Doctor Who: Who-ology (Dr Who)
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Film roles included Jude (with Christopher Eccleston) in 1996 and Bright Young Things (2003), while television took in Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), People Like Us and Blackpool. In 2005 he was cast as the young Casanova in a major BBC production, written by Russell T Davies, who was also working on the first series of Doctor Who. When Christopher Eccleston left the series, Davies immediately turned to his Casanova and offered Tennant the chance to play the Tenth Doctor. Tennant’s reaction was to laugh – then ask if he could have a long coat.
Tennant’s time aboard the TARDIS would see Doctor Who as popular as ever with audiences, and he claimed it was a difficult decision to leave the programme after four years – a decision he announced to a live TV audience during the interval while performing Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Tennant has worked on both sides of the Atlantic since leaving Doctor Who, starring in St Trinians 2 (2009), Fright Night (2011) and Nativity 2 (2012), and on television in Single Father, United and Broadchurch. In 2011, Tennant married Georgia Moffett, who had guest-starred in the episode The Doctor’s Daughter. Moffett is the daughter of Peter Davison, making the Fifth Doctor the Tenth Doctor’s father-in-law!
The Tenth Doctor has a surprising claim to fame. This incarnation boasts the most stories set in the future. But hang on, what about all those stories set on present-day Earth? Well, thanks to the events of Aliens of London, they all take place about 12 months in the future.
MATT SMITH – THE ELEVENTH DOCTOR
Full Name: Matthew Robert Smith
Born: 28 October 1982, Northampton
First Screen Appearance: The Ruby in the Smoke (TV, 2006)
First regular Doctor Who appearance: The End of Time, Part Two (2010)
Final regular Doctor Who appearance: Who knows?
Matt Smith wanted to be a professional footballer, but a back injury forced him to rethink his career choice. He was encouraged by his drama teacher to attend the National Youth Theatre, where he was seen performing by former Doctor Who companion Wendy Padbury – at that time a theatrical agent. She was impressed by Smith’s natural ability, and sent him for an audition at the Royal Court theatre, an audition in which he was successful.
His first TV work had another Doctor Who connection when he played Jim Taylor alongside former companion Billie Piper in The Ruby in the Smoke (2006). More stage work followed, and Smith received an Olivier Award nomination for his celebrated performance in That Face, once again at the Royal Court. He worked with Billie Piper again in an episode of Secret Diary of a Call Girl, and 2007 saw Smith take on his biggest TV role as Danny Foster in Party Animals.
On 3 January 2009, Matt Smith was revealed to the nation as the new Doctor in a special edition of Doctor Who Confidential. It would be nearly a year before he made his brief Doctor Who debut on 1 January 2010, and another three months before the Eleventh Doctor would declare that bow ties are cool in The Eleventh Hour.
Even with Doctor Who taking up much of the year to film, Smith has managed to take on other projects between series, for example filming the dramas Christopher and His Kind in 2011 and Bert and Dickie in 2012.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
According to Dorium Maldovar, the question that must never be answered is ‘Doctor Who?’ While we’ve never learnt the Doctor’s real name in 50 years, he’s adopted a lot of monikers, both on TV and beyond.
NAMES THE DOCTOR CALLS HIMSELF
The Caretaker – an alias he adopted while looking after the Arwell Family in 1947. (The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardobe)
Doctor Caligari – the alias the First Doctor used while visiting Tombstone, USA in 1881. (The Gunfighters)
Get Off This Planet – a name the Doctor claims he’s often called, although he instantly acknowledges that it probably isn’t a name, strictly speaking. (The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe)
Captain Troy Handsome of International Rescue – when talking to the hologram of a crashed time ship in Colchester. (The Lodger)
Doctor James Macrimmon – how the Doctor introduced himself to Queen Victoria in 1879. (Tooth and Claw)
The King of Okay – A title the Doctor soon dismissed as rubbish. (The Impossible Astronaut)
Bad Penny – apparently the Doctor’s middle name. (The God Complex)
Maximus Pettulian – the Doctor assumed the identity of a murdered lute player while visiting the court of Emperor Nero. (The Romans)
Merlin – an identity yet to be adopted by a future incarnation of the Doctor. (Battlefield)
Doctor Noble of the Noble Corporation – while investigating suspicious goings on at Ood Industries. (Planet of the Ood)
John Smith – various (see ‘John Who?’)
Spartacus – the Doctor called himself Spartacus while visiting Pompeii in AD 79, as did Donna in a tongue-in-cheek reference to the 1960 film of the same name. (Fires of Pompeii)
Doctor Vile of the Mantasphid – the Doctor pretends to be a Pirate Master to try and avoid a war between humans and a race of insectoid aliens. (The Infinite Quest)
Doctor von Wer – the name the Doctor adopted in 1746 during a visit to Inverness, Scotland. Translated from German it means ‘Doctor of Who’. (The Highlanders)
NAMES OTHER PEOPLE HAVE GIVEN THE DOCTOR
Sir Doctor of TARDIS – by Royal Appointment of her Majesty, Queen Victoria. (Tooth and Claw)
Doctor Bowman – an alias adopted to get access to Professor Wagg’s Atomic Clock on 31 December 1999. (Doctor Who)
Caesar – by a Roman, but only because he was under the thrall of River Song’s Hallucinogenic lipstick. (The Pandorica Opens)
The Evil One – used by the Tribe of the Sevateem, unaware that the terrible god they worshipped was a supercomputer which had taken the Doctor’s face. Identity theft taken to the extreme, that. (Face of Evil)
John Doe – on the name tag tied to the Seventh Doctor’s toe after his ‘death’ in San Francisco. (Doctor Who)
Doctor Foreman – mistakenly used by Ian Chesterton on their first meeting. (An Unearthly Child)
The Great Exterminator – how the Emperor Dalek addresses the Doctor. (The Parting of the Ways)
The Destroyer of Worlds – a title Davros used to describe the Doctor. (Journey’s End)
The Old One – according to Balazar, reader of the Books of Knowledge on Ravolox, much to the Doctor’s chagrin. (The Trial of a Time Lord)
The Oncoming Storm – one of the Daleks’ many names for their arch-enemy. (The Parting of the Ways)
The Predator – those Daleks really were petrified of the Doctor. (Asylum of the Daleks)
Prisoner 177781 – the designation given to the Doctor when he was arrested for looting during the evacuation of London. (Invasion of the Dinosaurs)
The Great Wizard Quiquaequod – a mystical moniker given by white witch Olive Hawthorne. (The Daemons)
Raggedy Man – Amy Pond’s nickname for the Eleventh Doctor. Also, the Raggedy Doctor. (Various)
Mr Spock – How Rose Tyler first introduces the Time Lord to Captain Jack Harkness. (The Empty Child)
Sweetie – River Song’s pet-name for her hubby. (From Silence in the Library)
Theta Sigma – The Doctor’s nickname while at the Academy. (The Armageddon Factor, The Happiness Patrol)
The Traveller from Beyond Time – how the Doctor is greeted by the Elders of the far future. (The Savages)
The Watcher – how the Doctor’s companions described his spectral future self. (Logopolis)
Doctor Who – by super computer WOTAN. (Also see ‘Doctor Who?’) (The War Machines)
Zeus – the First Doctor was mistaken for the Greek god by Achilles c.1200 BC (The Myth Makers)
ALL IN A TITLE
The Doctor has no problem adopting or being given titles as well as names. In his time he’s been an Examiner (twice – Power of the Daleks, The War Games), Chairman Delegate from Earth (The Curse of Peladon) and an Ajak (The Sun Makers).
JOHN WHO?
Just as Earth i
s the Doctor’s favourite planet, John Smith is his favourite alias. Here are just some of the many times he’s used it on his travels:
The First Doctor used it on his Shoreditch library card. (The Vampires of Venice)
The Second Doctor was introduced as John Smith on Space Station W3 – although in this case it was Jamie who gave him the nom de plume (The Wheel in Space). The Doctor had picked up the habit by the time of The War Games.
When asked his name at the end of Spearhead from Space, the Third Doctor replies (in typically Bondian fashion): ‘Smith. Doctor John Smith.’ In The Time Warrior, the Doctor introduces himself as John Smith to fellow scientist Professor Rubeish.
When filling out his hospital forms, the Seventh Doctor was given the name John Smith by Chang Lee. Coincidence? Probably, unless you’re one of those humans who always see patterns in things that aren’t there. (Doctor Who)
The psychic paper introduced the Ninth Doctor as Dr John Smith from the Ministry of Asteroids in The Empty Child.
The Tenth Doctor was particularly fond of the alias. He first used it signing on as a science teacher by the name of John Smith at Deffry Vale High School (School Reunion). He would later use it while pretending to be a patient at Royal Hope Hospital (Smith and Jones), posing as a health and safety officer investigating Adipose Industries (Partners in Crime) and impersonating a policeman (The Unicorn and the Wasp).
Unfortunately, the Tenth Doctor would come unstuck on an ill-fated bus trip on the planet Midnight. When he gave the name, his fellow passengers immediately recognised it as false. Luckily neither the memory-wiped Donna Noble (Journey’s End) nor Jackson Lake (The Next Doctor) had problems swallowing the alias.
The Doctor literally became John Smith – and a human to boot – when hiding from the Family of Blood in England, 1913 (Human Nature, The Family of Blood).
The name came in handy for the Ganger Doctor in The Almost People.
THE TIME LORD OATH
‘I swear to protect the ancient law of Gallifrey with all my might and main and will to the end of my days with justice and with honour temper my actions and my thoughts.’
Time Academy Induction Ceremony (Shada)
THE DOCTOR’S HEIGHT
Just how tall are each of the Doctor’s incarnations?
WHO GOES THERE
Sometimes you need more than barefaced cheek or psychic paper to get by in the universe. Here are just a number of the many disguises employed by our devious Doctor…
A regional officer of the Provinces (The Reign of Terror)
The Monk (The Time Meddler)
Zephon (The Daleks’ Master Plan)
A Redcoat (The Highlanders)
A washerwoman (The Highlanders)
A German doctor (The Highlanders)
A gypsy (The Underwater Menace)
Salamander (The Enemy of the World)
The Karkus (The Mind Robber)
An alien student (The War Games)
A British soldier (The War Games)
A technician (Inferno)
A Dalek (Frontier in Space)
A Spiridon (Planet of the Daleks)
A milkman (The Green Death)
A cleaning lady (The Green Death)
A medieval monk (The Time Warrior)
A robot knight (The Time Warrior)
A Thal guard (Genesis of the Daleks)
A robot mummy (Pyramids of Mars)
Himself – well, his android double at least (The Android Invasion)
Harrison Chase’s driver (The Seeds of Doom)
Hieronymous (The Masque of Mandragora)
A fellow Time Lord (The Deadly Assassin)
A soldier in the Graff Vynda-K’s personal guard (The Ribos Operation)
Meglos (Meglos)
A Sea Base guard (Warriors of the Deep)
A miner (The Mark of the Rani)
A waiter (Rose, Rise of the Cybermen)
A Roboform (The Runaway Bride)
John Smith (Human Nature, Family of Blood)
A Headless Monk (A Good Man Goes to War)
Sherlock Holmes (The Snowmen)
A Punch and Judy man (The Snowmen)
DOCTOR DOUBLES
The Doctor may be a unique individual but doubles of the great man turn up with alarming regularity.
The robot Doctor (The Chase)
Created by the Daleks to ‘infiltrate and kill’ the Doctor and his companions. This was the only Doctor double not to be played by the actor playing the Doctor himself. The robot Doctor was played by Edmund Warwick, who had previously been a stand-in for William Hartnell in The Dalek Invasion of Earth after the lead actor had injured himself. Hartnell did, however, dub the robot Doctor’s lines, as well as appearing in close-ups.
The Abbot of Amboise (The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve)
By cosmic coincidence, the anti-Huguenot Abbot of Amboise was a double of the First Doctor. The resemblance was so striking that Steven believed the holy man was the Doctor in disguise.
Salamander (The Enemy of the World)
Mexican dictator Salamander bore a close resemblance to the Second Doctor – so much so that Time Lord and despot could easily impersonate each other.
The android Fourth Doctor (The Android Invasion)
One of the many pod-produced androids used by the Kraals in their invasion of Earth. So good that even the bad guys couldn’t tell the difference between the fake Doctor and the real deal.
The carbon-based imprint Doctor (The Invisible Enemy)
The Doctor duplicated himself – and Leela – so that his double could be shrunk to microscopic size using the TARDIS’s dimensional stabiliser and injected into his own body to combat the Nucleus of the Swarm.
An army of Doctors (The Leisure Hive)
The Doctor tricked Pangol into creating an army of Doctor clones using the Tachyon Recreation Generator.
Meglos (Meglos)
Using the body of an abducted human, megalomaniac space-cactus Meglos impersonated the Doctor – even when he started sprouting spikes.
Omega (Arc of Infinity)
The Gallifreyan temporal engineer based his new body on the Fifth Doctor.
Kamelion (The King’s Demons)
The shape-shifting android briefly took on the Time Lord’s form.
The duplicate Fifth Doctor (Resurrection of the Daleks)
A duplicate created by the Daleks in order to assassinate the High Council of Time Lords.
The android Fifth Doctor (The Caves of Androzani)
A robot double created by Sharaz Jek to face General Chellak’s firing squad.
The Other Doctor (Journey’s End)
Grown out of the Doctor’s severed hand by means of an instantaneous biological metacrisis.
The Ganger Doctor (The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People)
Accidentally created when the Doctor touched a vat of living programmable matter the Flesh during a solar storm on 22nd-century Earth.
The Teselecta Doctor (The Impossible Astronaut, The Wedding of River Song)
Justice Department Vehicle Number 6018 impersonated the Doctor so that he could be murdered by River Song on the shores of Lake Silencio and restore established history.
DOCTOR… WHO?
‘Doctor Who is required.’
WOTAN, The War Machines
The programme is called Doctor Who while the character is just ‘the Doctor’. That hasn’t stopped the name of the show popping up. A lot.
Other instances:
From An Unearthly Child to The War Games the end credits gave the name as ‘Dr. Who’ or ‘Doctor Who’. From Spearhead from Space to Logopolis it was ‘Doctor Who’. This changed to simply ‘The Doctor’ from Castrovalva onwards. When the show returned in 2005, it was back to ‘Doctor Who’ for the Ninth Doctor adventures. Since The Christmas Invasion, it’s been plain old ‘The Doctor’ again.
Bessie’s number plate was WHO 1 (although when the Seventh Doctor turned up in Battlefield someone had conveniently changed it
to WHO 7!)
In K-9 and Company: A Girl’s Best Friend, Brendan asks ‘Who is the Doctor?’ to which K-9 replies, ‘Affirmative.’
The novelisation Doctor Who and the Zarbi refers to the Doctor as ‘Doctor Who’ throughout, as do the officially licensed comic strips that appeared in TV Comic, Countdown and TV Action during the 1960s and 1970s, and the annuals published by World Distributors during the same period.
It’s not actually Doctor Who, but in Carry on Screaming Doctor Watt gives his name to Constable Slobotham who asks, ‘Doctor Who, sir?’ The reply comes back: ‘Watt. Who was my uncle, or was – I haven’t seen him in ages.’
A DOCTOR OF WHAT?
Does the Doctor have any qualifications at all? It seems even he can’t make up his mind…
The First Doctor states that he’s not a doctor of medicine. (An Unearthly Child)
He also tells Kublai Khan that he cannot cure his pains as he’s not a doctor of medicine. (Marco Polo)
When Ian thanks him, rather sarcastically, for a thorough medical, the Doctor says it is a pity he didn’t get his degree. (The Rescue)
The Second Doctor thinks he was once a medical Doctor, having taken a degree in Glasgow in 1888 under Joseph Lister. (The Moonbase)
Then again, not long after that, he’s back to saying he’s not a medical doctor. (The Krotons)
The Third Doctor tells the Investigator on Solos that he is a doctor qualified in practically everything. (The Mutants) This claim is also made by the Fifth and Tenth Doctors. (Four to Doomsday, Utopia)
The Fourth Doctor defers to a real medical doctor on board the Ark, saying that his doctorate is purely honorary. (The Ark in Space)