Everything about The Seventh Doctor totally explained
The
Seventh Doctor is a
fictional character, the seventh
incarnation of the
Doctor seen on screen in the long-running
BBC television science-fiction series
Doctor Who. He was portrayed by the actor
Sylvester McCoy.
Overview
In his first season, the Seventh Doctor started out as a comical character, mixing his metaphors ("Time and tide melt the snowman," for example), playing the spoons, and making
pratfalls, but soon started to develop a darker nature and raised the profound question of who the Doctor actually is. The Seventh Doctor era is noted for the cancellation of
Doctor Who after 26 years. It is also noted for the
Virgin New Adventures, a range of original novels published from 1992 to 1997, taking the series on beyond the television serials.
In 1990, readers of
Doctor Who Magazine voted McCoy's Doctor "Best Doctor", over perennial favourite
Tom Baker
The Seventh Doctor's final appearance on television was in the
1996 Doctor Who television movie, where he regenerated into the
Eighth Doctor, played by
Paul McGann. A sketch of him is later seen in
John Smith's
A Journal of Impossible Things in the new series 2007 episode "
Human Nature".
Biography
When the
TARDIS was attacked by the
Rani, the
Sixth 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 his
companion Mel for whimsical adventures in an
odd tower block and a
Welsh holiday camp in the 1950s.
On the planet
Svartos, Mel decided to leave the Doctor's company for that of intergalactic rogue
Sabalom Glitz. Also at this time, the Doctor was joined by time-stranded teenager
Ace. Although he didn't mention it at the time, the Doctor soon recognised that an old enemy from a past adventure, the ancient entity known as
Fenric, was responsible for the Time Storm which transported Ace from 1980s
Perivale 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 the
Hand of Omega as part of an elaborate trap for the
Daleks which resulted in the destruction of their home planet,
Skaro. Soon afterwards, the Doctor used a similar tactic and another
Time Lord relic to destroy a
Cyberman fleet. He engineered the fall of the oppressive government of a future human colony in a single night and encountered the
Gods of Ragnarok at a circus on the planet Segonax, whom he'd 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 enemies. With the goal of helping Ace confront her past, he took her to a
Victorian house in her home town of Perivale in 1883 which she'd
burned down in 1983. Eventually, the Doctor confronted and defeated Fenric at a British naval base during
World 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 enemy
the Master from
Skaro to
Gallifrey. 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 for
fibrillation; their attempt to save his life instead caused the Doctor to "die". Perhaps due to the anesthesia, the Doctor didn't regenerate immediately after death (unlike all previous occasions); he finally did so several hours later, while lying in the hospital's morgue.
In
Time and the Rani 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 his
fourth incarnation was revealed to be 759 in
The Ribos Operation, and approximately half-a-century since
Revelation of the Daleks in which the
Sixth Doctor stated he was 900 years old. The later revival of the series, however, has contradicted the age given by the Seventh Doctor (and the Sixth) by establishing the
Ninth Doctor as 900 years old, with the
Tenth Doctor stating his exact age as 903 in
Voyage of the Damned.
Personality
The Seventh Doctor displayed perhaps the most profound change in attitude of any of the
Time Lord's personae, beginning as perhaps the most outwardly amiable and bumbling (to the extent of putting himself of danger but not at the cost of his overall great intelligence and benevolent intentions) and progressing into a driven, dark gamesmaster 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 with a tendency to be wistful, but 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, unforthcoming, 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 his
second incarnation, he was prepared to play the fool in order to trick his foes into underestimating him, inevitably leading to their defeat at his hands. He was an adept physical performer and once 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 surround 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'd sometimes overlook the finer details and his planning, both pre-prepared and improvised, would sometimes have fatal results and consequences. When he acted to end threats, it was usually a ruthless, destructive and final maneuver. He was also not above hiding the truth from his friends and allies and using them in order 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 utilised 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 her 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 in order to succeed in their battles. Fortunately, 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'd use his friends and foes alike as pawns in his elaborate
chess game against "evil". As Ace herself put it, he was "well devious."
In direct contrast to his
third incarnation, this Doctor was absolutely opposed to violence of any sort (as demonstrated in stories such as
Battlefield, 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 in
The 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. In keeping with his established habits, he'd 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 in
Remembrance of the Daleks, where he taunts the seemingly last
Dalek in existence until it self-destructs, or in
Ghost Light, where he defeats the malevolent Light by ramming home the folly of trying to prevent evolution (he employs variations of this 'talk to death' tactic in
Dragonfire,
Silver Nemesis and
The Curse of Fenric, although primarily to manipulate opponents to guarantee the outcome in his favour). Perhaps this Doctor's most definitive stand against violence and savagery was taken when he faced down his arch-foe
the Master in
Survival whilst resisting the animalistic influence of an alien world, telling his enemy, "If we fight like animals, we die like animals." He displayed a talent for hypnosis on various occasions that appeared to be much stronger than in past incarnations. It is indeed fitting that this, at times the darkest Doctor of all, shouldn't directly use physical force to implement his actions, even though he seemed to have the universe's weight on his shoulders more often than any other Doctor.
These trends continued in the
Virgin New Adventures novel series, where the Doctor would be prepared to destroy planets in the name of the greater good, and his companions were not always sure whether they could trust him. However, the mysterious Seventh Doctor eventually became slightly less dark and manipulative towards the end of his incarnation and seemed to finally regain some of the relaxed attitude he once possessed at his beginning.
Appearance and Personality Quirks
The Doctor's outfit in this incarnation was calmer than his previous attire ("Thank goodness in this regeneration I've regained my impeccable sense of haute couture"), but as idiosyncratic as any other. It consisted of a long off-white jacket with a red
paisley scarf worn under its lapels and a matching handkerchief in one of the pockets, a lapel chain, a shirt, a red paisley tie, a sleeveless yellow and green sweater vest adorned with red question marks, sand-coloured
plaid trousers, white/brown two tone brogue shoes, a
Panama hat with an upturned brim (a possible reference to the similar accessory he wore as the
Fifth Doctor) and an umbrella with a red question mark-shaped handle. As with the three other Doctors costumed during the John Nathan-Turner era, the abovementioned question marks on the Doctor's sweater vest and his umbrella handle continued the red question marked clothing motif that was introduced in the
Fourth 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 aspects, his jacket, hatband, handkerchief, scarf and tie became more muted and darker in colour, now in shades of burgundy and brown (most obviously the jacket). In the New Adventures novels, images of the Doctor on the covers usually omitted the pullover. On a DVD featurette ("Light In Dark Places") for
Ghost Light, Sylvester McCoy expresses some disdain for the garment, feeling it detracts somewhat from the mood of the story, when drawing attention to the stylistic choice of performing in most of the serial without his hat and umbrella. 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, wearing a red/black
tartan scarf and red braces initially, along with briefly using a different umbrella handle at first.
In the
TV Movie the Doctor's costume changed again, with a return to a lighter jacket, now coloured sand. Gone were the question mark pullover, scarves, tie and question mark umbrella, replaced by a red waistcoat and a black tie. 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. Like his second, fourth and sixth selves, the Seventh carried any number of random items in his pockets, including technological devices and books. In a break from his past however, he spoke with a mild
Scottish accent rather than in his past selves'
Received Pronunciation speaking patterns and also rolled his
rs. His pet hates included burnt toast, bus stations, unrequited love, tyranny and cruelty.
Story style
In
Season 24, the Seventh Doctor era began with a light-hearted approach, with stories like
Delta and the Bannermen clearly aimed at a younger audience. However, in the final two seasons with
Andrew Cartmel as script editor, the stories soon explored the true nature of the Doctor, hinting at dark secrets in his past. In
Silver Nemesis, Lady Peinforte hints she knows the Doctor's secret of being more than just a
Time Lord (deleted scenes in
Remembrance of the Daleks and
Survival also refer to this).
Remembrance has the Doctor talk using "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 during
Season 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 the
New Adventures.
Marc Platt's novel
Lungbarrow is usually considered to be the conclusion of the "Cartmel Masterplan". In that novel, the Doctor is revealed to be the reincarnation of "the
Other", a shadowy figure and contemporary of
Rassilon and
Omega from Ancient
Gallifrey.
Lungbarrow was originally intended for
Season 26, but producer
John Nathan-Turner felt that it revealed too much of the Doctor's origins. It was reworked to become
Ghost Light instead.
Other appearances
Television
The Seventh Doctor and Ace appeared twice on television between the time
Doctor Who was cancelled and the
1996 television movie. The first was in 1990, in a special episode of the
BBC2 educational programme
Search Out Science. 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 special
Dimensions in Time. Neither of these appearances are generally considered
canonical. A picture of the Seventh Doctor appears briefly in the
Tenth Doctor story "
Human Nature", in John Smith's "A Journal Of Impossible Things".
There are many
novels and audio plays featuring the Seventh Doctor.
Novels
- to Lungbarrow. Sixty books were written in this series for the Seventh Doctor.
Cold Fusion by Lance Parkin
Illegal Alien by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry
The Hollow Men by Martin Day and Keith Topping
Matrix by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry
Storm Harvest by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry
Prime Time by Mike Tucker
Independence Day by Peter Darvill-Evans
Bullet Time by David A. McIntee
Relative Dementias by Mark Michalowski
Heritage by Dale Smith
Loving the Alien by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry
The Algebra of Ice by Lloyd Rose
Atom Bomb Blues by Andrew Cartmel
The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks
Seen in the TARDIS mirror in Camera Obscura
Citadel of Dreams by Dave Stone
Companion Piece by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry
Comics
Doctor Who Magazine
A Cold Day in Hell
Redemption
The Crossroads of Time
Claws of the Klathi
Culture Shock
Keepsake
Planet of the Dead
Echoes of the Mogor
Tide and Time
Follow that TARDIS!
Invaders from Gantac
Nemesis of the Daleks
Stairway to Heaven
Hunger from the End of Time
Doctor Conkerer
Trainflight
Fellow Travellers
Darkness Falling / Distractions / The Mark of Mandragora
Party Animals
The Chameleon Factor
The Good Soldier
A Glitch in Time
The Grief
Ravens
Memorial
Cat Litter
Pureblood
Emperor of the Daleks
The Last Word
Final Genesis
Time and Time Again
Cuckoo
Uninvited Guest
Ground Zero
The Last Word
Doctor Who Magazine Specials
Plastic Millennium
Seaside Rendezvous
Under Pressure
Evening's Empire
Metamorphosis
Younger and Wiser
Flashback
Death's Head
Time Bomb
The Incredible Hulk Presents
Once in a Lifetime
Hunger from the End of Time
War World
Technical Hitch
A Switch in Time
The Senitel
Who's that Girl
The Enlightenment of Ly-Chee the Wise
Slimmer
Nineveh
Audio dramas
Further Information
Get more info on 'Seventh Doctor'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://seventh_doctor.totallyexplained.com">Seventh Doctor Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
