Fifth Doctor

The Doctor, as seen in a promotional image for Season 20

Youthful in mind, manner and appearance, the **Fifth Doctor** was a professional and and calm incarnation of **the Doctor**, who did not make himself an imposition, preferring to be honest reserved, and honourable.

The Doctor was also less willing to do what he thought was immoral, and became highly conflicted about what choices he could make in a crisis that were truly right. His hesitancy, coupled with an innate clumsiness, made him seemingly more fallible than many other incarnations, making those around him wonder if he was capable of resolving difficult situations. Nevertheless, he was one of the most overtly fearless incarnations, and frequently found himself right in the thick of battle.

The Doctor started his travels alongside his predecessor's final companions, engineering trainee Silvia Bolton and the Irendian Aedon.

## Biography

### Post-Regeneration

After being severely injured by the Master and being dragged back to the TARDIS by Silvia and Aedon, the Fourth Doctor set the TARDIS into flight before regenerating into his fifth incarnation. (TV: *The Deadliest Game*) Once the regeneration had finished, the Doctor, suffering from occasional bouts of memory loss, piloted the TARDIS to 76 Totter's Lane, twenty years after his initial visit. There, he sensed that an alien threat was present, though he collapsed from his energy being drained by the Novaren before he could properly investigate, instead sending out Aedon whilst Silvia cared for him.

Much of the Zero Room was jettisoned as a result and the Doctor, needing a peaceful place to continue his stabilisation, went to Castrovalva. After he had recovered, he learned the city was artificial, created by block transfer computations. The Master, in the guise of the Portreeve, had created the city with Adric's mind. The Doctor rescued Adric and the TARDIS crew fled Castrovalva as it collapsed in on itself, leaving the Master to be erased from existence with it. (TV: *Castrovalva*)

When Aedon returned with Barbara Wright, the Doctor had largely recovered from the initial attack, and was overjoyed to see his old friend again, though he needed to convince her thoroughly that he was indeed the same man. He was able to pick out his new suit before he was once again attacked by the Novaren, telling his companions what to do to trace the attack. Once the Novaren had been defeated, the Doctor was able to fully recover. He wished Barbara well in her new life, and resumed his travels. (TV: *The Ghosts of the Lane*)

### Early Adventures

The Doctor visited an Edwardian yacht-like spaceship piloted by Eternals in a race for Enlightenment. One Eternal, Wrack, sought the prize to end her boredom, and started to destroy the other competitors to ensure she won the prize. The Doctor and Aedon were ultimately able to remove her from the ship, ultimately declining the prize from the White Guardian. (TV: *Enlightenment*)

The Doctor arrived on the planet Torsontis, finding that the once peaceful planet had had its timeline changed by Iltris, Opteras and the Master to turn it into a warlike society which rivalled the Time Lords in power. Working alongside the Time Lord agent Livero, the Doctor was able to restore Torsontis to its former state and bring the Master to justice. The Doctor set the coordinates to leave, however, he was recalled to Earth, (TV: *The Torson Triumvirate*) arriving in a quarantined York. The Doctor, Silvia and Aedon were "arrested" by UNIT and taken to see Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who filled them in on the parasites that had taken over York's population. He took the Doctor to look at a patient, only for the Doctor to be briefly attacked before Lethbridge-Stewart could subdue him. Once the parasites had been identified by Aedon as Provarks, a hive race, the Doctor deduced that the Provark Queen should be at ground zero. The Doctor and Silvia worked on a machine to defeat the Provarks, managing eventually to break the psychic link between the Provarks and their queen, rendering them harmless. (TV: *The Parasites*)

The Doctor, Silvia and Aedon visited the planet Deva Loka. While Aedon slept in a peaceful location, the Doctor and Silvia were arrested by Commander Sanders, who was undergoing a nervous breakdown. With an artefact known as the Box of Jhana provided by the Kinda, Deva Loka's natural inhabitants, they managed to restore his mind. The Doctor then discovered that a malevolent entity known as the Mara had used Aedon to possess a male from the Kinda tribe. Using mirrors, the Doctor was able to force the Mara out, leaving it to perish. He then helped with asking the exploration team to leave Deva Loka. (TV: *Kinda*)

The Doctor took his companions to Florana, where he discovered a lone Dalek had manipulated the population into believing that it was a god. The Doctor tricked the Dalek into revealing its real identity to its greatest "follower", Thane, the High Priest. With his faith broken, Thane killed the Dalek. However, Thane continued with the Dalek's plot to use a weapon called "The Cleansing Fire" to wipe out the population, but he ended up killing himself in the process, along with a percentage of the population. (TV: *The Elite*)

### Maladoom

The Doctor took Silvia and Aedon to have a holiday on Alfeir VII. However, shortly after arrival, they were threatened by the sudden appearance of a black hole, forcing them to take cover in the TARDIS and dematerialise. The TARDIS took them to the planet Maladoom, where the trio found themselves stuck in a vacuum chamber as part of a plot by the Cybermen to destroy the Doctor's timeline. Whilst at first trapped with the controls not working, the Doctor was able to rewire elements of the TARDIS console to manually teleport them out of the chamber. This caused the Cybermen to become aware of their presence, forcing them to hide, and inadvertently preventing the Doctor's second and third incarnations from being caught instead.

After encountering the Master and CyberNeomorphs in the Death Zone, the Doctor returned to the Capital, where he learnt President Borusa was trying to gain Rassilon's secret of immortality; he used the Doctors and his companions to clear the way past traps, even hiring the Master to assist him. With the help of his previous incarnations, the Doctor tricked Borusa into falling for Rassilon's final trap. After this, he instructed Rassilon to return his past selves and companions to their original times.

After hiding from patrols of Cybermen, the Doctor, Silvia and Aedon arrived at the Cyber-Leader's control room, coming face-to-face with his granddaughter Susan and an android duplicate of his first incarnation. The Doctor was ordered to be executed, but this ended up being postponed whilst the captured Second and Third Doctors were brought in, alongside the Brigadier and Sarah Jane Smith. With the Cybermen distracted, the Doctors were able to telepathically work together to form a plan. They made contact long enough for them to open the cell containing their first self, and alongside him worked to make the Cybermen's controls go critical. After a frantic race back to one another's TARDISes, the various Doctors dematerialised, wishing one another well. (TV: *The Six Doctors*)

## Personality

Practicing good manners in the hopes that people would give him "the benefit of the doubt" he was non-hostile and share their resources, (TV: *Kinda*) the Doctor was a generally calm and professional man, who spoke politely to others if they had done him no wrong. (TV: *Enlightenment*) He was deeply moved by suffering, (TV: *The Parasites*) and was noted by Livero as "the caring sort". (TV: *The Torson Triumvirate*) He was willing to cooperate with authority, (TV: *The Parasites*, *Kinda*, *The Elite*) unless there was an automatic reason for him to distrust it. (TV: *The Torson Triumvirate*)

Despite his formal manner and speech, the Doctor was prone to bouts of clumsiness, occasionally walking into objects, (TV: *The Ghosts of the Lane*) or in front of enemies. (TV: *The Torson Triumvirate*, *The Six Doctors*) Shortly after regeneration, the Doctor noted that "[my] hand-eye is a bit off." (TV: *The Ghosts of the Lane*), and later noted it as a habit which irked both him and his companions. (TV: *The Six Doctors*)

However, the Doctor's boyish appearance, nervous energy, and charm all hid the fact that he was a Time Lord of great power and knowledge. (TV: *Enlightenment*) He was more than willing to act naïve, or even sometimes completely clownish, if it meant that his enemies would underestimate him. (TV: *The Torson Triumvirate*) If a person was not an expert in a specific field, the Doctor would happily let them know he was, though his ego did certainly seem to have greater limits than those of his predecessors, and he was willing to accept, and even congratulate, those who were more knowledgeable on a topic than he was. (TV: *The Parasites*)

Despite being willing to work under others, (TV: *The Parasites*) the Doctor was still prone to allocating roles to specific individuals and taking a leadership role, even when he was physically incapable of doing so. (TV: *The Ghosts of the Lane*) He would often take charge in moments of intensity, though his trouble with being assertive would often lead to him running afoul with local authorities and being arrested or imprisoned. (TV: *The Torson Triumvirate*, *Kinda*)

The Doctor would react excitedly in his early life on meeting old friends or seeing new places. (TV: *The Ghosts of the Lane*, *The Parasites*, *Kinda*)

The Doctor would scold his companions severely when their failure to heed his instructions resulted in him being put at a disadvantage. (TV: *Enlightenment*)

The Doctor was proficient with puns, (TV: *Kinda*) and had a keen love for dark chocolate. (TV: *The Parasites*) He took his tea with milk and no sugar. (TV: *The Elite*)

He could fail to notice when his companions did not want to follow his instructions, (TV: *The Six Doctors*) or when they were trying to show off a new outfit to him, (TV: *Enlightenment*)

The Third Doctor initially dismissed his later self as a "bumbling bureaucrat", though he later warmed up to him, calling him a "fine young chap" when the Doctors were departing Maladoom. (TV: *The Six Doctors*)

### Habits and Quirks

When needing to examine something, the Fifth Doctor would sometimes sport a pair of glasses. (TV: *The Parasites*, *Kinda*)

If the Doctor wished to say goodbye to a person or avoid an unnecessarily long conversation, he would tell the person that he had *"places to be, things to do."* (TV: *The Torson Triumvirate*, *The Six Doctors*)

To encourage others, the Doctor would tell them to have a "brave heart", especially with Silvia. (TV: *Enlightenment*)

He was also known to occasionally place his hands in his coat pockets when standing still. (TV: *Kinda*, *The Elite*, *The Six Doctors*) In a deviation from his stagnant posture, the Doctor would wring his hands together in a fidgety manner. (TV: *Enlightenment*, *The Parasites*) He crossed his arms when sulking, (TV: *Kinda*) and was prone to dramatic turns. (TV: *Enlightenment*, *The Torson Triumvirate*, *Kinda*)

When in a stressful situation, he would scratch the back of his head as he worked on how to deal with the crisis, (TV: *Enlightenment, The Six Doctors*) and would pinch the bridge of his nose when annoyed (TV: *The Torson Triumvirate*) or deep in thought. (TV: *Kinda*) When shocked, the Doctor would raise both eyebrows and open his mouth slightly. (TV: *Enlightenment*, *The Torson Triumvirate*, *Kinda*, *The Six Doctors*)

The Fifth Doctor often delegated some decisions to the simple chance of a coin. (TV: *Enlightenment*, *Kinda*)

He typically introduced himself with the greeting, *"How do you do?"*, (TV: *The Ghosts of the Lane*, *Enlightenment*) often proffering his hand to shake. (TV: *The Parasites*, *The Elite*)

### Skills

The Fifth Doctor was very capable of defending himself unarmed when pushed to physical confrontations. (TV: *The Parasites*, *Kinda*)

He was capable of near-perfect voice mimicry, even being able to fool other Time Lords. (TV: *The Torson Triumvirate*) He learned how to perform coin magic from Silvia. (TV: *Kinda*)

The Doctor, much like his other incarnations, possessed significant telepathic prowess, being able to telepathically open a cell door and cause the Cybermen's machinery to turn critical when working alongside his first, second and third selves. (TV: *The Six Doctors*)

## Physical Appearance

The Fifth Doctor appeared to be a moderately young man in his mid-thirties. (TV: *The Deadliest Game*) He had a round face and a friendly smile (PROSE: *The Parasites*), and according to Silvia Bolton, "kindly brown eyes" and brown hair that was "very neat". The Doctor himself lamented that it appeared to be receding. (TV: *The Ghosts of the Lane*)

### Clothing

The Doctor ultimately settled on a business suit befitting the 1980s, with a light grey suit jacket, waistcoat and trousers. The waistcoat had small golden buttons sewn in, which the Doctor perpetually kept done up. Under his waistcoat, he typically wore a white shirt with a crimson checker pattern, coupled with a crimson tie. (TV: *The Ghosts of the Lane*) Occasionally, the shirt was swapped out for a simple white shirt. (TV: *The Elite*) On his feet, the Doctor wore a pair of white socks, coupled with black Oxford shoes. (TV: *The Ghosts of the Lane*)

## Behind the Scenes

### Casting

Initially, George Gallacio had been looking for a big name to play the Fifth Doctor. Robert Hardy was approached for the role, but was unavailable. Both Richard Griffiths and Iain Cuthbertson turned down the role. Colin Baker expressed interest.

Before Keating was cast, his fellow *Blake's 7* co-star Paul Darrow was also approached.

## Appearances

#### Season 20

* *The Ghosts of the Lane*
* *Enlightenment*
* *The Torson Triumvirate*
* *The Parasites*
* *Kinda*
* *The Elite*