For his 47th, get caught up with a Doctor Who primer

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For his 47th, get caught up with a Doctor Who primer
November 28, 2010
By Alan Kistler
Newsarama



On November 23, 1963 at 5:15 pm on a Saturday, the BBC premiered a program that was intended to educate children on some basics of science and history and was expected to last perhaps a year. It became popular with people of all ages, delved into science fiction, history and fantasy, and wound up lasting twenty-six years before being cancelled in 1989 (not counting a previous attempt to cancel the show). It later had a TV-movie on Fox that was supposed to start a new series in 1996. This didn’t happen however and it seemed that the adventures would only continue in novels, short stories, audio plays, stage plays and comic strips. But then a new series began in 2005. Since then, “Doctor Who” has regained a place in the hearts and minds of many science fiction fans.

The hero of this program is the mysterious Doctor, a Time Lord who travels in his TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space), a ship that goes anywhere in space and time, and fights evil whenever he stumbles across it. Blessed with the ability to regenerate his entire body twelve times, he has thirteen lives and so far has been portrayed by eleven different actors in his many television adventures. The new show is easy enough to get into since the first season (introducing the Ninth Doctor) and the latest fifth season (showcasing the Eleventh Doctor) are both written to be new-viewer-friendly, not requiring major knowledge concerning the Doctor’s past. But still, what about you folks who want to get to know the classic Doctors and aren’t sure where to start? Well, just for you, here is a primer on each of the Classic Doctors with some story recommendations for each one.

WHO IS THE DOCTOR?



As revealed in the classic series, the Doctor was raised in the Prydonian Clan of Time Lord society, a clan known for the cunning and manipulative nature of its members. It is known that he was called “Theta Sigma” by classmates at the Time Lord Academy and that he was friends with a boy and a girl who, like him, did not believe in their society’s rules against meeting and interfering with “lesser races.” He failed his final exams but then barely passed the second try, earning him the title of Time Lord. He fathered at least one child and then a grandchild named Susan. And then, like his two schoolmates, he decided to turn his back on the rules of Time Lord society and explore the universe. It was said that if a Prydoninian left his clan, they left behind everything, including their birthright. Thus, our hero gave up even his own name. He chose to now call himself the Doctor and his two former friends, who became two deadly enemies, took on the titles of the Master and the Rani.

The Doctor stole a broken down, near-obsolete Type-40 time travel capsule from a repair shop. He hot-wired it and then left Gallifrey, taking his grand-daughter Susan with him (though it was implied a few times that she was not a willing passenger or perhaps hadn’t realized that her grandfather would not be able to return home). And that brings us to discuss…

FIRST DOCTOR – William Hartnell (1963-1966)


When we first met the Doctor, he was already in the latter years of his first body’s life. He was crotchety, short-tempered and extremely open with his rather cynical opinion that everyone around him was inferior in some way. In other words, he was very much a typical Time Lord. In the show’s first television story, Susan and the Doctor wound up bringing two human school teachers named Barbara and Ian with them on their adventure. A broken “year-o-meter” meant the TARDIS trips couldn’t be controlled and so the school teachers couldn’t return home immediately. Being with Barbara and Ian brought out a different side of the Doctor and by his third television adventure he had begun to become the heroic traveler fans would know and love for years to come. He was grumpy and had no patience for people who wasted his time, but he clearly cared for his friends and would not stand by when he saw people victimized.

After traveling around with a variety of assistants and friends, and after sending Susan away so she could have the stable life she’d always wanted, the first Doctor was affected by a weapon used by the Cybermen. He began to feel weak, noting that his body was wearing thin. After the Cybermen were defeated, he told his friends, “It’s far from being all over,” then returned to the TARDIS and regenerated for the first time.

Recommended DVDs: The Beginning trilogy; “The Keys of Marinus”; “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”; “The Time Meddler”

SECOND DOCTOR – Patrick Troughton (1966-1969)


After explaining to his friends that his body could cheat death through a process of “renewal” (later called “regeneration”), the Second Doctor went headfirst into a life of adventure. He was an effervescent man who showed great joy at discovering new things. The Second Doctor played a recorder when he needed help thinking and often acted as an idiot or a coward in order to manipulate his enemies. It was the Second Doctor who began using the alias of “John Smith” and it was during his adventures that we first saw the now-famous sonic screwdriver.

During his second incarnation, the Doctor first met Col. Alastair Gordon Lethbrige-Stewart, who was later promoted to Brigadier and helped form U.N.I.T. (U.N. Intelligence Task force), a global organization that the public believed to be a mere security agency but was actually intended to protect the world from extra-normal threats. The Brig would wind up fighting alongside the Doctor in many incarnations, including the first one.

Eventually, the Second Doctor faced a situation that he could not handle without help and was forced to call on the Time Lords for aid. As he expected, he was captured by his people and forced to stand trial for his crimes of interfering with the outside universe. Though they decided not to execute him, the Time Lords decided the Doctor still needed to be punished and so they exiled him to Earth for a time, removing his knowledge of time travel science. Before they sent him to Earth though, he was apparently sent on several missions for the Celestial Intervention Agency, a black ops division of the Time Lords. We learned this from the TV adventure “The Two Doctors” and it was expanded on in the novel “The World Game.”

Recommended DVDs: “Tomb of the Cybermen”; “The Invasion”; “The Mind Robber”; “The War Games”

THIRD DOCTOR – Jon Pertwee (1970-1974)



An undisclosed amount of time after his trial on Gallifrey, the Doctor was not only exiled to Earth but, as part of his punishment, forced to regenerate again. This was a short-tempered Doctor, furious with his situation, stranded with a TARDIS that could no longer travel through time and that he wasn’t sure how to repair, forcing him to accept a job as U.N.I.T.’s scientific advisor “Dr. John Smith.” This forced the Doctor into a position where he was now part of a group rather than calling the shots and he developed a sibling rivalry relationship with the Brigadier, both liking each other more than they were willing to admit but sometimes shocked by each other’s different approach to life.

It was during the Third Doctor’s tenure that we first met the Master and the two renegade Time Lords shared many battles on Earth. After saving Gallifrey from destruction, with the aid of his first and second incarnations (you gotta love time travel), the Doctor was given back his freedom and his knowledge of time travel. However, as we learned later, part of being a tolerated renegade meant that he’d still have to do the occasional mission for the Time Lords, whether he liked it or not. Eventually, he died from radiation exposure while facing giant mutant spiders that ruled over the planet Metebilis III. He returned to U.N.I.T. headquarters in England, telling his friend Sarah Jane Smith, “While there’s life, there’s…” and then lost consciousness. The radiation exposure damaged his body so much that he should have died permanently, but a fellow Time Lord arrived and aided him in regenerating.

Aside from being stranded on Earth during many of his stories, the Third Doctor stood out from other Doctors in two other major ways. First, he loved old cars, leading him to own and operate a special jalopy named Bessy, which later inspired a shorter-lived hovercraft that fans called the “Whomobile.” And second, perhaps due to his shorter temper, he was more prone to physical confrontations, leading to many stories where he displayed martial arts skills on enemies or people who simply got in his way. More than once, he proudly explained that he was well versed in not only Earth martial arts but also in Venusian Aikido (though he occasionally called it Venusian Karate instead).

Recommended DVDs: “The Claws of Axos”; “The Time Monster”; “The Three Doctors”; “The Time Warrior”

FOURTH DOCTOR – Tom Baker (1974-1981)



For an entire generation, this guy was THE Doctor, spending seven years on the television airwaves. Known for wearing scarves that varied between ten to eighteen feet in length, the Fourth Doctor was a laid-back bohemian driven by wanderlust, so absorbed in his observations that he’d occasionally voice his thoughts aloud and completely forget there were other people in the room with him. The Fourth Doctor took pride in being childish and finding things to laugh at most of the time, but could turn on a dime and let loose with righteous fury if he saw someone deliberately harming others or ignoring what he considered to be obvious facts. He was also known for offering jelly babies to enemies and allies alike, sometimes at the strangest of times.

This Doctor’s career revealed many things about Time Lord history to us, such as their war with the ancient Great Vampires. The Fourth Doctor also wound up witnessing the beginnings of the Dalek race, which would help lead to the Last Great Time War and involved a decision that would haunt him later. Along with the famous Sarah Jane Smith, his Doctor spent a lot of time traveling with a Time Lord named Romana and his other companion Leela was the inspiration for the Futurama character of the same name. It was the Fourth Doctor who first traveled with the robot dogs called K-9.

The Doctor fourth life came to an end when he fell to his death after preventing the Master from holding the entire universe hostage. Before he regenerated, he smiled and told his friends, “It’s the end. But the moment has been prepared for…”

Recommended DVDs: “Genesis of the Daleks”; “The Brain of Morbius”; “The Hand of Fear”; “The Deadly Assassin”; “Underworld”; “The Pirate Planet”; “City of Death”; “State of Decay”; The New Beginnings Trilogy

FIFTH DOCTOR – Peter Davison (1981-1984)



The Fifth Doctor was more reserved and introspective than his previous incarnation, but could still hit enemies with a sarcastic remark and manipulate them with his seemingly-innocent behavior. He was not just a friend to his traveling companions, he was a teacher and a guide. He also was more open with his emotions, letting his vulnerable side show even when he didn’t want it to. He enjoyed peaceful afternoons, sporting events and the company of others. In facing enemies, he was very serious and forthright, chastising and mocking many villains to their face. This Doctor became a bit more serious after the death of one of his companions.

When he and his friend Peri Brown were both poisoned, the Doctor had only enough antidote to save one of them. He gave it to Peri and then succumbed to the poison. Just before the Fifth Doctor regenerated, he wondered aloud: “Is this death? Feels different this time…”

Recommended DVDs: “Earthshock”; The Black Guardian Trilogy; “The Five Doctors”; “Resurrection of the Daleks”; “The Caves of Androzani”

SIXTH DOCTOR – Colin Baker (1984-1987)



Due to the difficulty of his regeneration, the Sixth incarnation of the Doctor was temporarily insane before settling into the personality of a brash, self-righteous scientist who was proud of not being a human being of Earth. The idea was that as the stories went on, this Doctor would begin to mellow into a true hero, but due to a variety of circumstances we only saw this more relaxed version of the Doctor in a few stories before the actor was told to leave by the new BBC Controller who was outspoken in his dislike of Doctor Who.


Colin Baker was allowed to continue as the Sixth Doctor in audio plays by Big Finish and has proven just how interesting and fun his incarnation can be. In his televised adventures, he fought against classic enemies such as the Cybermen and the Daleks and also introduced fans to new villains such as the Rani. He had an entertaining team-up with the Second Doctor and was later put on trial on Gallifrey by the Valeyard, an evil Time Lord with a strange secret. He was killed when the Rani forced his TARDIS to crash land. The events leading up to this crash, and showing that other circumstances were involved in bringing the Doctor’s sixth life to an end, were covered in the novel “Spiral Scratch.”

Recommended DVDs: “Attack of the Cybermen”; “The Two Doctors”; the Trial of a Time Lord saga

SEVENTH DOCTOR – Sylvester McCoy (1987-1989)



Initially, the Seventh Doctor was the same aloof, oddly behaving adventurer that had been seen in many previous incarnations. After a few adventures though, he became concerned that he’d been wrong in only being reactive in fighting evil and decided that he would now be proactive, hunting down specific villains and setting up complex schemes to bring them down for good. As he became more and more involved in manipulations and master plans, he came to be darker and colder towards his friends and companions, sometimes forcing himself to look at them as pawns in his larger schemes. As the novels explained, he now saw himself as “Time’s Champion” rather than just a wandering adventurer.

The Seventh Doctor spent many adventures with Ace, a young girl who enjoyed a good fight, refused to scream in fear, and made a habit of cooking up her own explosive chemical called “Nitro-9.” Ace became a popular companion and with the Doctor she fought not only Daleks and Cybermen but Morgan Le Fay and other strange enemies such as the demonic Destroyer and the angelic-being called Light. Ace was sometimes shocked and appalled at the Time Lord’s behavior, such as when he scored her as a meaningless pawn in order to trick an enemy and when he willingly allowed a planet to be destroyed to ensure that he won a battle.

The Seventh Doctor was the final incarnation to star in the classic series before it was cancelled. He later showed up on the Fox TV-movie that was intended to be a pilot for a new series. It was said that he was now nearing the end of his life in his seventh body and we saw that he was traveling alone. Arriving on Earth, he was shot when he stumbled into the middle of a gang war and then was killed on the operating table due to the surgeons not understanding his physiology. His last words were a plea that the Master had to be stopped, as he knew that the villain was once again loose on Earth.

Recommended DVDs: “Remembrance of the Daleks”; “The Silver Nemesis”; “Battlefield”; “the Curse of Fenric”; “Survival”

EIGHTH DOCTOR – Paul McGann (TV: 1996) (Audio Plays: 2001-present day)



Introduced in the Fox TV-Movie, the Eighth Doctor was a man who cherished his existence, taking joy in simple things such as comfortable shoes and fire works. He was quick-witted, name dropped at any given opportunity, and thrilled in accomplishing the seemingly-impossible.

Since a new series did not get the green light after the pilot, Paul McGann has not reprised the Eighth Doctor on screen. But he had several novels (which I personally wasn’t crazy about for the most part) and many comic strip adventures (which I loved). McGann was able to start developing the character further thanks to Big Finish Productions. With them, he has acted in several dozen audio plays on a regular basis for the past nine years. In these audio plays, we learned that whereas the Seventh Doctor was all about precision and making sure his TARDIS went exactly when and where he wanted, the Eighth deliberately set his TARDIS to be more random in its travels, believing it was more fun. He loved telling stories, was a great fan of Earth pop culture and, like the Fourth Doctor, had a habit of speaking his thoughts aloud. After some trying experiences and being forcibly separated from a companion, he became a more somber Doctor, with more biting sarcasm and increased cynicism. Despite this, he continues to fight for life and justice whenever he can and he refuses to ever give up.

We’ve yet to learn about the Eighth Doctor’s final adventure, but it is fairly clear that he met his end during the closing of the Last Great Time War. The Ninth Doctor indicated that in his Eight incarnation he might have ended the war in some way that he had expected would kill him as well, saying his regeneration was “not by choice.”

Since I can’t recommend any TV adventures, I suggest instead that you read all the collected comic strip adventures (starting with the trade “Endgame”) and then check out some of these great audio plays: “Storm Warning”; “Minuet in Hell”; “Chimes of Midnight”; “Terror Firma”; “Blood of the Daleks”; “Sisterhood of the Flame”; “The Vengeance of Morbius”; “The Earthly Child”; “Situation Vacant”

And that’s your primer on the Classic Doctors. Now go out and enjoy some Doctor Who adventures. This is Alan Kistler, signing off.

Alan Kistler is an actor and writer living in New York who has been recognized by Warner Bros. Films and major media outlets as a comic book historian. He is also the creator/host of the web-show “Crazy Sexy Geeks: The Series” (check out the Facebook fan page!). He knows entirely too much about the history of comics, Star Trek, Doctor Who and vampires who don’t sparkle. Alan can be followed via Twitter: @SizzlerKistler. His work can be found at http://KistlerUniverse.com or http://www.youtube.com/user/CrazySexyGeeksSeries