Doctor Who: Who-ology (Dr Who) Read online

  The Doctor once again points out Harry’s credentials on Nerva Beacon, adding that he himself is a doctor of ‘many things’. (Revenge of the Cybermen)

  Runcible (the Fatuous) thought the Doctor got expelled from the Prydonian Academy due to some sort of scandal. (The Deadly Assassin)

  Romana claimed the Doctor scraped through to graduation with 51 per cent on his second attempt, information the Doctor believed was confidential. She, on the other hand, graduated with a triple first. (The Ribos Operation)

  Drax thought it was good that the Doctor got his doctorate from the Academy. Like Drax, the Doctor was in ‘the year of ’92’. (The Armageddon Factor)

  The Fourth Doctor received an honorary degree from St Cedd’s, Cambridge in 1960. (Shada)

  The Doctor failed the TARDIS flying test. (The Shakespeare Code)

  The Eleventh Doctor claims he has degrees in medicine and cheese-making. (The God Complex)

  THE DOCTOR IS IN

  ‘Doctor. The word for healer and wise man throughout the universe. We get that word from you, you know?’

  River Song, A Good Man Goes to War

  The programme has featured some real doctors in its time – although not all of them have been particularly wise. Here’s a selection.

  UNSEEN ADVENTURES

  What do the Doctor and his companions get up to when we’re not watching? All sorts of things – and here’s just a small, random selection.

  The Doctor and Susan visited the planet Quinnis ‘in the Fourth Universe’ four or five journeys before The Edge of Destruction and nearly lost the TARDIS.

  They also saw the metal seas of Venus. (Marco Polo)

  Some time before An Unearthly Child, they encountered telepathic plants on the planet Esto. If you stood between the plants they made a screeching sound when they detected another mind. (The Sensorites)

  They experienced a Zeppelin air raid during the First World War. (Planet of Giants)

  The Doctor visited the planet Dido before the events of The Rescue.

  He also visited Rome prior to The Romans and claimed to have taught the Mountain Mauler of Montana how to fight.

  He’d had a previous encounter with the Celestial Toymaker. (The Celestial Toymaker)

  He was present at the Relief of Mafeking in 1900. (The Daleks’ Master Plan)

  The Doctor watched the ‘magnificent folly’ of the Charge of the Light Brigade. (The Evil of the Daleks)

  Prior to the events of The Abominable Snowmen, the Doctor visited the Det-Sen monastery at various times – at least once in his second body – and commented that the place always seemed to be in some kind of trouble. In 1630 he took the bell known as the Holy Ghanta into his care.

  The Doctor once holidayed on Dulkis, finding it an extremely peaceful place. (The Dominators)

  The Cyber Controller recognised the Doctor from a previous encounter on ‘Planet 14’. (The Invasion)

  The Doctor compared a noise he heard during the Inferno drilling project to the sound of Krakatoa in 1883. (Inferno)

  The Vandals were apparently ‘quite decent chaps’. (Invasion of the Dinosaurs)

  The Doctor once crashed a Medusoid’s mind probe by insisting that he was on the way to meet a giant rabbit, a pink elephant and a purple horse with yellow spots. The machine didn’t believe him, even though he was telling the truth, as the unlikely trio of animals were delegates for the third Intergalactic Peace Conference. The Medusoids, a race of monopod, hairy jellyfish with claws and teeth, used up all their mind probes trying to get to the truth. (Frontier in Space)

  The Doctor was made a noble of Draconia after helping the 15th Draconian Emperor in the 21st century. (Frontier in Space)

  A captain in Cleopatra’s bodyguard taught the Doctor how to fence. (The Masque of Mandragora)

  Prior to the events of The Face of Evil, the Doctor tried to use his own brainwaves to repair the Mordee computer that became Xoanon.

  The Doctor witnessed moving mines on Korlano Beta. (The Robots of Death)

  He saw the Fifth World War and was with the Filipino army in the final advance on Reykjavik in the 51st century. (The Talons of Weng-Chiang, The Unquiet Dead)

  The Doctor once angered the Droge of Gabrielides so much that a bounty of an entire star system was placed on his head. (The Sun Makers)

  The Doctor has visited both Aberdeen and Blackpool. (Underworld)

  He has seen opera singer Nellie Melba’s party piece. (The Power of Kroll)

  The Doctor learnt how to walk over hot coals from firewalkers in Bali. (The Armageddon Factor)

  The Doctor witnessed the Big Bang. (Destiny of the Daleks)

  Tryst’s mentor, Professor Stein, was a friend of the Doctor’s. (Nightmare of Eden)

  The Doctor told Seth that he’d been to the ‘charming’ planet Aneth, just not yet. (The Horns of Nimon)

  The Fourth Doctor visited Tigella and met Zastor 50 years prior to the events of Meglos.

  The Logopolitans offered to complete the TARDIS’s chameleon conversion on his previous visit to Logopolis. (Logopolis)

  The Doctor once played for New South Wales cricket team, taking five wickets. He used to bowl a very good chinaman (a left -handed googly in case you were wondering). (Castrovalva, Four to Doomsday)

  The Second Doctor once faced the terrible Zodin, a woman of rare guile and devilish cunning whose race was covered in hair and hopped like kangaroos. The Brigadier wasn’t involved. (The Five Doctors, Attack of the Cybermen)

  The Doctor recognised Silurian battle cruisers and the Myrka and thought Icthar was dead. (Warriors of the Deep)

  The Doctor had visited Androzani Minor previously. (The Caves of Androzani)

  Azmael was the best teacher the Doctor ever had. His fourth incarnation got Azmael drunk at their last meeting. (The Twin Dilemma)

  Before leaving Gallifrey, the Doctor attended the inauguration of the Space Station Camera. (The Two Doctors)

  He had also visited Seville before the events of The Two Doctors.

  The Third Doctor and Jo Grant saved the planet Karfel from disaster and reported Magellan (aka the Borad) to the Inner Sanctum for unethical experimentation on the Morlox creatures. When greeting the Doctor, Tekker commented that there were ‘only the two of you’, to which the Doctor replied that he was ‘travelling light this time’, indicating that there may have been more than just the Doctor and Jo on board the TARDIS back then. (Timelash)

  The agronomist Arthur Stengos was an old friend of the Doctor. (Revelation of the Daleks)

  Before the events of The Trial of a Time Lord: Mindwarp, the Doctor and Peri visited Thordon, where the Mentors of Thoros Beta had supplied the primitive warlords with energy weapons.

  Captain ‘Tonker’ Travers got wrapped up in ‘a web of mayhem and intrigue’ when he met the Sixth Doctor. The Doctor at least saved Travers’ ship. (The Trial of a Time Lord: Terror of the Vervoids)

  The Doctor met a Stigorax in 25th-century Birmingham. (The Happiness Patrol)

  On 23 November 1638, the Doctor launched a rocket sled containing a Validium statue of Lady Peinforte into space. (Silver Nemesis)

  The Doctor visited Windsor castle when it was being built. (Silver Nemesis)

  The Doctor defeated Fenric at chess in the third century, banishing him to a shadow dimension. The Time Lord also met the Ancient One in the far future. (The Curse of Fenric)

  The Ninth Doctor was photographed in the crowd when Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and his picture was drawn on the island of Sumatra soon after the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. (Rose)

  On the eve of the Titanic’s maiden voyage, the Ninth Doctor had his photo taken with the Daniels family in Southampton. They subsequently missed the trip (Rose) but the Doctor later recalled sailing on an ‘unsinkable’ ship – he ended up clinging to an iceberg. (The End of the World)

  The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan once tried to get through the TARDIS doors – and failed. (Rose)

  He pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Par
ty. (The Unquiet Dead)

  The Doctor vaporised the 51st-century weapons factories on Vilenguard by making the main reactor go critical. There’s a banana grove there now. (The Doctor Dances)

  Rose visited Justicia, the Glass Pyramid of San Kaloon, and a planet called Woman Wept, where she witnessed the sea freeze in the middle of a storm on a beach a thousand miles across. She walked with the Doctor under a hundred-foot wave at midnight. (Boom Town)

  Before arriving on the Game Station, the Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack had been to Raxacoricofallapatorius, then Kyoto, Japan in 1336, from which they only just escaped. (Bad Wolf)

  The Ninth Doctor and Rose once had to hop for their lives. (Born Again)

  The Doctor nearly lost his thumb when he helped Skylab fall to Earth. (Tooth and Claw)

  When the Doctor previously met the Krillitanes they resembled humanoids with long necks. (School Reunion)

  On an asteroid, a ‘weird munchkin lady’ with big eyes nearly frazzled Rose with her fiery breath. (Rise of the Cybermen)

  The Doctor watched the 1948 Olympic opening ceremony – twice. (Fear Her)

  Rose bought Jackie a bazoolium trinket from an asteroid bazaar. The metal got cold when rain was due and heated up when sun was on its way. (Army of Ghosts)

  Martha and the Doctor watched the Moon landing four times. (Blink)

  The Doctor and Martha got in a bit of a pickle with ‘four things and a lizard’. Sally Sparrow saw them running off with a bow and a quiver of arrows with only ‘twenty minutes to Red Hatching’. (Blink)

  The Doctor was present at the birth of Christ. He got the last room in the inn. (Voyage of the Damned)

  The Sibyl had a bit of a thing for the Doctor. The Doctor thought she was a hell of a woman. She had lovely teeth and could dance the tarantella. (The Fires of Pompeii)

  The Doctor witnessed the war between China and Japan. (Planet of the Dead)

  He visited the Court of King Athelstan in AD 924 when the King of the Welsh presented the Cup of Athelstan. (Planet of the Dead)

  When summoned to the planet of the Ood, the Doctor went on a bit of a detour – he saw the Phosphorous Carousel of the Great Magellan Gestalt, saved a planet from the Red Carnivorous Maw, named a galaxy Alison and got married. To someone quite important (see ‘The Many Wives of the Doctor’). (The End of Time, Part One)

  The Doctor once had dinner with the Aplan chief architect of Alfava Metraxis. He had two heads. The Architect, not the Doctor, that is. (The Time of Angels)

  The Doctor and River had an unspecified adventure on Easter Island that ended with the islanders raising the famous statues in his honour. (The Impossible Astronaut)

  The Doctor met the Silurian Madame Vastra while she was avenging the death of her sisters by killing workers in the London Underground at some point after 1863. (A Good Man Goes to War)

  The Doctor arranged a birthday party for River under London Bridge in the Frost Fair of 1814. Stevie Wonder sang for them. (A Good Man Goes to War)

  He played triangle in the recording of Carmen played by Oswin in the Asylum. (Asylum of the Daleks)

  The Doctor rescued Queen Nefertiti from a swarm of alien locusts. He also met a big game keeper by the name of John Riddell. (Dinosaurs on a Spaceship)

  THE LAST GREAT TIME WAR

  ‘There was a war. A Time War. The last Great Time War. My people fought a race called the Daleks, for the sake of all creation. And they lost. They lost. Everyone lost. They’re all gone now. My family, my friends, even that sky.’

  The Doctor, Gridlock

  Before meeting Rose Tyler, the Doctor fought in a mighty war between his people and the Daleks. Much of what happened is lost in the mists of time, but some things are known:

  Millions died in every second of the conflict. (The End of Time)

  The Doctor fought on the front line. It’s how he survived. (Doomsday)

  He witnessed the fall of Arcadia – something he hoped to come to terms with one day. (Doomsday)

  The Gelth lost their physical forms during the War, existing only as gaseous beings from that day forth. (The Unquiet Dead)

  All of the Nestene Consciousness’s food stock was destroyed in the War. The Doctor couldn’t save the Nestene’s world. (Rose)

  Sontaran legends say that the Doctor led the battle in the Time War. The Sontarans weren’t allowed to take part. (The Sontaran Stratagem)

  Davros died in the first year of the Time War at the Gates of Elysium when his command ship flew into the jaws of the Nightmare Child. The Doctor tried to save him. (The Stolen Earth)

  The Master was resurrected by the Time Lords during the War when they recognised he was the perfect warrior. He wasn’t – he ran when the Dalek Emperor took the Cruciform. (The Sound of Drums)

  In the last days of the War, the Doctor witnessed such horrors as the Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, and the Could-Have-Been King and his army of Meanwhiles and Never-weres. (The End of Time)

  President Rassilon aimed to end the War by destroying the universe itself. The Final Sanction would see the creation of a paradox so great it would rip the Time Vortex apart. The Time Lords would survive by becoming creatures of consciousness alone. (The End of Time)

  It was Rassilon’s intent to use the Final Sanction that spurred the Doctor into action to end the War himself, sealing the conflict’s events within a time lock. (The End of Time)

  The Doctor ended the Time War by using the Moment. (The End of Time)

  All those fighting, including ten million Dalek ships, were wiped out in one second. (Dalek)

  The Doctor was not the only survivor of the Time War. A lone Dalek crashed to Earth on the Ascension Islands, eventually ending up in the collection of Henry van Statten (Dalek); the Dalek Emperor fell through time and began rebuilding the Dalek Empire from human DNA (Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways); the Cult of Skaro escaped into the Void, having stolen the Genesis Ark, a Time Lord prison full of Daleks (Army of Ghosts / Doomsday); Dalek Caan of the Cult of Skaro penetrated the timelock and rescued Davros (The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End).

  MID-LIFE CRISIS: THE CHANGING AGE OF THE DOCTOR

  As River told Amy, rule number one is that the Doctor lies – but has he been lying about his age all these years? The Doctor never seems to be sure how old he is. Perhaps he doesn’t want to know…

  Other clues to the Doctor’s age:

  The Doctor was just 8 years old when he entered the Time Lord academy, as was the Master (The Sound of Drums).

  In The Ribos Operation, Romana notes that the Doctor has been piloting the TARDIS for 523 years. If he’s really 759 by this point, that means he went joyriding at the tender age of 236.

  This is backed up by Idris in The Doctor’s Wife. She says that the Doctor has been travelling with her for 700 years. If we believe he’s 909 in this story, they left Gallifrey not long into his 200s.

  Before the Doctor faced his apparent death in Utah, 2011, he went on a ‘farewell tour’ lasting almost 200 years. That was some tour.

  A MERE SLIP OF A GIRL?

  Romana may have mocked the Doctor for massaging his true age, but the Time Lady has been economical with the truth herself at times. In The Ribos Operation she admits to being 140 (nearly), but by City of Death is running around claiming to be a mere 125. Is the 150 years stated in The Leisure Hive nearer the truth, Miss Romanadvoratrelundar?

  A YOUNG, OLD FACE

  Being involved with the Doctor can make you old before your years, and sometimes younger too.

  Space agent Sara Kingdom was aged to death by the Daleks’ terrible Time Destructor on the planet Kembel

  Stuart Hyde, a scientist at the Newton Institute, was aged by the trans-dimensional being known as Kronos. (The Time Monster)

  Sergeant Benton was reverted to a bouncing baby boy by the Master’s TOMTIT (Transmission of Matter Through Interstitial Time) experiment. (The Time Monster)

  A chicken was hatched and fully grown in an artificial time
bubble. Then popped back in its egg. (City of Death)

  Professor Theodor Nikolai Kerensky was aged to death in the same temporal field generator. (City of Death)

  The Argolin race was prematurely aged thanks to the radioactive atmosphere on the planet Argolis. (The Leisure Hive)

  The Fourth Doctor was turned old and grey in the Leisure Hive’s Tachyon Recreation Generator on Argolis. (The Leisure Hive)

  Tegan and Nyssa, the Doctor’s companions, contracted a virus from the rogue scientist Mawdryn and both aged rapidly when travelling in time, and also regressed to children. (Mawdryn Undead)

  Professor Richard Lazarus created a Genetic Manipulation Device to rejuvenate himself. He succeeded but unfortunately became a hideous, cannibalistic monster. (The Lazarus Experiment)

  John Smith didn’t exactly age, but the Doctor’s human counterpart experienced a vision of himself as an old man, dying in his bed. (The Family of Blood)

  The Tenth Doctor was aged 100 years by the Master, using stolen DNA and Richard Lazarus’s technology. (The Sound of Drums)

  The Tenth Doctor’s ability to regenerate was suspended by the Master, transforming him into a pathetic, wizened creature. (Last of the Time Lords)

  Amy Pond was trapped in an accelerated time stream for 36 years. (The Girl Who Waited)

  Rory Williams was trapped in a secondary time stream when the entity known as House took over the TARDIS. Rory aged and died there in a matter of minutes. (The Doctor’s Wife)

  Along with the Doctor, River and Amy, Rory met a naturally aged version of himself in New York. (The Angels Take Manhattan)

  FISH FINGERS AND CUSTARD

  ‘Box falls out of the sky. Man falls out of a box. Man eats fish custard.’

  The Doctor, The Eleventh Hour

  Food the Doctor loves… and loathes