| The Fifth Doctor | |
|---|---|
| Doctor Who character | |
.jpg) Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor | |
| First regular appearance | Castrovalva (1982) |
| Last regular appearance | The Caves of Androzani (1984) |
| Introduced by | John Nathan-Turner |
| Portrayed by | Peter Davison |
| Preceded by | Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor) |
| Succeeded by | Colin Baker (Sixth Doctor) |
| Information | |
| Tenure | 4 January 1982 – 16 March 1984 |
| No of series | 3 |
| Appearances | 20 stories (69 episodes) |
| Companions | |
| Chronology | |
TheFifth Doctor is an incarnation ofthe Doctor, theprotagonist of the Britishscience fiction television seriesDoctor Who. He is portrayed byPeter Davison.[4]
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 theFourth Doctor (Tom Baker), he is followed by theSixth Doctor (Colin Baker).
Davison portrays the Fifth Doctor as having a vulnerable side and a tendency towards indecisiveness, dressed as a boyishEdwardian cricketer. He travelled with a host of companions, including boy geniusAdric (Matthew Waterhouse), alien aristocratNyssa (Sarah Sutton) and Australian flight attendantTegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding), who had travelled withhis previous incarnation. He also shared later adventures alongside devious schoolboyVislor Turlough (Mark Strickson) and American college studentPeri Brown (Nicola Bryant).[4]
AfterTom Baker, theFourth Doctor, and theBBC had announced that he was leaving the role, the show's producers decided that the next Doctor was to be played by someone who presented something of a physical contrast to Baker and by an actor who was already firmly established in the British public's mind. Peter Davison was chosen due to his critically acclaimed role as Tristan Farnon in the BBC seriesAll Creatures Great and Small which hadDoctor Who producerJohn Nathan-Turner asline producer.[5]
The Fifth Doctor's era was notable for a "back to the basics" attitude, in which "silly" humour (and, to an extent, horror) was kept to a minimum, and more scientific accuracy was encouraged by the producer,John Nathan-Turner. It was, at times, a darker and grittier series, in part for seeing the death of one of his companions,Adric. It was also notable for the reintroduction of many of theTime Lord's enemies, such as theMaster,Cybermen,Omega, theBlack andWhite Guardians, and theSilurians.[6]
TheFourth Doctor was seriously injured after falling off the Pharos Project Radio Telescope so he merged with a future incarnation of himself called the Watcher and regenerated into his new youthful fifth incarnation. The regeneration was difficult, and nearly failed, with the Doctor briefly taking on personality aspects from his four previous incarnations. After recovering in the fictional cityCastrovalva (actually an elaborate trap created by his arch-enemy theMaster), he continued his travels withAdric,Tegan Jovanka andNyssa. Initially his travels centred on getting Tegan back toHeathrow Airport in time for her first day as an airhostess, but the TARDIS repeatedly missed this destination and Tegan eventually decided to stay in the TARDIS. After trips to the future and the past encountering villains such asMonarch andthe Mara, the Fifth Doctor was confronted with tragedy when Adric died trying to stop a space freighter from crashing into prehistoric Earth (Earthshock).[4]
Following Adric's death, the TARDIS accidentally arrived at Heathrow airport (Time-Flight). Here the Doctor and Nyssa left Tegan assuming she would want to stay (when in fact she did not any more). The Doctor and Nyssa then travelled together for an unspecified amount of time before the renegade Time LordOmega, attempting to return to the universe, temporally bonded himself to the Doctor (Arc of Infinity). Faced with this threat, theTime Lords were forced to attempt executing the Doctor, but he eventually tracked Omega toAmsterdam where he defeated him and re-encountered Tegan (who having now lost her job, had no second thoughts about rejoining the TARDIS crew).
When the Doctor met a newcompanion, an alien boy stranded on Earth by the name ofVislor Turlough, he did not know that Turlough had been commissioned by theBlack Guardian to kill him. Soon after, Nyssa left to help cure Lazar's Disease on the space stationTerminus. After meeting the entities known as Eternals racing in yacht-like spacecraft for the prize of "Enlightenment", Turlough broke free from the Black Guardian's influence, and continued to travel with the Doctor and Tegan. Landing in the reign of King John (The King's Demons), the crew again encountered the Master, who was using a shape-shifting robot Kamelion to impersonate the King. However, the Doctor helped Kamelion to regain his free will and the robot joined him in his travels (although he rarely left the TARDIS). The Doctor met three of his previous incarnations when they were summoned to the Death Zone on Gallifrey by presidentBorusa, who was attempting to gainRassilon's secret of immortality.
After further adventures in which the Doctor re-encountered old foes, including theSilurians and theSea Devils (Warriors of the Deep), both Tegan and Turlough left the TARDIS. Tegan would find the death and violence they encountered on their travels too much to bear (Resurrection of the Daleks), and Turlough returned to his home planet of Trion in the company of his younger brother, as well as other exiles of Trion, from the planet Sarn. The Doctor was eventually forced to destroy Kamelion, when the Master used his mental connection to the robot to regain control of him, a process the robot realised was irreversible (Planet of Fire).
Ultimately (The Caves of Androzani), the Fifth Doctor and his last companionPeri Brown were exposed to the drug spectrox in its deadly toxic raw form on Androzani Minor. With only one dose of the antidote available, he nobly sacrificed his own existence to save Peri, expressing doubt for the first time that regeneration might be possible this time, then regenerating into theSixth Doctor.
A sketch of the Fifth Doctor is seen inJohn Smith's book in the new series episode "Human Nature" (2007). Visions of the Fifth Doctor (alongside other past Doctors) appear in "The Next Doctor" (2008) and "The Eleventh Hour" (2010).
Somewhere in his life he crashed hisTARDIS into the TARDIS of theTenth Doctor and consequently nearly opened a "Belgium-sized" black hole because of the paradox caused, which the Tenth Doctor also uses to explain the notably aged appearance of his former self. However, the Tenth Doctor, remembering the event, knew how to stop it because herecalled watching himself correct the mistake when he was the Fifth Doctor. ("Time Crash")
When entering the Doctor's time stream in "The Name of the Doctor",Clara Oswald saves the Fifth Doctor (who doesn't notice her) from theGreat Intelligence (having entered his time stream prior to her).
At another unknown point in his life, the Fifth Doctor piloted his TARDIS along with the rest of his first 13 incarnations to freeze Gallifrey in a single moment in time and save it from the extinction-level aftermath of the Time War ("The Day of the Doctor")
An aged Fifth 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 the Thirteenth Doctor as well as being a hologram programmed by the Doctor herself in ("The Power of the Doctor") (2022). He also appeared as a hologram to an older Tegan and he said he never forgot her.
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The Fifth Doctor's chosen mode of dress was a variation of an Edwardiancricketer's kit, and he was even seen to carry acricket ball in one of his pockets (which saved his life in one adventure). He wore a cream-colouredfrock coat, striped trousers,plimsoll shoes, and occasionally a pair ofspectacles. He frequently wore an optimo-stylePanama hat that had a red band with a black and white pattern, which he would roll up and place in an inside coat pocket. TheTenth Doctor, who inherited various traits from this incarnation such as spectacle use, revealed in "Time Crash" that the spectacles were not actually needed to aid the Doctor's eyesight but were just for show to make him look clever (perhaps to counter his youthful appearance), although inFour to Doomsday, he makes a remark about being a bit short-sighted in one eye when questioned about the contents of his pockets, which included the aforementioned cricket ball, a book (The TARDIS Manual) and a magnifying glass. The Fifth Doctor's costume also retained red question marks embroidered onto the collar, which producer John Nathan-Turner added to theFourth Doctor's costume in 1980. The Fifth Doctor displayed an unusually acute sense of taste inPlanet of Fire, also inherited by theTenth Doctor,Eleventh Doctor and theThirteenth Doctor.
On his left lapel, this Doctor wore acelery stalk. He claimed inThe Caves of Androzani that the celery would turn purple in the presence of certain gases in the "Praxis" range to which he was allergic, although this allergy was not mentioned by any incarnations before or since. He said that if that happened, he would then eat the celery, adding "if nothing else, I'm sure it's good for my teeth." In the same story, while attempting to revive a feverish Peri from spectrox toxaemia, he had noted that celery was an "excellent restorative from where I come from," but that the human olfactory system was "comparatively feeble." Supporting this assertion, in the 2010 episode "Cold Blood", theEleventh Doctor asks if there is any celery handy after being subjected to a decontamination process intended for humans (which proved potentially lethal to a Time Lord biology). The Tenth Doctor poked fun at the celery in "Time Crash", describing it as a "decorative vegetable".
Peter Davison stated in an interview on the DVD ofCastrovalva that he thought the clothes he wore were far too "designed" and that he would have still kept them, but wanted to add some individual flair to them, as other actors portraying the Doctor have done in the past. In an interview withBBC Breakfast in July 2011, Davison stated that the cricket jumper was his idea, as the producers wanted something that conveyed both action and eccentricity.
During production of the mini-episode "Time Crash", it was necessary to reassemble the Fifth Doctor's costume; this was accomplished through borrowing various items from the Doctor Who exhibition inBlackpool; knitting a new cricket sweater; procuring a new hat with the original band added; and Davison wearing the trousers that were originally altered forColin Baker in the final scene ofThe Caves of Androzani.[7]
The Fifth Doctor was first seen on television in the last episode ofLogopolis, broadcast on 21 March 1981. Davison played the role through the19th and20th seasons ofDoctor Who, including the 20th anniversary special "The Five Doctors".Patrick Troughton (who had played theSecond Doctor) reportedly advised Davison to move on from the role after three years to avoid becoming typecast, and acting on this advice Davison informed producerJohn Nathan-Turner that he would leave after the 21st season. In a break from recent tradition, Nathan-Turner decided to regenerate the Doctor in the season's penultimate story, to introduce theSixth Doctor to audiences before the seasonal break. Davison's last regular appearance as the Fifth Doctor was in the last episode ofThe Caves of Androzani, broadcast on 16 March 1984.
Davison returned to the role briefly in the 1993 charity specialDimensions in Time. Beginning in 1999, he recorded a series ofDoctor Who radio dramas forBig Finish Productions. In 2007, Davison, at the age of 56, appeared alongsideTenth DoctorDavid Tennant in aDoctor Who special forChildren in Need, written bySteven Moffat and titled "Time Crash".
Images of the Fifth Doctor are shown, alongside other incarnations, in the episodes "The Next Doctor" (2008) and "The Eleventh Hour" (2010). He also appears in "The Day of the Doctor" (2013), via archival clips.
In 2022, Davison returned to play The Fifth Doctor in the form of a AI hologram of The Doctor where he was reunited with his former companionTegan Jovanka, and as a fragmented projection of The Doctor's psyche in "The Power of the Doctor" alongside theSixth Doctor,Seventh Doctor andEighth Doctor. In 2023, Davison returned to the role again inTales of the TARDIS, when he and Tegan were reunited a second time to remember the events of the serialEarthshock and to emotionally overcome the death of their friendAdric. In all three of these appearances, the character appeared to have aged.
The Fifth Doctor has also appeared in officially licensed novels, short stories and comics.
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Quotations from Wikiquote
