Fifth Doctor
The Fifth Doctor was the fifth incarnation of the Time Lord known as the Doctor. Appearing younger than his predecessors, the fifth incarnation expressed a new and more human side of the Doctor's alien nature.
His relationship with Adric became rocky due to his lack of common interests. However, the Doctor was quite affected by Adric's death following the Cybermen's failed attack on Earth, feeling guilt for not being able to help his friend.
The Doctor took Nyssa in after the Master unintentionally destroyed Traken, giving her a home in the TARDIS. However, Nyssa departed his company when she decided to find a way to stablise a cure for Lazar's disease.
Feeling responsible for displacing Tegan in time, the Doctor tried to return her to Heathrow. However, after succeeding, the Doctor let Tegan rejoin him when she changed her mind; she parted company with the Doctor after he misunderstood her wishes and departed before she could return to the TARDIS.
The Doctor was once again found by the Black Guardian, who sent Turlough to kill him. However, the Doctor won Turlough over and defeated the Guardian. Turlough accompanied the Doctor until his exile from Trion was lifted.
During an encounter with the Master, the Doctor gained a companion in the android Kamelion, who did not wish to harm others. However, by the time Turlough left and Peri joined, the Doctor killed Kamelion at his request as he was too weak to resist the Master's will power.
During his final adventure with Turlough and Kamelion, the Doctor unexpectantly gained Peri Brown as a companion, whom he planned to return home. However, after Turlough left and Kamelion died, the Doctor allowed Peri to travel with him for her vacation time.
Soon after, the Doctor and Peri had been exposed to unrefined Spectrox toxaemia. As there was only one dose of antidote, the Doctor decided to regenerate and give Peri the cure instead.
Biography
Post-regeneration
The Doctor's fourth regeneration, into his fifth body, was a trouble-filled one, and nearly failed. (DW: Logopolis) Mentally, he alternated between assuming the personalities of his previous selves and reverting into states of fear and vagueness. He recovered in the TARDIS' Zero Room and after Nyssa and Tegan piloted the TARDIS to Castrovalva, he found himself captured by the Portreeve's men while amnesiac, confused and vague. He regained his memory and sense of purpose and again succeeded against the Master, who was disguised as the Portreeve. During this time, the Doctor almost got a "first hand" look at the Big Bang, barely escaping it at the cost of some of the TARDIS interior. (DW: Castrovalva)
Attempts to return to Heathrow and the loss of Adric
Tegan demanded that he return her to 1981 Earth, which he attempted many times without success. (DW: Four to Doomsday, The Visitation)
The Doctor halfway succeeded in getting Tegan home, but got the wrong place in time, ending up on a spaceship controled by Monarch. After stopping Monarch from executing his insane plan for time travel, the Doctor saw Nyssa had become greatly weakened due to nearly being converted into a cyborg like the human captives Monarch had onboard. (DW: Four to Doomsday)
The Doctor constructed a device to help her sleep and recover. In the meantime, he and Adric visited a human colony and were arrested by the second in command, who was suffering from a nervous breakdown. After escaping and pacifying the secondon command, the Doctor found Tegan had been possessed by the Mara. However, the Doctor managed to free Tegan of it with the help of the local kinda and remove the human research team from the Kinda's planet. (DW: Kinda)
The Doctor later lands at Heathrow 300 years off course and is accused by the ignorant villagers of carrying the plague. However, the Doctor finds an alien known as Terileptil, who was enhancing the plague in carrier rats to rid the planets of humans so it could take over. However, the Doctor managed to stop him by accidently starting the Great Fire of London at the cost of his sonic screwdriver. (DW: The Visitation)
On a trip into Earth's past, the Doctor was mistaken for a cricket player expected by Lord Cranleigh to help win a game. The Doctor was invited to partake in Cranleigh's ball as thanks along with his companions. However, he was accused of murder when his costume was stolen and used for it. The Doctor cleared his name by showing his TARDIS and found Cranleigh's supposedly deceased relative was the culprit. (DW: Black Orchid).
Somewhere around this time, the Doctor met his tenth incarnation, when their respective TARDIS' crashed into one another. They saved the universe from being sucked into a blackhole by blowing up the TARDIS at the same time as the imploding blackhole. Much to the Fifth Doctor's annoyance, he learned the Master would still be giving him trouble in the future. (DW: Time Crash)
When Adric seemed to be growing distant from him and wanting to return to E-space, the Doctor decided to take a walk underground in the 26th century on Earth. However, he soon discovered a plan by Cybermen to use Captain Briggs' space freighter as a giant bomb. Adric attempted to stop the freightor by cracking logic codes on a control devise on the ship, causing the freighter to shift through time to the distant past. He was unable to stop it entirely, due to a surviving cyberman destroying the control devise. The freightor hit the earth, killing the dinosaurs and Earth's history proceeded as history recorded. However, Adric, still trapped on the freighter, died trying to save the earth. (DW: Earthshock)
tegan's depature and Adventures with Nyssa
Shortly after Adric's death and a further encounter with the Master, the Doctor successfully delivered Tegan back to Heathrow in the year that she required. During this time the Doctor is enlisted to help find a lost plane and discovered the Master was trying to repair his damaged TARDIS after their last meeting. However, the Doctor managed to send the Master to a planet that loathed him. (DW: Time-Flight)
Following this encounter the Doctor and Nyssa continued to travel together, returning to Earth a few times; these journeys included Earth's past following an accident with a teleportation experiment and an alternate version following the Dalek Emperor's attempt to manipulate a Mutant Phase infection. (BFA: Winter for the Adept, The Mutant Phase)
He was forced to return to Traken, prior to its destruction by the Master, to find the cause of her psychic sensitivity, finding it in the individual Kwundaar, who caused her illness deliberately. (BFA: Primeval)
He faced some horror, when finding himself on the planet Mondas during its passage through space, that he and his body might have been some of the inspiration for the Cybermen. (BFA: Spare Parts)
After losing his TARDIS he spent some time in Victorian London, before travelling back to Earth and the lands of the Scorpion King discovering that someone he thought was dead had survived. (BFA: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster, The Boy That Time Forgot)
Return to Gallifrey
After contact with an anti-matter universe the Doctor was summoned to Gallifrey following his encounter with an anti-matter being near the Arc of Infinity. Following a ruling by the High Council, a Warrant of Termination was issued for the Doctor to be killed. He had an encounter with Omega, and strangely, Tegan Jovanka, within the Matrix, He escaped from Gallifrey and went to Earth, where he found Tegan and Omega, who copied the Doctor's form. Realising that Omega had not completed the process and was about to revert to ani-matter, the Doctor was forced to use the gun of one of Omega's creation's to destory him before Omega could will his self-destruction. He also took Tegan back on as his companion as she had nothing to do at the time and wished to resume travelling with him.. (DW: Arc of Infinity)
Travels with Nyssa and Tegan
When Tegan began having pregonitive dreams concerning the Mara,
the Doctor decided the best place to deal with the problem was on the Mara's planet of origin, Manussa. However, despite his attempts to keep the remnants of the Mara still in Tegan at bay, the Doctor was forced to seek help from a former sceintist and snakedancer Dojjen. The Doctor learned he had to find the "still point" in himself which had no negative emotion for the Mara to feed on. He was succesful in starving the Mara to the point of death, confident he had removed it completely from Tegan for good. (DW: Snakedance)
During an encounter with Mawdryn and his people, who had abused Time Lord technology, the Doctor was nearly forced to give up his remaining regenerations to save Tegan and Nyssa from de-ageing into nothingness. However, this was prevented by pure luck of two versions of his old friend Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart meeting and providing the energy at the precise moment. He took the Black Guardian's undercover anget Vislor Turlough with him at his request, not knowing of his connection to the vile being. (DW: Mawdryn Undead)
After Turlough sabatoged the TARDIS on the Black Guardian's orders, its thermal dimensions locked it onto Terminus, a spaceship victims of Lazar's disease were held. The Doctor found Terminus had accidently created the Big Bang and was in the process of recreating it, which would end all of creation. However, the Doctor managed to win over the Garn and had him stop the engines from blowing up. By the time he returned to the TARDIS, the Doctor was saddened to learn Nyssa wished to remain on Terminus to help perfect the cure for Lazar's disease. Respecting her wishes despite some intial protests, the Doctor left her behind. (DW: Terminus)
Enlightenment and the Guardians
Following the White Guardian's instructions, the Doctor piloted his TARDIS to what appeared at first to be a sea-going yacht. It was a space-ship, piloted by Eternals in the ultimate race for Enlightenment. At the end of the race, the Doctor and Turlough had been the ones victorious and both Guardians offered Enlightenment to him as a prize. However, the Doctor decided it should go to Turlough, to test his sense of right and wrong. The Doctor ended up being right about Turlough and watched as he decided not to take the prize and the Black Guarian vanishes back into nothingness. The White Guardian explained that Enlightenment was the choice and Turlough has chosen it wisely. The Doctor decided to go on a trip to where his companions wanted to help him recover from the trauma the Black Guardian had sent him through. (DW: Enlightenment)
Meeting Kamelion
Returning to 13th century Earth, the Doctor again encountered the Master. However, the Master's disguise prevented him from being recognised. It was only after the two duelled that the Master revealed his identity. King John of England gave the Doctor the choice to save either Geoffrey de Lacy or the Master. He chose Geoffrey but the Master managed to escape in his TARDIS. John then knighted the Doctor. However, it transpired that John was in fact Kamelion and so this was unofficial. The Doctor took Kamelion with him when he left. (DW: The King's Demons)
The Game of Rassilon
The Doctor took Tegan and Turlough to the Eye of Orion to get some rest and relaxation after their series of stressful adventures. However, this was impeded when all four of the Doctor's previous lives had been taken out of their places in his timestream, leaving the Doctor to fade away. Luckily, his companions managed to pilot the TARDIS to the Death Zone on Gallifrey that the first three incarnations were, allowing the Doctor to stablise for the moment. It turns out that President Borusa, was attempting to gain Rassilon's secret of immortality and wished to use the Doctors as pawns to clear the way past traps, but ultimately, the First Doctor tricked Burosa into Rassilon's final trap. The Doctor was both happy and disturbed that he was seeing his previous lives be in the same time again. (DW: The Five Doctors)
Departures and new beginnings
During a trip to the near future, the Doctor found that the surviving Silurians from his previous encounter have teamed up with a brood of Sea Devils to instigate an nuclear war against humanity. Much to the Doctor's displeasure, he had to murder the Silurians and Sea Devils with reptile-killing gas. He found that all his attempts in the past to help make a peaceful future between them had all been for nothing. (DW: Warriors of the Deep)
While dropping off Gravis the Doctor was drawn to the planet Artaris, meeting Iris Wildthyme once more. (DW: Frontios, BFA: Excelis Dawns)
After several increasingly distressing encounters Tegan departed the Doctor and Turlough after their encounter with the Daleks on Earth, following the increased amount of death she witnessed. However, the Doctor did not know that she wished to return anyway and left before she could reenter the TARDIS and resume travelling with him. (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks)
Soon, the Doctor found Kamelion receiving a signal and traced it to a volcano planet where Trion people are banished. The Master was the source of the signal; he had accidently shrunk himself with the TCE and wished to use a healing volcanic gas to grow. The Doctor was unable to prevent him from succeeding and to his continued displeasure, Kamelion begged to die as it couldn't resist the Master's mind. The Doctor complied using the TCE. To his surprise, Turlough decided to return to Trion as his exile was lifted. However, the Doctor did not resume his travels alone, Peri Brown, who had been brought with them by accident, decided to travel with him for the remainder of her vacation. (DW: Planet of Fire)
Egyptian discoveries
On a trip to Egypt with Peri, the Doctor saved the young pharaoh Erimem from a group of rebels. After saving Erimem's throne from a conspiracy, Erimem decided to travel with the Doctor, leaving her throne to a distant relative. (BFA: The Eye of the Scorpion)
Hunt for the Key to Time
Assigned a mission to seek out the pieces of the Key to Time once more, this time, because the pieces were degrading, the Doctor was provided a sentient tracer, whom he named Amy. (BFA: The Judgement of Isskar, The Destroyer of Delights, The Chaos Pool)
Regeneration
Ultimately, the Doctor and Peri , were exposed to Spectrox toxaemia on Androzani Minor which was, at the time, caught in the midst of a power struggle between gun runners, a fiendish masked madman called Sharaz Jek, government troops and crooked politicians, all over the precious mineral Spectrox. With only one dose of the antidote available to cure Spectrox toxamia, the fifth incarnation sacrificed his own life to save Peri, regenerating into his sixth incarnation. (DW: The Caves of Androzani) During his regeneration the Master tried to interfere via Kamelion's lingering connection to the TARDIS, but the Doctor was saved by an older Nyssa who connected with him in his mindscape. (BFA: Circular Time)
Personality
The fifth incarnation was probably the most human and vulnerable of all the Doctors. He was less pretentious and selfish, often reacting to situations rather than initiating them and openly expressing his hopes and fears to his companions. He could decipher the ingredients of a drink by smell alone and rosemary made him sneeze. His young appearance was reflected in the youthfulness of his companions as well, whom he treated more like parts of a team than their usual subordinate role under previous incarnations. The death of Adric affected him and the rest of his companions deeply. (DW: Earthshock)
He did not suffer ill affects after opening the Box of Jhana. Panna thought him an idiot for not turning insane and he agreed. (However, the Doctor may have been joking as his mind was more advanced than that of a human and he is normaly rather kind and peaceful). (DW: Kinda)
Despite his youthful body and love of cricket, he was one of the least physical Doctors, preferring to use communication and diplomacy to solve a problem. In contrast to some of his more aggressive predecessors, he preferred to gain people's trust by honestly proving himself, instead of using his vast experience as an excuse to take charge. Indeed, he often willingly participated in situations under the leadership of someone else who had the strong command presence that he lacked.
However this does not mean to say that he did not take charge in moments of frustration, as demonstrated during his encounter with a "skinny idiot". In an occasional reminder of his actual age, this Doctor would sport a pair of glasses when examining something, though these would later be revealed by his future self to be vanity "brainy specs", which he wore just to make him look "a bit clever". (DW: Time Crash)
At the same time, this humanity made him prone to panic under pressure and become occasionally indecisive. He was unable to execute Davros in cold blood, (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks) and reluctantly killed Kamelion only at the android's request. Following this, he did not move to help the Master as he failed to replenish his life. However, he seemed deeply upset by this following the Master's apparent death. (DW: Planet of Fire)
Of all the incarnations of the Doctor, the fifth was the one who showed the greatest abhorrence for violence and needless bloodshed as well as the pain and suffering of others. Despite this, violence and bloodshed continued to dog his footsteps, as in the massacre in Sea Base 4 (DW: Warriors of the Deep) and the number of deaths of anonymous soldiers which led to Tegan's departure. The Doctor acknowledged that he perhaps had to mend his ways. (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks) Although this incarnation greatly disliked violence, he took part in gunning down a few foes when the situation deemed it necessary. (DW: Earthshock)
Towards the end of this incarnation, the Doctor began to display a more relaxed and controlled side; even as he awaited execution on Androzani Minor he was still fiercely curious about the nature of the spectrox which was mined there. He also seemed to have developed a sarcastic side, mocking Chellak's insistence on being addressed as "sir". It was perhaps a combination of realising that his lifestyle begat violence and the weighing of Adric's death on his mind that led him ultimately to sacrifice his own existence to save Peri. It was telling that this incarnation's last word before his regeneration into his sixth incarnation was "Adric". (DW: The Caves of Androzani)
Upon meeting his seventh incarnation, he was repulsed by his future self's manipulative nature. (MA: Cold Fusion)
Appearances
This Doctor had two different, though similar, outfits. He wore his first one in the first stages of his life and his second one in the later stages. His usual attire was a traditional cricket outfit. His very first outfit (DW: Castrovalva) was a long beige coat with red lining along the collars, sleeves and pockets. On his left lapel he wore a stick of celery, for he was allergic to certain gases in the praxis range of the spectrum and if he was near any, it would turn purple and he would eat it; and he wore a white long sleeve cricket jumper with a red and black V-Neck pattern. Under that would be a white dress shirt with a red interior and embroidered question marks on the collars. His trousers were a unique pattern consisting of brown and beige stripes. Often he would top the look off with a Panama hat with a red band studded with sparkling stones.
He wore his second outfit after his first one was ruined. (DW: Warriors of the Deep) For this outfit, he made a few changes. The colour of the coat was slightly faded and the collar was made shorter. The jumper had a pattern of thick red and black lines on the bottom of the sweater, the V-neck and sleeves; the dress shirt had a green interior instead of a red one, and the pattern of the trousers changed to thick orange lines. He had been seen wearing suspenders adorned with question marks with this outfit. (DW: Planet of Fire)
Influence on later incarnations
The ninth, tenth and eleventh incarnations also seemed to have inherited his poor piloting skills. While inside the Doctor's dreamscape, Ace discovered that this incarnation in the Doctor's subconscious had come to personify the conscience of his future selves, reflecting his strong sense of compassion. (NA: Timewyrm: Revelation)
Whilst it was implied that his immediate successor hated being this incarnation (DW: The Twin Dilemma) and his seventh incarnation described him as being "bland" and "not even one of the good ones" (MA: Cold Fusion), his tenth incarnation expressed a fond enjoyment of his time living as this incarnation. He looked upon his fifth incarnation as a turning point in his life. According to the Doctor's tenth incarnation, it was in his fifth incarnation where he truly began to enjoy himself, an ironic statement considering the darkness surrounding the death of Adric and the departures of Tegan and Nyssa. He admitted to his earlier self that certain aspects of his wardrobe and personality were influenced by his fifth incarnation. (DW: Time Crash)
His eleventh incarnation also acknowledged this incarnation at least two times; asking for some celery after a decontamination (DW: Cold Blood) and encouraging Canton Delaware with the words 'Brave heart' like he did with Tegan. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut)
Furthermore, the Sixth Doctor's companion Evelyn Smythe stated that he "seemed lovely" after observing him from afar. The Sixth Doctor was somewhat irritated by this statement, reinforcing his somewhat low opinion of his immediate predecessor. In spite of this, he grudgingly admitted that he enjoyed his fifth incarnation, stating that "being him was like a holiday. A very wonderful holiday." (BFA: The 100 Days of the Doctor)
Behind the scenes
- Richard Griffiths was considered for the role of the fifth incarnation before Peter Davison was cast.
- After the famous and popular fourth incarnation, it was decided that the next incarnation should be played by an actor who was already firmly established in the British public's mind. Peter Davison was chosen, due in no small part to his popular and critically acclaimed role as Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small, a BBC series based on the books of James Herriot.
- Until the announcement in 2009 of 26-year-old Matt Smith as the eleventh incarnation, Davison, age 29 when he began the role, held the record as the youngest actor to ever officially play the Doctor, beating his predecessor Tom Baker by eleven years. Davison was reluctant to accept the role because of his age.
- The fifth incarnation's era was notable for a "back to basics" attitude, in which humour, and, to an extent, horror, was kept to a minimum, but more scientific accuracy was encouraged by the producer, John Nathan-Turner. It was also notable for the reintroduction of many of the Time Lord's enemies, such as the Cybermen, Omega, the Black and White Guardians, the Silurians, and the Sea Devils, while the Master, who had been reintroduced at the end of the Baker era, became a regular adversary, appearing at least once, and often more than once, per season.
- In 2007, the fifth incarnation became the first and only past incarnation to appear in the 2005 series revival when he appeared in the mini-episode Time Crash.
- As a result of this, the Fifth Doctor became the second incarnation (after the Second Doctor) to canonically meet five other incarnations: First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Tenth (DW: The Five Doctors, Time Crash).
- If you include his regeneration into the Sixth Doctor, he is the only incarnation to have encountered six other incarnations. However, both Peter Davison and Patrick Troughton acted alongside six other Doctor actors (due to Richard Hurndall's appearance as the First Doctor in The Five Doctors.
- As a result of this, the Fifth Doctor became the second incarnation (after the Second Doctor) to canonically meet five other incarnations: First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Tenth (DW: The Five Doctors, Time Crash).
- In several DVD commentaries, Peter Davison claims the reason that he abandoned the use of his half-moon glasses was because Janet Fielding mercilessly teased him when he used them. Fielding seemed to agree with this assessment on at least the commentary for Earthshock.
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