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| The Seventh Doctor | |
|---|---|
| Doctor Who character | |
 Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor | |
| First regular appearance | Time and the Rani (1987) |
| Last regular appearance | Survival (1989) |
| Introduced by | John Nathan-Turner |
| Portrayed by | Sylvester McCoy |
| Preceded by | Colin Baker (Sixth Doctor) |
| Succeeded by | Paul McGann (Eighth Doctor) |
| Information | |
| Tenure | 7 September 1987 – 6 December 1989 |
| No of series | 3 |
| Appearances | 12 stories (42 episodes) |
| Companions | |
| Chronology | |
TheSeventh Doctor is an incarnation ofthe Doctor, theprotagonist of the Britishscience fiction television seriesDoctor Who. He is portrayed by Scottish actorSylvester McCoy.
Within the series' narrative, the Doctor is a centuries-oldalienTime Lord from the planetGallifrey whotravels in time and space in theTARDIS, frequently withcompanions. At the end of life, the Doctorregenerates; as a result, the physical appearance and personality of the Doctor changes. Preceded in regeneration by theSixth Doctor (Colin Baker), he is followed by theEighth Doctor (Paul McGann).
McCoy portrays the Seventh Doctor as a whimsical, thoughtful character who quickly becomes more layered, secretive, andmanipulative. His first companion wasMelanie Bush (Bonnie Langford), a computer programmer who had travelled withhis previous incarnation, and who is soon succeeded by troubled teenager and explosives expertAce (Sophie Aldred), who becomes hisprotégée.
The Seventh Doctor first appeared on television in 1987. After the programme was cancelled at the end of 1989, his adventures continued in novels until the late 1990s though he did make televised appearances in “Search Out Space” in 1990 andDimensions in Time in 1993. The Seventh Doctor made an appearance at the start ofthe 1996 film before the character regenerated into theEighth Doctor (Paul McGann).
In his first season, the Seventh Doctor started out as a comical character, engaging indundrearyisms ("Time and tide melt the snowman," or when partner Mel is kidnapped, "A bird in the hand keeps the Doctor away"), playing the spoons, and makingpratfalls, but later started to develop a darker nature. The Seventh Doctor era is noted for the cancellation ofDoctor Who after 26 years. It is also noted for theVirgin New Adventures, a range of original novels published from 1992 to 1997, taking the series beyond the television serials.
The Seventh Doctor's final appearance on television was in the1996Doctor Who television movie, where he regenerated into theEighth Doctor, played byPaul McGann. A sketch of him is later seen inJohn Smith'sA Journal of Impossible Things in the new series 2007 episode "Human Nature". Brief archive clips of the Seventh Doctor appeared as holographic representations in "The Next Doctor" (2008), "The Eleventh Hour" (2010), the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor" (2013) and "Twice Upon a Time" (2017), and as flashbacks in "The Name of the Doctor" (2013). An aged Seventh Doctor also appeared in two forms in "The Power of the Doctor" (2022).
When theTARDIS was attacked bythe Rani, theSixth Doctor was injured and forced to regenerate. After a brief period of post-regenerative confusion and amnesia (chemically induced by the Rani), the Seventh Doctor thwarted the Rani's plans, and rejoined hiscompanionMel for whimsical adventures in anodd tower block and a Welshholiday camp in the 1950s.
On the planet Svartos, Mel decided to leave the Doctor's company for that of intergalactic rogueSabalom Glitz. Also at this time, the Doctor was joined by time-stranded teenagerAce. Although he did not mention it at the time, the Doctor soon recognised that an old enemy from a past adventure, the ancient entity known asFenric, was responsible for the Time Storm which transported Ace from 1980sPerivale to Svartos in the distant future. Growing more secretive and driven from this point on, the Doctor took Ace under his wing and began teaching her about the universe, all the while keeping an eye out for Fenric's plot.
The Doctor began taking a more scheming and proactive approach to defeating evil, using the Gallifreyan stellar manipulator named theHand of Omega as part of an elaborate trap for theDaleks which resulted in the destruction of their home planet,Skaro. Soon afterwards, the Doctor used a similar tactic and anotherTime Lord relic to destroy aCyberman fleet. He engineered the fall of the oppressive government of a future human colony in a single night and encountered theGods of Ragnarok at a circus on the planet Segonax, whom he had apparently fought throughout time. Later, he was reunited with his old friend,Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart while battling the forces of an alternate dimension on Earth.
The Seventh Doctor's manipulations were not reserved for his rivals. With the goal of helping Ace confront her past, he took her to aVictorian house in her home town ofPerivale in 1883 which she hadburned down in 1983. Eventually, the Doctor confronted and defeated Fenric at a Britishnaval base duringWorld War II, revealing Fenric's part in Ace's history. The Doctor continued to act as Ace's mentor, returning her to Perivale; however, she chose to continue travelling with him. The circumstances of her parting from the Doctor were not shown on television.
Near the end of his incarnation, the Seventh Doctor was given the responsibility of transporting the remains of his former enemythe Master fromSkaro toGallifrey. This proved to be a huge mistake; despite having a limited physical form, the Master was able to take control of the Doctor's TARDIS and cause it to land in 1999 San Francisco, where the Doctor was shot in the middle of a gang shoot-out. He was taken to a hospital, where surgeons removed the bullets but mistook the Doctor's double heartbeat forfibrillation; their attempt to save his life instead caused the Doctor to "die" with one last shocking scream. He is thus the only Doctor to have died at the (unwitting) hand of one of his own companions. Perhaps due to the anaesthesia, the Doctor did not regenerate immediately after death, unlike all previous occasions; he finally did so several hours later, while lying in the hospital's morgue.
An aged Seventh Doctor appeared as one of the "Guardians of the Edge" in an afterlife, inside the Doctor's mind in the final Thirteenth Doctor special, to theThirteenth Doctor as well as being a hologram programmed by the Doctor herself in ("The Power of the Doctor"). He also appeared as a hologram to an older Ace and she forgave him for everything that happened.
InTales of the TARDIS, he reunited with an older Ace and discussed their adventures. They also discussed the meeting with Fenric and both apologised to each other falling out. He also told her she had to leave to become who she is.
InTime and the Rani (1987), the Seventh Doctor gives his age soon after his regeneration as "exactly" 953 years, indicating that some two centuries of subjective time has passed since hisfourth incarnation was revealed to be 756 inThe Ribos Operation (1978), and approximately half a century sinceRevelation of the Daleks (1985) in which theSixth Doctor stated he was 900 years old. The later revival of the series, however, contradicts earlier episodes by establishing theNinth Doctor as being 900 years old in "Aliens of London" (2005).
The Seventh Doctor has the most profound change in attitude of any of the Doctor's incarnations, beginning as someone bumbling (to the extent of putting himself in danger but not at the cost of his overall great intelligence and benevolent intentions) and progressing into a driven, dark gamemaster whose plans to defeat his adversaries, both old and new, would play out across space and time. He generally displayed an affable, curious, knowledgeable, easygoing, excitable, and charming air. However, as he began to choose his battles and keep a tighter grip on his secrets – from his plans to his very identity – he also presented more serious, contemplative, secretive, wistful, and manipulative sides with undercurrents of mischief and authority (constantly giving the impression that there was more to him than met the eye).
As something of a showman, the Doctor would sometimes act like a buffoon, usually preferring to manipulate events from behind the scenes; much like hissecond incarnation, he was prepared to play the fool to trick his foes into underestimating him, inevitably leading to their defeat at his hands. He was an adept physical performer and deployed a repertoire of magic tricks, illusions and escape artistry to this effect as part of his plans. Although his more obvious whimsical tendencies disappeared over time (particularly his spoons-playing), he maintained a fondness for idiosyncratic speeches that occasionally referred to literature, ordinary places and even food and drink amidst the weightier concerns on his mind. He was empathetic to his friends (and even his enemies, such as Helen A) and somewhat melancholic at times (such as during Mel's departure and before his decision to eradicate the Daleks) but now placed greater burdens upon himself in the name of protecting the universe. This may have led him to shroud his true intentions in mystery and the use of sleight of hand as befit his fondness for performance, in effect, subverting his more lighthearted qualities to complement and enhance his heroic and darker ones.
Given the Seventh Doctor's appearance and stature, he was surprisingly capable of both directly and indirectly taking control of situations involving strangers, using his greater intelligence to assess and direct events. Concerned with the bigger picture, he would sometimes overlook the finer details and his planning (both prepared and improvised) would sometimes have fatal results and consequences. When he acted to end threats, it was usually a ruthless, destructive and final manoeuvre. He was also not above hiding the truth from his friends and allies and using them to complete his schemes and gambits.
His tendency to reveal only select information to his companion Ace – as well as anyone else around them – was used both in her education and in their adventures, as if he were the only one who should know all the answers and others should come to their own conclusions. At two points he even abused Ace's trust in him, once to develop her as a person and again to keep her alive (on both occasions, freeing her from the evil influences that had haunted her during her life), while on one of these adventures, he showed great difficulty in admitting his foreknowledge of the situation's severity to her when she finally confronted him. In spite of his immense fondness for her, and hers for him, he often frustrated her with his secretive nature as his alien behaviour, the great importance of his objectives (especially his focus on obliterating enemies from his past) and his strong desire to both educate and protect her would lead him to keep even her in the dark and would even subordinate her feelings towards him to succeed in their battles. Their close, almost familial bond was likely what helped Ace in moving past the feelings of betrayal she sometimes felt towards the Doctor, particularly as he genuinely had her best interests at heart. In fact, while he appeared to be an unassuming figure, fond of performing magic tricks and displaying notable showmanship, the Seventh Doctor was actually quite powerful and calculating, for he would use his friends and foes alike as pawns in his elaboratechess game against "evil". As Ace herself put it, he was "well devious".
In direct contrast to histhird incarnation, this Doctor was absolutely opposed to violence of any sort (as demonstrated in stories such asBattlefield, where he stops a battle merely by ordering the warriors to desist) and he was totally against the use of firearms (to the extent of 'talking down' a soldier ordered to execute him inThe Happiness Patrol by emphasising the easiness of the kill versus the enormity of ending a life), although he also proved capable of rendering a man unconscious with a touch (Battlefield,Survival). In keeping with his established habits, he would use gadgetry of his own invention when the situation called for it, but never as his final gambit. Instead, he almost always managed to talk his enemies into submission, often into suicide – perhaps most memorably inRemembrance of the Daleks, where he taunts the seemingly lastDalek in existence until it self-destructs, or inGhost Light, where he defeats the dangerously unstable Light by ramming home the folly of trying to prevent evolution (he employs variations of this 'talk to death' tactic inDragonfire,Silver Nemesis andThe Curse of Fenric, although primarily to manipulate opponents to guarantee the outcome in his favour).
This Doctor also displays strange and 'alien' characteristics playing with the perception of his senses, as he smells an apple and listens to cheese inSurvival, and listens to an apple briefly inDelta and the Bannermen. He also displayed a talent for hypnosis on various occasions that appeared to be much stronger than in past incarnations (Battlefield).The Greatest Show in the Galaxy shows him to be a capable entertainer, performing a variety of well known magic tricks. InGhost Light, he reveals his pet peeves to be burnt toast, bus stations, unrequited love, tyranny, and cruelty.
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The Doctor's outfit in this incarnation was calmer than his previous attire, but as idiosyncratic as any other. It consisted of a silver greyblazer with a crimsonpaisleyscarf worn under its lapels and a matchinghandkerchief in the left pocket, afob watch chained to the left lapel, a plain whiteshirt, a scarlet paisleytie, a yellow-brown fair isle-themedpullover adorned with cherry question marks and turquoise zigzag patterns, sand-beigetweedplaid trousers, beigebroguedspectator shoes, an ivory colonial-styledPanama cap with a scarlet paisley hatband, an upturned brim and a blackumbrella with a cherry question mark-shaped handle. As with the three other Doctors costumed during the John Nathan-Turner era, the above-mentioned question marks on the Doctor's pullover and his umbrella handle continued the cherry-question-marked clothing motif that was introduced in theFourth Doctor's final season and ended before the Seventh Doctor's regeneration.
Although a seemingly casual outfit that reflected the Seventh Doctor's initially easy and whimsical manner, it took on a new light when he became more scheming and prepared in his missions – to reflect the emergence of his personality's more mysterious and darker aspects, his jacket, hatband, handkerchief, scarf and tie became more muted and darker in colour, now in shades of burgundy and brown. In the New Adventures novels, images of the Doctor on the covers usually omitted the pullover and eventually depicted him in a cream single breasted suit. On a DVD featurette ("Light in Dark Places") forGhost Light, when drawing attention to the stylistic choice of performing in most of the serial without his hat and umbrella, Sylvester McCoy expresses some disdain for the garment, feeling it detracts somewhat from the mood of the story. The changes in colours make the Seventh the only Doctor under Nathan-Turner's tenure to greatly alter his costume; the changes to the outfits worn by his three previous selves during this production period tended to be more subtle and less noteworthy. The Seventh's own attire was repeatedly revised during his first season, initially including a crimson/blacktartan scarf and burgundy braces, along with thewhangee bamboo-handle umbrella.
In theTV movie the Doctor's costume changed again, with a return to a lighter blazer, now a light brownherringbone-tweed. Gone were the question mark pullover, paisley tie and question mark umbrella, replaced by a scarlet paisleywaistcoat and a brown/black herringbone tie; joined by a maroon scarf. However, the Doctor retained his Panama hat.
The Doctor enjoyed using his hat, umbrella and the TARDIS key, amongst other items, as physical props, usually as showy affectations or to command attention, while the umbrella could also be used to disarm and trip foes (Paradise Towers,Battlefield,Ghost Light,Survival). Like most of his previous selves, the Seventh carried any number of random items in his pockets, including technological devices and books (Dragonfire,Ghost Light). In a break from his past however, he spoke with a mild Scottish accent with rolledRs, rather than in his past selves'Received Pronunciation speaking patterns.
InSeason 24, the Seventh Doctor era began with a light-hearted approach, with stories likeDelta and the Bannermen clearly aimed at a younger audience. However, in the final two seasons withAndrew Cartmel as script editor, the stories soon explored the true nature of the Doctor, hinting at dark secrets in his past. InSilver Nemesis, Lady Peinforte hints she knows the Doctor's secret of being more than just aTime Lord (deleted scenes inRemembrance of the Daleks andSurvival also refer to this).Remembrance has the Doctor use "we" when referring to early Gallifreyan time travel experiments. Ace also became the focus of a dedicated character arc that was seeded from her introduction onwards and prominently played out duringSeason 26.
With the cancellation of the series, these developments were never fully played out in the television series, but some of them were revealed in theNew Adventures.
Marc Platt's novelLungbarrow is usually considered to be the conclusion of the "Cartmel Masterplan". In that novel, the Doctor is revealed to be the reincarnation of "theOther", a shadowy figure and contemporary ofRassilon andOmega from AncientGallifrey.Lungbarrow was originally intended forSeason 26, but producerJohn Nathan-Turner felt that it revealed too much of the Doctor's origins. It was reworked to becomeGhost Light instead.
According to McCoy and Cartmel, a number of Seventh Doctor stories were intended to satirise or protest the rule of then Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher. McCoy told theSunday Times in 2010, "The idea of bringing politics intoDoctor Who was deliberate, but we had to do it very quietly and certainly didn't shout about it...We were a group of politically motivated people and it seemed the right thing to do. At the time Doctor Who used satire to put political messages out there in the way they used to do in places like Czechoslovakia. Our feeling was that Margaret Thatcher was far more terrifying than any monster the Doctor had encountered. Those who wanted to see the messages saw them; others, including one producer, didn't." One story mentioned as having an anti-Thatcher theme wasThe Happiness Patrol in which the tyrannical Helen A outlawed unhappiness and remarked "I like your initiative, your enterprise" as her secret police rounded up dissidents. The Doctor persuaded "the drones", who toiled in the factories and mines, to down tools and rise up in revolt, an echo of the miners' strikes and printers' disputes during Thatcher's first two terms in office.[1] Cartmel assembled several "angry young writers" such asBen Aaronovitch andRona Munro to produce storylines that they hoped would foment anti-Thatcher dissent.[1]
The Seventh Doctor and Ace appeared twice on television between the timeDoctor Who was cancelled and the1996 television movie. The first was in 1990, in a special crossover episode of theBBC2 educational programmeSearch Out Science called “Search Out Space”. In this episode, the Doctor acted as a quiz show host, asking questions about astronomy; Ace,K-9 and "Cedric, from the planet Glurk" were the contestants. The Seventh Doctor then appeared in the 1993 charity specialDimensions in Time. A picture of the Seventh Doctor appears briefly in theTenth Doctor story "Human Nature" (2007), in John Smith'sA Journal of Impossible Things, and visions of him appear briefly in "The Next Doctor" (2008), "The Eleventh Hour" (2010), "Nightmare in Silver" and "The Name of the Doctor" (both 2013). He also appeared in the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor" (2013) helping his past and future incarnations saveGallifrey from the Time War, and an image of an aged Seventh Doctor appeared in a transitional quasi-afterlife to theThirteenth Doctor as well as being mimicked in an AI hologram programmed by the Doctor herself in "The Power of the Doctor" (2022).
Following the end of the TV series, the adventures of Doctor Who were continued in theVirgin New Adventures. The Seventh Doctor was the subject of 60 of these between 1991 and 1997. The Virgin novels pit the Seventh Doctor against the powerfulTimewyrm, a complex plan to change history by his old enemy theMonk, facing the renegade time travelerKadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart, a mysterious psychic brotherhood and their role in Earth's history, and culminates in a return to his family home on Gallifrey that reveals details about how the Doctor left Gallifrey in the first place. These novels also introduce original companions ProfessorBernice Summerfield (who proves so popular that she acquires her own spin-off series), Roslyn Forrester, and Chris Cwej.
His adventures also appeared in the BBCPast Doctor Adventures novels. Some of these are stand-alone stories, but authors Robert Perry and Mike Tucker created a miniseries that explores the Doctor's discovery that Ace is destined to die in her immediate future and the Doctor's attempts to prevent it (as well as a confrontation with his foe theValeyard), setting up a complex confrontation with the twisted psychopath George Limb who abuses time-travel to avoid his fate of becoming a Cyberman.
The Seventh Doctor has featured in dozens ofaudio dramas. Storylines in these audios include his travels with Ace and nurse Thomas Hector 'Hex' Schofield (the son of a young woman that theSixth Doctor failed to save, who was particularly close to his then-companion Evelyn Smythe); his attempts to reform Elizabeth Klein, a Nazi officer from an alternate timeline, and his later interaction with her other self from this reality; and the return of Mel as she travels with him and Ace.
Sylvester McCoy reprised the role of the Seventh Doctor in 2021 for a trailer promoting theSeason 24 blu-ray release alongsideBonnie Langford asMel.[2]
McCoy's first season as the Doctor, Season 24, received poor reviews at the time from a faction of the series' fans, though this was a consequence of the bitterness and division in the fan culture about the series' treatment by the BBC since the 1985 hiatus and McCoy's predecessor,Colin Baker, being unfairly dismissed. Furthermore, the BBC choosing to schedule the series oppositeCoronation Street throughout McCoy's tenure gave the impression that the corporation had "lost interest inDoctor Who [and] deliberately scheduled it in a slot where it was almost bound to fail to attract a significant audience, with a view to cancelling it at the first opportunity. In this context, the fact that the series survived as long as it did represents a considerable achievement in its own right."[3] Many acclaimed the series finding a fresh style and abandoning its obsession with its existing continuity and returning foes. Mainstream reviews at the time tended to be positive: Minette Marrin, television critic for theDaily Telegraph, responded favourably to McCoy's debut,Time and the Rani: "The new script is self-consciously whimsical, almost self-parodying: perhaps this odd little genre, like all art forms, is pushing in its late maturity against its own boundaries."[4]Alan Coren, writing for theMail on Sunday in November 1988, wrote ofSilver Nemesis: "Not only is the Doctor a modern mega-Merlin ... but the scrapes into which he gets himself are the scrapes of the imminent now. They could just happen, and the fringe of believability is where magic is most potent. If you can bend relativity and set once-upon-a-time in a time that has not yet happened then the possibilities are, literally, endless."[5]
By the end of the twenty-fifth season,The Scotsman remarked ofThe Greatest Show in the Galaxy, "Who has gone imaginative and very stylish and there is a lot of galactic go in the old police box yet."[6]The Independent calledGhost Light the bestDoctor Who story of the decade.[7]Paul Cornell, a writer for the New Adventures range of novels and the BBC Wales series, named the eras ofPeter Davison and McCoy his two favourites inDoctor Who Magazine, saying of the latter: "Sylvester, from aboutDelta and the Bannermen, being beautiful and shy and sweet and kind again really dragged me back intoDoctor Who and I loved the fact that somebody was taking the Doctor back into a different direction. So those are my two defining eras really, Davison and Sylvester."[8] Seasons 25 and 26 were regarded as two of the best seasons in the series' run, withRemembrance of the Daleks,The Greatest Show in the Galaxy,Ghost Light,The Curse of Fenric, andSurvival particularly commended. Lance Parkin wrote in 2003, "Very fewDoctor Who fans neededSounds magazine to tell usRemembrance of the Daleks was the bestDoctor Who story in a long, long time ... It reminded people just how goodDoctor Who had been, and just how good it could be again."[9]
In 1990, readers ofDoctor Who Magazine voted McCoy's Doctor "Best Doctor", over perennial favouriteTom Baker.[10] A 1998 35th anniversary poll rankedRemembrance of the Daleks the sixth best TV story.[11] In 2003 for the 40th anniversaryThe Curse of Fenric andRemembrance of the Daleks were both in the top ten,[12] and in the most recentDWM poll of the entire series,Remembrance of the Daleks ranked tenth.[13]
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