The 9th Doctor The Doctor

Background

For the first time, we get a new Doctor without witnessing the regeneration. It was probably felt that this was a bit much for the target audience who would probably not understand what was occuring - the majority of the target audience having not been born when the Doctor finished his last TV run!
This Doctor is definitely a loner, not taking on a companion until Rose Tyler at the end of 'Rose'.
Over the course of the series we find that something, or someone, is manipulating the Doctor's travels leading to a terrifying confrontation in the far future. During this period, we learn just why the Doctor is so alone; a massive war has been fought through Time and the two opponents were thought to have destroyed each other. The Time Lords, and Gallifrey itself, have certainly gone and the Doctor bears a whole load of guilt as the sole surviving Time Lord. He thought that the Daleks were also all wiped out, but this proves to be more hope than actuality...

Season 1

Rose. The Doctor is on the trail of the Nestine Consciousness once more as it affects plastic all over the planet. He meets a salesgirl, Rose Tyler, in the basement of her shop as she investigates strange goings on in the cellar.
We don't know just how long the Doctor has been in this incarnation but when he goes to Rose's flat, it would appear that this is the first time he's seen himslef in a mirror, though he's had achance to brew up something to deal with the Consciousness.
Mickey, Rose's boyfriend, finds himself caught up in events when a wheelie bin eats him...
Rose is offered the chance to travel with the Doctor on the succesful conclusion of their adventure.

The End of the World. The Doctor and Rose travel to the last few hours of the Earth but even here there's trouble brewing.

The Unquiet Dead. When the Doctor and Rose travel back to Cardiff in the 1800s they meet Charles Dickens and Rose is told she'll have an encounter with a Bad Wolf...
An alien race plays on the Doctor's guilt.

Aliens of London and World War Three. The Doctor takes Rose back to London and is about to leave her there when he realises that his targeting was a bit off - she'd been gone a year rather just the few hours he'd promised! While he and Rose are making their explanations to a sceptical Mrs Tyler, they're all witnesses to what apears to be Humanity's first contact with an alien race.
But something's not quite right and it takes a brave decision on Mickey's part to stop the destruction of mankind.
The Doctor forces a kid to clean up some graffitti off the TARDIS - a reference to a Bad Wolf...

Dalek. The Doctor finds out that he's not the sole survivor of the Time War after all when he and Rose meet Henry van Statten who collects alien remains. Van Statten had a partialy operational Dalek! Rose reactivates it when she touches it. The Doctor is less than friendly...
The Travellers overhear the call sign of van Statten's helicopter: Bad Wolf One.

The Long Game. In 200,000 Earth should be the centre of the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. Instead, it doesn't appear much different to the twentieth century, except that everyone seems to have cybernetic implants to help sort the news that is Satellite Five's Raison d'Etre. There's something ugly up in the attic.

Father's Day. Rose prevails on the Doctor so she can go back in time to see her father just before he was due to be killed in a car accident. Instead, she disrupts things so that he survives causing a breach in time...
With no Time Lords around to patch the wound, the Reapers take advantage, destroying all in their path until Pete Tyler realises that it was his survival that has caused this terror. Guessing who Rose is, he realises that only his death will put things right and he sacrifices himself though Rose does get to be with him at his death.
The Doctor is initially furious with Rose when he thinks that she came back to this point in history in order to save her father, especially when he does not have this option to save his own people.
For personal reasons, this had quite a big impact when watching it.

The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances. The Doctor and Rose are travelling when they are almost hit in the vortex by a strange object. They follow it to Earth where they find themselves in the middle of the Blitz.
While trying to trace the object, the Doctor becomes aware that there's a strange disease going round that's transforming people in unusual ways. Meanwhile, Rose is found drifting around by a future human masquerading as an American pilot.
Winner of the 2006 Short Form Presentation Hugo

Boom Town. Travelling to present day Cardiff, the TARDIS sets down to refuel itself from the time rift. The Doctor finds out that the proposed power plant, the so-called Blaidd Drwg project (I'll leave the translation to you, but it shouldn't be too hard by now :-)) isn't going to provide power to Wales. Rose and the Doctor find that the Slitheen threat hasn't been quite finished yet...

Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways. A hundred years after the events in The Long Game, the Doctor and Rose, along with Captain Jack, return to Satellite Five only to find that it's one huge great game station and they're participating in parodies of twentieth century games. Who are the mysterious operators of the Games Station and why are they so interested in the Doctor. How does the Bad Wolf Corporation relate to all those cryptic messages they've been getting in their travels??
When the Doctor finds the answer, its almost too late for the Earth and his companions. Captain Jack elects to fight the invading daleks and Anne Droid puts up a good fight too. The Doctor reckons he's saved Rose but he's not taken proper account of her stubborn nature...
The Doctor regenerates after absorbing the power of the vortex from Rose when the identity of the Bad Wolf is revealed.

My thoughts on the character:

This incarnation of the Doctor has an air of sadness underneath a veneer of excitement at what's going on round him. There is a certain relish in facing dangerous situations that might be partially survivor guilt. Whatever his responsibility in the destruction of the Time Lords, he can not bring himself to destroy Earth in Parting of the Ways. Nor does he finally sacrifice Rose in Dalek when she is threatened by a Dalek.

The actor:

Christopher Eccleston was born in 1964 in Salford so he's quite close to me in both age and location.
Although still seeing himself as a stage actor, Eccleston has appeared in a large number of films. It is as a TV actor that he is best known, however, by the British public, taking roles in Cracker, Our Friends in the North, Clocking Off and Flesh and Blood. He also starred in the drama The Second Coming, written by Russel T. Davies.
Although he was only in the role for a short period, Eccleston has kick started the Doctor back into life and reconstructed the legend. Since leaving Doctor Who, he played the invisible man in season one of the American series Heroes.

Episodes on DVDs

These DVDs are available from Amazon

« Previous Doctor | Doctors Index | Next Doctor »