# Shalka Doctor

Shalka Doctor (formally known as "Ninth Doctor") is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. He is portrayed by Richard E. Grant.
The character was introduced in "Scream of the Shalka" (2003), a miniseries celebrating Doctor Who 40th anniversary. Although the miniseries continues the narrative of the 1963-89 programme and the 1996 television film, the show's 2005 revival ignores the events, relegating Grant's Doctor to an alternate Doctor. However, Grant's likeness appearing alongside other incarnations in the series 14 episode "Rogue," which confirms the canonization of Grant's Doctor. Although the Shalka Doctor had one only on-screen television appearance, his adventures were portrayed extensively in subsuquent spin-off media.
Within the series' narrative, the Doctor is a centuries-old alien Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey who travels in time and space in the TARDIS, frequently with companions. At the end of life, the Doctor regenerates; as a result, the physical appearance and personality of the Doctor changes. Preceded in regeneration by the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann), he was unfortunaly succeeded by the canonized Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston).

## Overview

The Shalka Doctor made his first television appearance in Scream of the Shalka (2003). The miniseries has positive reviews by some critics, including Joe Arnold, who writes a book length study for the serial as part of The Black Archive series from Obverse Books in 2017 (this detailed the story's key points and the production process, and featured an in depth look at the unmade sequel story Blood of the Robots. This book also revealed that the Big Finish audio drama Immortal Beloved was originally intended as a Shalka sequel before being adapted to feature the Eighth Doctor). Although the miniseries was a commercial success, the planned sequels was ultimately failed, as Russell T Davies states in an interview on April 2004 with Doctor Who Magazine, that the new television Doctor (played by Christopher Eccleston), would be the Ninth Doctor, relegating Grant's Doctor to an alternate Doctor. Davies later commented that Grant had never been considered for the role in the television series, telling Doctor Who Magazine: "I thought he was terrible. I thought he took the money and ran, to be honest. It was a lazy performance. He was never on our list to play the Doctor."
However, the Shalka Doctor's adventures continued in various spin-off media, including Doctor Who Magazine, Eighth Doctor Adventures, Adventures in Lockdown! and Doctor Whoah!. The last story with the Shalka Doctor was released in August 2013. 11 years later, Grant's likeness appearing alongside other incarnations in the series 14 episode "Rogue".

## Personality

The Shalka Doctor was described as a "serious, and often angry, but wasn't averse to the odd bit of fun while having the bearing of an aristocrat."

## Television appearances
### Scream of the Shalka

The Shalka Doctor debuts in Scream of the Shalka. Guided by the Time Lords, an aloof and embittered Doctor arrived in the deserted town centre of Lannet in 2003. Upon clambering into a local pub, he met Alison Cheney, who told him that the town had been cut off from the outside world for three weeks by the Shalka. While the Doctor at first refused to involve himself in the matter, he changed his mind upon seeing the death of a homeless woman he had met in the town. After calling for the aid of Alison and her boyfriend, Joe, he provoked the monsters that occupied the town by creating a cacophony of noise. The Doctor, having lost his TARDIS to a crack in the ground, called upon the aid of UNIT to find the TARDIS.
After coming face-to-face with the Shalka Prime, the Doctor admitted the Shalka into his TARDIS. After the Shalka believed they had learned all they could know of the principles of the TARDIS, the Doctor was tossed into the reconfigured wormhole gateway. Though at first resigned to death, the Doctor remembered that his mobile phone was part of the TARDIS and utilised it as a doorway into the console room. After expelling the Shalka occupying his TARDIS into the black hole, he returned to UNIT's base and learned that the Shalka were vulnerable to pure oxygen.
Having made his way to the Shalka's headquarters, the Doctor learned that the Shalka inhabited most of the worlds in the universe, particularly those that had committed ecological suicide. The Shalka, utilising conduits, controlled human's across the world. These conduits manipulated the vocal chords of the human's they inhabited, allowing them to emit sonic signals. These signals generate gases that would convert Earth's atmosphere to one that resembled the Shalka's subsurface conditions.
The Doctor, having swallowed the Shalka conduit, was able to connect himself into the interconnected exchange of information that was the Shalka's scream. After destroying the Prime's acolytes and sucking the Prime into the wormhole gateway, the Doctor vaporises the remainder of the Shalka left on Earth. Though he offered to return Alison to her mother in the recent past, she instead chose to join the travels of the Doctor and the Master.

### "Rogue"

Grant's likeness is appears in the episode, alongside other incarnations, when the Doctor reveals himself to Rogue, a time traveller bounty hunter.

## Spin-off appearances
### The Feast of the Stone

The Doctor, the Master, and Alison materialised in a dark cavern. Upon emerging from the TARDIS, the Doctor and Alison were immediately bombarded by a psychic force that caused them to relive traumatic and emotional memories. The Doctor, with the aid of the Master, broke free of the illusions and returned to the TARDIS, where he discovered that an intangible force is feeding off of Alison's emotions.
Upon tapping into the psionic resonance of the cavern, the Doctor realised that Alison was somehow experiencing the Master's memories. Without hesitation, Doctor switched off the Master's body in an attempt to save Alison, but this only redoubled the vampire's effort to drain her body. Eventually, the Doctor used the TARDIS' telepathic circuits to drown the entity with a surge of the Master's hatred and evil memories, and the entity exploded into nothingness.

### Shadow of a Doubt

Daughter of Mine was visited several times by an incarnation of the Doctor she described as a "tall white aristocrat" while imprisoned in a mirror.

### Doctor Who - The Ninth Doctor

The Ninth Doctor, now retired on Gallifrey, loses the woman he loves when all the Time Lords are killed by an alien race. The alien race are defeated by the Doctor and the Master — although the Master's "final physical body" was destroyed in the process.
The Doctor builds a new robot body for the Master, and the Time Lords, who have retreated into the Matrix following their destruction, continue to send the Doctor off on dangerous missions.