8th Doctor

Grumpy but kindhearted much like his original incarnation, the Eighth Doctor began life as a grumpy and snappish man, but ultimately mellowed out and showed his kinder and softer nature. While the Doctor was no longer a manipulator, he did occasionally slip back into the role.

The Doctor initially travelled with his predecessor's final travelling companion, Katie Tollinger.

## Information

### Companions

Katie TollingerBernice SummerfieldJames Black

## Behind The Scenes Facts

### Next Incarnation

9th Doctor

Biography

Post-Regeneration

To be added (DW: Night Thoughts)

Taking Katie into the mansion after she fell into a lake, the trio witnessed a series of deaths amongst the academics that were living there and discovered that they were experimenting with time, with a device they called the Bartholomew Transactor, so they could send a message back in time to their past selves about misdiagnosing a deceased girl known as Eddie O'Neil. However, the interference with the timeline caused Eddie to transform into a zombie-like state of limbo, the Doctor realised that the misdiagnosis had never been genuine and that the whole series of events were part of a cruel time experiment conducted by Major Dickens, who intended to correct the academics' mistake.

The Doctor travelled back in time to undo the damage, but found himself unable to kill the child, allowing the zombie Eddie to come into existence. Returning to the present, the Doctor discovered that all the academics were now deceased, and theorising that the Zombie-Eddie was responsible for the deaths, keeping herself “Alive” through her own use of the Transactor. He, Katie and Henrick departed. (DW: Night Thoughts)

Travels with Katie

To be added (DW: Alixion)

To be added (DW: Hostage)

To be added (DW: War of the Daleks)

To be added (DW: The Planet Doomed)

Personality

The Eighth Doctor was an incarnation who tended to be abrasive, combative and even patronising. He would often react to people and events with irritation, impatience and copious amounts of snark; he was not one to "suffer fools gladly." In addition, he would frequently take a stubborn, authoritative stance, as he was quite proud of his own knowledge, quite eager to show it off in any way he could and quite insistent that he was always right.

However, he also proved to be very caring of his companions, and was haunted by their respective demises, constantly blaming himself for putting them in harm's way. Like his first incarnation, he acted as a grandfather-like figure towards his companions, and would often lecture them, and look out for them, also displaying compassion, warmth and wit.

Although he did not like to be a dark, driven gamemaster like his previous incarnation, the Eighth would reluctantly embrace his calculating, ‘master manipulator’ tendencies in occasional circumstances, sacrificing Jan Rydd's life to defeat the Hoothi, however, he did feel emotional guilt about the situation.

The Doctor later became more mellow, relaxed, amenable and adventurous, with a kinder approach to how he handled situations, also developed a whimsical, oddball demeanor and a flippant sense of humour, that he sometimes used to cover up deep feelings of depression, shame and self-loathing resided within. Out of all the Doctors, he was arguably the most capable of flying the TARDIS, and usually managed to land where he wanted to go. After making contact with the ship's psyche, the Doctor was able to fully control his destination, with rare exceptions.

Physical Appearance

After regenerating, the Eighth Doctor appeared as a middle aged man of average height in his forties, looking older than his previous incarnation. (DW: Night Thoughts)

Hair and grooming

After regenerating, the Eighth Doctor had short blonde hair.

Clothing

After looking through the TARDIS wardrobe, the Eighth Doctor settled on a red suit with a white shirt, a paisley red waistcoat, an orange paisley necktie and black shoes. (DW: Night Thoughts) The Doctor would also wear variants of his necktie, waistcoat and pullover and would often not wear his jacket. (DW: Night Thoughts)

Due to his regeneration causing him to have poorer eye-sight, the Doctor chose to wear glasses after his adventure at the Scottish Mansion, the only Doctor to do so, choosing frames in the style of those from the 1980s and 90s. (DW: Night Thoughts)

Behind the Scenes

Personality Decisions

After Garwood cast Griffiths, he originally wanted the Doctor to go back to a grandfatherly figure. However Ben Aaronovitch painted the Doctor as a dark figure who did not clearly know right from wrong; Garwood fell in love with the idea and went with it.

Clothing Decisions

Originally, both Aaronovitch and Griffiths wanted the Doctor to wear a black velvet jacket with a blue dress shirt, black and purple polka dotted waistcoat and purple trousers to show both the darkness and eccentricity of his incarnation. Garwood eventually came up with the idea of the Doctor wearing a red business suit with a white shirt, red paisley waistcoat, a orange paisley necktie and black dress shoes.