Everything You Need To Know About Doctor Who

The Doctors

As a Time Lord with regenerative abilities, we have thus far met 12 Doctors – all of whom have had different adventures through time and space, and all of whom contribute snippets of information to build a picture of this mysterious, heroic character.

The First Doctor (William Hartnell) appeared from 1963 to 1966, and explained that he was an alien in exile. At the end of his time, he collapsed due to old age and exhaustion, after battling to save the universe. He regenerated into The Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) – who appeared from 1966 to 1969. The Second Doctor was a younger man who ultimately sacrificed his freedom to ask the Time Lords for help in saving his friends. He was tried for illegal interference in time, was exiled to Earth, and was forced to regenerate.

The Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) appeared from 1970 to 1974 and kept a lab at UNIT. He also maintained a number of additional vehicles – including a vintage roadster named Bessie, and a hovercraft. Since he was highly skilled in diplomacy, his exile was tempered by the fact that the Time Lords would occasionally send him on missions to thwart alien threats. His regeneration was caused by radiation poisoning.

The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) featured on the show from 1974 to 1981, and his more volatile personality saw him grow tired of his exile and his service to the Time Lords. He abandoned his lab at UNIT and headed off for adventures of a more intergalactic nature. This incarnation – who cited his age as being 756 years – was notable for having non-human companions join him on his adventures. He regenerated after being mortally wounded in a fight with his nemesis – The Master.

The tenure of The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) ran from 1981 to 1984, and began with a particularly difficult regeneration that saw the Doctor exhibit flashes of the personalities of each of his previous incarnations. This incarnation suffered the death of an assistant, and ultimately sacrificed himself to save his last assistant after suffering exposure to a toxic drug. His regeneration as the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) was a violent one and, though this tenure ran from 1984 to 1986, it was initially marred with guilt about his early actions. This incarnation of the Doctor – citing his age as 900 – found himself in conflict with a corrupt female Time Lord named the Rani, and was mortally wounded when she attacked the TARDIS.

The tenure of The Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) was technically from 1987 to 1996, though his episodes only aired until 1989. This incarnation experienced a rather confused regeneration, and later proved himself to be a relatively manipulative Doctor, who pinpointed his age as 953 years. While transporting the remains of his nemesis to Gallifrey, he accidentally landed in the San Francisco of 1999, and was shot and killed in a gang shoot-out. This scenario – necessitated by the temporary cancellation of the series – made the Seventh Doctor the only incarnation to have died and regenerated in a morgue.

1996 saw the broadcast of a TV movie, featuring the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann) – and this was intended as a feature length pilot episode for a Doctor Who relaunch on U.S television. The story had The Doctor assisted by the surgeon that operated on him after his shooting, and he battled the regeneration of his nemesis. This broadcast is notable for not depicting the regeneration of the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), which later gave rise to a new plot twist, featuring The War Doctor.

Though in broadcast, he appears at a different time, The War Doctor (John Hurt) actually occurs between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors – created consciously by the Eighth for the purpose of the Time War. He is, effectively, the embodiment of the regret, guilt, and shame experienced by The Doctor.

The Ninth Doctor saves a woman from an alien attack, and she becomes his assistant. This version of The Doctor reveals that the Time Lords were destroyed by the Time War – with the Gallifreans and the Daleks experiencing mutual annihilation. This is something for which The Doctor says he bears responsibility. However, during his one-season tenure, the Daleks resurfaced, and The Doctor’s assistant absorbed the energy of the Time Vortex to destroy them. The Doctor saved her with a kiss, but suffered catastrophic cell damage that caused his regeneration.

The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) appeared from 2005 to 2010, and experienced a lengthy coma after his transformation. In his first alien battle, he lost a hand, but it grew back due to his recent regeneration. During his time in the TARDIS, The Tenth Doctor lost an assistant to a parallel universe, met the character of River Song (who proved to be vitally important to the overall timeline of The Doctor), and sacrificed himself to save an assistant’s grandfather – visiting several previous assistants before regenerating.

The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) occupied the TARDIS from 2010 to 2013, and changed time after finding cracks that were erasing people from history. He had an apparent romantic entanglement with River Song, who was later revealed to be the daughter of two of the Doctor’s assistants. The tenure of this incarnation was dominated by prophecies of death, and The Doctor eventually sacrificed himself to destroy a Dalek mothership. As he grew very old, the Time Lords afforded him an extra regeneration cycle – leading to the appearance of The Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi).

The tenure of The Twelfth Doctor ran from 2013 to 2017, and has seen the Time Lord battle a female incarnation of The Master, named Missy. An injury during a battle with Cybermen prompted his regeneration – but he refused to regenerate. This stubbornness caused him to come face-to-face with The First Doctor.