interference policy. (TV: The War Games, Twice Upon a Time)

The Twelfth Doctor later explained to a broken Dalek that it was his first encounter with the Daleks on Skaro which truly defined his character. (TV: Into the Dalek) In his earliest travels, the First Doctor stressed the importance of not interfering, and felt his and Susan's only responsibility was to themselves. (AUDIO: The Sleeping Blood) By most accounts, the Doctor began exploring only to experience the wonders of the universe first-hand and have some fun. In practice, he frequently became embroiled in machinations and crises that ended with him defeating the foe and saving the planet he was visiting. (TV: Gridlock, "An Unearthly Child", "A Desperate Venture") On Skaro, the Doctor first became involved, and took a stand against oppression. (TV: The Daleks) In time, he became a man he would no longer recognise. (TV: Twice Upon a Time) After much time spent alone re-thinking her identity, the Thirteenth Doctor only needed one more encounter with the Daleks to remember who she really was, no matter her origins: she was the Doctor, the person she chose to be, the woman who stopped the Daleks. (TV: Revolution of the Daleks) As the Twelfth Doctor proclaimed, he was "the man who stops the monsters", who constructed his identity in response. (TV: Flatline)

According to Robin Hood, the Doctor was a hero, born of wealth and privilege but unable to stand the plight of the oppressed, who stole a TARDIS and flew among the stars to protect those who needed outside help. However, the Doctor himself refused the title of hero. (TV: Robot of Sherwood) He instead proclaimed that he wasn't a good man or a bad man, not a hero or an officer, nor a president; instead, he was an "idiot with a box", who travelled around helping and learning. (TV: Death in Heaven)

Though he claimed to simply "be passing by" and get involved, Bill Potts believed he was always helping out because the Doctor could never simply walk past and let problems go. (TV: Smile) In fact, the Doctor frequently answered distress calls, to find these opportunities, believing that:

"The universe shows its true face when it asks for help. We show ours by how we respond."Twelfth Doctor [src]

Though ideas of responsibility, (AUDIO: The Lost Resort, TV: The Parting of the Ways, The Girl Who Died) the promise of power, (TV: The Waters of Mars) or the intellectual game of a complex scheme with parts to play (TV: The Curse of Fenric, PROSE: Nightshade, Love and War; TV: Time Heist) often led the Doctor to ignore the autonomy of others, in time the Doctor began to defer to others on matters which concerned them, (TV: Kill the Moon) as a strong believer in free will, (TV: The Lie of the Land) and recognised that sometimes, he needed "someone to stop him", to call him out when he was going wrong. (TV: The Runaway Bride, Partners in Crime)

For this, and to have someone to share the universe with, the Doctor took on many companions (TV: An Unearthly Child et al.) and lost many, each time having to relearn their ways of coping. (AUDIO: The Lost Resort, The Lost)

Of everyone who came to travel with the Doctor, the TARDIS was their oldest and most cherished companion. She considered that she chose him when the Doctor left Gallifrey. (TV: The Doctor's Wife) The TARDIS also considered herself the Doctor's librarian, creating records of their adventures and storing them in her library, (PROSE: The Library of Time) partly in the form of the sentient Encyclopaedia Gallifreya. (PROSE: Citation Needed) The TARDIS felt that she always took the Doctor where they needed to be, though not always where they asked. (TV: The Doctor's Wife)

The Second Doctor was called to account for their crimes against the Time Lords when he called them to stop the War Lord and return kidnapped humans to their own eras. His punishment was a forced regeneration, exile to Earth in the 20th century, and the loss of his knowledge of how to control the TARDIS. (TV: The War Games)

During his exile on Earth, the Third Doctor worked for UNIT, an organisation which fought to protect the Earth against alien threats. (TV: Spearhead from Space) He worked closely with Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, and though he often disagreed with his militaristic methods, (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians) the two developed a close friendship, disagreements and all. The Eighth Doctor regretted that he never gave the Brigadier enough credit. Looking back, the Doctor realised he had been redirecting his own frustration at feeling trapped on Earth, in one place and time. (AUDIO: UNIT Dating)

The Doctor was UNIT's scientific advisor, and foiled many alien threats — tinkering with advanced technology on the side — with the help of his assistant Liz Shaw, (TV: Spearhead from Space) and later, Jo Grant. While Liz was an accomplished scientist, Jo had no formal training, and by the Doctor was poised to reject her out of hand. However, she proved herself in their first encounter with the Master, the Doctor's arch-nemesis, and a gentle fondness developed between the two over time. (TV: Terror of the Autons et al.)

The Doctor found his match in the Master as an opponent, but always managed to get the upper hand. (TV: Terror of the Autons et al.) The Twelfth Doctor later characterised him as the only person "even remotely like [him]". The Master had been his closest friend on Gallifrey. Though they were now enemies, a certain kinship was never lost, (TV: World Enough and Time) and in truth, the Master often created chaos in order to get the Doctor's attention, laying traps for him, and even looking forward to his response. (TV: The Sea Devils, PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks, AUDIO: Animal Instinct, TV: Death in Heaven) Even the Doctor admitted he was "looking forward to [their] next encounter". (TV: Terror of the Autons)

The knowledge of the TARDIS was restored to him after he helped to defeat Omega, partnering up with his two other selves. (TV: The Three Doctors)

Afterwards, the Doctor resumed his adventures in time and space. He met Sarah Jane Smith near the end of his third life, forming a friendship which would last several lifetimes, and regenerated once more.

Early in the Fourth Doctor's life, he was sent by the Time Lords to prevent the creation of the Daleks, but despite having the chance he refrained from committing genocide. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) He later had to leave Sarah Jane Smith behind when he was called to Gallifrey, (TV: The Hand of Fear) where he attempted to avert the assassination of the President and became implicated in a political plot, and in the Decayed Master's first major attempt to prolong his life by unnatural means. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)

He travelled for a while with Leela of the Sevateem, a "savage" woman whom he educated, and whom he learned to respect in turn. Alongside them, K9 Mark I joined the scene. (TV: The Face of Evil, The Invisible Enemy, et al.) On Gallifrey, the Doctor became Lord President. Leela and K9 stayed behind on Gallifrey, while the Doctor abandoned his post. (TV: The Invasion of Time)

Later on, the Doctor was tasked with collecting the segments to the Key to Time, and Romana I was assigned to his operation. (TV: The Ribos Operation) On discovering that the final segment was Princess Astra of Atrios and assembling the Key, they attracted the attention of the Black Guardian, and found a new goal: preventing him from obtaining the Key, which held untold power. In order to evade him, the Doctor fitted his TARDIS with a randomiser. (TV: The Armageddon Factor)

Romana II, K9 Mark II and the Doctor became trapped in E-Space when they accidentally travelled through a CVE. On Alzarius, they met Adric, who had an impressive young mind, but much to learn – though not from the Doctor, (TV: Full Circle) who never seemed to know what to say to the child, in Romana's estimation. (AUDIO: Purgatory 12)

The Doctor was again put on trial in his sixth incarnation for breaking the non-interference policy. He discovered that the Prosecutor, the Valeyard, was a personification of his evil future self, who was helping to cover up the crimes of the High Council of the Time Lords. (TV: The Trial of a Time Lord)

The War Doctor, who chose to fight in the Last Great Time War. (PROSE: A Prologue)

During the Last Great Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks, the Eighth Doctor refused to be a part of it. He died in a spaceship crash on Karn, but was revived by the Sisterhood of Karn, and agreed to regenerate into a warrior. (TV: The Night of the Doctor) The Doctor then fought in the War, (TV: Dalek) and was forever changed. He ultimately ended the War and was able to save Gallifrey with the help of his other twelve incarnations. This displacement of Gallifrey caused the near-extinction of the Daleks. The War was sealed in a time lock, (TV: The Day of the Doctor) making it impossible to time travel to it to save Gallifrey. (TV: The Stolen Earth, Father's Day)

The Ninth Doctor believed that he had used the Moment to destroy Gallifrey, (TV: Dalek, PROSE: Doctor Who and the Time War, The Day of the Doctor) and travelled alone for a time, deciding he "didn't need companions or friends". (PROSE: The Eyeless) In truth, he wished to punish himself for surviving. (PROSE: Meet the Doctor)

Rose Tyler helped the Doctor to become a better version of himself – by his own admission – by challenging him. He was the product of war, fuelled by anger and revenge, (TV: Journey's End) saving the world out of obligation, (TV: Rose, PROSE: The Day of the Doctor) but bent on making someone pay for all this suffering. (TV: Dalek) Rose showed him, even with all the power of time at her disposal, to favour life. (TV: The Parting of the Ways, Utopia) The Doctor saw that she was "so human", (TV: Utopia) and developed somewhat of a fascination with the human race in his next incarnation. (TV: New Earth)

After Rose, the Doctor continued to travel time and space with new companions, often meeting them in the 21st century, such as Martha Jones, (TV: Smith and Jones) Donna Noble, (TV: Partners in Crime) Amy Pond, (TV: The Eleventh Hour) Clara Oswald, (TV: The Bells of Saint John) Bill Potts (TV: The Pilot) Yasmin Khan (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) and Dan Lewis. (TV: The Halloween Apocalypse) They stopped various powers from conquering planets or perpetuating violence by mass destruction. (TV: Rose, et al.)

The weight of being the last of their people (TV: The End of the World, Last of the Time Lords, Cold Blood) turned the Doctor toward greater empathy, in many cases, (TV: Last of the Time Lords, The Beast Below) but also emboldened him to act on their authority as the Time Lord Victorious, the "winner", with no one to tell him he was wrong. (TV: The Waters of Mars)

After travelling to the Dark Times, he saw the consequences of his actions, (PROSE: The Knight, the Fool, and the Dead, et al.) and, dreading his own demise, foretold by Ood Sigma, he distracted himself with more lighthearted destinations, unwilling to let go. (TV: The End of Time)

In time, the Doctor learned there was no "winning", and that survival came at a cost. All he had done, all the terrible decisions he had had to make to reach the end of the Time War, strengthened his resolve to make sure "no one else [would] ever have to feel this pain." (TV: The Zygon Inversion) By the end of his twelfth incarnation, the Doctor understood that he did what he did only because it was kind, because it was the decent response to do what he could, to stand for others, no matter the consequences. (TV: The Doctor Falls)

The Tenth Doctor saw his end saving Wilfred Mott, after preventing Rassilon from escaping the Time War and enacting his Final Sanction, which would rip the Time Vortex apart and leave only the Time Lords, ascendent, to become creatures of pure consciousness. (TV: The End of Time) When the time came, he revisited all his old companions, as his final reward, before regenerating, to become someone new again. (TV: The End of Time, Death of the Doctor)

According to most records, the Doctor "died" in his eleventh incarnation at 1103 years old on 22 April 2011, when River Song appeared in an astronaut suit and seemed to kill him, creating a fixed point in time. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut) However, the Doctor avoided this death by having the Teselecta take on his form, tricking the universe into believing that the Doctor was dead. (TV: The Wedding of River Song) After this, the Doctor tried to "lay low" for a while, going as far as to delete himself from every database in the universe, (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan) to soften the blow of the impact he had been having. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks) He felt he had gotten "too big". (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)

The Doctor briefly "retired" from travelling and refused to take on companions, (TV: The Snowmen) after losing his long-time friends, Amy Pond and Rory Williams, (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan) but began travelling with Clara Oswald, determined to uncover the mystery she represented. The Doctor had met Clara twice before, but she had led other lives, in other times and places. (TV: The Bells of Saint John, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS)

In the original timeline, the Doctor's grave was on Trenzalore, where he died in a great battle. The Doctor was buried in his TARDIS. Instead of a body, the TARDIS contained the Doctor's time stream, manifesting as a column of light. The Great Intelligence forced the Eleventh Doctor to go to Trenzalore to open the TARDIS by speaking his name, ultimately uttered by the data ghost of River Song. The Great Intelligence entered the timestream to alter the Doctor's history, but the Doctor was saved by Clara, who scattered herself across his timeline, helping the Doctor many times in all his lives, and, in this account, even suggesting the Doctor's TARDIS over another as he first fled Gallifrey. (TV: The Name of the Doctor)

After believing for four hundred years that he had destroyed his own people, the Doctor finally learned the truth when the Moment united the War, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors in an effort to change the War Doctor's mind about destroying the Time Lords to save the universe.

This encounter gave the Doctor a new perspective on his war incarnation: he came to realise that the War Doctor was "more the Doctor" than any of them, as he was somehow the Doctor "on the day it was impossible to get it right". However, the Doctor's earlier incarnations retained no memory of this encounter, and both continued to believe that they had destroyed Gallifrey and the Time Lords, when in fact the Doctor's first thirteen incarnations had united to save Gallifrey. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) The Doctor had this, at least, as he faced his approaching death on Trenzalore. (TV: The Day of the Doctor, The Time of the Doctor)

When the Time Lords sent out a signal from Trenzalore, through a crack in space-time, the Doctor answered the call, as so many others had. He survived through the Battle of Trenzalore, standing his ground in the town of Christmas for centuries, and protecting it against the likes of the Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels and Sontarans.

Finally, he was granted a new regeneration cycle. The Doctor was ready to lose to the Daleks, as he had grown old and weary, and had no more lives left, but found a new lease of life, and, remembering what he thought of "the rules", wiped them out with his regeneration energy. In doing so, he changed the future. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)

The Doctor regenerated in his TARDIS and began his new regeneration cycle, pausing beforehand to call Clara Oswald at a later point in time, to remind her this new Doctor was still him, and would need her help. (TV: The Time of the Doctor, Deep Breath) The Doctor's relationship with Clara deepened, and he began to feel responsible for her, frequently mentioning a "duty of care", (TV: Under the Lake, The Girl Who Died) echoing Clara's own use of this term to describe her responsibility for her students. (TV: Kill the Moon) He worried she would be hurt if they continued to be reckless, (TV: The Girl Who Died) and when she died, having put her life in danger for a gamble at saving Rigsy, (TV: Face the Raven) the Doctor spent billions of years in an effective teleportation-aided time loop, trapped in his own confession dial, mourning over her. (TV: Heaven Sent, Hell Bent)

The Doctor was expected to reveal his secrets, and was placed in the confession dial by the Time Lords (using the immortal Ashildr) (TV: Face the Raven, Heaven Sent) so that he might reveal what he knew of the Hybrid. Rather than give in, he continually engineered the circumstances so that, on the next loop, he would again punch the azbantium crystal wall – 400 times the strength of a diamond, and 20 feet thick – which would be his way out. (TV: Heaven Sent) Each time, the cycle killed him, but he fought for the chance to rescue Clara from her demise, and would not give in. (TV: Heaven Sent, Hell Bent)

In the end, he ruptured the wall, and walked through onto his home planet Gallifrey. (TV: Heaven Sent) Here, he took over and dethroned Rassilon, who he sent into exile, building on the respect and trust the War Doctor had built with his compatriots during the Time War. Finally, he manipulated the General into bringing Clara back from the moment before her death, and caused him to regenerate while they escaped. (TV: Hell Bent)

Taking her to the end of the universe, the Doctor finally realised that the lengths he had gone to, to bring Clara back even after losing her for good, showed how dangerous this relationship had become. They agreed that one of them should be made to forget the other. In the end, the Doctor's memories of Clara were erased, and Clara left in a TARDIS of her own, not-quite-living for the rest of her days. (TV: Hell Bent)

The Doctor was given guardianship of the Vault, containing Missy as prisoner, after he made an oath to protect the chamber for a thousand years. (TV: Extremis) He took to teaching at St Luke's University, becoming known for his fascinating but off-book lectures on a variety of topics. (TV: The Pilot)

Earth-bound once more, he was joined by Nardole, who often reminded him of his duties, (TV: Extremis, Thin Ice, Oxygen) and eventually took on Bill Potts as her private tutor, seeing something in her which he thought they could build together. Bill became interested in his real life, and he began taking her on trips in the TARDIS. (TV: The Pilot)

The Doctor's hope for a better relationship with Missy eventually overcame his mistrust for her, and he began allowing her to leave the Vault and remain within the TARDIS, performing maintenance duties. (TV: The Eaters of Light) Missy had committed at the start to learning how to become "good", (TV: Extremis) and she claimed she was trying to "change", as a result of this opportunity and her confinement. (TV: The Lie of the Land) He wanted to believe they could be friends again. (TV: The Eaters of Light, World Enough and Time)

The Doctor sent Missy out with his companions, Bill and Nardole, on a trial adventure, so she could prove herself. They arrived on a Mondasian colony ship heading toward a black hole. Bill was fatally wounded, and taken below decks, where a previous incarnation of the Saxon Master made sure she was converted into a Cyberman. Due to time dilation, the Doctor arrived too late, (TV: World Enough and Time) and faced an army of Cybermen alongside the two Masters.

Missy intended to join the Doctor in his last stand, but never made it, as she was fatally shot by the Master, whom she killed in turn. The Twelfth Doctor met his end in his last stand for kindness, attempting against all odds to save those around him. (TV: The Doctor Falls) He regenerated after meeting the First Doctor, who helped him realise he should always carry on, even if it meant becoming someone new. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)

Now in a female form, the Doctor met three new friends, Ryan Sinclair, Graham O'Brien and Yasmin Khan, in Sheffield. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) Calling themselves Team TARDIS, the Doctor travelled with her new-found family for a time, facing up against the Stenza Tzim-Sha, (TV: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos) the Daleks, (TV: Resolution) and a new incarnation of the Spy Master. She found that the Master had ravaged Gallifrey. Though she had tried to keep her past behind her, sharing almost nothing about herself with her new friends, (TV: Spyfall) the Doctor was soon confronted with a mysterious past incarnation of herself, whom she did not remember, (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon) and found herself back on Gallifrey, where the Master revealed the secret of the Timeless Child. (TV: The Timeless Children)

The Doctor learned that her story was not her own, that she was once the child that Tecteun used as template for the Time Lords, and in fact came from somewhere beyond the Boundary, rather than Gallifrey. The Timeless Child, later the Doctor, was involved with the Division, who robbed them of their memories, from before they became the First Doctor. (TV: The Timeless Children)

The Doctor grappled with these revelations, and resolved questions of her identity during another battle with the Daleks on Earth: she was the Doctor, the person she had chosen to become. (TV: Revolution of the Daleks)

Incarnations

By regenerating, the Doctor's personality and outer form changed greatly over time, though all of their incarnations were essentially the same person, retaining the memories, curiosity, eccentricity, and wisdom of the ones before.

By one account, the Doctor was the Timeless Child, and so they once had the ability to regenerate an indefinite number of times before their memory was redacted and their regenerations limited to the customary Time Lord limit of twelve. (TV: The Timeless Children)

Under their chosen name as "the Doctor", they regenerated on at least fourteen occasions. Though the Doctor's first thirteen incarnations appeared male, (TV: The Day of the Doctor) at least two incarnations of the Doctor appeared to be women. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth; PROSE: Rose) In fact, Clive Finch's research revealed some incarnations of the Doctor were "in-between [male and female] or neither". (PROSE: Rose)

Despite appearances, the Eighth Doctor firmly denied ever having been a man or a woman, (PROSE: Interference - Book One, Beltempest) as did the Thirteenth Doctor. (PROSE: The Good Doctor)

As the Timeless Child, the Doctor was originally female-presenting, (TV: The Timeless Children) and had at least one incarnation that was redacted from their mind who was a woman. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon, The Timeless Children)

The Doctor's known incarnations are described below:

  • The First Doctor was an unreadable, guarded figure who was, at first, slow to trust newcomers who learnt of him, but once his trust had been earned, he would show another side of himself as a staunch anti-authoritarian with a mischievous streak. This Doctor was often irascible. He made his anger obvious. He was protective of the young women he took on as companions; they reminded him of his granddaughter, Susan. This Doctor was a brilliant, often short-tempered scientist and keen strategist. He used his signet ring to help get himself through ordeals due to his physical age impeding him. He stole a TARDIS and took his granddaughter with him, joyriding through all space and time, without a clue as to how to pilot his Ship.
  • The Second Doctor, in contrast, was warm and wise. He was as surprised and frightened of alien menaces as those who faced them with him. He had a knack for manipulation and deception, and especially enjoyed to play a buffoon in order to trick his opponents into underestimating him so that he could better carry out his plans. His predecessor would refer to him as a "clown" due to his bumbling nature. He loved tootling on his recorder and carried around a 500-year diary, trying to record his travels, but ended up discarding it. He wore a big fur coat that dwarfed him, tying it closed with twine. A "cosmic hobo," he was forever getting himself in and out of trouble.
  • The Fifth Doctor was fond of cricket and wore a stick of celery on his lapel that he used as a safety precaution for his allergy to certain gases in the praxis range of the spectrum. (TV: The Caves of Androzani) After a difficult regeneration, this Doctor displayed energy, compassion and innocence not seen in his predecessors. His character was very human and vulnerable. Like them, he used improvisation as the best way out of a tricky situation. The Fifth Doctor was the first incarnation since the First Doctor to go "hands-free" and forgo the usage of a sonic screwdriver after having it destroyed. He occasionally wore glasses, even though he didn't need them; he only wore them to make himself look clever. (TV: Time Crash) He was the first Doctor to sacrifice himself for another, when he and Peri Brown were dying from spectrox toxaemia; with only one dose of the antidote available, he gave her the cure rather than taking it himself.
  • The Sixth Doctor was a grandiose and eloquent incarnation. He sported a multi-coloured wardrobe that was often commented and sneered at, occasionally leading to him being mistaken for a jester. This Doctor loved a good quote, often making one he deemed appropriate during an adventure. He also proved to have great acting skills on numerous occasions. (TV: Mindwarp, The Ultimate Foe) His manic personality and acerbic wit could shade into moral passion, but his lack of concern for little things disgusted his companions. He was also capable of violent action, much more so than in past lives, and of killing without remorse when his life was threatened. (TV: The Two Doctors) Despite his bluster, he still could show great compassion and empathy. Like the Fourth Doctor, he spent most of his travels with a single companion.
  • The "War Doctor" was the disgraced ninth incarnation of the Doctor. He was an incarnation specifically chosen to be that of a warrior who would fight in the Last Great Time War. The regeneration into this incarnation was aided by the Sisterhood of Karn. (TV: The Night of the Doctor) Although being a warrior and showing anger if he was referred by his former name, he still showed charm and compassion like his earlier selves. Due to the belief that he had destroyed Gallifrey, he was treated with shame and contempt by his future incarnations. His eleventh incarnation stated that his actions broke "the promise" of the "name of the Doctor". (TV: The Name of the Doctor) This assessment changed somewhat once the real end of the Time War was revealed and was described after that as being the Doctor most of all by his future selves. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
  • The Ninth Doctor considered himself the sole Time Lord survivor of the Time War (he spent his life thinking that he was responsible for destroying the Time Lords). He displayed much of the playfulness of his previous incarnations but was emotionally and psychologically scarred by the war and his role in it, which sometimes resulted in a detachment that was interpreted by some as cruelty. (TV: The End of the World, Dalek) When asked about his voice and accent, he responded, "Lots of planets have a North." (TV: Rose) He cared deeply for Rose Tyler; he began to heal thanks to her. (TV: Dalek, Journey's End) He also made dry jokes when facing danger or to diffuse tension. The Ninth Doctor ultimately sacrificed himself to save Rose's life, not only proving he cared deeply for her but allowing him to make peace with his past. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
  • The Twelfth Doctor displayed an acerbic wit coupled with sarcasm. Like his seventh incarnation, he was manipulative and practical to a fault. He lacked much of the empathy present in his immediate predecessors, and as a result, found himself coming off as callous or uncaring on many occasions. In spite of this, he shared the Eleventh Doctor's lack of tact and odd behaviour. He had a tendency to brush off death around him, in order to focus on the task at hand. However, because of this, he expressed doubt as to whether he was a "good" man. (TV: Into the Dalek) He eventually accepted that he wasn't a good man, but decided he wasn't a bad one either, being just "an idiot with a box". (TV: Death in Heaven) By the end of his life, the Twelfth Doctor sought "just [to] be kind". He fought for others, in the face of futility, because he felt it was right. (TV: The Doctor Falls) The Twelfth Doctor had an unwavering care for Clara Oswald, even when he felt she had betrayed him. (TV: Dark Water) When she eventually died, he "went too far" to get her back, and had to erase his memories of Clara. (TV: Hell Bent) He considered hope to be his major weakness, (TV: The Eaters of Light) and in the end, wanted nothing more than for Missy to renounce her former ways and to stand with him, as his friend. (TV: World Enough and Time, The Doctor Falls)

Unclear incarnations

A number of other incarnations have been chronicled; however, where they fall within the Doctor's lifetime is unclear:

  • The Watcher was a manifestation of the Doctor during his fourth regeneration. He went back in time to the Fourth Doctor's final adventure and ensured the events leading to his death would still happen. When the Doctor finally regenerated, he merged with the Watcher to briefly become him, after which he emerged from the regeneration as the Fifth Doctor. (TV: Logopolis)
  • An unknown female incarnation of the Doctor was encountered by the Thirteenth Doctor who used her sonic screwdriver to positively identify this Time Lord and herself as the same person, despite neither of them having memories of the other. This incarnation was on the run from the Time Lords and had hidden herself by the use of a Chameleon Arch to avoid detection under the identity of "Ruth Clayton". As "Ruth" she was happily married to a man called "Lee", living in Gloucester, and was a tour guide for the city. Upon being tracked down by the Judoon, "Lee" (actually her minder) sacrificed himself as a diversion, and reawakened memories of a lighthouse within her with a cryptic text. The recovered memory then led the two Doctors to the lighthouse where "Ruth" recovered both her identity as the Doctor and her TARDIS and confronted Gat, a Time Lord who had killed "Lee" and was hunting her "for the glory of Gallifrey", with a laser rifle on board the Judoon ship. During the confrontation, and upon learning that Gat was also Gallifreyan, the Thirteenth Doctor claimed that this incarnation "can only be [her] past". This Doctor, knowing that Gat would ask her to surrender the weapon, had recalibrated it to disintegrate the user, which the Thirteenth Doctor was appalled at. Afterwards, the Thirteenth Doctor and this Doctor left the Judoon when they reached interstellar space as it was no-one's jurisdiction, with the Judoon chief swearing that a Judoon contract was always fulfilled. The Doctors then parted ways, with them both being uncertain as to which one of them had faulty memories. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon) After it was revealed by the Master that there were many incarnations before the First Doctor, a projection of the Ruth Doctor did not confirm if she was among those incarnations or from another point in the Doctor's timeline. (TV: The Timeless Children)
  • The Doctor's last incarnation within the version of history that contained the War in Heaven both faked his death on Dronid during the first battle of the War and eventually actually died, with his corpse being planted there. However, the timelines changed when the Eighth Doctor learned of his future self's death and the existence of this Doctor's corpse became a paradox. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)
  • The Curator was a future incarnation of the Doctor. (COMIC: The Then and the Now) He greatly resembled an older version of the Fourth Doctor, having "revisited" this "old favourite" among his past faces. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) "Partially retired", the Curator fulfilled the function of Curator of the Under Gallery, which had been awarded to the Doctor by his one-time wife Elizabeth I. As such, the Curator spent some time collaborating with UNIT contemporaneously with the Third Doctor, unbeknownst to the earlier incarnation, though not to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The Curator also occupied himself by editing scattered writings of his past incarnations, the "Doctor Papers", into a coherent history of the Last Great Time War. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor)
  • A powerful cosmic being called the Father of Time, or simply Time, who was known as a legend to the First Doctor, was eventually understood by him to actually be his own distant future self. (COMIC: The Test of Time)
  • According to the stories that Novice Hame had heard by the end of her life, the Doctor had "hundreds of faces and forms", including not only men and women but also animals. (WC: The Secret of Novice Hame)

Point of view on past regenerations

An interesting aspect of the Doctor's personality was that they occasionally expressed a personal liking or disliking for particular incarnations, though this opinion depended on the incarnation making the assessment. The Doctor's tenth incarnation expressed a deep fondness for his fifth incarnation, (TV: Time Crash) and slight disdain for his ninth, considering him unnecessarily violent. (TV: Journey's End) The Twelfth Doctor was obviously flattered when he believed, incorrectly, that his companion was romantically involved with a fellow teacher he considered to bear a resemblance to his eleventh incarnation. (TV: The Caretaker) The Fifth Doctor was disliked by his immediate successor. (TV: The Twin Dilemma)

In another instance, the Fourth Doctor made reference to the Third Doctor, saying, "Some people liked it, but I prefer this one." (TV: The Brain of Morbius) The Twelfth Doctor told his first incarnation that "there [were] a few false starts [before becoming him], but you get there in the end". (TV: Twice Upon a Time) The Seventh Doctor was also annoyed when he had to work with the Fifth Doctor, seeing him as "not even one of the good ones". The Fifth Doctor was equally disgusted by what he would become. (PROSE: Cold Fusion) The Fifth Doctor also stated after meeting his past selves that he was not the man he had been - and "thank goodness for that!". (TV: The Five Doctors) Immediately before his regeneration, the Tenth Doctor stated, "I don't want to go", showing he had become attached to his current self. Immediately after his twelfth regeneration, the Eleventh Doctor remarked upon his new nose, stating that, "I've had worse" — possibly a reference to multiple incarnations, including his third, who was once described as a "long-shanked fellow with a mighty nose". (TV: The End of Time, The Time Warrior) The Eleventh Doctor also at one point expressed loathing for his first incarnation's initial personality, considering himself at that time a foolish and arrogant liar and a selfish coward. (COMIC: Hunters of the Burning Stone)

Before learning the true outcome of the Time War, the Eleventh Doctor expressed an even greater hate for the "War Doctor" whose actions were so shameful that he went against "the name of the Doctor" and not counting him among his incarnations. (TV: The Name of the Doctor) Both the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors however forgave their war incarnation and honoured him as being the Doctor more than any of his incarnations once they learnt the real result of the Time War. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)

Adventures by unknown incarnations of the Doctor

Due to the Doctor's many adventures it was sometimes unclear as to which incarnation of the Doctor experienced them. Some of these adventures include:

Impacting future incarnations

The Doctor on occasion performed acts that were expected to have an impact on future incarnations. Once, in order to recharge the TARDIS, the Tenth Doctor transferred some of his life energy, an act he acknowledged shortened his lifespan (and, by extension, the life of his ultimate final incarnation) by ten years. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen) Later, the Twelfth Doctor gave up some of his regeneration energy to revive Davros, (TV: The Witch's Familiar) as did the Eleventh Doctor to heal River Song's wrist; (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan) when River Song did something similar to save the Eleventh Doctor's life, it was stated that doing so cost her ability to regenerate. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler) Indeed, River pointed out to the Eleventh Doctor that he had wasted regeneration energy. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)


The Twelfth Doctor, after becoming blind, once created a device capable of borrowing eyesight from a future version of his current incarnation, but at the possible cost of being permanently blinded or having all possibility of future regeneration disabled; however, this took place in a computer-generated simulation. (TV: Extremis)

Regeneration

Due to the unique structure of their biology, the Doctor had the ability to regenerate, to "cheat death". (TV: The Parting of the Ways) A Time Lord was usually limited to twelve regenerations. (TV: The Deadly Assassin, Mawdryn Undead, Doctor Who, The Time of the Doctor) The High Council of the Time Lords could influence regenerations, treating them as punishment (TV: The War Games) and reward. (TV: The Five Doctors, Utopia, The Time of the Doctor) At times, enemies coveted the Doctor's future regenerations and tried to take them for their own. (TV: Mawdryn Undead, Doctor Who, Human Nature/The Family of Blood, The Witch's Familiar)

The effect of regeneration on the Doctor in the time immediately following the event varied from incarnation to incarnation. In some cases, the Doctor regained their faculties quickly, erratic behaviour notwithstanding. (TV: The Power of the Daleks, The Twin Dilemma, The Eleventh Hour) On one occasion when the regenerative process was postponed for a long time, he was rendered amnesiac. (TV: Doctor Who) In most cases, the Doctor was incapacitated for a period of time before ultimately recovering. (TV: Spearhead from Space, Robot, Castrovalva, Time and the Rani, The Christmas Invasion) There were also rare cases where the Doctor was able to delay regeneration from setting in for an extended period of time. The Tenth Doctor once did such to visit all of his past companions - though, after the long delay, the resulting energy release was catastrophic for the TARDIS. (TV: The End of Time, Death of the Doctor) After gaining a new regenerative cycle, the Twelfth Doctor did something similar while trying to decide whether or not to regenerate. He called this period "a state of grace" where the Time Lord within the state would be briefly restored to health before weakening and must choose to either regenerate or die. Like the Tenth Doctor, the Twelfth Doctor's regeneration was highly explosive as a result. (TV: Twice Upon a Time) In contrast, the First Doctor's regeneration into the Second Doctor, despite having delayed his regeneration like the Tenth and Twelfth Doctors, was not explosive at all. (TV: The Tenth Planet) However, the Twelfth Doctor did delay the change further after the First Doctor left, (TV: Twice Upon a Time) and the Tenth Doctor delayed it longer than the Twelfth, having managed to visit every single one of his previous companions before changing. (TV: Death of the Doctor)

Due to the regeneration into the War Doctor and the Tenth Doctor's aborted regeneration, the Eleventh Doctor was actually the Doctor's last incarnation until the Time Lords gifted him with a new regenerative cycle at the end of that life. (TV: The Time of the Doctor) It was unclear exactly how many regenerations he was given, the Twelfth Doctor stated that he himself was not sure and didn't rule out the possibility that his new cycle could be infinite as he stated he could now possibly regenerate forever. (TV: Kill the Moon) Indeed, Rassilon, while threatening the Twelfth Doctor with his gauntlet, remarked to him "how many regenerations did we grant you? I've got all night," (TV: Hell Bent) and when all of the incarnations, past and future, of the Doctor teamed up to help preserve Gallifrey from disaster as it slipped into a parallel pocket universe at the end of the Last Great Time War, there were enough of them that the sky was filled with "a blizzard of blue boxes". (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor)


The First Doctor twice encountered a powerful being called the Father of Time whom he eventually realised was a future, ascended form of himself. (COMIC: The Test of Time)


The Thirteenth Doctor later learned that she was originally the Timeless Child, a being from another unknown universe or dimension with the ability to regenerate an indefinite number of times. Along with the Doctor's memories of their lives prior to the First Doctor being redacted, the Doctor's ability to regenerate appeared to have been reduced to that of a normal Time Lord (TV: The Timeless Children) which meant the Eleventh Doctor had to receive a second regeneration cycle from the Time Lords in order to continue living. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)


Causes of regeneration

  • The First Doctor was weakened by Mondas as it drained Earth's energy, succumbing to old age. (TV: The Tenth Planet) He hesitated for a time to regenerate, fearing the change, entering "a state of grace" where he was briefly restored to health before he had to make a choice. Following an adventure with the Twelfth Doctor, the First Doctor chose to regenerate after seeing the man he would ultimately become. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)
  • The Sixth Doctor was compelled to travel to the Lakertyan System by a mental impulse sent to him by an alternative future Sixth Doctor, in order to stop the Valeyard from stealing the lives of every Time Lord to ever exist. Upon arrival, his TARDIS was bombarded by radiation coming from Lakertya, radiation that was deadly to Time Lords. He died from exposure to said radiation. (AUDIO: The Brink of Death)
  • The Seventh Doctor was lightly injured after being caught in the middle of a gang war; his circulatory system was damaged by Grace Holloway during surgery to "fix" his abnormal heartbeat. (TV: Doctor Who)
  • The Eighth Doctor regenerated after he tried to help a pilot named Cass Fermazzi escape from a crashing ship. Cass refused his help however when she identified his ship as a TARDIS and therefore his being a Time Lord, who she despised because of the Time War. He died when the ship crashed but was revived temporarily by the Sisterhood of Karn, who not only offered to trigger his regeneration, they also offered him a choice on the characteristics of his next incarnation. (TV: The Night of the Doctor)
  • The "War Doctor" regenerated because his long-lived elderly body had grown precariously weak after spending an entire lifetime fighting in the Time War. The tipping point was at the end of the war when he helped to save Gallifrey from being destroyed by one billion-billion Daleks and place it in a different dimension. With the Time War concluded and his will to persist as that incarnation for as long it waged settled, his regeneration began before his vitality drained entirely. He remarked that his body was "wearing a bit thin," like his distant predecessor. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
  • The Tenth Doctor regenerated truly by absorbing the radiation from a nuclear vault supply to spare Wilfred Mott. Unlike most of his predecessors, he held off the regeneration for a long time; the result was explosive damage to the TARDIS when he finally completed the process, that caused it to crash and regenerate itself. (TV: The End of Time)
  • The Eleventh Doctor spent centuries defending the town of Christmas, on the planet Trenzalore. Before his body succumbed to old age, the Time Lords granted him a new regeneration cycle, prompting a thirteenth regeneration. His most destructive regeneration process yet, he destroyed several Daleks and their ship with the regeneration energy and restored his body to a younger form but did not immediately change him into his next incarnation. The change finally occurred shortly after he returned to the TARDIS. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
  • The Twelfth Doctor was struck several times by Cyberman energy beams during the Battle of Floor 0507, requiring him to regenerate. (TV: The Doctor Falls) Upon awakening in the TARDIS, the Doctor again started to regenerate, but held it back, entering "a state of grace" during which he went on a final adventure with the First Doctor. After the adventure, the Twelfth Doctor regenerated explosively, severely damaging the TARDIS. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)

Parallel universes

Rose Tyler believed that the Doctor was a "one-off" across the multiverse, (AUDIO: The Last Party of Earth) due to the fact that she could find no trace of them in several parallel universes she had visited. (AUDIO: The Endless Night, The Flood, Ghost Machines) However other accounts showed the Doctor did have many counterparts in parallel universes. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead, PROSE: Spiral Scratch) At one point Ace speculated that his parallel selves were the closest thing the Doctor had to a family. (COMIC: Final Genesis)

On the Inferno Earth, the Second Doctor had chosen one of the faces that the Time Lords had offered him. Arriving in the 1930s instead of the 1970s, the Doctor became an ally of Oswald Mosley and eventually took Mosley's place as the Leader, later becoming Great Britain's ruler. (PROSE: I, Alastair, Timewyrm: Revelation)

The Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith visited a parallel universe where they encountered identical counterparts of themselves who were criminals. (COMIC: Who's Who?)

Whilst battling the Lamprey, the Sixth Doctor worked with several counterparts of his current incarnation, including a version travelling with Melanie Baal and another from a universe where the Roman Empire had never fallen. The Doctors worked together to overload the Lamprey with their chronon energy, which cost many of them their lives. (PROSE: Spiral Scratch)

In one parallel universe, the Third Doctor was killed in an explosion whilst encountering the Silurians, though peace between humanity and the Silurians was still achieved. The Seventh Doctor of N-Space later visited this Doctor's grave. (COMIC: Final Genesis)

The Eighth Doctor was shown some of his alternate selves in the multiverse, including a version of his current incarnation who had married Grace Holloway, Doc Gallifrey, Tardis Tails, Quiquaequod, Theta Stigma, Joe Smith and a counterpart who was a cyborg. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead)

In another universe, the First Doctor was an author who was delayed in leaving Gallifrey due to the machinations of Quences. (AUDIO: Auld Mortality) Before his granddaughter joined him, the Doctor's travels saw him frequently alter Earth's history. (AUDIO: A Storm of Angels)

In the Unbound Universe, the Doctor, as in N-Space, was exiled to Earth following his Malfeasance Tribunal, but arrived in 1997 instead of the 1970s, creating a radically different timeline for Earth. (AUDIO: Sympathy for the Devil) This Doctor was left as the ruler of his universe after the Great War wiped out his people, (AUDIO: The Library in the Body) and later became stranded in N-Space in the company of Bernice Summerfield. (AUDIO: The True Saviour of the Universe)

In another parallel universe, the Doctor became stranded on Earth in 2039 after losing his TARDIS on the DEEP. When the Doctor began trying to reclaim his TARDIS, he was shot by his surrogate daughter Ruth Mills after she discovered that he had killed her biological father. The Doctor regenerated into a new body only for Ruth to kill that incarnation as well, a pattern she swore to repeat as long as was necessary. (AUDIO: Full Fathom Five)

In one universe, a female version of the Doctor fled from the Time Lords but was later captured, imprisoned in her TARDIS which would dematerialise her if she tried to take off. This Doctor was told that the controls were not set so and she took the chance to take off. (AUDIO: Exile)

In one parallel universe, Kate Stewart knew the Doctor as a man who went about annihilating "pathetic, pacifist aliens". (AUDIO: False Negative)

In one universe, the Doctor was against interfering in the affairs of other planets while the rest of the Time Lords approved of such actions. (AUDIO: Disassembled)

In two parallel universes, the Doctor was a fictional character in a TV show called Doctor Who. These universes were visited by the Eighth and Eleventh Doctors. (COMIC: TV Action!, The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who)

Behind the scenes

"Doctor Who"

The use of the name "Doctor Who" when referring to the Doctor is commonplace in the British media, the end credits of many episodes, and most prose and comic stories of the 1960s and 1970s. The ending credits for the series gave his name as "Doctor Who" or "Dr. Who", from 1963 until Logopolis part four, when incoming Doctor Peter Davison insisted upon a change in the credits of Castrovalva to "the Doctor", which remained in place until the end of the original series in 1989; executive producer Russell T Davies used "Doctor Who" when the series returned in 2005, but Tenth Doctor actor David Tennant asked to change it back to "the Doctor" beginning with The Christmas Invasion. Despite these insistences, both Davison and Tennant called the character "Dr. Who" in several different interviews, as is common for media and cast members.

Especially in the 1960s and early 1970s, many stories referred to the Doctor as "Doctor Who". The Doctor Who annuals and Target Books novelisations frequently called him "Doctor Who" in titles and narration, though dialogue between characters usually used "the Doctor". In The War Machines, WOTAN directly referred to the Doctor as "Doctor Who", but most other usages of the name throughout the series' history were non-serious, such as the Second Doctor's pseudonyms and K9's jokes. In World Enough and Time, Missy told Bill Potts that the Doctor originally called himself "Doctor Who"; the Twelfth Doctor told Bill that Missy was trying to wind her up, but never denied the claim, and later in the episode explicitly self-identified as such.

Main article: The Doctor's aliases#Doctor Who

Casting

Up until 2019, every actor to portray the Doctor on an ongoing basis was Caucasian and born in the United Kingdom. However, the first Doctors of colour were introduced in Fugitive of the Judoon and The Timeless Children, respectively. Every actor until Jodie Whittaker had been male.

Despite the fact that the Doctor is not a native of Britain, or of Earth for that matter, every actor to play them so far has had a British accent, much in the way most aliens in the Star Trek franchise tend to speak with an American accent. The type of British accent has varied from one incarnation to the next. The earliest incarnations used RP, whereas some of the more recent incarnations have had Estuary accents. The Ninth Doctor had a Northern accent, causing Rose to ask why an alien would have a Northern accent, to which he replied, "Lots of planets have a north." (TV: Rose) Both Sylvester McCoy and Peter Capaldi used their natural Scottish accents while playing the role, with the fact the Doctor sounds Scottish being used in dialogue plot points in (to date) TV: Deep Breath and Robot of Sherwood. The Thirteenth Doctor had a Yorkshire accent. (TV: Twice Upon a Time[additional sources needed])

To date, the oldest actor to be cast as the Doctor has been John Hurt, who was 73; the youngest has been Matt Smith, who was 26 when cast. The oldest to be cast on an ongoing basis was Peter Capaldi, who was 55 when he was cast and began filming, and turned 56 during the production of Series 8. In 2014, Tom Baker turned 80 and continued to record new performances as the Doctor for Big Finish Productions' Fourth Doctor Adventures audio dramas, making him the oldest actor to play the part in an officially licensed capacity. Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann, all in their sixties or seventies, also continue to portray the Doctor in licensed audio dramas produced by Big Finish, with McGann also appearing in audio dramas produced by Big Finish and BBC Radio for broadcast on BBC7 radio. In the 2000s and 2010s, Tom Baker also portrayed the Doctor in AudioGO's Hornets' Nest, Demon Quest and Serpent Crest audio dramas.

In the Sarah Jane Adventures episode Death of the Doctor Part 1, Daniel Anthony, who plays Clyde Langer, became the first non-Caucasian actor to play the Doctor, when Clyde's body is briefly taken over by the Eleventh Doctor's consciousness. Anthony delivered a line of dialogue as the Doctor while impersonating Matt Smith's voice. Owing to the brevity of the performance, and the fact he is playing an established incarnation, the fact Anthony was the first to break the barrier of skin colour is generally not recognised. Aged 22 at the time the episode was filmed, Anthony was at the time the youngest to play the part.

Although the character has predominantly been portrayed as white, Jo Martin has portrayed an incarnation who is of colour, as have other uncredited supporting artists. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon, The Timeless Children) Prior to this, there had been black actors who were considered for the role. Among them comedian Eddie Murphy, Charles Venn and Robbie Gee.[source needed] Paterson Joseph auditioned for the part of the Eleventh Doctor.[1] Additionally, Steven Moffat has stated that he offered the role of the Doctor to a black actor - though which incarnation is unknown.[2]

Longest-serving Doctor

There are several different methods for calculating who was the "longest serving Doctor". The most commonsensical definition is simply that of the actor who played the role on television for the longest continuous period. This mantle goes to Tom Baker, who was the Fourth Doctor from June 1974 to March 1981, or 6 years, 9 months. Baker is also the longest-serving Doctor in terms of the number of individual episodes, total story count and amount of screen time. Thus he is generally considered to be the "longest-serving Doctor".

But there are other methods of measurement — all of which exclude Dimensions in Time.

  • For 92 of the 104 Saturdays that comprised 1964 and 1965, William Hartnell's credit appeared after each episode of Doctor Who without fail. He did sometimes take a holiday and pre-film the odd insert, filming for all but six weeks in both 1964 and 1965.
  • Peter Davison holds the record for the greatest length of time between his initial performance in the last episode of Logopolis, and Time Crash. The two events were separated by 26 years 8 months. Though he is not playing the same incarnation of the Doctor, Tom Baker's appearance as the Curator in The Day of the Doctor as a possible future version of the Doctor could mean his tenure in the role was longer than Davison's by this measure, with the gap between the 50th Anniversary special's broadcast and Baker's first appearance being just 8 months short of 40 years.
  • Colin Baker had the longest run between bookending regeneration scenes. The span from the premiere of The Twin Dilemma to his regeneration in The Brink of Death was approximately 31 years.
  • Paul McGann was notionally the longest-serving incumbent in the role, as he debuted in May 1996 and Christopher Eccleston's premiere didn't happen until March 2005. Being very generous, therefore, McGann was the "current Doctor" for a total of 8 years and 10 months. However, this is probably stretching a point, since obviously he was actually replaced not once but twice by the BBC. He effectively lost his incumbency once Richard E Grant was cast as the Shalka Doctor.
  • McGann also has recorded by far the greatest amount of hours of Doctor Who audio stories. Previously, he had more performed material on audio and television combined than even Tom Baker, but in 2010, Baker began recording audio dramas for AudioGO and then Big Finish, and had reclaimed his title by 2015.
  • The Eighth Doctor, though not McGann himself, is the longest-serving incumbent comic strip Doctor, in terms of the amount of time between his debut in Dreadnought on 1 June 1996, and his final appearance in The Flood on 2 March 2005. Call it 8 years and 9 months.
  • The Tenth Doctor is the longest-serving comic strip Doctor, in terms of the total number of stories which featured his incarnation. This is primarily due to the number of different publications that were granted comic licences during David Tennant's tenure in the role. Most of this count is due to the prolific comic strip published in Doctor Who Adventures which, for most of Tennant's tenure, was a weekly publication that ran a new standalone story every issue.
  • The Eleventh Doctor has the largest number of individual stories across all media.
  • The situation with books is a very close battle between the Seventh and Eighth Doctors, both of whom had long-running series. However, the Eighth Doctor is the longest-running both in terms of time and number of books published.

The issue of the longest-serving Doctor was a source of controversy on British game show The Million Pound Drop, which asked the question with the choices of McCoy, McGann, Eccleston, and Tennant; the team split their £650,000 between McCoy and McGann, only to find out that the "correct" answer was Tennant. Once the error was discovered (partly since the question was fundamentally flawed due to the absence of Tom Baker), the team was brought back to continue where they left off with £325,000 and ended up winning £25,000.

Analogous characters

There have been several characters outside the confines of the legal DWU which have been broadly modelled on general aspects of the Doctor. Such "pastiches" are examined in greater detail elsewhere.

Perhaps more interestingly, other characters within the DWU, and who have in some cases met the "real" Doctor, have also sometimes been conceptualised as pastiches of the character of the Doctor. Sabbath Dei was envisioned by Lawrence Miles as the individual who took on the role of the Doctor in the post-War universe, although he was later developed into a more villainous figure. Iris Wildthyme is not only a mildly ironic pastiche of the Doctor, but is, thanks to her metafictional qualities, aware of it, and The Scarlet Empress has the Doctor himself act with mild annoyance around Iris precisely due to his knowledge that she is duplicating his own life.

The Doctor's wives

Steven Moffat, in his production notes column in DWM 482, speculated that the Doctor's first spouse out of the four mentioned in the television story Death in Heaven was a woman who was married to the First Doctor for a long time on Gallifrey and bore the Doctor's children. He claimed "Mrs Who No 1" was never mentioned by the Doctor nor has he ever discussed her.

Recurring gags

Jelly Babies

See main article 'Jelly baby'

One of the longest running gags of the series is the Doctor's penchant for jelly babies. Multiple incarnations, have attempted to offer them to others, be it to comfort them (such as in TV: Robot) or distract them (such as in TV: The Pirate Planet). This gag was particularly evident during the Fourth Doctor era.

"You've redecorated..."

Another long running gag was the Doctor observing a change in a familiar room or building, and stating that they "don't like it". This gag was commonly done when an earlier incarnation of the Doctor entered a newer incarnation's TARDIS.

Instances of this gag occurring include:

The only character other than the Doctor to deliver a variation of this quote was Clara Oswald, on her entrance to the Twelfth Doctor's console room. (TV: Deep Breath)

An inverse version of this gag has also occurred, when the Thirteenth Doctor looked around her TARDIS's new console room and gleefully stated "I like it!" (TV: The Ghost Monument)

Vehicles owned by the Doctor

See main articles Bessie and the Whomobile.

As well as the TARDIS, the Doctor was the owner of two earthbound vehicles, named Bessie and the Whomobile (the latter name not used in-universe). These were most prominently used by the Third Doctor during his exile on Earth (for example, TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians, Invasion of the Dinosaurs), though they have also been used by later incarnations when required (for example, TV: Robot, Battlefield).

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/police-camera-action-after-playing-brilliantly-awful-alan-johnson-peep-show-paterson-joseph-has-joined-met-police-9112220.html
  2. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/jun/02/steven-moffat-there-was-going-to-be-a-black-doctor-who
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