Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Doctor Who--crash course SPOILERS IN THREAD

Ever since my PBS picked up what I *think* is the 9th Doctor series, I've tried to watch. I've only caught a couple episodes so far, though, due to confusion on times and general business.

I think I need a crash course. There's just so much information out there that I don't have time to sift through.

So I thought, who better than FoLCs to tell me what I need to know about the show. I've figured out the Doctor did something to his people, but what these Timelords do still eludes me. And why is he jumping around? Is this like Quantum Leap? Is he just doing it for fun? I missed the first episode...so I feel lost. But I liked the two I saw.

Someone? Anyone? I know you're here.


Edited to add that there are now lots of spoilers, especially for the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, in this thread.

Hey there

I'm emailing you something you might find useful

But, very long story short... The Doctor is 900+ years old. He's a Time Lord - they were a race of very powerful people who could control Time, though mostly they held themselves aloof from the rest of the universe. They wouldn't interfere even when their interference could save planets and species - which, in a nutshell, is mostly the reason the Doctor fell out with the rest of his people and stayed away from his planet for most of his life. He did - and does - interfere. Now, he tells Rose that he travels in order to see things, but he's also a bit like Clark in that he wants - needs - to help.

The Time War: we've never been told the full story about that, but what we do know can be summarised pretty much like this: a long-time enemy of the Time Lords, the Daleks, were all set to take over the universe. Daleks are motivated by hate: anything that's not Dalek they destroy. The Time Lords were trying to defeat them, and it came to a final battle and a desperate solution: there was only one way to save the universe, and that way was to destroy the Doctor's planet (Gallifrey) and wipe it out of time. And he's the one who did it. He expected to die, but he survived. The Ninth Doctor is clearly still traumatised: we're meant to assume that the war was in the very recent past. He's the last of his kind, and he's the one who killed his people.

Any more specific questions? Just watch the episodes, really - that'll tell you most of what you need to know, and there are plenty of us here to tell you more when you've done that.


Wendy

I once saw a couple of old Doctor Who episodes, when they aired at like 1am on the Sci-Fi channel or something like that. And my parents have one of the movies, which they taped from the TV.

Even though I'd only seen a couple episodes, I remember my parents saying that the doctor in that particular series was the nth (can't remember the actual number) doctor, but I never understood what that meant.

Does it just mean that that was just the nth TV series called Doctor Who, or does it have some sort of significance regarding the storyline as well?

When the Doctor 'dies' he regenerates as a new Doctor, a new version of him. He's not exactly immortal, as one day he will run out of regenerations, but he will be around for a long time.

This is sometimes also known as the actor playing the Doctor wanting to move onto new things.

It gets a bit complicated, as the series has been running for decades, and there have been lots of spin offs like books, radio and audio dramas, which leads to debates about what is and isn't cannon. However, the beginners' explanation is the Doctor you are currently watching is the 9th regeneration of the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston is the 9th actor to play the Doctor on TV).

The 9th Doctor is also a bit of a comeback special, as the series had been dropped for years by the BBC, but they finally bought it back, and the nation was happy again

Oh, and there have been more series' than Doctors, so I'm assuming that when you're talking about the 9th series, you mean the 9th Doctor (and I guess Wendy is too, although she might have a better idea of what's currently been shown on PBS that I do).

If the show you're watching was filmed in the 1960s, then you're watching the 9th series...

My favourite bits of Dr Who lore include the fact that the TARDIS Is" dimensionally transcendental" -- that's why its bigger on the inside. This quality also seems to apply to purses and some closets in my house.

Plus the third doctor ( Tom Baker, who had the role for many years) once experienced one of the funniest time loops ever ( okay I love time loops anyway but still) .
It was a "chronic hysteresis" -- that is, the same time repeating over and over. What a nice concise way to express that problem which seems to plague so many of our favourite characters !
a.

Oh -- plus be on the lookout for The Master. He always used to be The Doctors arch enemy. I guess if all the other time lords are now dead, he might not reappear, but I have my doubts.

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Okay, I guess that sort of explains it.

Actually, Tom Baker was the fourth Doctor. Jon Pertwee was the third.

Here's a Beginner\'s Guide to Doctor Who , starting from the Classic era. Unfortunately, it only seems to offer photos and no text - there used to be a better guide on the BBC site. :p

For those with a bit more patience, the Episode Guide for the First to Eighth Doctors offers photos of each Doctor, a list of episodes (they were all four or six-episode serials in those days) each Doctor was in, and also a guide to companions.

Traditionally, by the way, the Doctor was supposed to be asexual - never stated, but there was never any overt 'shippiness' between Doctors and companions (though it came close between Four and Romana II - it didn't hurt that Tom Baker and Lalla Ward dated and then got married while the two of them were playing those roles ). The 'asexuality' all changed with the Eighth Doctor, who kissed his sort-of companion, Grace Holloway, at least twice; and while the Ninth and Tenth Doctor and Rose's romance is not much more than subtext the writers and actors are all on record as saying that it's a love story and - as David Tennant has put it - They're boyfriend and girlfriend without the shagging.

You can also take a look at Wikipedia , which is stuffed full of DW information.

But you're probably better asking specific questions, because otherwise you'll drown in the amount of information you'll get!


Wendy

There is also a hint about something to do with the Doctor's family - can someone clear that up for me - I think it came about in one of the episodes that Tennant was in.

Did not realise that the Doctor was supposed to be asexual at the start. The first Doctor took on the form of an old man. He actually shares a link with the TARDIS which is his timetravelspacetravel machine thingy which is bigger on the outside than the inside. Basically if the TARDIS is destroyed the Doctor will die and vice versa. It's like a part of him. The TARDIS used to have the ability to make itself appaear like part of the background of wherever it happened to land or turn up - ie: it could look like a tree or the landscape but something got broken early on and it got stuck as an old blue telephone booth.

The Doctor has always had companions since the beginning of the series. The thing is that while he is bitter about the human race's prediliction for striking out to defend themselves against the first different thing or being they see, he absolutely loves the way humans are constantly curious, constantly adapting, constantly believing in ideals. The Doctor could travel alone and usually he is very cautious about taking on companions, but he craves the company and it was suggested at the end of the episode where Tennant's Doctor is seperated from Rose for good, that it was actually the TARDIS who "accidentally" places them aboard, as the next companion just materialised as the cliffhanger for the end of the season. The TARDIS seems to react to his emotions and does seem to act to protect him. I got the impression it beamed the next person aboard to prevent him moping over Rose.

Over the regenerations, The Doctor has seemed to open himself up more i.e. the relationships between him and the companions hinting at more than just friendship. It is possible that due to huge number of female companions he has had, it seems to have enabled him to react in a very male way towards them in terms of relationships even though he is technically supposed to be asexual. When he does meet up with old companions there is often a hint of them treating him as an former ex.

He used to have a mechanical robot dog called K9 who was left with a former companion - it is all she has to remember him by. He also has something that looks like something halfway between an oversized pen and a very very shiny vibrator that somebody once called an "universal screwdriver". It locks the TARDIS, unlocks other locks and does all sorts of nifty things.

He can choose to look like anything when he regenerates. I am a fan of David Tennant because he is very hot and when Eccleston regenerated into Tennant, I hyperventilated because I didn't know he was going to be the next Doctor. This is his tenth regeneration and it was hinted that he only has ten so this might be his last? Basically his body clock starts up again and he usually regenerates when someone kills him - ie. shoot him and he will react as if he is dying but then he doesn't, the whole body shimmers and he comes back to life looking completely different. When he regenerates, he generally very weak for a few days afterwards and usually he alters his wardrobe. Each Doctor usually wears something very much out there and has something on him that alludes to the definitive wardrobe of each of the other regenerations of him. Tom Baker had a multicolored scarf but the guy after him dressed in cricket whites. Tennant has snazzy looking PJs, an overcoat and a pair of converse sneakers.

The Doctor looks human but he can be differentiated from other humans by the fact that he has two hearts.

As for the Superman/Clark Kent and The Doctor similarities:

They are both intelligent - the speed at which he draws conclusions is amazing (but often beatable by those watching ;-))
He is always bound to turn up to save humans from something - as mentioned before he has to help
He can't stand everything bad about humans but he can't help loving them either - positively waxes lyrical about them.
He is absolutely head over heels in love with his companions but he guards himself and cannot bring himself to admit it to them because he doesn't want to doom them to a relationship with someone who has to travel to different dimensions or who might conceivably outlive them or who might put them in danger. He tries to tell Rose he loves her but doesn't get the chance to as the link between the TARDIS and her world fades before he can.
He seems to attract blondes and redheads. David Tennant - I will never forgive you for dating a blonde woman in real life. Never - when we are so perfectly suited to each other - how could you????
He is in effect an orphan. His home planet and all known members of his race are destroyed and he has chosen to hang around humans as a result.

The enemies consist of:
- The Master - he and another woman turned up in some of the earlier series as surviving TIMELORDS. They seek to enslave humanity and/or grab hold of the TARDIS and/or kill The Doctor. Given the way that they are named - it's possible The Doctor has no name save The Doctor. The title of the series is a reference to humans asking for the rest of the moniker. The Master did build his own TARDIS but the last anyone saw of him was when he and the other woman (whatever her name was) were trapped and about to be destroyed in that machine. Did they survive? We don't know.

- The Daleks. Known to be little shuttlecock shaped robotic looking aliens that run around with a huge thin cylindrical arm projecting straight ahed of them. Their favourite phrase is "Exterminate! Exterminate!". They hate everything that isn't like them as mentioned before and they hate the Doctor however The Doctor if in the right situation is able to threaten them by reminding them of something that happened to them in the past that nearly wiped them out. What he refers to no one really seems to know though it could have to do with the destruction of Gallifray. It could be a bluff to remind them that he did kill those he loved once before in order to defeat The Daleks and that they can safely assume that he might do it again no matter how much he has protected Earth and humans before.

- The Cybermen. Favourite phrase "You will surrender/ You will obey." They seek to conquer everything they come across rather than destroy it. They are cyborgs and the only reason they do not actively destroy anyone is because they grab every alien being they can and turn them into more Cybermen thereby building their race. They seem to hate everything that isn't mechanical and they aren't exactly happy with the Daleks but as the Daleks are usually more powerful they have often attempted to team up with them against the Doctor.

- Other random aliens:
There have been ones that absorb other beings to survive. Others that seek slave labour. A set of robots that programmed to allow their ship to function in all eventualities target a human in order to use her brain for the motherboard, years after the ship is deserted and rendered inactive by the death of its crew etc.

That's about as much as I know - I haven't had the chance to watch the entire show from the start. It never aired in SL and I only get to watch the occasional reruns from mid Tom Baker onwards that aired on ABC in Australia prior to the unveiling of the Christopher Eccleston series (whom I didn't like at all).

The Little Tornado.

Lots of information there, Tornado! Just a few things that might not be quite accurate, though:

I never got any suggestion of that at all. While the TARDIS is "alive", as the Doctor has said, and she's telepathic - as is he - there's never been any suggestion that she 'interferes' in his life in any way (unless you assume that Rose 'inhaling' the Time Vortex in Parting of the Ways was somehow aided by the TARDIS). Actually, the appearance of Donna in the TARDIS is fully explained in the 2006 Christmas episode, The Runaway Bride.

Actually, it's never been suggested that the Doctor can. There is some indication that Time Lords could - Romana, for example, chose to regenerate and she 'tested out' several bodies before choosing the one she preferred (way back in the Fourth Doctor era). However, the Doctor's regenerations have all been sudden and/or violent, and that gives him no choice. Remember, at the end of Parting of the Ways he says to Rose "This process is a bit dodgy. You never know what you're gonna get."

He officially has thirteen lives, not ten. Twelve regenerations, meaning thirteen bodies. But the BBC has been dropping hints that this may not remain canon - Gallifrey's destroyed, they've said, so who knows what would be the case now?

There definitely are plenty of similarities between Superman and the Doctor. Sara compiled this table on her LJ a while back, based mostly on the Ninth Doctor. Nine and Rose... my favourite combination

Don't forget Sarah-Jane! Or Romana I, or Leela. And, of course, Jack. Not to mention the new companion, Martha.

Well, that was really only Sarah-Jane, as she's the only past companion he's bumped into in recent years. In the old series, there was never any hint of anything more than friendship with companions, until the Eighth Doctor, who kissed Grace Holloway several times - but she never travelled with him. The novels associated with the Eighth Doctor (not aimed at a teenage market, unlike those for the Ninth and Tenth) hint at a bit more sexuality - companions making passes at him and even kissing him, with mostly passivity on his part, apart from one very strong hint that he may have slept with one of them (Berniece Summerfield, known as Benny).

Well, don't forget that before the Ninth Doctor's era Gallifrey still existed. There was still an entire race of Time Lords, and we met a number of them, not just the Master and the Rani. Romana, Iris Wildethyme and many others - some episodes were even set on Gallifrey, including one where the Doctor was elected President of the Council. It's only since the Time War that the Time Lords have ceased to exist - though rumours abound that at least one may have survived.

Um... no. The recent season finale (Army of Ghosts and Doomsday) is the first time Daleks and Cybermen have ever been used in the same story, so the first 'encounter' between the two. And, really, they fought each other. There wasn't any sense that they were teaming up to defeat their common enemy. In this recent era, the new Cybermen (manufactured by John Lumic) use the cry Delete! but the original Cybermen, from a planet called Mondas, used to say Eradicate! As for the Daleks, the Doctor's reminders that he destroyed them refers to the Time War - past encounters with the Daleks don't involve this bit of psychology on his part. As to whether he could do it again, the Fourth Doctor was sent by the Time Lords to Skaros (the Daleks' home planet) to destroy the Kaleds before the Dalek race was formed, and he couldn't do it (Genesis of the Daleks). Nor could the Ninth Doctor destroy the Daleks a second time (Parting of the Ways), though the Tenth Doctor did send them into the Void, and lost Rose in the process (Doomsday).

Oh, and there were two or three versions of K9 - Sarah-Jane got one, Romana II apparently absconded with another and I think Leela may have had one as well. And, of course, he built Sarah another one to replace the original K9 when he got killed saving them all.

The Doctor's family... Well, the First Doctor travelled with a teenage girl called Susan who called him Grandfather. There's discussion around the possibility that she may not have been biologically related to him at all, though much of this comes from old-schoolers who hate the idea that the Doctor might have ever had sex or procreated In Fear Her he told Rose that he was a dad once. I think we may find out more about that in subsequent episodes.

Oh, and the sonic screwdriver... the universal deus ex machina device. The Fifth Doctor lost his and it was gone for many years, on the basis that the writers felt it had just become too much of a handy plot device. There is a hilarious exchange between Jack and the Ninth Doctor over the sonic screwdriver in The Doctor Dances:

(Edited a little - in the midst of the 'willy-waving contest' Rose is trying to figure a way out of their situation)


Anyway, the thing with Doctor Who is that there's more than forty years of TV history, not to mention all the novels and audios (which aren't strictly canon). So - like Superman history, in a way - some of the canon can be contradictory. One thing I do like about New Who is that the writers do make use of classic canon, but do it in such a way that people who loved the old series will recognise the references, but those who came to it new won't realise there are things they're missing. For example, the enemy in the first Ninth Doctor episode, the Autons, are from classic Who. In Dalek, the Doctor sees a Cyberman head in Van Statten's museum - nothing to notice for a new fan, but a bit of a 'squee' moment for old-schoolers.


Wendy (who adored the Ninth Doctor and now sees the Tenth as a close second)

SPOILERS Ahoy…all the way up to the end of Series 2 of Doctor Who, as shown in the US and the UK

Let's see here, crash course on Doctor Who. There's a lot of ground to cover, so I'll go with the basics first.

So far, in canon-speaking terms and not referencing specials such as the Comic Relief sketch with Rowan Atkinson playing the Ninth Doctor or the BBC one-shot The Curse of Shalka, there have been ten incarnations of the Doctor.

Confusing isn't it? Let me explain. The Doctor's homeworld is called Gallifrey, and there are several different classes on this planet. One of them, of which the Doctor is one, are the Time Lords. These are the elite of Gallifreyan society, and the title of 'Time Lord' is earned after a long time spent at the Academy. There are several little finicky details about the Academy that you can research on your own, since they're not that important in the scheme of things.

Now, as I said, the Doctor is a Time Lord. One of the little benefits of being a Time Lord is the ability to regenerate twelve times (thirteen bodies). Basically, this means that upon the moment of death (be it of old age or unnatural circumstances or even, in the case of Romana, because she felt like it), a Time Lord's body regenerates, granting that Time Lord a new lease on life. (I'll get into the Doctor's regenerations shortly)

Now, the Time Lords also have the ability to travel through time. Part of this is due to their fantastic ships, called TARDISes (Time and relative dimensions in space), and another part is due to the Time Lords themselves. Granted at the moment of their graduation with something known as the Rassilon imprimature, each Time Lord has the ability in a limited sense to see time, even manipulate it on a small scale. This imprimature also grants a Time Lord the ability to pilot a TARDIS.

Generally speaking, no-one other than a Time Lord should be able to 'drive' a TARDIS. However, in more recent years, this has been abandoned in canon so anyone that the Doctor's authorized can handle the ship.

There's a lot more about Gallifrey that I could go into, but it's best if I just point you to the wonderful Wikipedia website that has a huge and very detailed entry on the Doctor Who universe.

One of the best descriptions of Gallifrey and its peoples that I can give you is this:

They're the stuffiest, stuffed-shirts in the galaxy.

The Doctor

The First Doctor (William Hartnell)

The Doctor's first incarnation actually fled Gallifrey, stealing his Type 40 TARDIS, and running to Earth with his granddaughter, Susan, in tow.

This doctor was a kind of eccentric and crochety old man. He was extremely clever, and good at getting people to underestimate him so he could get the upper hand. He said “Hmmm…” and “goodness, gracious me!” a lot.

He gained (and lost) many companions during this incarnation and he has the dubious honour of being the only version of the Doctor that died of 'natural causes' i.e. old age.

The Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton)

This Doctor was a bit younger, a bit brasher, a lot more batty, really. He liked to play the recorder, wore a yeti-fur coat, and came equipped with a sonic screwdriver, which is Who-ese for Deus Ex Machina.

Sadly, poor Two really got the shaft from the BBC when, cleaning house in the Seventies, they destroyed a good number of the original copies of the episodes from this era and Hartnell's era. Details are a bit sketchy hereabouts, but some of the "well known" companions of this era are Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe. This is also the era of the Doctor's first encounter with a young bloke named Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Colonel at the time, but...well, he gets promoted later ).

This Doctor's end occurs because of his own people. This is the first time we've ever heard of the Doctor's people and his homeworld. After the Doctor takes care of another renegade Time Lord for his people and stopping galactic carnage, the other Time Lords find the Doctor guilty of interference in the affairs of other races and decide that he is to be punished by a forced regeneration and exile to 20th century Earth. Jamie and Zoe are sent home with no memories of their adventures.

The Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee)

I suppose the best way to describe the Doctor's third incarnation is James Bond meets Jackie Chan. Favouring fashionable velvet coats and lace cravats, this Doctor was all about the action (not to mention his mad Venusian Aikido skills).

His TARDIS was sabotaged as part of his punishment, so this Doctor was sort of stuck on Earth. Luckily, his friend the Brigadier (Lethbridge-Stewart) at UNIT needed a scientific advisor. There are plenty of alien invasions that need thwarting, so things stay interesting. In attempting to repair the TARDIS, the Doctor ends up reversing the polarity of the neutron flow rather a lot. This is as common a phenomenon of techno-babble as messing with dilithium crystals or tachyon pulses or whatnot. One of his most popular companions is Sarah Jane Smith (not to mention all of UNIT).

The Third Doctor meets his doom at the hands (or, rather stingers) of some rather large spiders.

The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker)

This is the Doctor that most Americans think of when they think of Doctor Who. He's got big teeth, big hair, long scarf, and a rather mad personality (I equate the Fourth Doctor with a three year old child dosed with far too much sugar and caffeine...all the time). This Doctor is very capricious. He’ll be deadly serious one moment, throwing jelly babies at people the next, pouting about wanting to be childish, then tripping up baddies with his ridiculously large scarf.

He's also the longest reigning Doctor, if you can call it that. He had Sarah Jane Smith, Leela, Romanas I and II, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan all join him at one point or another during his travels. One of the most common pairings in this era (mostly because Lalla Ward and Tom Baker did get married during the show) is the Doctor and Romana II. This is also the beggining of 'hand-porn'. The Doctor and Romana II did hold hands...a lot.

This Doctor met his demise because he met Tegan, er...because he fell off a really big telescope stopping an evil Time Lord known as the Master from destroying the universe. You know, usual stuff that.

The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison)

Falling was rather traumatic for the poor Doctor, and it takes him a bit to recover from this regeneration. This incarnation has quite a bit of the crochetyness of the first Doctor, while appearing younger (and hotter) than he had ever before.

This Doctor doesn’t always have all the answers. He is fallible, vulnerable, and tends to need rescuing about as often as his companions do. Plus, he loves cricket. A lot. Which is probably why he wanders through the universe wearing a cricket uniform.

His most famous companions are Tegan, Nyssa, Turlough and Adric. Adric gets the dubious honour of being the second companion to die on the show (and did the fans rejoice at that).

This Doctor dies because of poison (notice how these deaths get more traumatic as time goes by?), as he gives up the antidote to save his companion, Peri, from certain death. Instead, we get to watch him die instead...

The Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker)

Using the manner of the Doctor's most recent death to explain this incarnation's personality, he gets the honour of being the first Doctor to try to kill one of his companions. Though, sadly, he didn't succeed...and we were stuck with listening to Peri's appalling American accent for a while longer...

*ahem* Anyway, this Doctor first seemed amusingly nasty, but turned out to be excessively brash and to have appalling fashion sense. Multi-coloured coats, a cat badge, and bright yellow and red striped trousers seem to be the way to go for number Six.

This is widely considered the point where the show started losing its footing and part-way through the Sixth Doctor's reign, the show was temporarily cancelled. But he came back, as unsteady and brash as before, and met his demise thanks to a rather nasty bump on the head (at least that's the popular theory) inside the TARDIS.

The Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy)

Ah, Seven, how I love you...ahem. Okay, I'm a bit biased here (don't look at me like that, Wendy..), but Seven is one of my all-time favourite incarnations. He's got a lot of the battyness of the second Doctor, but he's also a lot darker than the Doctors that preceded him. He's a manipulative bastard and tends to employ a lot of mental hijinks (think of the Jedi mind-trick) to get out of trouble, or to get people to do what he wants them to do.

There are all sorts of hints at bad things that he did or was involved in long ago, perhaps before we ever met the character. People tend to either love or hate this Doctor.

He also is the Doctor that introduces us to the loveliness of Ace. Ace is a sixteen-something girl from Perivale who created her own type of explosive, fondly known as Nitro-Nine. One of her favourite things to do is blow stuff up, much to the Doctor's sometime chagrin.

Ace is love *nods*

This is also where Doctor Who first left our screens, supposedly for good. In the early nineties, a book line called the Virgin New Adventures, took up the story after the last episode aired and kept merrily going for over 65 novels. These books were aimed for an adult audience and contained a lot more violence and tricky situations than ever seen in the episodes. (And do I love them *happy sigh*)

The Seventh Doctor comes back to the screens for a mere fifteen minutes in the Doctor Who movie only to die…by getting shot and then pumped full of anaesthetic (not to mention an inept attempt at heart surgery by one Grace Holloway…).

The Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann)

In 1996, an attempt was made to revive the show by means of a TV movie. Somebody thought it would be a good idea to Americanize the show in order to catch a bigger audience. Somebody was wrong. It was absolutely terrible, but oddly endearing. A bit like watching a train-wreck, really, but I still love it

This Doctor is generally fabulous. He has a sense of wonder like we haven’t seen before. He’s fascinated with life and loves every bit of it. He’s so much more emotional than he’s ever been and so open to these emotions that he *gasp* kisses Grace. Twice. (And fanboys have heart-attacks the globe over because the Doctor just snogged a companion, omg! The scandal!)

Here canon diverges. You can follow the newly revived BBC novels (They cancelled the Virgin line, damn them, and the quality's a bit off, but they're still aimed at adults, just not as beefy as the Virigin adventures), which is a bit screwy. There's apparently a group of rogue Time Lords called Faction Paradox and they destroy Gallifrey at least three times. Yeah, it's really screwy.

Or you can follow the audio adventures. A bit of info on the audios, they were introduced in 1999 and are adventures with all the classic Doctors. Well, most of them. Five, Six, Seven and Eight all have adventures and they're all brilliant. I have much love for Big Finish audios, yes.

Most important thing to know if you follow the audios is something called 'Zagreus'. Go on, google it. Not only will you find some Greek mythology, but you'll also find one of the creepiest nursery rhymes ever that tells you all you need to know. Or, as Eight puts it, 'tea-time terror for Time Tots'.

The implication for this Doctor's end is the "Time War". Not to be mistaken for the BBC novel's multiple Time Wars, or something along those lines. I mostly just call it the "Last Great Time War" and leave it at that.

Oh, and by the way? The Doctor destroyed his people to destroy the Daleks. (Daleks = mechanical pepperpots with a penchant for killing anything that isn't like them.)

After this point, I go into spoilers for Series 1 and 2 of the new series as shown on SciFi, PBS, BBC America and in the UK. Don't read any further if you don't want to be spoiled.

The Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston)

The show is revived in 2005 with a bang. We've got angst, we've got a hot guy in leather, we've got… right, where was I? Oh, yes. The Doctor. This Doctor's main concern is very much for the big picture rather than for individual lives at the moment, making him seem a bit callous and cruel at times. He can be enthusiastic, and exclaims that things are “Fantastic” quite a lot, but it sometimes seems a bit forced, which is understandable. His planet is, after all, burnt to cinders.

His biggest soft spot is for Rose, his nineteen-something shop-girl companion. She just up and left her mum and her boyfriend and we’ve seen a lot of the repercussions of that. Rose and the Doctor have great chemistry and do a lot of desperate hand-holding. (It's how the Doctor says 'I love you', really…No, wait, there was that time with… Right, where was I?)

This is also where we get introduced to Captain Jack Harkness. Who is just like the Doctor, only with 'dating and dancing'. We get some lovely OT3 action…er…that was only in my mind, wasn't it? You never know what happens behind closed TARDIS doors!

I need to focus here…anyway, this Doctor's theme is 'Bad Wolf'. Every episode contains a reference to it and, in the end, we get a big battle with the Daleks and learn that the Bad Wolf is actually Rose.

She sucked in the Time Vortex and basically became a goddess. She revives Jack (he got shot by a Dalek *sniffle*), wipes the Daleks from time and space and saves the universe. However, she's dying, so the Doctor gives up his life to save hers. And, yes, this Doctor really was fantastic…

The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant)

He's rude, he's cheeky and he's not ginger, but he's got a gift of gab that puts even the Fourth Doctor to shame. His trademark grin and pin-striped suit with a pair of ratty Chucks sets this Doctor apart as a bit of a geek. He travels with Rose for a year, meeting up with some old enemies (the Cybermen), old friends (Sarah Jane), alternate universes and generally having a jolly good time of things.

There's a meeting with the Devil and some face-sucking action (no, sadly not in that way) and even a trip to the Olympics. However, all things must end, and this heralds the end of Rose's journey with the Doctor. There's a big battle, there are Cybermen versus Daleks (every fanboy's ultimate dream and, of course, the Cybermen are pwned), and, finally, Rose gets flung into a different universe with no way back to this one. The Doctor goes on by himself and Rose is left to live her 'fantastic life' in another universe. They say it's impossible for them to ever meet again but, like any science fiction programme, anything is possible.

The Doctor meets up with a bride, fights spiders at Christmas and, now, he's met up with a new companion called Martha Jones. Only time will tell what adventures wait for them next…

End of Spoilerish Bits

That concludes my introduction to the Doctor. For further information on the various popular bad-guys (The Master, Cybermen, Daleks, etc), I recommend that you visit the Wikipedia website and look up Doctor Who. There's a lot more information there than I covered. As well there should be, I've had over 43 years to cover after all

Oh, and if you're interested in fanfic, the best places to go are:

Teaspoon and an Open Mind – All eras, all Doctors, all companions, all genres.

Time And Chips : For Doctor/Rose (any Doctor, as long as Rose is there) fan fiction.

Better With 3 : For Doctor/Rose/Jack (Ninth or Tenth Doctor) fan fiction.

Who_Otp : For all other Doctor/whomever pairings.

Genfic can be found all over. Enjoy!

Wendy and Gillian:

Thank you for the additional information and for correcting me. I appreciate it. The whole thing about the TARDIS bringing people aboard - that's just my opinion and what I'd like to think.

Every other inaccuracy can be blamed on the fact that I only ever got to watch Tom Baker, Peter Davidson and the guy after Jon Pertwee or whatever he is called. And then I had to jump to Eccleston who was deadly boring - I always blame it on the fact that he wasn't quirky enough to look at in order to watch for any significant length of time. Also I think it might be my boyfriend's influence that I seem to get the impression that Cybermen and Daleks have teamed up prior to Tennant's reign.

I only got to watch Tennant up until the episode where he gets seperated from Rose - I haven't seen anything else yet - no doubt it will get aired on ABC in oz soon.

Also I am bloody sure that the Time War in which he destroyed Gallifrey happened way back when (unless he traveled through time and saw what was meant to happen in the future to him?). If I am wrong and it happened prior to Eccleston then where am I getting this from? What did he use to bluff the Daleks before when he was Doctor 3/4? He always seemed to use psychology with them and he always seemed to have a bluff of sorts. Obviously I need to get a hold of early episodes and start watching them.

When you said the BBC cleaned house in the 70s - does that mean that there are episodes from the first and second doctors sessions that are missing never to be seen again? Waaaahhhhh!!!! I wasn't even born then....

I don't care how many brunettes he had, he never progressed very far with most of them other than this Ramona II with whom he did mostly handholding. :-( Plus I want Tennant!!!!

Stupid Tennant waltzing off with that woman who played Madame Pompadour ...... grrrr.... I will never forgive you David!!!!! Never!!!!!

The Little Tornado (whose heart is forever broken by Tennant's infidelity).

Ah, but he always has bluffs. He's not very fond of weapons, as you'll have noticed - and when he relies on weapons he prefers to let other people use them - and his main weapon is psychology. He refers to that explicitly in The Doctor Dances as his solution to the bomb about to fall. All through his history and regenerations, his main way of dealing with situation is through talking, assessing, predicting how people think and behave and using it against them. That, and running

The old Daleks couldn't climb stairs, so he used that against them too when he could.

The only Time War in the televised series is the one that happened off-screen some time before we encountered Nine first. We don't know how recent it is for him, but it's suggested in Rose that when he's in her flat is the first time he's actually seen what he looks like in this regeneration, and the general assumption is that the climax of the Time War, when he destroyed his planet to destroy the Daleks, is when the Eighth Doctor died. But there've always been conflicts and interplanetary wars, and the Time Lords and the Daleks are old enemies from throughout the series.

If you want to see the post-Doomsday episodes, email or PM me by clicking on the little box above and I can let you know of an alternative means of acquiring them


Wendy

It's really all about the angst. *points at Dalek* he was lovely But, obviously, I'm a little biased there.

That's only in fanboys heads there. They've never interacted, even in the books, before the fanboy fest that was Army of Ghosts and Doomsday. Admittedly, I wanted some more posturing in those episodes, along with some more Dalek on Cybermen...er...that didn't come out right, did it? Dalek versus Cybermen action. *g*

As Wendy said, the implication of the whole "Look at the ears" line in Rose is that that was the first time that the Doctor had seen himself since his regeneration. Since Nine is very much the war-scarred hero, not to mention suffering from a severe case of PTSD, the implication is that the Time War happened (for him) a short time ago, if not immediately prior to that episode. The War itself could've happened at any time, really.

Both Daleks and Time Lords had, after all, mastered time travel. Though Daleks were confined to the much less accurate Time Corridor technology rather than the TARDISes. But Daleks didn't have the Eye of Harmony (Gallifrey's tame black hole) as a power source, and the Time Lords did.

He generally did use a lot of posturing with the Daleks. And, at least once, he managed to talk one into suicide. It's really a matter of looking in the origins of the Doctor's interactions with the Daleks. Every scheme that they came up with, he defeated through the use of technology and circumstances to aid him. At least once, he was commanded to destroy the Daleks at their birth, but he couldn't do that, and they continued on their path of destruction.

Yeah, most of the second Doctor's episodes are missing. There are a few audio tracks still around, but the video is gone. Hartnell's episodes are mostly complete, but there are one or two arcs still missing. It's rather sad, though they're discovering new episodes all the time. In fact, some of the most famous discoveries have happened in places like Kenya or South Africa, places where the BBC's reach hadn't touched when it came to those episodes. However, a lot is still missing.

Oh, what a trip down memory lane... Thanks, guys! I grew up watching the Doctor on PBS, so it was mostly Tom Baker. He might be the first "celebrity" I met at a convention. I thought I was handling it until I was standing in front of him, shaking his hand. He smiled down at me and all thought evaporated. It was the Doctor! Right there! I was gobsmacked, you might say. And he's not even my favorite!

I got rather fond of Nine. Never saw too much of Ten -- don't even know if the eps have been aired here, but I know who to ask if I want to download (/me waves to Wendy). Didn't really care enough, though.

Seven is still my favorite. Him and Ace. Just the best. The scene with the sort-of vampires, where he had to destroy Ace's faith in him, was just... well. About as much angst as I like <g> I met Sylvester McCoy at a convention, too, but it was later and I wasn't quite so dumb-founded. Still very cool, though. I got him and a few others to sign a poster. I think Jon Pertwee was there, and whatshername who played Ace. But that was 15 years ago, so don't hold me to that! Though I think I still have the poster, somewhere, so I suppose I could look it up!

Well, I guess none of that would be very helpful to anyone, but when has that ever stopped me before?

PJ

Ten (aka Season two) aired this past fall. I can't remember exactly when it stopped airing. According to the SciFi Schedulebot, there will be a mini-marathon on May 30th. No word on when S3 will air, though.

I'm excited about Torchwood, though. BBC America said they will start airing it in June as part of their Supernatural Saturday block. Supposedly they'll also be airing new eps of Doctor Who, but I have a feeling that will be S2, as they're showing S1 (Eccleston) right now.

I remember seeing something that implied that Series 3 was coming to SciFi in July sometime, but that could just be jumbled recollections on my part.

I'm actually wondering how much they're going to end up cutting from Torchwood when they show it on BBC America. Especially when it comes to the second episode. It is *ahem* rather graphic.

Like most Americans, my first real exposure to the Doctor Who series was PBS's showing of the Tom Baker era. I got to see a few other of the doctors as they ran (reran) some of the older ones, and some of the docters after Tom.

For me it was all about the companions, and I was smitten with Sarah Jane, so my favorite Doctors are Jon Pertwee, and Tom Baker. Never cared too much for Romana, and Adric was the Jimmy Olsen of Doctor Who.

I've watched the two Doctors in the recent series return that the SciFi Channel has shown so far. Can't say they hold the same magic that the older series did. I never warmed up to Rose and never really saw her as a legitimate romantic partner to either of her doctors. I wasn't sorry to see her go.

I do believe that SciFi is planning to air the next series sometime this year, but haven't heard exactly when that might be.

Doctor Who is okay, but it ain't no Lois and Clark.

Tank (who thinks the best episode they had was the one where they revisited Sarah Jane)