History Characters / DoctorWhoClassicSeriesDoctors

More tropes about these incarnations can be found on the [[Characters/BigFinishDoctorWho Big Finish character pages.]]

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:First Doctor]]
!!First Doctor
[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/first_doctor_colour_1076.jpg]]

->'''Debut:''' "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E1AnUnearthlyChild An Unearthly Child]]"

->'''Played by:''' Creator/WilliamHartnell (1963–66, 1972–73);[[note]]He returned for the 4 part Anniversary story "The Three Doctors" which aired from December 30, 1972–January 20, 1973[[/note]] Richard Hurndall (1983)[[note]]An unidentified child played the First Doctor as a boy in "Listen" (2014)[[/note]]
->'''Voiced by:''' David Coker (1997); John Guilor (2013)

-->''"One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine."''

The monocled, wild-eyed [[TheEndIsNigh portent of doom.]] Introduced as a fugitive with an air of mystery about him, One was a [[PunyEarthlings merry misanthrope]], who loved manipulating people and playing games with their lives. His moral compass had long since deteriorated before leaving home, which begged the question of what could have possibly happened to him there. He eventually became a warmer, more avuncular character to his companions, but remained an authoritarian figure.

As he was never intended to be the "first" (or plural) Doctor, there is novelty in watching him develop into ''the'' Doctor as he's known today.
----
* AbusiveParent: It was said about him as a child that he'd have to join the army, because he would never be able to go to the Academy and become a full Time Lord. (Might also be a FreudianExcuse for his later dislike of guns and soldiers in some incarnations.)
* AccidentalProposal: The hot cocoa incident with Cameca.
* AdoptTheDog: He's NeutralNoLonger by the end of Season 1, but it's asking Vicki along as a companion that really seals it.
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E9TheEmptyChild The Empty Child]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E4Listen Listen]]" imply that as a child, he was not well-liked among the other children. When a character makes a passing remark about whether he knew what it was like to be "the only child left outside", the Ninth Doctor replied he ''did''.
* AwesomeAnachronisticApparel: This Doctor kick-starts the trend, with a decidedly [[TheEdwardianEra Edwardian]] wardrobe.
* BadassCape: He didn't wear them very often, but One had a thing for long, dramatic capes.
* BadassGrandpa: He fought a Roman assassin with his bare hands, while enjoying the whole fight immensely.
* BadLiar: He's awful at lying, which is ironic considering what his later incarnations would get up to.
* BavarianFireDrill: Does a ''masterful'' one in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E8TheReignOfTerror The Reign of Terror]]", giant hat and all.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: As his status as a GrumpyOldMan slowly faded away, this trope slowly replaced it in some situations. In particular, the Doctor's fight against the Celestial Toymaker is a major representation of this trope as the Doctor literally talks the world surrounding the TARDIS into oblivion with just three words and a number (Go to move 1,023!).
* BrilliantButLazy:
** His old teacher Borusa tells the Fourth Doctor that he was a ''nightmare'' to teach during the academy days.
** It's mentioned that the Master got a higher degree in Cosmic Science than him, which the Third Doctor passes off with a "I was a late bloomer."
** Romana I mentioned that he got through the Academy with 51% on his ''second'' attempt.
* CaneFu: The Doctor being in all incarnations an ImprobableWeaponUser, this is the natural result.
* CatchPhrase: "Hmmm?" and "Mm? What’s that, my boy?"
* CharacterDevelopment: The first time we ever see the Doctor, he's arrogant, selfish, and prefers to take the easy (even cowardly) way out if it saves him. His evolution over the first three serials is an important point in the script as he becomes the heroic Doctor we know and love. The Twelfth Doctor says that it was when he went to Skaro for the first time that he realised what it meant to be the Doctor: "The Doctor was not the Daleks".
* CharacterTics: He would often gesture with his hands close to his face. Peter Purves said that this was Hartnell's response to not being able to gesture broadly in the same way as you could on stage, because TV was "small" (i.e., it didn't capture all the action across the whole set all the time). He would also flutter his hands when trying to decide something. He also tended to [[http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/The-first-doctor-timelords-270820_395_597.jpg clutch]] at his [[http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101211235108/tardis/images/f/f1/William_hartnell_farewell.jpg jacket lapels.]] He often ends sentences with a distinctive 'hmm?' and ful-fblu-I mean-flubs his lines (although never breaking character), even becoming TheUnintelligible at times, and tends to deliberately forget people's names as a form of MaliciousMisnaming, particularly with Chesterton (stemming from a ThrowItIn of the actor's tendency to forget the character's name in the first few serials). His movements tend to be quite jerky, almost to the point of trembling, and his facial expressions tend towards the [[SmugSmiler smirky]].
* ClassyCane: A gift from Kublai Khan, no less.
* CoolOldGuy: The oldest-looking Doctor of them all.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: He claims he left Galifrey because he was bored. The Twelfth Doctor in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent Heaven Sent]]" confirms that this was a lie. He left because he was scared. What he was scared of however we don't know...yet.
* DissonantLaughter: He has an odd habit of breaking into fits of hysterical laughter when the situation is going really, dreadfully wrong and he has no idea how to solve it.
* DistinguishedGentlemansPipe: An example of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, the Doctor smoked a pipe in the first story. It got him in trouble with the local caveman tribe, so perhaps that explains why he dropped the habit.
* DoesntLikeGuns: Typified in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E8TheGunfighters The Gunfighters]]". When the Doctor is landed in jail, Steven passes him a gun through his cell window as part of a plan to bust him out. The Doctor immediately hands the gun over to the sheriff.
--> '''Doctor:''' People keep giving me guns, and I do wish they wouldn't!
* DotingGrandparent: To Susan.
* TheExile: Claims that both Susan and he are exiles. It's later implied that this is only MetaphoricallyTrue, as both became [[DefectorFromDecadence defectors from decadence]] and left Gallifrey of their own volition.
* FamousLastWords: "Ah! Yes. Thank you. That's good, keep warm." (The original script contained a line that was much more along the lines of "No... no, I simply will not give in!" for the First Doctor's final words, but these were not filmed, as time was running short, and production was almost at an end -- with filming the regeneration still to go.)
* FantasticRacism: Towards humans, whom the Doctor initially considers primitive savages and treats with open contempt and disdain. From dialogue in the first episode, one gathers that he only tolerates 20th-Century Earth for [[DotingGrandparent Susan's sake]].
* FriendToAllChildren: Befriended Vicki and Dodo. Hartnell was this in real life.
* FutureMeScaresMe: As the primordial Doctor, he can't seem to decide if he likes the newer additions down the line or wants to stay as he is out of dread. One also loves taking charge of the Doctors and acting as their mediator toward specific goals, considering himself TheLeader.
* GoodIsNotNice
* GrammarNazi: Despite his own frequent malapropisms, this Doctor is a champion of proper speech. Upon meeting [[TotallyRadical Dodo]], he determines that he must teach her to speak English.
* GrumpyOldMan: Began with this trope firmly in mind, but slowly became more of a grumpy BadassGrandpa, depending on the adventure. This was certainly the case in "[[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors The Five Doctors]]."
* GuileHero: He doesn't have access to the AppliedPhlebotinum that was introduced in the tenures of later Doctors. As a result, this Doctor tends to rely on ThePlan to defeat his enemies, although he could also simply beat them up.
%%* HairTriggerTemper: Which Ian frequently triggered by accident.
* HeroicComedicSociopath: On occasion, especially in more humourous stories such as "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E4TheRomans The Romans]]", and whenever he encounters the Medding Monk. Vicki seems to bring out the worst in him.
* HeroicFatigue: Fell ill during the events of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E2TheTenthPlanet The Tenth Planet]]", putting him out of commission for most of it. He finally mustered the energy to blow up the Snowcap base along with the Cybermen, whereupon he collapsed from exhaustion.
* HighClassGlass: All the better to [[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9exhduHISmw/TdDI9SDB8pI/AAAAAAAABXc/ZbdKyF5m1bw/s1600/hartnell-who.jpg peer at aliens]] with. Eleven still has it.
* IconicItem: His prized ring. Arguably, also his cane. When he regenerated, his ring fell off and his second incarnation found it was too big for him. The Doctor doesn't wear the ring again until he discovers it fell into the TARDIS console in his seventh incarnation. In the Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures novels, he eventually gives it to [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E8HumanNature Joan Redfern]]. The Twelfth Doctor wears one that is either the same or identical to the ring. The cane is also quite iconic.
* IdenticalStranger: This Doctor shared a resemblance with the Abbot of Amboise, the right-hand man of the Cardinal of Lorraine and a major player in a conspiracy to discredit the Huguenots (Protestants). Hartnell played the role as a lark, but it set the stage for more doppelgangers in the future. (See: [[Creator/PatrickTroughton Ramon]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E4TheEnemyOfTheWorld Salamander]], [[Creator/ColinBaker Col.]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS20E1ArcOfInfinity Maxil]], and [[Creator/PeterCapaldi Caec]][[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E2TheFiresOfPompeii ilius]] and [[Series/TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth John Frobisher]].)
* ImMrFuturePopCultureReference: The First Doctor's alias in Tombstone is "[[TheCabinetOfDrCaligari Dr. Caligari]]." ("[[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E8TheGunfighters The Gunfighters]]")
* IncrediblyLamePun: He's quite fond of making them, then giggling like a schoolgirl.
--> '''Doctor:''' Did you take three dimensional graph geometry at your school?
--> '''Ian:''' No Doctor, only Boyle's Law.
--> '''Doctor:''' What a pity. We shall have to boil this down, now shan't we? ''(laughs)''
* InformedAttribute: His status as a HumanAlien, which is occasionally mentioned but not demonstrated in any way until he regenerates for the first time. Sometimes, as in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E9TheSavages The Savages]]", he seems to actually forget that he's ''not'' a human (since this wasn't yet clear to the writers at the start of the show).
* InsistentTerminology: He does not tolerate being called "Doc".
* InsufferableGenius: He will point out how much smarter he is than his companions, or anyone else who happens to be in the room with him. He is in fine form during "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E2TheDalekInvasionOfEarth The Dalek Invasion of Earth]]" where he answers a fellow prisoner's cynicism with jabs at his intelligence and orders him to stop bothering him.
-->'''Ian''': Doctor, you amaze me sometimes.
-->'''Doctor''': Only "sometimes"? My dear boy, what's wrong with your memory?
%%* JerkWithAHeartOfGold:
* LonelyRichKid: When Madame de Pompadour gets a look inside the mind of the Tenth Doctor she sees a "lonely little boy". When we actually see the First Doctor as a child, he's hiding in a barn crying himself to sleep.
* LoveAtFirstSight: According to the TARDIS herself, he said she was "the most beautiful thing (he'd) ever seen" when he first stole her.
* MaliciousMisnaming: The First Doctor likes mispronouncing Ian Chesterton's last name to annoy him.
* TheMillstone: In Season 1, he spends most of his time getting the party into trouble that Ian or Barbara are then obliged to get them out of.
* MurderTropes: The First Doctor had absolutely no problem with the idea of bashing someone's head in with a rock or having his companions ThrownOutTheAirlock if they got too obnoxious. He never goes through with it, though, thanks to Ian and Barbara being two of the most level-headed companions he'd ever have, and not putting up with his antics.
* NeutralNoLonger: He starts out unheroic, but after a few adventures with Ian and Barbara, he begins to suggest doing heroic deeds rather than being forced into it.
* NiceHat: Wore an Astrakhan on a few occasions, including his very first adventure.
* NightmareFetishist: His second episode had him deliberately endangering the lives of his granddaughter and their new pet humans, just because he wanted to see the Dalek city up close. He learned to be more responsible in the months following that, but still got downright ''giddy'' when he realised he accidentally had a hand in burning down Rome. He gets along extremely well with companion Vicki, another NightmareFetishist with the same outlook on things.
* NoblewomansLaugh: Matches his character - which is to say that he's something of an arrogant jerk.
* NoodleIncident: Whatever drove him to leave Gallifrey in a stolen TARDIS and take Susan with him. An old classmate Runcible says he was "expelled" due to a "scandal". When the Time Lords catch up to him in his second incarnation, they're more mad he's been breaking their non-interference law than anything else. [[note]] The Creator/BigFinish {{Audioplay/Gallifrey}} Series suggests that he was forced to flee after the president issued an assasination order ('burn edict') against him. Fortunately for him, the would-be assassin was Braxiatel, who is heavily implied to be the Doctor's brother; Brax warns the Doctor so he can flee, and then assassinates the president instead! [[/note]]
* NotDistractedByTheSexy: When he wanders onto a Hollywood shoot and is immediately mistaken for the history consultant, he is asked by the director what he thinks of the [[BedlahBabe scantily-clad Arabian princess]]' costume. His response? To tell her she looks ridiculous and order her to "Put some more clothes on, child".
* ParentalSubstitute: To Vicki. They meet just after the Doctor has said goodbye to Susan, and Vicki has just become an orphan. The two become very cuddly and adorable together.
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: The line in the show about "This is a madhouse. It's all full of Arabs!" may or may not have been in the script; it's hard to tell with Hartnell sometimes.
* RingOfPower: Among other functions, used to supply power to the [=TARDIS=], and for hypnosis.
* ScatterbrainedSenior: Quite often comes across this way, though as usual for the Doctor it's often a case of ObfuscatingStupidity. Also as usual for the Doctor, it's often difficult to tell exactly how ''much'' is ObfuscatingStupidity.
* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: Much like Hartnell himself. If there's one thing the Doctor doesn't have time for, it's everything. But if there’s one thing the Doctor '''really''' doesn’t have time for, it's humans buzzing around his ear like a fly at a picnic, defying his orders at every turn, and sticking his neck out to go rescue ''more'' irritating humans. 'You drive me ROUND THE BEND!' the Doctor barks at Ian.
* SignatureLaugh: "Ha ha, ho ho!" or simply "Ho ho!"
* SmartPeopleWearGlasses: Seen most prominently in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E7TheSensorites The Sensorites]]", in which he uses both regular glasses and a monocle.
* ThickerThanWater: He and Susan are extremely close, and they never even fought before "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E7TheSensorites The Sensorites]]". Letting her go is a very difficult choice for the Doctor.
* TookALevelInKindness: Forms a large part of his CharacterDevelopment as he shifts into JerkWithAHeartOfGold territory.
* {{Troll}}: Has his moments, such as a time when he's wired to a machine that shows one's thoughts on screen. When asked how he got into a museum surrounded by an impenetrable wall and a moat with no bridge? A picture of a man riding an old 1800s bicycle appears on screen.
* TheUnfavorite: As a child, he was told he wouldn't be able to go to the Academy and become a full Time Lord.
* UnscrupulousHero: He's devoted to his grandaughter and is disgusted by villains like the Daleks but aside from that his morals are loose at best, with his flaws ranging from pride and paranoia to outright moral cowardice in trying to abandon Barbara to die on Skaro rather than risk further exposure to radiation, as well as Ian and Barbara becoming his companions only after he trapped them within the TARDIS against their will. By the conclusion of the first three stories he gets over this.
* VerbalTic: Several:
** He had a habit of ending many if not most of his lines with a "hmmm?", plus interjecting the terms "young man", "my child", "my dear boy", "dear child", et cetera, into seemingly every third phrase.
** Not to mention the habit of [[AccidentalMisnaming mangling his companion's name]] ("Chesterton" becomes Chatterton, Chesterfield, Chessington, Chesserman etc.)
** He's occasionally a {{Malaproper}} - for example, in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E3TheMythMakers The Myth Makers]]", when the Trojans think he is a god; "I am not a dog!... a god!"
** In Season 3 and 4, he tends to make an excited sort of "eh-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-" chattering noise before speaking, usually when he's trying to interrupt or cut off someone, [[ScrewPolitenessImASenior which he tends to do a lot]].
* WaistcoatOfStyle: The first of many incarnations to wear one.
* WhamLine: Kicks off the climax of "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor The Day of the Doctor]]".
-->'''First Doctor:''' Calling the War Council of Gallifrey, this is The Doctor!
* WrittenInAbsence: The Doctor frequently vanishes for whole episodes so that Hartnell (and later Troughton) could take a week off to mend.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Second Doctor]]
!!Second Doctor
[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dw_-_second_doctor_7567.jpg]]

->'''Debut:''' "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E3ThePowerOfTheDaleks The Power of the Daleks]]"

->'''Played by:''' Creator/PatrickTroughton (1966–69, 1972–73,[[note]]This was for the 4 part Anniversary story "The Three Doctors", which aired from December 30, 1972–January 20, 1973[[/note]] 1983, 1985)
->'''Voiced by:''' David Coker (1997)

-->''"There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things that act against everything we believe in. They must be fought!"''

The [[CoolOldGuy cosmic hobo with the Beatles haircut]]. The Second Doctor was a [[TheGadfly gadfly]] who enjoyed annoying everyone he met; he made an art form of out of [[StealthInsult stealthy insulting]] his foes and allies alike. He liked to play the recorder (the musical instrument), and he carried a massive number of useful things in the pockets of his coat, including the now famous sonic screwdriver. (The Tenth Doctor would confirm that, as many fans had long suspected, the Doctor's pockets are {{bigger on the inside}}.)

A more easy-going personality than his predecessor, and very much an ''anti''-authority maverick. He has arguably had the most lasting influence on later Doctors -- largely because he was just plain fun.
----
* AbandonedCatchphrase: The Second Doctor had "I would like a hat like that" as a catchphrase for the first two or three stories before it was dropped off.
* AttentionDeficitOohShiny: The first of many to demonstrate this trait, especially in his early adventures. He never quite stopped being distracted by [[NiceHat Nice Hats]], though.
* AwesomeAnachronisticApparel: A sort of ill-fitting ensemble of early 20th century clothes.
* BadassAdorable
* BadassGrandpa: Still one of the older Doctors.
* BatmanGambit: Pulled one on his own companion, Jamie, in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E9TheEvilOfTheDaleks Evil of the Daleks]]", knowing that Jamie would "infect" the Daleks with all that was good noble in humanity. [[WhatTheHellHero Jamie didn't take it well]].
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Not as much as Five or Ten, but still capable of steering an enemy's space fleet into the sun or sparking a massive Dalek civil war when he deemed it necessary.
* BewareTheSillyOnes
* BowtiesAreCool: Always wore them. They were usually small, crinkled, and hanging crookedly from his collar, fitting Two's messy style.
* ButterflyOfTransformation: Uses it to explain his transformation.
* CameBackWrong: Being that he's the first regeneration to appear at a time when the concept didn't exist yet, the Second Doctor went through a few rewrites: originally being envisioned as a windjammer captain (!) and then a "[[JekyllAndHyde Mister Hyde]]" version of his predecessor, with a tramp version of the First Doctor's wardrobe. A few of these traits made it into the final version, and though the Doctor soon mellowed, his initial craziness was the basis for "regeneration" traumas we see again later. It certainly scared the pants off One's companions when the venerable old man shrank down into a giddy, flute-playing nutter.
* CatchPhrase: "When I say run, run." Also, [[GoshDarnItToHeck "Oh, my giddy aunt!", and "Oh, crumbs!"]] And uncommonly, "Oh, my word!"
** In his reappearances, some version of "''Oh''--I see you've redecorated (fill-in-the-blank), haven't you?--hmm. I don't ''like'' it." This one actually became a MythologyGag, with both Ten (to Eleven) and Eleven saying it. And then Clara Oswald [[BorrowedCatchphrase borrowed it]].
*** And then Twelve said he didn't like his kidneys.
* CavalryBetrayal: At long last, the Doctor found one enemy (The War Chief) he couldn't fight without sending for reinforcements from Gallifrey. The Time Lords aren't amused: they find the Doctor guilty -- with some equanimity -- of ruining whole civilizations and then splitting before the clean-up. His sentence is separation from his companions, the dismantling of his TARDIS, and exile in post-sixties London. Oh, and they execute him[[note]]In the sense of forcing him to use one of his twelve regenerations[[/note]] just for shiggles.
-->'''War Chief:''' Doctor, you mustn’t call them in, or it will be the end of us. [[BiggerBad They’ll show no mercy.]]
* CharacterTics: He had a habit of [[http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa323/ticktoast/TeamTwohastoomuchsexy_zps5120743c.png wringing]] [[http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa323/ticktoast/TwoandtheIceWarriors_zpse64a3692.png his]] [[http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa323/ticktoast/teamtwohitsanuh-oh_zps37a4245a.png hands]] constantly. The Eleventh Doctor imitated this. If he couldn't wring his hands, he'd twiddle his fingers and drum them on things, such as his other hand. Also lots and lots of eyebrow quirking.
* TheChessmaster: Not to the extent of Seven, but he had his moments.
* ContinuitySnarl: Since the Second Doctor got so many opportunities to meet his other incarnations personally, there were ''going'' to be continuity glitches. There is even an "Season 6B" theory to explain the references to "The War Games" in "The Two Doctors," which the BBC has [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/season6b.shtml officially acknowledged as "making sense"]].
** And then came the fan production "[[http://www.doctorwho-devious.com/ Devious]]," depicting a halfway regeneration between the Second and Third Doctor with Jon Pertwee actually appearing in the flesh and making continuity more confusing than ever.
* CowardlyLion: The only Doctor who frequently shows open fear of his enemies, and in a way that does not make it look like a deliberate performance.
* CrazyPrepared: Always seemed to have some sort of situation-suitable item in those pockets of his.
* CuddleBug: Has his arms around his companions more often than not.
* DenserAndWackier: Though ultimately, the series proved to be GrowingTheBeard.
* DissonantSerenity: Whether it is by accident or design, this is a Doctor who can watch a civilization go up in flame or a man being sucked out through the TARDIS doors into space, dust himself off, and play a few notes on his recorder. Cold as ice.
* DressingAsTheEnemy: With much glee.
* FailedASpotCheck: He does this quite often. Notably in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E1TheDominators The Dominators]]," when he clearly pointed out that the newly formed volcano was erupting, but didn't notice that ''the volcano was erupting''.
--> '''Jamie:''' C'mon! The whole place is going to blow up!
--> '''Second Doctor''' No, it's quite all right, Jamie. The planet is quite safe. There's only going to be a ''localized'' volcanic eruption. It'll only affect the island.
--> '''Jamie:''' Maybe so, but ''we'' happen to be ''on'' the island.
--> '''Second Doctor:''' [[OhCrap Oh, my word!]]
* FamousLastWords: "You can't do this to me! No! No no no no no no no...."
** [[AndTheAdventureContinues Season 6B]] gives us "Fear no more, Hogan... after this dreadful night has passed your [[MakesSenseInContext scarecrows will not walk again!]]"
* {{Foil}}: Contrasts his predecessor's grumpiness with a warm, emotional attitude.
* FunPersonified
* FutureMeScaresMe: Absolutely can't ''stand'' Three, and has a lot of fun insulting old "fancy pants" every chance he gets. Two and Six arguing is also a sight to behold.
* GainaxEnding: His regeneration into Three. The timeline is all screwed up, and it's very possible that what we saw on screen ''wasn't'' even his regeneration -- these days, the Beeb considers the [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/season6b.shtml Season 6B theory]] valid.
* GoshDangItToHeck: "Oh, my giddy aunt!" and variations.
* HarmlessLadyDisguise: Harmless lady with [[BewareTheNiceOnes a gun ]][[CrowningMomentOfAwesome concealed]] [[BewareTheNiceOnes in her robes]]. (It's not like it was even loaded, though.)
* HerrDoktor: Or as he liked to call himself, [[StealthPun Doktor von Wer]].
* HeterosexualLifePartners: The Doctor and Jamie were together for all but one serial and for more episodes than any other companion.
* {{Hobos}}: More like a [[IncrediblyLamePun WHO-bo]].
* ISurrenderSuckers: The Doctor crawls out of the TARDIS on all fours, waving a white hankie in surrender -- and then lobs a smoke bomb. ''Viva la revolucion!''
* IconicItem: His recorder (the musical instrument), though it was used less and less over time. Loses one in "The Three Doctors" as a necessary sacrifice, but gets a replacement.
* IconicSequelCharacter: It's been argued by many that Troughton is when the general concept of "the Doctor" snapped into sharp focus. [[http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/doctor-who-patrick-troughton-template-2362503 David Tennant]] noted that all the Doctors these days are variations on the themes he set down.
* IdenticalStranger: This regeneration had a doppelganger, Ramón Salamander, a nefarious EmperorScientist from the near future. Not only was Salamander a capable villain, [[AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs he bluffed his way into the TARDIS]] (a feat which few have accomplished).
* IdiotHair: There's always this one bit of his hair that ''loves'' to stick up.
* MasterActor: The main selling point of his identity tricks is his ability to act like the person he is trying to portray, arousing little to no suspicion of a fallacy even without a donned disguise.
* MasterOfDisguise: The Second Doctor had an interesting fondness for disguises and clever identity lies, which he usually backed up with some persona-appropriate accent.
* NiceHat: In addition to wearing a very tall stovepipe hat in his first three stories, the Doctor would sometimes note when he saw an interesting piece of headgear, "I would like a hat like that." It was something of an early catchphrase, discarded (like the hat) after a few serials.
* NoodleIncident: A possible adventure with the Eighth Doctor, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E13TheNameOfTheDoctor it seems]]. Also, in "The Five Doctors" he recalls a never-seen adventure with "The Terrible Zodin".
* NoSenseOfPersonalSpace: Usually when he's frightened at something.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: Absolutely loved it. His main tactic for any situation. Shown masterfully in "The Three Doctors."
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: As seen in "The Name of the Doctor", he had a mostly off-screen adventure with the Eighth Doctor.
* ParentalSubstitute: To Victoria, after her father died saving his life on Skaro. She even refers to him as her guardian.
* ProtectThisHouse[=/=]YouShallNotPass: The "Base Under Siege" episodes. These became a trademark of the Second Doctor's tenure, though they're not exclusive to him.
* RecycledInSpace: Is often described as Creator/CharlieChaplin [-IN SPACE-]!
* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: Invokes the trope at times, especially towards UNIT.
* SecurityCling: All the time. Given and received.
* ShotAtDawn: In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E7TheWarGames The War Games]]." Don't worry, [[BigDamnHeroes he was saved]]... but as the show went on and the writers hammered out what exactly regeneration ''was'', his "change of appearance" later on in that episode was revealed to have been his execution.
* StealthHiBye: He was so good at this that he successfully did it to himself in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E1TheThreeDoctors The Three Doctors]]."
* SummonBiggerFish: His eventual undoing.
* TrojanPrisoner: Used on occasion.
* TropeCodifier: Having defined most of the Doctor's chief characteristics, Second's role influenced several of the later Doctors, especially the Seventh and Eleventh.
* VitriolicBestBuds: 99% of his dialogue with TheBrigadier is them trying to out-snark each other.
* WigDressAccent: He loved dressing up.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Third Doctor]]
!!Third Doctor
[[quoteright:342:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dw_-_third_doctor_8818.jpg]]

->'''Debut:''' "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E1SpearheadFromSpace Spearhead from Space]]"

->'''Played by:''' Creator/JonPertwee (1970–74, 1983, 1993, 1995[[note]]Briefly reprised his role for the fan production "Devious" in 1995, excerpts of which appeared as a bonus featurette on "The War Games" DVD release for North America in 2009[[/note]])

-->''"Courage isn't just a matter of not being frightened, you know. It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway."''

The [[TuxedoAndMartini secret agent man]], known for his [[TheEdwardianEra Edwardian]] dress and fast cars (Bessie and the [[{{Thememobile}} Whomobile]]!). Half the time profane, and the other half profound: He spent a great many years trapped on Earth in the 20th Century (with his memory blanked and the TARDIS rendered inoperative), and often got into misadventures with his "friends" at UNIT, particularly TheBrigadier. A noticeably agile Doctor, taking on multiple aliens at once with his "Venusian Karate/Aikido". When the Time Lords finally restored to his memories of driving the TARDIS, he became much more of a gentleman to his companions.

He revealed much of his BizarreAlienBiology (notably the two hearts) and was the first Doctor to be broadcast in color. As this Doctor's tenure was largely confined to present-day London, he also inaugurated the grand old ''Doctor Who'' tradition of EverythingTryingToKillYou. It was also this incarnation that formally introduced his greatest individual ArchEnemy, The Master, who's present for many of Three's episodes.

----
* SeventiesHair: Creator/TerranceDicks joked that you can measure which season you're watching by how big Pertwee's hair has gotten. The Doctor's bouffant is truly extraordinary in Season Eleven, looking for all the world as though he has stuck his finger in a power socket.
* ActionHero: Villain holding his companion at gunpoint? No problem! Karate-CHOP!
* [[AuthorAppeal Actor Appeal]]: The Third Doctor stories have a lot of car chases, because the writers enjoyed indulging Pertwee's love of fast cars and odd vehicles. In his final story, by way of a send-off, there's a completely gratuitous chase that lasts twenty minutes and involves several cars, a flying machine, and a hovercraft.
** Terrance Dicks, script editor at the time of Jon Pertwee's run, has actually said that he often asked Pertwee if the actor desired anything in his tales beyond the story being fun. Being given this massive potential of a request, all that Pertwee asked for was "a moment or two of charm". The "reverse the polarity" line was another favorite of Pertwee's, as the actor struggled with what we would refer to today as {{technobabble}}.
** As for all the gadgets and undercover military work in Three's era -- in 2013, footage unearthed by journalists revealed that Creator/JonPertwee worked for Naval Intelligence during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and [[RealitySubtext his job involved]] briefing spies and commandoes in the use of [[ShoePhone espionage and assassination gadgets]].
* AgentPeacock: He was also the best dressed Doctor, famous for his frilly shirts, opera cape and smoking jacket. Believe it or not, this was standard attire for British sci-fi at the time, best personified by Creator/MichaelMoorcock's Jerry Cornelius (and later nicked by Creator/GrantMorrison's Gideon Stargrave). The concept of a shrewd Dandy working for a team of investigators is similar to ''Series/JasonKing'', which ran at the same time. Pertwee captures the zeitgeist pretty well.
* AwesomeAnachronisticApparel: Velvet, ruffles and capes.
* BadassCape: Had a black velvet cloak, with red lining, that he wore with his fancy black coat and white sleeve ruffles. Unironically. (The cape itself was inspired by Pertwee's grandfather.)
* BadassDriver: Three's tinkering with motorcars and his love of driving/flying could be seen as a displacement of his desire to hop in the TARDIS and be off.
* BadassGrandpa: One of the oldest-looking Doctors, and by far the most fond of getting into hand-to-hand combat.
* BadassInDistress: See DistressedDude.
* TheBigGuy: At 6'3" he towers over almost everyone he meets, and is probably the most likely Doctor to [[HairTriggerTemper physically hit someone]]. The only person who ever overpowered him was Rossini's musclebound [[ScaryBlackMan circus thug]].
* BlueBlood: The most 'aristocratic' of the Doctors, and none too patient with the lower classes, i.e. the humans.
* BoundAndGagged: In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E1DayOfTheDaleks Day of the Daleks]]".
* BowtiesAreCool: Wasn't as flagrant about it as Eleven, nor did he wear one as often as Two, but he would on occasion wear a spiffy bowtie.
* BreakTheHaughty: The more he condescends at UNIT personnel, and gets dragged through the most crippling ordeals for his trouble, the more you start to suspect the Time Lords exiled him as a lesson.
** A perfect example is when the Doctor believes he's fixed the TARDIS console once and for all. With one last sneer at the Brigadier's ineptitude, he beams out of UNIT... only to stagger through the front door, [[CoveredInMud covered in soot]]. Apparently he rematerialized in a dustpile.
--->'''Brig:''' "[[IronicEcho Pompous, self-opinionated idiot]]," I believe you said, Doctor?\\
'''Doctor:''' Yes, ahem, well we don't want to bear a grudge for a few hasty words, do we..?
* CatchPhrase: Two prominent ones - "Reverse the polarity" and "Now ''listen to me''". The former is plugged into a lot of situations where Three tampers with equipment. The latter gets a lot of use when Three wants to be frank or someone is stubbornly ignoring his warnings.
* CharacterDevelopment: Although the Third Doctor is a gentleman throughout his entire run, his visible frustrations tone down dramatically after the Time Lords return to him his control over the TARDIS.
* CharacterTics:
** A habit of saying, "Yes, well" to start his sentences, answering "Yes, of course", humming a ditty when tinkering on things, displaying a half-interested attitude when people try talking to him while he's working with lab equipment, and touting a very cheeky grin when he makes a clever joke.
** John Levene, who played Benton, pointed out in a DVD commentary that once Pertwee realized he had a habit of rubbing his neck, his conscious attempts to stop resulted in a habit of touching his mouth, his conscious attempts to stop resulted in a habit of rubbing his neck again. Occasionally he touches his ear, just to mix it up.
** He tends to speak with his hands on his hips or leaning up against things if he's in a happy mood, and has very dramatic, sharp movements.
* CombatPragmatist: Preferred quick battles to flashy ones.
* CoolCar: The Whomobile (basically a hover car) and Bessie, his trusty gold jalopy. This Doctor was never happier than when he was cruising down the countryside in that bucket of bolts.
* CoolOldGuy: With a giant shock of white hair.
* CulturedBadass: Enjoyed drinking fine wine, as well as loudly singing opera while driving his vintage car.
* TheDandy: For his choice of clothes and awesome hair. {{Lampshaded}} during "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E1TheThreeDoctors The Three Doctors]]" when the First Doctor actually called him this.
* DeadpanSnarker: Very.
--> '''Third Doctor:''' What did you expect? Some kind of space rocket with Batman at the controls?
* DependingOnTheWriter: Robert Sloman wrote him as a WarriorPoet in a very obviously Buddhist mould.
* DistressedDude: Let's face it, the Third Doctor is the KING of this trope.
* EmbarrassingTattoo: Embarrassing for the BBC, that is. The Third Doctor has a dragon tattoo on his arm that can be seen quite plainly during the events of "[[{{Recap/DoctorWhoS7E1SpearheadFromSpace}} Spearhead from Space]]." This is actually a tattoo from actor Creator/JonPertwee's navy days, when he got really really drunk and woke up the next day with the tattoo on his arm while in port. And no, he wasn't ashamed of it. The producers HandWave this by claiming the Doctor never had a tattoo and we're all seeing things. Much later, though, Eleven notes that tattoos are fairly common for Time Lords, and Eight boasts about having one in the novels.
** Part of the [[Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] claims it's a prison tattoo, which he bears during his exile to Earth. Another Time Lord, [[Literature/FactionParadox Grandfather Paradox]], ended up with the dragon tattoo put on ''his'' arm by the Time Lords when he was branded a criminal; unlike the Doctor, Paradox cut the arm off.
* ExpandedUniverse: Notably the oldest Doctor to appear in a fan-made video spinoff: "Devious." However, the thing has inexplicably been in DevelopmentHell ''since 1995'', and was at one point used for audio bits in the Creator/BigFinish story ''Zagreus'' just to get it out there in some way.
* {{Expy}}: Jason King (that ''hair!'') crossed with [[Series/AdamAdamantLives Adam Adamant]] (that ''cape!''), with a slice of [[Series/TheAvengers John Steed]] for good measure. Or you can boil it down to what every show took inspiration from at the time: '''Franchise/JamesBond'''.
** Going from that, you could also argue that this Doctor was also a slight {{expy}} of [[Creator/JonPertwee Jon Pertwee]] himself, as Pertwee was [[http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/tv-radio/379986/Jon-Pertwee-From-secret-agent-in-WWII-to-Dr-Who apparently one of the three men who inspired James Bond]]. The others were, supposedly, Creator/IanFleming himself and Creator/ChristopherLee. Good company.
* FaceDeathWithDignity
* FamousLastWords: "A tear, Sarah Jane? No, don’t cry. While there’s life, there’s..."
* FascinatingEyebrow: He ''hates'' this regeneration at first -- realising just how expressive his new eyebrows are eventually warms him up a bit to his new face. (And it means he can very easily speak Delphon, the language of comical eyebrow wiggling.)
* FishOutOfWater: The Doctor is looking more "alien" in this era of the TV series (two hearts, a dumb alias, magic gizmos). Part of it is being plucked out of a fantastic environment wherein his human qualities were more dominant.
* {{Foil}}: Three is professional and no-nonsense, much unlike Two.
* GentlemanAndAScholar: What this Doctor becomes once his exile is lifted: the friendliest and most polite of the incarnations.
* GentlemanSnarker: The most gentlemanly Doctor so far.
* GildedCage: Being stuck on pre-space exploration Earth is bad enough. Worse is being SurroundedByIdiots, as the Doctor viewed UNIT as a whole.
* GoodIsNotNice: During his first two seasons he would be incredibly rude to people for no good reason, then become the picture of politeness soon thereafter. He got more polite when his exile was lifted. Apparently, a Time Lord finally able to fly his TARDIS again after years in exile is guaranteed to improve his manner.
* GoodOldFisticuffs: This old fella may have some snow on the roof, but there's fire in the chimney. He boxes by Queensbury rules, having taken lessons from the great John L. Sullivan himself. ("[[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E2CarnivalOfMonsters Carnival of Monsters]]")
* HarmlessLadyDisguise: Used once.
* HeroicBSOD: A rarity for this Doctor, but he was actually ''sent into a coma'' during the events of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E4Inferno Inferno]]" from what he experienced. Then again, he had just seen an alternate world filled with familiar faces and redeemable people [[DownerEnding utterly destroyed by lava and proto-human zombies]]. This state lasted for almost an entire episode.
** It can also be argued that the events of "Inferno" wound up giving the Doctor a WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes level of attitude towards the world going up in fire and destruction, as we see in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E2TheMindOfEvil The Mind of Evil]]."
* IAmSong: That's right, Jon Pertwee (singing ''as the Third Doctor'') wound up recording a song that rivals most villain songs for just being pure awesome. Just ''try'' not to jam out to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7tKAi-lDhM I am... The Doctor!]]
* IconicItem: Bessie and the Whomobile. This Doctor loved his gadgets and cars. He's also the first Doctor to make extensive use of the [[MagicTool sonic screwdriver]].
* IChooseToStay: After spending a good chunk of his tenure trying to fix the TARDIS so he can escape UNIT, once it's actually fixed he chooses to stay and continue the fight against alien invaders against Earth. His successor however did not share the sentiment and left as soon as possible.
* IHatePastMe: He and Two really rubbed each other raw. Three is embarrassed by his past self for [[ObfuscatingStupidity playing the buffoon]] and his disheveled look, while Two seems to think his future-self is over-dressed and anal-retentive.
* [[IKnowKarate I Know Venusian Aikido]]: ''Hai!''
* IMeantToDoThat: There's something very blasé about his announcing that he has gotten the TARDIS working again that suggests it's bluster covering up for the fact that the Time Lords are still pulling his strings. ("[[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E4TheMonsterOfPeladon The Monster of Peladon]]")
* InsufferableGenius: He was smarter than all of UNIT put together, and would frequently make this obvious, even belittling the slowness of others when he was feeling particularly JerkAss. However, most of UNIT put up with it because he really was that brilliant. However, Liz Shaw, his first companion in this incarnation and a skilled scientist herself, eventually had enough and walked, arranging Jo Grant to replace her with the indirect comment that all the Doctor needed was "Someone to pass you your test tubes, and to tell you how brilliant you are." As noted above, he is far easier to get along with once his exile is lifted.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He can be pompous, arrogant, rude, patronising and stubborn, but he's still a good guy and genuinely cares about his companions, however much he may insult them.
* MasterSwordsman: Not shocking for this action hero, quite frankly, but the Doctor is able to out-fight the Master in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E3TheSeaDevils The Sea Devils]]" in a fencing duel. [[WithMyHandsTied He then eats a sandwich while holding the Master at swordpoint]]. [[UpToEleven A sandwich that happened]] [[CrowningMomentOfFunny to be the Master's lunch]]. And ''then'' he throws the Master back his sword so they can have some more fun. According to the Twelfth Doctor, he learned from the best: Richard the Lionheart, Hannibal Barca and... Creator/ErrolFlynn.
* MilitaryMaverick: There is a bitter quality to the Third Doctor as he clearly needs the protection and technology that UNIT provides. On the other hand, the Doctor finds himself trying to pull mankind up to his own level and failing, such as in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E2DoctorWhoAndTheSilurians The Silurians]]". Trivia: The ending to this episode would be recycled for "[[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion The Christmas Invasion]]", cementing that the Doctor will ''never'' see eye-to-eye with UNIT.
* MrSmith: "Smith. Doctor John Smith."
* NervesOfSteel: Very few things scared him. When something does, it's a matter of OOCIsSeriousBusiness.
-->'''The Great One:''' Is that fear I can feel in your mind? You are not accustomed to feeling frightened, are you Doctor? You are very wise to be afraid of me!
* OnlySaneMan: Well, ''this'' is certainly a new experience to the Doctor. Part of the charm of the UNIT era is its B-movie craziness despite being set in the "real" world of the 1970s, and the neutered Doctor's barely-masked frustration at all of the incompetence around him.
* PowerLossMakesYouStrong: A madman ''without'' a box is just a madman. A Time Lord ''without'' knowledge of time is just someone calling himself a lord. No wonder he's so irritable.
** The Second Doctor was more than willing to kill the Ice Warriors on their first appearance. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E2TheCurseOfPeladon The Curse of Peladon]]", the Ice Warriors surprise him by turning face, proving that even monsters, at least in some cases, are just people who haven't achieved their full historical development yet. So in that sense, being exiled to Earth was an education for him.
* PrideBeforeAFall: Three's entire arc. Best remembered for his flamboyant confidence, he nicks the wrong crystal in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E5TheGreenDeath The Green Death]]" and is killed by spiders who are still seeking it a year later. Adding insult to injury, The Great One uses her psychic powers to make him [[PlayingWithPuppets dance like a toy]].
* QuintessentialBritishGentleman: With a lot of "dear old chap", "my good fellow" and "topping day, what?". Also a case of AuthorAppeal, as he intentionally evoked the atmosphere from that ''other'' famous Creator/SydneyNewman show, ''Series/TheAvengers''. However, GoodIsNotNice.
* SharpDressedMan: Starts out in a black velvet cape in his first story, and soon adds velvet jackets, sleeve ruffles, ascots, leather gloves, giant rings, bowties, waistcoats and the occasional knee-high boots. (The signature giant plaid mantle overcoat, however, is still a perpetual fashion disaster.)
* ShowerScene: Gets a long shower scene right off the bat in his first episode, then spends some time walking around in just a towel.
* SilverFox: Handsome for his age.
* SpeechImpediment: Had a lisp.
* TapOnTheHead: The neck-pinching variant.
* TookALevelInKindness: Once he regained his usual level of control of his [=TARDIS=], the Doctor quickly mellows into quite a gentleman.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The UNIT years are vaguely set somewhat in a "near future", which could be anywhere from the [=1960s=] to the [=1980s=]. The Brigadier's daughter lampshaded this continuity (or lack thereof) in "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor The Day of the Doctor]]" when she requested an archive file.
* VerbalTic: A man will know that the Third Doctor likes him when he is addressed as "m'dear chap".
* VitriolicBestBuds: With TheBrigadier and Mike Yates.
* WaistcoatOfStyle: Wore them frequently.
* WatchThePaintJob: You have to admire the vanity of a man who stops Lethbridge-Stewart from shooting at a bad guy because it might ding his car.
* WhatHaveWeEar: Sometimes did this sort of magic trick for fun, and also to distract his jailer in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E4TheMonsterOfPeladon The Monster of Peladon]]", except in this case, the coin came out of his own mouth.
* WigDressAccent: Does a passable impression of a Welsh milkman and, a few minutes later, a Welsh cleaning lady.
* WithMyHandsTied: He's as equally good at breaking free and escaping from capture as he is being captured.
* YouGetMeCoffee: His partnerships with Jo and Sarah Jane had a rocky start.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fourth Doctor]]
!!Fourth Doctor
[[quoteright:311:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dw_-_fourth_doctor_1_2632.jpg]]

->'''Debut:''' "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E1Robot Robot]]"

->'''Played by:''' Creator/TomBaker (1974–81, 1993, 1997)

-->''"You may be '''a''' doctor, but I'm '''the''' Doctor. The definite article, you might say."''

The [[TheDrifter idiot abroad]], an aggravating cross between Sherlock Holmes and the Mad Hatter. Somewhat crazy-eyed, famous for a stupidly-long scarf, and very alien. In reaction to his long exile as the Third Doctor, the Fourth Doctor is defined by his strong wanderlust and a deep-seated resentment toward authority figures--particularly UNIT and his fellow Time Lords. Naturally, this resulted in Four's leash being yanked by ''every authority figure in the known universe'', including the show's embodiment of {{God}}.

The longest-serving Doctor to date (at least in real-world time) and probably the best known of all his incarnations. If you don't know who Tom Baker is, close your eyes and think of ''Doctor Who''. That's him. (Or possibly Creator/DavidTennant -- see [[Characters/DoctorWhoRevivalSeriesDoctorsNineAndTen the Tenth Doctor page]]. If he's wearing a long scarf, it's definitely Four.) Joined the cast of Creator/BigFinish a good decade after the others: for his Creator/BigFinish tropes, see [[Characters/BigFinishDoctorWhoDoctors here]].
----
* AccentUponTheWrongSyllable: He tended to draw out his vowels a fair bit.
* ActionHero: In his earlier adventures, Four would have little problem leaping into action, such as in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E3TheSontaranExperiment The Sontaran Experiment]]," but nearly all of his later adventures feature the Doctor more willing to give the monster-of-the-week a jelly baby than engage in fisticuffs. Keeping in mind that he was in the role for seven years, going from being forty to almost fifty during this time, this gradual slowing down does begin to make a bit more sense.
** The fact that Tom Baker also slipped and cracked his collarbone during the location filming for "The Sontaran Experiment" had something to do with it as well; for several weeks afterwards, Baker ''couldn't'' leap into those kinds of action sequences, so they either had find ways to stage those scenes with a stunt double without making it painfully obvious it ''was'' a stunt double, or the writers had to find a way to avoid action-hero scenes.
* {{Adorkable}}: He could act really cute.
* AttentionDeficitOohShiny: Much more so than even Eight and Eleven. All he has to do is ''think'' and he's completely zoned out of reality.
* BadassAdorable: He possessed great big eyes, huge amounts of childlike wonderment and behaviour, oversized clothes even though he was enormous and a dog he would treat like a puppy. For instance, on one occasion he wanted to go around modern-day Earth Cosplaying a historically-questionable Viking and is gutted when told it is inappropriate, acting just like a little kid told to take off his costume before he can go outside.
** When Tom Baker was asked to sum up his Doctor in one word, he said, "Adorable".
* BadassBaritone: Has the deepest and manliest voice of any Doctor.
* BadassLongcoat: In several colours.
* BadNewsInAGoodWay: (excitedly) "Gentlemen, I have news! This lighthouse is under attack and by morning we may all be dead!" (toothy grin)
* BewareTheNiceOnes: The friendly and childlike Fourth Doctor is also the Doctor who took part in the longest and most brutal fight in the show's history, when he spent an episode and a half playing cat-and-mouse with his opponent in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin The Deadly Assassin]]."
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E4GenesisOfTheDaleks Genesis of the Daleks]]" he threatened to shut off Davros' life support system to coerce him into destroying the Daleks, and he '''meant''' ''every word'' of it.
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS16E2ThePiratePlanet The Pirate Planet]]" is notable for featuring the Fourth exploding into a rage far more violently than he ever had before or after, and perhaps even more so than any other Doctor. If you manage to even piss Four off, you're ''seriously'' screwed.
** While he told Leela "No more Janus thorns, ever!" in their first adventure, at other times he seemed to be much more sanguine about Leela killing random attackers, as long as she kept quiet about it.
* BewareTheSillyOnes: On a few occasions, it's even acknowledged he is ObfuscatingStupidity. ("[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E2CityOfDeath City of Death]]")
-->'''Countess''': I don't think he's as stupid as he seems.\\
'''Count''': My dear, ''nobody'' could be as stupid as ''he'' seems.\\
''(The Doctor flashes a manic wide-eyed grin at them both)''
* BigEntrance: Loved to ensure that all eyes were on him when he entered a room. Especially in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E1HorrorOfFangRock Horror of Fang Rock]]": since the lighthouse was cramped and the camera had to be very static, Creator/TomBaker insisted on entering each room with a flourish to make up for it.
* TheBigGuy: At 6'3", matching Three's height in a rare case where incarnations don't get taller or shorter after regeneration, he also towers over almost everyone he meets, but is less likely to physically hit someone than he is to offer them a Jelly Baby, whip out a cunning plan, or troll a foe into submission.
* BlingOfWar: As part of his coronation as Lord President in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E6TheInvasionOfTime The Invasion of Time]]", the Fourth Doctor adorned himself with the giant gold Sash of Rassilon and its accompanying scepter.
* BourgeoisBohemian[=/=]CulturedBadass: Four may fool you into thinking he's just a cosmic hobo... until he fashions a concert flute out of a piece of reed in minutes, and sits down to play the Badinerie, Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor by J.S. Bach.
* BrilliantButLazy: Loves to put up his feet, draw his hat over his eyes and doze off -- especially while UNIT is talking to him. His old teacher at the Academy, Borusa, remembers him as being his most out-of-control student; the adult Doctor is unrepentant.
* CatchPhrase: "Would you like a jelly baby?"
* CharacterTics:
** He almost constantly [[EyePop boggles his eyes out]] and [[CreepyBlueEyes stares at things unsettlingly]]. You will rarely see him blink on screen, even if you're looking for it. His eyes [[MadEye don't quite point in the same direction]], especially when he's panicking, surprised or in a loopy mood.
** His [[CheshireCatGrin grin]] is a thing of pure horror and deployed generously. (Creator/ChristopherEccleston borrowed a dead-eyed, HurtingHero version of it for his Doctor.)
** He tends to run his hand through his hair when he's about to concentrate on something. (Creator/DavidTennant borrowed this for his Doctor too.) Occasionally fiddles with it if he's in a happy mood - see Creator/PeterDavison's impression of this, despite less hair, in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E1Castrovalva Castrovalva]]" for a really funny moment.
** Saying "What!" whenever he heard something he didn't like.
** Cocking his head and going "Ah, ''well''..." whenever he was about to deliver {{technobabble}}. (David Tennant deliberately invoked that last one with his Doctor too.)
** Cheeky little hand-waves.
** A lot of his gestures call attention to his unusually big and awkward-looking nose - tapping or pushing on the side for 'on the nose' or 'it's a secret', prodding it, pinching the bridge or the tip in frustration, stroking it in thought.... even the very few times he's being flirty he tends to do so by delicately touching his nose.
** He would often step on his scarf [[ThrowItIn by accident]], which always makes him cross.
** When entering a corridor or entering a room, he always [[BigEntrance strikes a pose, rushes in flapping all over the place or enters in some other weird way]], with Tom Baker's aim being to 'never enter a room the same way twice'. This supposedly started from frustration with the lack of camera angle and lighting variation possible in most of the cheap sets Creator/heBBC used and the stereotypical ''Doctor Who'' fascination with [[{{Padding}} substituting action]] with running down [[RecycledSet identical corridors]], and so becomes very obvious in the more claustrophobic and corridor-based serials, like "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E1HorrorOfFangRock Horror of Fang Rock]]". Since the Fourth Doctor is a massive AttentionWhore and [[LargeHam a ham to end all hams]], it works really well.
** He ''never'' looks at his hands when going for his pockets, so whenever he does he flails his hands around in a rather comical fashion before finding them.
** He [[OralFixation really likes having things in his mouth]]. Whenever he's fixing, making or sabotaging some sort of device, he will inevitably put one of the tools or parts into his mouth to hold it while he works on it with his hands, even if it'd make more sense for him to just put the item down. If nothing's available he tends to chew on his thumbnail. (This is deliberately alluded to in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E1DeepBreath Deep Breath]]" when the post-regenerative-traumatised Twelve bites his thumb while contemplating how much he needs a really long scarf.) He also has a habit of licking his lips whenever he's excited.
** If there is a chair he has a habit where he will begin to sit on it, and then has a sudden flash of insight just before touching the seat and stands back up again. Particularly hilarious in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E6TheSeedsOfDoom The Seeds of Doom]]" where he actually brings a chair over from another room just to do this to it.
** If he's sitting down he tends to put his legs up on anything he can. Note particularly when he props his legs up on the top of Bessie's windscreen in his first story - something the Third Doctor would find unthinkable.
** Remember Sarah Jane's line in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E3SchoolReunion School Reunion]]" about the Doctor 'stroking' the TARDIS? This is the Doctor she was talking about. Note particularly the funny way the Sutekh-Doctor caresses the door switch open in the last part of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E3PyramidsOfMars Pyramids of Mars]]".
* CheshireCatGrin: Creator/TomBaker has far too many teeth.
* ClassyCravat: Sports one on occasion, though it can be difficult to see under all that scarf.
* ClimbingClimax: This Doctor was defeated while trying to overpower the Master inside a radio telescope. It was up to the Fifth Doctor to finish the job.
* CloudCuckooLander: Possibly loopier than all other Doctors ''combined.'' If you ever need evidence for why this Doctor was the weirdest, fire up the scene "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E6TheSeedsOfDoom The Seeds of Doom]]" when he barges into Sir Colin’s office. He walks around with a chair on his head, puts it down, goes to sit on it, doesn’t bother, soliloquizes on the nature of greed, throws a fit, accuses them of having a security leak whilst staring the guilty party right in the face, insults Sir Colin and orders a car! As written it is functional; but as read by Tom Baker, it is utterly barmy.
** Eventually learns to weaponise this, combined with his Time Lord Academy training: his learned resistance to mind-reading and his inherent loopiness make him able to mask his thoughts better than any other Time Lord.
* CompensatingForSomething: According to Romana.
* CreepyBlueEyes: Creator/TomBaker's thyroidism is used to full effect. Also, Four rarely blinks.
* CutenessProximity: With K-9, whom he insisted on treating like a real puppy.
* DeadManWalking: Four knew he was toast when he spotted the Watcher [[NothingIsScarier patiently standing by]]. This may overlap with Future Me Scares Me, depending on your interpretation of the Watcher.
* DependingOnTheWriter:
** Creator/StevenMoffat once criticised Tom Baker for this, saying his performance was 'thunderously effective' but he 'completely reinterpreted his character to fit that week's script', saying it's impossible to tell that the Doctor in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E6TheSeedsOfDoom The Seeds of Doom]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E2CityOfDeath City of Death]]" are supposed to be the same person. Moffat since disowned this criticism, but there is a grain of truth in it, especially early on: In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E1Robot Robot]]", he's a genuinely funny and goofy CloudCuckooLander who doesn't care that much about anything, even Sarah; in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E2TheArkInSpace The Ark in Space]]", he's a fearsome and aloof ByronicHero and very openly fond of Sarah; in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E3TheSontaranExperiment The Sontaran Experiment]]" he's all ObfuscatingStupidity and foul temper; in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E4GenesisOfTheDaleks Genesis of the Daleks]]" he's all wisdom and righteousness and the potential for DirtyBusiness. "The Seeds of Doom" makes him a cold and violent TuxedoAndMartini {{Expy}}, "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" makes him into a bohemian and methodical Literature/SherlockHolmes {{Expy}}, in "City of Death" he's somewhere between [[Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox]] and [[Literature/DirkGentlysHolisticDetectiveAgency Dirk Gently]] and in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E5WarriorsGate Warriors' Gate]]" he's a WizardClassic. There are times in his tenure where he's an InvincibleHero who loves everyone and never ever shows any vulnerability, and times when he's a brooding and fallible Anti-Hero who genuinely struggles with his fear of the monsters, and sometimes swings into the opposite between stories. Tom Baker's performance holds the whole thing together, though arguably less from skill (his skill is in being able to pull off all those different personalities in the first place) and more from sheer force of personality.
** Creator/ChrisBoucher wrote him as a passionate atheist who has OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions. He's a lot more respectful of other religions in other scripts
* DissonantSerenity: All the time.
--> '''The Doctor:''' [very happily] Gentlemen, I've got news for you. This lighthouse is under attack and by morning we might all be dead!
* DistressedDude: Seriously, HOW MANY times has this Doctor been captured, kidnapped, tied up, locked up, drugged, knocked out, imprisoned, tortured, etc.? Sometimes it happens to him more often than his own companions! The Fourth Doctor is just as bad as the Third.
* DuckSeasonRabbitSeason: Thanks to his NervesOfSteel and constant DissonantSerenity, when someone's trying to brand the Doctor's face with a red-hot iron and counting down from ten, Four helpfully joins in the countdown -- confusing his captor and making him lose track.
* DudeWheresMyRespect: Borusa admits that the Time Lords owe him a debt of gratitude and literally [[GettingTheBoot shoves him out the door.]]
* EinsteinHair: A lot of it.
* ExpandedUniverse: Creator/TomBaker was the first Doctor to ever record audio stories (starting with "Doctor Who and the Pescatons," and all the way up to his current Creator/BigFinish audios). He and Lalla Ward (Romana) also appeared, in-character, in a series of ads for Prime computers (which drew on their RomanceOnTheSet, showing a very odd glimpse of the Doctor and Romana being lovey-dovey) and a New Zealand retirement planning company (as an aged version of the Fourth Doctor, which is now HeartwarmingInHindsight).
* FaceFullOfAlienWingWong: In one rather bizarre example, his brain became the nest of a pregnant space shrimp in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E2TheInvisibleEnemy The Invisible Enemy]]".
* FamousLastWords
--> "It's the end... but the moment has been prepared for."
* FantasticVoyagePlot: In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E2TheInvisibleEnemy The Invisible Enemy]]", he has himself and Leela cloned and shrunk down so he can be injected into his own brain, fight the pregnant monster that's nesting inside it, make sure Leela's clone dies inside his head, and then absorb her corpse into his bloodstream to gain her natural immunity to the thing!
* FedoraOfAsskicking: Although not worn as often as his scarf. Gets shot at a few times.
* {{Foil}}: Foregoes any and all authority (and all seriousness) in response to having been forced into following it in his previous incarnation.
* GeniusBruiser: Prefers of course to use his considerable intelligence, but of all the Doctors, he's the most capable in the simple art of fisticuffs. His [[TheBigGuy stature]] probably has something to do with it.
* GeniusSweetTooth: TropeCodifier for the Doctor's fondness for jelly babies (after Two had them first).
* AGodAmI: He temporarily gains Guardian-level powers over time itself, through a nearly completed Key To Time and a bit of MacGyvering.
** AGodIAmNot: He is, after all, a vagabond at heart, with no interest in toys such as the Key to Time, or the Staff of Rassilon. That's not to say he doesn't enjoy trolling people with them, as seen in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS16E6TheArmageddonFactor The Armageddon Factor]]".
--->'''Doctor:''' (mimics ProphetEyes) [[AC:As from this moment, there's no such thing as free will in the entire universe. There's only MY will. [[DrunkWithPower Because I possess the KEY TO TIME]].]]\\
'''Romana''': Doctor, are you all right?\\
'''Doctor''': (snaps out of it) Well of ''course'' I'm all right. But supposing I wasn't all right?
* GoOutWithASmile
* HeroesLoveDogs: He adores K-9, and takes great offense at others for calling him a "machine."
* HeroicSacrifice: Plummeted off a satellite tower after saving most of the universe from The Master.
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Famously struggled with this in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E4GenesisOfTheDaleks Genesis of the Daleks]]."
* HotbloodedSideburns: To go with his massive hair.
* HypnoticEyes: Much like the Master, although he only uses it occasionally, and is the only incarnation of the Doctor to do so.
* HypocriticalHumor: Tends to indulge in this both consciously and unconsciously.
* IWasQuiteAFashionVictim: A few Doctors have since made reference to the scarf, dismissing it as an unfortunate garment choice.
** Seven tried on the burgundy Fourth Doctor ensemble, only to declare it "[[{{Pun}} old hat]]" and toss it away.
** An amnesiac Eight found a scarf in a hospital locker, but decided against taking it.
** A frigid Twelfth Doctor was overheard pining for a nice, long scarf, then rethought it.
----> "No, move on from that. Looks stupid."
* IconicItem:
** The scarf. Always the scarf. And jelly babies.
** To a lesser extent, his [[NiceHat Nice Fedora]] plays a part, especially when combined with his iconic curly hair.
* IconicSequelCharacter: For years, he was the most recognizable Doctor in terms of public consciousness. It wasn't until David Tennant that a real threat to this status came along.
* IdenticalGrandson: Of a sort. A retired incarnation of the Doctor, now peacefully pottering around the National Gallery, is wearing the Fourth Doctor's face for nostalgia's sake. ("[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor The Day of the Doctor]]")
* InvincibleHero: By Season 15, the Doctor has morphed into Advertising/TheMostInterestingManInTheWorld. ''He tried being frightened once -- just to see what it was like.'' Season 18 dampened this effect somewhat, what with blood-sucking astronauts, a "mad cactus" framing him for murder, and of course the Master 2.0. Although the Fourth Doctor tried to remain unflappable, he was put into situations that were impressively tough.
* ItsAllAboutMe: Wastes no opportunity in letting the world know how brilliant, marvellous, wonderful and all around amazing he is. Four genuinely considers himself the greatest genius he's ever met, and acts entirely superior to everyone around him. Some of his companions put up with it. Romana, who had much better grades than him at the Academy, doesn't.
* KangarooCourt: The Master wanted the Doctor to die in ignominy and disgrace-- ''that's'' how much he hates him. Chancellor Goth hopes to win the Presidency and pin his predecessor's murder on the Doctor.
* LargeHam: Even his ''eyes'' are hammy.
* LiteralistSnarking: Frequently.
* LiteralMinded:
--> '''Scorby:''' Get your hands up. Turn around, Doctor.\\
(The Doctor does a full 360 turn.)\\
'''Scorby:''' Facing ''this way.''\\
'''The Doctor:''' Have we annoyed you or something?\\
'''Scorby:''' Shut up. Okay, start talking.\\
'''The Doctor:''' Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had perfect pitch--
-->'''Scorby:''' What happened to him?
-->'''The Doctor:''' Who, Wolfgang Amadeus? (looks at the corpse next to him) ...Oh, ''him''! [[CaptainObvious He died]].
* ManChild: Willing to go anywhere, do ''anything'' to avoid taking orders again.
* MessyHair
* MurderTropes: Four was more willing than most regenerations to commit murder, and didn't mind turning a blind eye to Leela's killings. At one point, he murders a villain by filling the room with deadly chemicals; later on, he kills a guy by strapping a bomb to his chest and merrily laughing when he blows up (though the man in question was an immoral monster who had it coming). "Genesis of the Daleks" has the Doctor trying to decide whether or not he has the right to commit genocide; he only refuses once he realizes more planets have united hands in peace ''because'' of the Dalek threat. (Also, [[NotSoDifferent spending a few minutes]] with Davros clearly rattled him.)
* MyGreatestFailure: His refusal to wipe out the Daleks from existence in "Genesis of the Daleks" has long lasting consequences for his future incarnations since he inadverently fired the first shot of the Last Great Time War by meddling with the Daleks' creation.
* NervesOfSteel: Has a habit of striking up casual conversation with whatever's trying to kill him. At one point, he greets someone who's strangling him with a very friendly "oh, hello!".
* NiceGuy: If you could get past his weirdness, Four was a very sweet and kind-natured Doctor.
* NoIndoorVoice: Usually very hammy.
* NoMisterBondIExpectYouToDine: Conquerors keep making the mistake of thinking the Doctor will be impressed with their exploits, preferably over red wine.
* NoSocialSkills: He doesn't care at all for social conventions, and at times seems genuinely oblivious to them.
* NotSoAboveItAll: Occasionally his temper got the better of him: In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E4TheSunMakers The SunMakers]]", the Collector is happy to spill the beans about his exploitation of Pluto and how he taxed its inhabitants into indentured servitude. In the middle of wheedling the Collector with flattery, the Doctor turns around and declares him a bloodsucking leech. For more, see "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E3FullCircle Full Circle]]", which features one of the Doctor's all-time greatest freakouts. He also found it impossible to break bread with the Tharils in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E5WarriorsGate Warriors' Gate]]", overturning his goblet and disrupting the banquet they throw for him.
* ObfuscatingInsanity: Frequently.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: All the time.
* OurPresidentsAreDifferent: Through a twist of fate in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin The Deadly Assassin]]", he finds himself elected President of Gallifrey -- and when he returns to the planet to take up the position in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E6TheInvasionOfTime The Invasion of Time]]", he promptly turns into a PresidentEvil. Actually, it's part of TheInfiltration to fool some Sontaran marauders; he clearly had fun tormenting his subordinates, though (his Emperor Nero moment with the jelly babies being a highlight).
* PimpDuds: In contrast to his previous incarnation, this Doctor dressed to be invisible (well, more or less -- people tend to notice twelve-foot long multicoloured stripe scarves). In later life, however, he returned to wearing red velvet again. His floppy fedora got swapped for a maroon zoot hat with bright red trim.
* QuirkyCurls: ''Lots'' of them.
* RailRoading: Constantly railroaded, most frequently by the Time Lords, and sometimes by other factions. He ''hates'' it.
* RaygunGothic: The secondary TARDIS console room he decides to use instead of the main one for a while -- it first appears in "The Masque of Mandragora," near the end of his run with Sarah Jane, and goes on to be used for many of his adventures with Leela.
* RebelliousSpirit: Moreso than any other Doctor, he chafes at following orders, whether they be from his fellow Time Lords or the [[BigGood White Guardian]]. His first instinct at being in any kind of office is to [[RebelRelaxation put his feet on someone's desk]].
* RefugeInAudacity: Rather than face the indignity of hearing the judgement during his mockery of a trial, the Doctor puts himself up as a candidate for the Presidency, an act so barking mad that nobody bothers to question why this loon slipped through the net in the first place. ("The Deadly Assassin")
* RummageSaleReject: Believe it or not, he's actually dressed in a dashing Creator/{{Oscar Wilde}}an outfit, with a poet shirt, classy trousers, riding boots and a crimson ascot (see "The Deadly Assassin"). It's just hidden underneath a collection of tacky vests, a giant coat and several layers of scarf. It comes as no surprise that Tom Baker hit several goodwill stores when first putting together his costume.
* ScarfOfAsskicking: Several iconic ones.
* ShipTease: With both incarnations of Romana. He had a KissingDiscretionShot (and a lot of innuendo) with the first in a Christmas sketch. Creator/TomBaker married the second one.
* ShoutOut: His hat and scarf were inspired by Toulouse-Lautrec's famous posters of the French singer and comedian Aristide Bruant.
* SmartPeoplePlayChess: In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang The Talons of Weng-Chiang]]", Magnus Greel and Four casually shuffle around chess pieces while Greel delivers his evil speech. Four wins, of course.
* StealthInsult: He is very fond of using these on villains, usually mixing them into the middle of his usual erratic chatter.
* SwordFight: Got into a rather magnificent and very long fencing duel at the climax of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS16E4TheAndroidsOfTara The Androids of Tara]]". He keeps the scarf on.
* TalkativeLoon: All the time.
* TorturePorn: "The Deadly Assassin" starts with him being subjected to an AgonyBeam and proceeds to take it UpToEleven. By the end of the adventure, he's lost half his wardrobe (and ripped the other half), he's bleeding heavily from several places, and he nearly drowns during a gratuitous mud wrestling/strangling match in a pond (and boy did all this cheese off MoralGuardians at the time).
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Jelly Babies, of course. Ginger beer was his favorite drink, but it didn't come up nearly as often.
* TricksterMentor: To Leela. He very much enjoyed intimidating her, placing her in FishOutOfWater situations and playfully calling her "Savage" (as well as other nicknames like "Mouse").
* TropeCodifier: 99% of [[WorldBuilding what's known about]] Time Lord Society comes from this Doctor's era. Being by far the longest-serving Doctor, Four also codified much of the Doctor's character, and the series as a whole. He's often considered one of the best Doctors, if not the best. Since his tenure lasted seven whole years, he's -- statistically -- the Doctor most longtime fans of the show grew up watching.
* TryToFitThatOnABusinessCard: President of the Supreme Council of Gallifrey and All Her Dominions, Holder of the Wisdom of Rassilon, Preserver of the Matrix, Guardian of the Legacy of Omega.
* UnwittingPawn: The Master coerces him into an alliance in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E6Logopolis Logopolis]]". If the whole universe disintegrates, there will never be a galaxy to rule, right? Not so fast: The Master plans to bargain the healing technobabble for the unquestioned allegiance of the universe's inhabitants.
-->'''Doctor:''' Blackmail.\\
'''Master:''' No, Doctor, I'm [[DistinctionWithoutADifference merely reporting the state of affairs.]]
* VerbalTic: He says "weeeeell", "I say", generally extends low vooooowels whenever he can get away with it, and has a habit of drawing out the last syllable at the end of his sentence''eeeeees''. He also overpronounces the name of his home planet, 'Gallifrey', pronouncing it much closer to "Gallifree". Also, as his general speech is usually rather on the loud side, when he wants to emphasise something he instead drops into a slightly alarming [[StageWhisper loud whispering tone]].
* VitriolicBestBuds: Dives headfirst into this trope with the first Romana, who's sent over to become his assistant without him asking for it.
-->'''Romana:''' My name is Romanadvoratrelundar.\\
'''The Doctor:''' ...I'm so sorry about that. Is there anything we can do?
* TheWorfEffect: All it takes is nerve-pinching the Fourth Doctor into oblivion, and he's down for the count. Amusingly, this is the exact opposite of Venusian akido.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fifth Doctor]]
!!Fifth Doctor
[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dw_-_fifth_doctor_2707.jpg]]

->'''Debut:''' "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E1Castrovalva Castrovalva]]"

->'''Played by:''' Creator/PeterDavison (1981–84, 1993, 1997, 2007)

-->''"Oh, marvelous. You're going to kill me. What a finely tuned response to the situation."''

The put-upon [[TheEdwardianEra Edwardian]] cricketer. Blessed with a "pleasant open face" (™Terrence Dicks), the Fifth Doctor lived his life according to the British tradition of fair play. A borderline GlurgeAddict, determined to make the best of bad situations, his episodes gained the air of a field trip gone horrifically wrong. Ironically enough for this gentle and pacifist Doctor, his stories tended to have [[KillEmAll high body counts]].

This Doctor behaved a bit like an older brother towards his companions--or perhaps an exasperated TeamDad whenever things would inevitably go haywire. His was notable for ''Doctor Who'' becoming more of an ensemble show, with up to four companions traveling with him at once. His son-in-law David Tennant cited him as his inspiration for playing the Doctor.

Though young when he was first cast (29, the youngest Doctor ever until Creator/MattSmith), Davison was already a well-known actor, having played in ''Series/AllCreaturesGreatAndSmall''. The first classic Doctor to show up in the new series. For his Creator/BigFinish character tropes, see [[Characters/BigFinishDoctorWhoDoctors here]].
----
* ActionSurvivor: By comparison with the other Doctors, anyway. If it's a "Base Under Siege" story, just sit back and wait for the Doctor to be tackled to the floor by dour military men. You can set your watch by it!
* {{Adorkable}}: Especially just after his regeneration, when he first tries on his cricketer's outfit and mimes with a cricket bat.
* AdventurerOutfit: This Doctor wears a roll-up Panama hat as though on safari. Sometimes seen wringing the hat with his hands when things aren't going well.
* AwesomeAnachronisticApparel: 1910s cricket gear... and sneakers.
* BadassLongcoat: A beige one.
* BatmanGrabsAGun: Five isn't averse to guns to begin with, and he unloads torrents of bullets/charges on Cybermen, Daleks and Omega alike, but he has a proper BatmanGrabsAGun moment when he decides to murder Davros. (He fails, [[JokerImmunity of course]].)
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Looking at the Fifth Doctor, you wouldn't suspect it, would you? Well, the Fifth is also the Doctor who straight-up murdered a Cyberman, then [[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E6Earthshock shot it in the chest with its own gun. Repeatedly.]] He also shot Omega, and he's the one who stood there and ''watched'' the Master burn to death. To his credit, this Doctor quickly grew a spine once he realized the universe was no longer playing by the rules.
* BigBrotherInstinct: As the showrunners were firmly against any "hanky-panky in the TARDIS", Five never took notice of Nyssa/Tegan's wardrobe changes or hair, much to their frustration. That being said, he could be counted on to put the safety of his companions above his own.
* BishieSparkle: In his opening sequence.
* BitterSweetEnding: His regeneration. He ended up regenerating just fine, but the last thing he ever thought of was the Master telling him to die and laughing at him.
* BornUnlucky: Want to know how unlucky Five was? Everything that happens in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani The Caves of Androzani]]" is thanks to his companion tripping and ''[[TheLoad falling down a hole.]]''
* BreakTheCutie: Starts out broken due to the worst post-regeneration effects before or since that nearly drives him mad, with The Master trying to help him down the road. He gets better, but due to events during his run, he's emotionally beat down to the point where he's not sure if he has the will to regenerate; it's only through remembering his companions and the satisfaction his death would give The Master that he gets through it.
* CaptainObvious: Frequently with a healthy dose of snark.
* CatchPhrase: "Brave heart, (insert character name)." (Especially Tegan, though other companions are similarly cheered up.) He's also shown to be fond of "Sorry, must dash!" when confronted by the usual contingents of armed guards.
* ChekhovsGun: Davison begged the showrunner, Creator/JohnNathanTurner, to explain the purpose of the celery before his Doctor's number was up. He got his wish in the final episode, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani The Caves of Androzani]]".
* ChronicHeroSyndrome: There's a delightful little moment in "Arc of Infinity" where, while trying to save both Gallifrey and Earth from Omega's crazed plans, the Doctor knocks an old lady's groceries out of her arms. He quickly stops to help her gather up her things.
* CrazyPrepared: Wore a stick of celery on his lapel in the slim chance that he would run across gasses in the Praxis range which he was allergic to.
* {{Determinator}}: This exchange says it all.
-->'''Stotz:''' Hands in the air and over here!\\
'''The Doctor:''' Why?\\
'''Stotz:''' Because I'll kill you if you don't!\\
'''The Doctor:''' Not a very convincing argument actually, Stotz, [[YourDaysAreNumbered because I'm going to die soon anyway]], unless of course-\\
'''Stotz:''' I'll give you to the count of three!\\
'''The Doctor:''' Unless of course I can find the antidote! I owe it to my young friend to try because I got her into this! So you see; I'M NOT GOING TO LET YOU STOP ME NOW!
* DistressedDude: He's captured ''somehow'' at least once an adventure. Some days, he's {{brainwashed}}. Other days, he's chained up and shot at. He's most frequently physically weakened, and only very (''very'') rarely manages to stay upright for an entire episode. On a particularly bizarre occasion, Five was nearly [[MindRape mindwiped]] and replaced with an EvilKnockoff. Man, this Doctor just did ''not'' know how to stay out of trouble.
** Again, this was likely a conscious move away from Four's infallibility. Tom Baker would never have stood for being held prisoner for more than a scene, if that.
** A whole lot of cliffhangers from this era often have the Fifth Doctor in some sort of danger -- this occurs so often, these cliffhangers are called "the Davison Cliffhangers".
* TheDitherer: Often delegated some decisions to a simple flip of a coin.
* DoomMagnet: Moreso than any Doctor, excepting the [[Creator/JohnHurt War Doctor]], Five has a tendency to leave a massive body count in his wake, with his final arc ending in the deaths of everyone else in it but his companion and a minor character. This is often entirely against his wishes and his best efforts.
* DullSurprise: This Doctor has a tendency to stare, slack-jawed, at things and events a lot. Perhaps directly related to his tendency to have {{Heroic BSOD}}s.
* DyingMomentOfAwesome: His regeneration was easily the most spectacular from the original series.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: He spends most of ''an entire serial'' dying, and keeps his head held high.
* FamousLastWords:
--> (Spoken) '''Fifth Doctor:''' "Feels different his time."
--> (Thought) '''Fifth Doctor:''' [[TearJerker "... Adric?"]]
* TheFinickyOne
* {{Foil}}: To Four, being much more low-key, and having a more high-class attitude.
* [[FutureMeScaresMe Future Me Annoys Me]]: Swats the Tenth Doctor away like a fly at a picnic, not recognizing who he is. When Ten gushes that he modeled himself on Five as a compliment, Five interprets this to mean he's a LoonyFan.
* GentlemanAdventurer
* GentlemanSnarker: He is masterful at snarking at people in the politest way possible.
* GrumpyOldMan: Davison attempted to do "old man in a young man's body" at times, but the scripts didn't let him, so he came across as [[TheEeyore world-weary]] instead.
* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: He's ''such'' a sweetheart.
* {{Hallucinations}}: Immediately after his regeneration, he nearly lost his mind because his synapses weren't connecting properly. This caused him to regress into the First, Second, and Third Doctors before being put into hibernation stasis.
* HeroicBSOD: Suffered from more than his fair share, compared to the other Doctors. Particularly when Adric died.
* HeroicSacrifice: To save Peri's life.
* HotScientist: The first conventionally attractive (read: young) Doctor.
* HumbleHero
* IconicItem: The lapel-mounted celery (his first meal upon regenerating) and PurelyAestheticGlasses. The latter, however, is not used nearly as often, but Ten takes notice of them. The roll-up hat can count as well, depending on the fan you ask.
** Some still will insist that it's his sneakers that really complete the outfit, being a modern piece of clothing in an otherwise period costume.
** Really [[IconicOutfit his entire ensemble is this]], to the point where even the Tenth Doctor refers to it as his "Crickety Cricket stuff". Ten notes that he merrily copied the "Brainy Specs" and trainers look from Five.
* IKnowMaddenKombat: This Doctor got lost during his first trip into the TARDIS and stumbled into a sports locker; hence the getup. In point of fact, he's not actually wearing cricket whites, but rather a stylish facsimile. He can even stroll right into a cricket match in progress, so easily mistaken are they for actual gear. The Fifth Doctor's love of cricket would come in handy more than once: he deployed a (bottomless) pocketful of cricket balls as weapons, lobbing them at a spaceship, a robot, an unlucky Sontaran, and even using one for a WeightAndSwitch.
* IWasQuiteAFashionVictim: As happy as the Tenth Doctor is to see him again, he doesn't seem to miss the days of dressing like a vegetarian Comics/DickTracy.
-->"Brave choice, celery. But fair play to you. Not a lot of men can carry off a decorative vegetable."
* KillEmAll: This trope seemed to follow the Fifth like the plague[[note]]And on [[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E4TheVisitation one occasion]] actually ''was'' the plague[[/note]] -- at least a third of his stories ended with a ''massive'' body count. His last story had ''two'' survivors, and neither was him. [[TheNthDoctor He got better, of course.]]
* LiteralistSnarking: Brand of snark he frequently employs.
* MagneticHero: Travels with lots of companions at the same time, much like One.
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: His relationship with Tegan is best described as this.
* MyGreatestSecondChance: His last word is “Adric”, demonstrating that his tenure was defined by the loss of a companion, so it’s fitting he dies saving one.
* NeverLiveItDown: In-universe, his "Brainy Specs". He doesn't even ''need'' them, he just thinks they make him look clever.
* NiceGuy: Five, when you get down it it, is a nice guy in a not-very-nice universe.
* NoHuggingNoKissing: This is definitely one of the more chaste and hands-off Doctors, by [[ExecutiveMeddling decree from above]]. He only gets a very occasional hug or peck on the cheek with his companions. Although it doesn't stop some fans (and Davison himself!) from noticing he's more than willing to throw his hands onto [[HoYay Adric]].
* NotHelpingYourCase: The Doctor must not be familiar with ''Series/MurderSheWrote''. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E5BlackOrchid Black Orchid]]", he won't state his name for the record because it's infamous in faraway lands, he doesn't carry I.D., and his idea of arguing one's innocence is shouting that he knows where to find more bodies.
-->'''Doctor:''' I've no reason to harm you! And besides...\\
'''Muir:''' Besides what?\\
'''Doctor:''' ''(earnestly)'' Well, it wouldn't be cricket.
* NotNowKiddo: If Five has something resembling a character flaw, it's his impatience. Ironically for someone who dealt with thick-headed generals or {{obstructive bureaucrat}}s almost weekly, he had a low attention span when it came to complaints from his team. This proved a serious mistake in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS20E2Snakedance Snakedance]]".
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: In his final story (his only one written by Creator/RobertHolmes), the Doctor indulges in some Fourth Doctor-style banter with his captors. The key difference here is that, unlike Four, Five isn't in total control -- he's [[StepfordSnarker sweating under the collar]] and playing a brinkmanship game, desperate not to get everyone killed.
** Also applies to his first filmed story; as the character obviously wasn't nailed down yet, Five comes across as more snarky and short-tempered than usual.
* OfferedTheCrown: Was offered the presidency in "[[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors The Five Doctors]]". He wasn't keen on it.
* PlotSensitiveSnoopingSkills: Tends to be pretty perceptive about most people, but anyone he's put under the flag of friend he tends to believe the best of and tends to fail to see things in them that he doesn't expect to see.
* ThePollyanna: Enamored with the universe and everything in it, this Doctor was not always willing to acknowledge that his companions weren't having fun at all.
* PurelyAestheticGlasses: Occasionally. Creator/PeterDavison actually admitted he stopped wearing what were later called the "brainy specs" after a while because of ribbing from certain members of the cast. He put them back on for the "[[Recap/DoctorWho2007CiNSTimeCrash Time Crash]]" mini-episode with Creator//DavidTennant.
* QuintessentialBritishGentleman: And extremely at home in TheEdwardianEra.
* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: His team TARDIS at one point consisted of a bored stewardess from Australia, a stoic teenaged scientist princess who was the LastOfHerKind, a snotty teenaged maths dork from an AlternateUniverse, and, well, a renegade Time Lord who inexplicably dressed in Edwardian cricket gear and decorative food.
** And if ''that'' weren't enough, they later killed off the snotty teenaged maths dork, but replaced him with a surly young man in a nice suit that was secretly working for the bad guy in his first appearance. And everyone else was still there, at least for 1 more story, when he joined up. Then came a rarely-seen humanoid robot (the prop was very difficult to operate) who also got killed just to shove him out the door and a strong-willed but delicate botanist just to top it all off.
* RailEnthusiast: Five once confessed that, when he was a child, he always wanted to be a train conductor. This is [[EvenNerdsHaveStandards too geeky even for Nyssa]]. ("[[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E5BlackOrchid Black Orchid]]")
* ARealManIsAKiller: Five is, in one sense, the noblest of the Doctors, but also the least effective because of it.
-->'''Sixth Doctor:''' Change, my dear... [[AsideGlance and it seems not a moment too soon]].
* ShooOutTheClowns: "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E4ResurrectionOfTheDaleks Resurrection of the Daleks]]" was a critique of the show's premise: this isn't fun anymore, people are getting hurt. Unfortunately, it takes until Androzani for the Doctor to realize the perils of dropping into worlds on a whim. His friendly handshakes [[HandshakeRefusal are refused]] and his witty repartee [[DoNotTauntCthulhu falls on deaf ears]]. There’s a sense, leading into Davison's regeneration, that the universe is shifting and changing around the Doctor.
-->'''Lt. Scott:''' ''(shoves gun muzzle under his chin)'' Too many people have died for you to play the '''''[[RealityEnsues fool!]]'''''
* SillyRabbitCynicismIsForLosers: The Tenth Doctor chalks up his old man incarnations to a teenager's {{emo}} period, and treasures the wisdom he gleaned from his time as Five.
* TheSnarkKnight: Extremely sarcastic, especially towards Tegan and Adric. When he's not actually snarking at them, his facial expressions speak volumes, and he's the master of the eye roll.
* StepfordSmiler: After Adric dies.
* SubmissiveBadass: For a Time Lord that regularly saved the universe from evils such as the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Master, this Doctor had a surprisingly high threshold for how much shit he would take from people. He preferred to quietly watch, snark and wait for an opportunity to strike, instead of leaping into action.
* SugarAndIcePersonality: Very fatherly and, well, English, but also very crass at times -- especially towards Adric, who felt downright bullied by him.
* TeamDad: Saw his young companions more as kids on a field trip than as equals. In many ways he acts as a stand-in father to Nyssa (an orphan), Tegan (an outcast), and Adric (a refugee), and later Turlough (an exile).
* TechnicalPacifist: It's ''technically'' not murder if your enemy ''may'' have JokerImmunity.
* ThinkNothingOfIt
* ThousandYardStare: The denouement of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E6Earthshock Earthshock]]". The Doctor turns to stone while Tegan, almost penitently, demands some sort of miracle from him and receives none.
* [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth Too Good For This Sinful Galaxy]]: He witnessed the mutual destruction of humans and primordials in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E1WarriorsOfTheDeep Warriors of the Deep]]". He saw what the future had in store for mankind in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E3Frontios Frontios]]". In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E4ResurrectionOfTheDaleks Resurrection of the Daleks]]", Five was pushed to the point where he considered executing Davros, but he lost his nerve and everyone else croaked anyway. "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani The Caves of Androzani]]" presented a society so corrupt that even the Doctor couldn't save it (at least not entirely), and the sheer filth of the place destroyed him.
* TorturePorn: His final serial. Also, Five's last companion was Peri Brown, who gets tied up often enough to make Comcis/WonderWoman green with envy.
* TragicHero: Often [[{{Anvilicious}} the writing itself]] conspires to make for a downbeat ending, with the Doctor being willfully blind to dangers, having a companion who isn't very adept at adventuring, and lacking previous Doctors' nigh-omnipotence to get him out of jams.
* UndyingLoyalty: The lengths to which he went in saving Peri from the horrors of Androzani Major. It's particularly touching when you realise that he'd only met her in the previous serial. (The later Big Finish audios show that they traveled together much longer than just the two serials, though.)
* WalkingDisasterArea: People pretty much tend to drop dead as soon as he walks in. Lampshaded in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E3Frontios Frontios]]" (a comparatively upbeat episode).
-->'''Range:''' Yes, no more terror descending from the sky!\\
'''Turlough:''' (Not unless you count the TARDIS.)
* WardrobeFlawOfCharacterization: He dresses smartly in immaculate quasi-Edwardian cricket whites, but with a celery stalk attached to his lapel.[[note]]It turns out this is a [[CrazyPrepared natural remedy]] for his regeneration's potentially fatal allergy to rare gasses in the Praxis range.[[/note]]
* WhatHaveWeEar: He learns coin magic from Adric, which is fairly adorable. Of course, he already knew some degree of coin magic as the Third Doctor.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Sixth Doctor]]
!!Sixth Doctor
[[quoteright:342:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dw_-_sixth_doctor_5773.jpg]]

->'''Debut:''' "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E7TheTwinDilemma The Twin Dilemma]]"

->'''Played by:''' Creator/ColinBaker (1984–86, 1993, 1997)[[note]]Briefly played by Creator/SylvesterMcCoy immediately before his regeneration into the Seventh Doctor (1987)[[/note]]

-->''"Planets come and go. Stars perish. Matter disperses, coalesces, forms into other patterns, other worlds. Nothing can be eternal."''

The prideful, articulate naysayer with a hidden heart of gold. The Sixth Doctor was a [[DarkerAndEdgier darker]] (and certainly more unstable) Doctor, more suited for a hard and chaotic universe, whose default emotions were righteous indignation or smug self-satisfaction. Wore a multicoloured coat and wasn't averse to fisticuffs or murder to get out of a desperate fix. Alas, viewers weren't exactly fond of the idea of a periodically-evil Doctor. During his first season, the show got in trouble for being too violent. Baker became the only actor to be fired from the role, thanks to ExecutiveMeddling; the fallout was so acrimonious that he didn't reprise the role for a regeneration, so they DroppedABridgeOnHim. However, Creator/ColinBaker is actually [[MeanCharacterNiceActor a wonderful guy]], and is currently still redeeming the character fantastically in AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho, to the point of being voted "favourite audio Doctor" by the fans and eventually doing his Doctor justice with a proper regeneration story. For his Creator/BigFinish character tropes, see [[Characters/BigFinishDoctorWhoDoctors here]].
----
* AbortedArc: A multi-year arc was planned in which the Sixth Doctor would mellow out, but politics at the BBC intervened. This was later taken up (after a fashion) by the [[AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho Big Finish audios]], where regular companion [[CoolOldLady Dr. Evelyn Smythe]] puts up with exactly zero of his ego-trips and gives him a much-needed reality check. Unfortunately, the dissatisfaction with Baker's tenure bled into the material itself ("The Trial of a Time Lord") and later ''Who'' novels, which had Seven seeing him as a fundamentally flawed incarnation (though he eventually changed his mind).
* AntiHeroSubstitute: Whereas the Fifth Doctor found himself stuck in a WorldHalfEmpty, fretting about other ways, Six seems more open to employing dirty methods when fighting evil. In truth, the Sixth Doctor usually wasn't very violent but the situations he found himself in certainly were. Though Nathan-Turner's iron fist was keenly felt in the Costuming Department, script editor Eric Saward was, for all intents and purposes, in charge of the show during this period. Saward is also well-known for his affinity for action heroes, morally ambiguous stories and a kill-or-be-killed mentality. He was at sea with Davison's Doctor, but Baker allowed Saward to indulge a less-utopian worldview. "Feels different this time", indeed.
* BigFun: The most portly Doctor thus far, though that isn't saying much.
* BondOneLiner: Fond of them. There's a particularly grim one in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E2VengeanceOnVaros Vengeance on Varos]]," and it began to attract executive mumblings about whether ''Doctor Who'' was going too far. After two guards accidentally fall into an acid bath that was meant for the Doctor...
--> '''Sixth Doctor:''' "Forgive me if I don't join you."
* CameBackWrong: Probably the most memorable regeneration trauma to date. Six has [[LetMeAtHim a peculiar fascination with peoples' throats]] in his debut story.
* CantArgueWithElves: The Sixth Doctor isn't ''quite'' this bad, but he ''is'' abrasive and easily the most articulate Doctor. Do not argue with him. You will lose.
** To take it a step further, in the audio range, where he runs into versions of himself sometimes, if he starts arguing with himself, ''nobody'' wins.
* CatchPhrase: "Mmm, I wonder... Aha!"
* CharacterDevelopment: The Sixth Doctor's relationship with his companion Peri changes for the better with each adventure they have together. If the Sixth Doctor's run had not been [[ExecutiveMeddling abruptly cut short]], then he would have also been shown [[WhatCouldHaveBeen mellowing down and becoming a calmer Doctor closer to his previous incarnation]].
* CheshireCatGrin: He does one in his [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUKanwT1elM opening credits]].
* CombatPragmatist: Extremely so. When faced with a multitude of buttons, a gun and a few seconds to spare, his default solution is to shoot the entire control panel and short-circuit the system.
* DeathByFallingOver[=/=]DroppedABridgeOnHim: Hits his head on the TARDIS console. (Although later stories include a bit of FixFic for the scene. The BBC Literature/PastDoctorAdventures novel ''Spiral Scratch'' depicts giant alien parasites sucking away the energy around him that time travel generates. They feast on it until he withers, and the Rani's attack delivers the final blow to an already dying Doctor. This was before the '''definitive''' final Sixth Doctor story was revealed in 2015. AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho provides another take on the regeneration in ''The Last Adventure'', involving the Valeyard and six different companions.)
* DefectorFromDecadence: His experiences in this incarnation kill any shred of respect he still had for Time Lord society. After this, he only misses Gallifrey once there's no going back.
--> "In all my traveling throughout the universe I have battled against evil, against power-mad conspirators. I should have stayed here. The oldest civilization: decadent, degenerate, and rotten to the core! Ha! Power-mad conspirators, Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen, they're still in the ''nursery'' compared to us. Ten million years of absolute power: that's what it takes to be ''really'' corrupt!"
* [[DrJerk Doctor Jerk]]: Took great pleasure in exchanging barbs with Peri, though she took a while to really catch on.
** Interestingly, the first of his ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'' comics was developed before his first episodes even aired, so the writers had nothing yet to go on... and wrote him with a kind, fairly normal personality. It somehow stuck, and his comics incarnation is really just a nice chap, with only the occasional flash of hostility.
* EightiesHair: A mess of big blond curls.
* FamousLastWords: "Carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice..." Or if you go by the novel ''Spiral Scratch'', "Local... tractor beam..."
** Even though Terror of the Vervoids takes place [[TimeyWimeyBall after the trial]], and the last thing he chronologically said on screen would be 'Vesti la guibba e la faccia,' (Roughly 'Put on your costume, powder your face.') but several sources put the "carrot juice" line as his last words.
** And if you want to debate the canonicity of ''Time's Champion'', an unlicensed fan publication, "This book has been my tale and I finish it. I am Time’s Champion. I am the Doctor. And this story is no more."
** And now thanks to Big Finish, which has created a genuine final story accepted as the true canonical ending, his last words are "Who said that? Who is that? Who's there...?"
* {{Foil}}: His outspoken, harsh demeanor and not shying away from using physical force when push comes to shove makes him one to Five.
* AFoolForAClient: Six acts as his own attorney during his murder trial on Gallifrey. This goes down about as well as you'd expect.
* FutureMeScaresMe: The Valeyard. He is utterly appalled that someone so decadent could be none other than himself gallivanting around in chaos. But that doesn't stop him from whipping up glorious helpings of grammarian snark toward the Valeyard, calling him everything from "Boneyard", "Backyard", and "Barnyard", to, best of all, ''"Knacker's Yard".''
* GoodIsNotNice
* GrumpyOldMan: The actor may not visually fit the role, but the Sixth Doctor himself easily fits the role in personality.
* HotBlooded: Creator/ColinBaker summed it up as: "He's intolerant about injustice; he's passionate about justice. But he's not a human being. Therefore he may behave, at times, in a way that [[BlueAndOrangeMorality we mere humans might find puzzling]]. But the greater good is always at the heart."
* HurricaneOfEuphemisms: ''Especially'' when frustrated or angry.
* HypocriticalHumor: This Doctor is much more of a "do as I say, not as I do" sort of fellow.
* IconicItem: That technicolor nightmare coat, the cat badge and the umbrella. Sure enough, his regeneration into Seven inevitably culminates with the new incarnation questioning the former's bizarre tastes and pitching the coat for something more sophisticated. Granted, Six did switch to a blue ensemble for a while, but then an alternate Mel convinced him to revert back because she liked the old outfit better and nostalgia got the better of him.
* IHatePastMe: The Sixth Doctor considers himself the [[AwesomeEgo absolute pinnacle]] of Time Lord regeneration. As such he has a low regard for his predecessors, most notably Two and Five. Two returned the sentiment.
* ImpossiblyTackyClothes: It's like a clown vomited in his closet. The shirt and suspenders were inherited from Five, the hair and the Hawaiian vest seem to be directly lifted from producer [[Creator/JohnNathanTurner John Nathan-Turner]], and Six goes for broke with the coat-shaped quilt, a white dress shirt with question marks on the lapels and checked red sleeve cuffs, a polka-dotted aquamarine or red cravat / mustard yellow with a purple starfield cravat tied in a droopy bow, various clashing vests (asymmetrical rainbow patterns with bars on one side and zigzags on the other, red and white plaid with teddy bear buttons, a pattern of diagonal spangling stripes of violet, blue, cerulean, and green) with strange coloured fobs pinned on, the lemonade pants, scarlet socks, the green loafers adorned with traffic cone orange spats, and a variety of cat badges. As a inside joke on the Doctor's post-regeneration makeovers, it's brilliant parody. (It becomes less funny when the Doctor continues to wear it.)
** And then there's [[http://i.imgur.com/ZOhtQ.png the equally eye-popping but less hard]] on the eyes outfit Colin wore during his stage play tours, with a unique candy-striped vest, a ruffled undershirt with even bigger question marks on the collar lapels, and a velvet aqua-coloured cravat.
** Creator/ColinBaker [[http://drwhointerviews.wordpress.com/2009/08/25/colin-baker-nicola-bryant-1992/ actually wanted]] to dress in black velvet for the part (to quote, "a bit austere, ruffled sleeves, long black coat, black trousers"), which John Nathan-Turner shot down immediately due to it basically being the Master's outfit. Legend has it that JNT then turned down the first several versions of the design because they still retained some vestiges of good taste. Interestingly, the costume looks just fine when you remove the excess color (see [[http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/project-lazarus-211 the outfit]] Six switches to for a while in Creator/BigFinish).
* IncomingHam: Introduces himself to the world with some good old-fashioned ''[[DeadpanSnarker snark]]''!
--> '''Peri:''' ...Doctor?
--> '''Sixth Doctor:''' You were expecting someone else?
* InsufferableGenius: Oh, ''boy''. Described by many as a "raging egotist"... but he really was as good as he described himself.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: The genuine heart of gold still existed in this Doctor... it was just buried under a whole lot of ego. And bluster. But mostly ego. Ironically, the Sixth Doctor may well have had the largest heart of gold of any of them, hidden way deep down underneath the ego. Creator/ColinBaker later said he based his Doctor on [[Literature/PrideAndPrejudice Mr. Darcy]].
* KangarooCourt: "The Trial of a Time Lord" saw him put on trial for conduct unbecoming a Time Lord by a Gallifreyan court, with the charge later changed to genocide of a minor plant race. Six wasn't allowed to glimpse the evidence against him, the Master was called as a ''character witness'', and most of the surveillance footage was fabricated anyway.
* KnightErrant: Self-described in "The Twin Dilemma":
-->'''Sixth Doctor:''' I'm a knight errant, not an errant fool!
* LaughingMad: His regeneration trauma ran the gamut of emotions, from "happy drunk" to "raving paranoia" and everything in between. The wardrobe change was interrupted by a bout of [[WhoWantsToLiveForever existential angst.]]
-->"Nothing but the... urk!... grinding engines of the universe! The... crushing boredom of eternity! [=HAAAAAHahahahAHAhahahaA!=]"
* MoodSwinger: For all his egoism and posturing the Doctor always stands up for what is right. The extremes of his personality means that Six can be murderous one moment and almost tender the next.
* MurderTropes: Although previous incarnations had no problem with letting villains die horrible deaths or blowing up inhabited enemy shapeships, Six straight up grabbed someone (who very definitely did not have JokerImmunity) and murdered him using a cyanide rag. Admittedly, this was a violent knife-wielding alien who had stabbed the Doctor in the leg and was chasing him with the intention of killing him.
* NervesOfSteel: Showed courage even in the worst situations.
* NoIndoorVoice: Six was quite shouty.
* NumberOneDime: He's apparently [[KindheartedCatLover fond of cats]], as evidenced by a brooch worn on his lapel (a Colin Baker embellishment, natch). Six was known to tap or stroke the cat before attempting something risky.
* [[DeathByFallingOver Regeneration By Falling Over]]: The Rani shot at his TARDIS with a disco laser, there was something involving a rainbow, and... then he was dead on the floor. From 1987 to 2015, that was the impression left when his Doctor was written out of the show before that scene was finally explained. Would you believe it took upwards of thirty years for the true cause of his death to be revealed?
* TheResolutionWillNotBeTelevised: Colin Baker's dismissal from the TV series led to no true regeneration story. By the time Colin finally got one, he couldn't appear in a filmed episode because he had aged out of the role. In lieu of a TV story, he performed an audio anthology that elaborates on his Doctor's final adventure, and due to the AnachronicOrder of these audio productions, it's not the absolute last audio Colin signed on for.
* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Depending on the writer, the Sixth Doctor tends to go from "being smart" to "sounding like he not only swallowed a thesaurus, but all of the grammar teachers in England." This is also played up in some of his Expanded Universe appearances.
* TookALevelInKindness: He did mellow out towards the end of his run. This is most prevalent in the Big Finish Audios.
* {{Tsundere}}: The harsh version.
* VitriolicBestBuds: His relationship with Peri at first; it does take them a few episodes to get along without unleashing a hurricane of insults on each other.
* WhatTheHellHero: Only used against the Sixth Doctor in terms of his ''attitude'' rather than his actions or history.
* [[XanatosSpeedChess Xanatos Speed Chess Player]]: Once Six actually figures out what the hell is going on, his quick thinking and planning is pretty much this in curly blond hair and a multicoloured coat. That does, of course, depend on the Sixth Doctor actually being involved enough in the main story to realize what's going on -- [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E6RevelationOfTheDaleks one example]] left him clueless until the final 20 minutes of the story.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Seventh Doctor]]
!!Seventh Doctor
[[quoteright:313:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dw_-_seventh_doctor_1_9225.jpg]]

->'''Debut:''' "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS24E1TimeAndTheRani Time and the Rani]]"

->'''Played by:''' Creator/SylvesterMcCoy: (1987–89, 1990, 1993, 1996, 1997)

-->''"You can always judge a man by the quality of his enemies."''

The [[BewareTheSillyOnes killer comedian]], clad in Jay Gatsby summer wear from [[TheRoaringTwenties the twenties]]. This Doctor began as a sort of bumbling goof, but became a more manipulative and enigmatic figure when the show [[DarkerAndEdgier got a little darker]] (after back-pedalling away from it) in its final two seasons. Seven was even more passionate about justice than his predecessors, fond of ThePlan, and a bit of a KnightTemplarParent to his companion Ace. These qualities came even more to the fore in the many, ''many'' ExpandedUniverse ''Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures'' novels he starred in. Hinted at numerous times to be much more than a "mere" Time Lord -- a StoryArc which [[CutShort didn't quite pan out as such]]. What little made it into the show, however, added a few clues regarding his escape from Gallifrey, which appears to have included nicking the Hand of Omega as he went. [[HeAlsoDid Played the spoons]] (the musical instrument). For his Creator/BigFinish tropes, click [[Characters/BigFinishDoctorWhoDoctors here]].
----
* AbortedArc: The so-called Cartmel Master Plan, whereby it would be revealed that Rassilon and Omega co-founded Time Lord society with a mysterious third individual known only as "The Other"; The Doctor would turn out to be the reincarnation of this person, in an attempt to return mystique to the character. Shades of this plan are seen in both "Remembrance of the Daleks" and "Silver Nemesis," both of which show that he knows how to operate [[ArtifactOfDoom Artifacts of Doom]] from Gallifrey's ancient past, and there was a plan for the Master to accuse him of being more than just a Time Lord. The cancellation of the show scuppered all this. Bits of it made it into the webcast "Death Comes to Time," and the episodes that were never filmed were eventually recorded as audios by Creator/BigFinish (though so far without the Cartmel Master Plan). Parts of the Master Plan made it into [[Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures the New Adventures novels]], especially in ''Lungbarrow''. It's debatable how much this arc actually was aborted, however; several of the people supposedly involved, including Andrew Cartmel himself, have repeatedly stated that the Master Plan never really got beyond a few ideas thrown back and forth between writers and most of what it ended up being was just fans and later writers blowing things out of proportion a bit.
* AmnesiacHero: His post-regeneration story opened with Seven as a dupe of the Rani - though this was the fault of her amnesia serum, not random happenstance.
* AwesomeAnachronisticApparel: His outfit is based on 1920s golfing attire.
* BatmanGambit: Often ''directly'' related to his status as Chessmaster.
** During the few rare times the BatmanGambit has ''failed'' in the ExpandedUniverse, Seven also shows off that he's quite experienced with the IndyPloy.
* BizarreAlienBiology: Common to all the Doctors, of course, but Seven was notably ''killed'' by it--or rather, by the doctor who was operating on him under the impression that he was a normal human being.
* BookEnds: Both the start and the end of the life of the Seventh Doctor were ''really'' ignoble: hitting his head on the TARDIS console and being killed by malpractice committed by the woman who would become his next companion.
* BrainsAndBrawn: A {{Chessmaster}} and GuileHero who specialized in talking his enemies to death or tricking them into a self-destruct. His primary Companion? A {{Ladette}} who whipped up [=IEDs=] in her spare time, and rarely met a fight she didn't like.
* [[BreakHisHeartToSaveHim Break Her Heart to Save Her]]: He puts Ace through this in "The Curse of Fenric."
* CelibateHero: NoHuggingNoKissing was generally in place for the classic Doctors, but Seven displayed celibacy to the point that in a few ExpandedUniverse stories, his companions know he's NotHimself just from the fact alone that he suddenly fancies someone. Characters/BerniceSummerfield summarises that she's "never known the Doctor to have any concern for the trouser department."
** Generally, he was portrayed as a clueless ChasteHero, but the novel ''Death and Diplomacy'' revealed he was a CelibateHero who used his ObfuscatingStupidity to get out of romantic situations.
* CharacterDevelopment: The Seventh Doctor began as an impish rogue who enjoyed showing up authority figures and loved a good mystery. Like [[{{Series/Poirot}} Hercule Poirot]] (who follows a similar character arc), Seven frequently exploits the fact that nobody respects him or grasps the credible threat he poses. Seasons 25 and 26 toned down the sillier aspects a tad, with the Doctor ''starting out'' harmless in each serial and gradually getting ferocious by the end. [=McCoy=] was interested in exploring the links between Hartnell's Doctor and his present self, and Cartmel picked up on that, leaving clues left for the Doctor by his past (and future!) incarnations.
** Then, in the ExpandedUniverse, Seven goes from a manipulator to a terror who breaks people with his manipulative schemes and eventually descends into heavy remorse, opting to travel alone. He becomes so weary that he grows complacent and forgets to check his TARDIS scanner on the one night when a Chinese-American gang was raising hell in the San Francisco alleyways.
* CharacterTics: Upon greeting/farewell, Seven likes to tip his hat. Then there's his rrrolling Rrrs. He also flapped and fluttered his hands around ebulliently. He likes to twitch his eyebrows up and down rapidly when being deliberately funny.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: In his first season, he's a bumbling, wacky, clownish figure very reminiscent of the Second Doctor, but without the cunning intellect. "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks Remembrance of the Daleks]]" is where his persona changed.
* CheshireCatGrin: It always looks like he's up to ''some''thing.
* TheChessmaster: With varying success, often requiring the liberal use of XanatosSpeedChess when things go awry. In the Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures, Seven's abilities are given real room to flex and are usually far more impressive. The Doctor smilingly weaves his web until it's too late for them.
** He's also a ''literal'' Chessmaster in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E3TheCurseOfFenric The Curse of Fenric]]."
* CreepyGood: This Doctor could get ''scary''. His life lessons to Ace in "Ghost Light" are downright terrifying.
* DefiantToTheEnd: Even as Grace prepares to operate on him, Seven begins planning the Master's downfall, asking for the atomic clock Eighth would need to repair the TARDIS. The comic "The Forgotten" also implies that Seven used a Chameleon Arch to turn Eighth half-human to fool the Master if he escaped.
* {{Determinator}}: In the 1996 movie, he wakes up several times on the operating table, despite being ''heavily sedated'', in order to attempt to warn everyone of what's happening.
* DidntSeeThatComing: The craftiest Doctor of them all got taken out by Asian crime elements... in the city of the [[TheSixties Summer Of Love]]. That's rubbish luck even by his standards.
** [[WebVideo/WhatTheFuckIsWrongWithYou Nash Bozard]] put it best:
---> If you listen closely, you can hear everyone from Davros to the Sontarans ''banging their head into a wall''.
* DyingAlone: This incarnation's end was especially sad; he ends up dying without any familiar faces by his side, powerless to stop his accidental killing by the hands of well-intentioned humans who only wished to help him.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: An arguably unintentional example, but the very first thing the Seventh Doctor does upon regaining consciousness after regenerating is start to organise his schedule. The Seventh Doctor would later develop into a [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]] who intentionally seeks out particular conflicts rather than just happening to stumble across them as previously, and makes a point of devising a plan for how to deal with the situation prior to arriving.
* {{Expy}}[=/=]NoCelebritiesWereHarmed:
** Seven's later, callous characterization seems to have borrowed a few tics from David [=McCallum=]'s 'hero' in ''Series/SapphireAndSteel''. Other touches were inspired by sci-fi icon Ken Campbell, [=McCoy's=] mentor and one of several auditionees for the Seventh Doctor. (Campbell was considered ''too'' spooky.)
** You could also make the argument that he's very similar to Literature/HerculePoirot: A celibate-minded, middle-aged looking man, [[ObfuscatingStupidity feigning goofiness and ignorance]], only to surprise his adversaries with [[TheChessmaster his incredibly sharp wit and mind]], [[{{Determinator}} unyielding attitude]] and tendency [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to make speeches towards antagonists, condemning duplicity and wickedness]]. He's also one of the most detective-like incarnations in terms of his overall mannerisms. And then there's the fact he was the first ever Doctor to have a different accent than an English one (in his case, it's a Scottish one, while Poirot had a Walloon one).
* FamousLastWords: "I've got to stop... him..."
* FingerpokeOfDoom & TheParalyzer: Like most Doctors, he held disdain for physical violence, but could mop the floor with you if push came to shove. A simple poke brought down a neighborhood watchman twice his twice. ("Survival")
* {{Foil}}: The manipulative and sneaky foil to the loud and straightforward Six. Beyond this, where Six was bombastic, loud and pompous, Seven is a lot quieter, friendlier and modest (for the Doctor, at least). And where Six was compassionate and empathic in his pursuit of justice, Seven can be incredibly cold and pragmatic when it comes to ensuring the greater good.
* FunPersonified: Subverted. He was originally [[EnforcedTrope Enforced]] into this character type as a LighterAndSofter reaction against just how much BloodierAndGorier the show had got during the Sixth Doctor's run. he spent the first season playing the spoons, doing magic tricks, being a [[TheWonka figure of delight and whimsy]] and battling {{Camp}}tacular comedy enemies with the loosest continuity yet. Then a new writer took over, who introduced 'comedy' monsters but played their effects in a dark and serious way (like the Kandyman and the KillerClowns) and revealed the Doctor's apparent silliness was ObfuscatingStupidity, and Seven became one of the most alien, manipulative, and dark Doctors of the lot. When the series got cancelled the ExpandedUniverse picked him up and used him to codify all of the "Dark Doctor" tropes that the revival series later handled on-screen - like a serious examination of the OmniscientMoralityLicense, AngstWhatAngst and the psychological profile of someone who'd do that much DirtyBusiness. In the ''New Adventures'' books, there's even a line that he doesn't play the spoons any more because he's too busy toppling empires.
* FutureMeScaresMe: He finds out that in some future regeneration, in an AlternateUniverse where the Arthurian legend is real, he'll become ''Merlin''. Because of this, he has to spend an entire episode picking apart clues left to him by his future self.
* GuileHero
* IconicItem: His straw hat, question mark handled umbrella (which he pretty much used as a third arm), and question mark covered sweater-vest. In the TV Movie (and ''New Adventures'' books), he lost the vest but kept the hat.
* IcyBlueEyes: Seven could be pretty damn cold at times and he had the gaze to match.
* {{Malaproper}}: In his early stories. "Time and tide melt the snowman," "A bird in the hand keeps the Doctor away." Philosophical gold, my friends.
* ManipulativeBastard: "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E3TheCurseOfFenric The Curse of Fenric]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E2GhostLight Ghost Light]]". And then there's ''Literature/TheNewAdventures''...
* MedicalHorror: His final moments. Heavily sedated, StrappedToAnOperatingTable, and begging the sweet human doctor to stop shoving a camera probe into his arteries.
* MyCard: Handed out in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks Remembrance of the Daleks]]"... out of ''thin air'', at that. Creator/SylvesterMcCoy had a small background with stunts and parlour tricks.
* MyRuleFuIsStrongerThanYours: In "Paradise Towers," the Doctor escapes custody by fabricating ThatOneRule to some jobsworth night watchmen. In "The Happiness Patrol," he brings a fascist dictatorship to its knees within just a few hours simply by following its laws to the letter.
* NervesOfSteel: The Doctor knows the difference between a lean killer and a coward raining down death from rooftops. He has the audacity to sneak up on some snipers, puff out his chest and dare them to kill him honorably. And then snatches the gun away, when they hesitate. ("[[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E2TheHappinessPatrol The Happiness Patrol]]")
-->"Why don't you do it then? Look me in the eye. [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Pull the trigger. End my life]]."
* NiceHat: Which actually belonged to Creator/SylvesterMcCoy. Seven liked to roll it up and down his sleeve.
* NoodleIncident: "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E4TheGreatestShowInTheGalaxy The Greatest Show in the Galaxy]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E3TheCurseOfFenric The Curse of Fenric]]" pits him against {{the Old Gods}}, and it's suggested that he's tangled with them before.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: Nothing about his appearance or demeanor suggests that he is a threat.
* OneOfTheKids: Officially declared ''not'' a yawny Olster! ("Paradise Towers") He's been at this game long enough to not patronize feral teenagers and as a result is declared a man of "[[CoolOldGuy high fabshion]]" and "[[FutureSlang ice hot.]]"
* PapaWolf: When it comes to Ace, he's got this trope down pat. Particularly in the ExpandedUniverse.
* ParasolOfPain: Seven used his umbrella as a makeshift weapon upon occasion.
* ParentalSubstitute: Ace's father is never mentioned, and she has a bad relationship with her mother, so the Doctor ends up becoming a father figure to her.
* ThePowerOfRock: The power of blues, showtunes and spoons.
* PrinciplesZealot: Seven doesn't wander around aimlessly as much as prior versions. (Or most future versions for that matter.) He's a man on a mission. By Season 26, the Doctor goes around toppling dictatorships for sport. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E2TheHappinessPatrol The Happiness Patrol]]", he makes a bet with himself to dismantle their entire police state by sunrise ([[BadassBoast he does]]).
* QuintessentialBritishGentleman: Not dressed like one for a change, but he was polite in a classic way.
* RebelliousSpirit: ''Extremely''.
* RetiredBadass: By the TV movie, he's done with plotting great harebrained schemes because he regrets more than the lion's share of them and feels like his regeneration isn't too far off.
* SadClown: When he was still TheFool there was an air of melancholy around him.
* SceneryPorn: His TARDIS eventually becomes a lush drawing room full of books, candles and SteamPunk gadgets.
* SelfDeprecation: The [[AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho Big Finish branch]] of the ExpandedUniverse has given the Seventh Doctor a few unintentional (on the Doctor's part) jabs at his rather lackluster death in [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie the TV Movie]]. The best jab, by far, was "I will not die to the sound of elevator music!" when trying to escape a depressurizing airlock playing opera at him. [[CaptainObvious Guess what he died to]].
* ShipperOnDeck: He's extremely entertained by Ancelyn and Brigadier Bambera.
* {{Slapstick}}: Especially in his early stories (why walk down a hall when you can slide?), and later exploited to bring down his enemies. Like the actor playing him, Seven is a born music hall performer, impressionist, and magician.
** After dispensing with the Psychic Circus, he's forced to put on a show for his toughest crowd yet: the Gods of Ragnarok. About the only stunt he ''doesn't'' perform is stuffing ferrets down his trousers or spraying seltzer up his nose.
* StrappedToAnOperatingTable: While heavily sedated, and trying to explain to nice Dr. Grace that he's ''not human'' and could she please take that camera out of his arteries. She doesn't listen, and he dies.
* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: Seven ''loves'' doing this. It's in a good half of his stories.
* TalkingYourWayOut: Seven's great love -- his words are far and away more effective than any physical threat.
* TranquilFury: This Doctor ran cold rather than hot, and his anger forecasted a slow but certain doom once provoked; where Six would boil over, Seven ''simmered''. On a few occasions, he had to bring Ace to heel when she lost her temper, stating that she was "no good" to him or others this way.
* TricksterMentor: Became this in his second season, as focus shifted to his companion Ace. As a result, Ace became the most fleshed-out companion, whilst the Doctor became ever more mysterious.
* TrrrillingRrrs: [=McCoy=] was actually the first Doctor to not speak with a [[UsefulNotes/BritishAccents Received Pronunciation accent.]] He's verrry Scottish.
* UnflinchingWalk: He calmly walked out of a building that then promptly exploded and appeared not to notice. (The pyrotechnicians had over-rigged the charge and [=McCoy=] was ''fairly'' certain he was now dead, but kept moving on the off-chance he wasn't a pile of ash after all, since there was only one take they could do.)
* VerbalTic: He tended to roll his R's, leading to a deeply unfortunate incident when he encountered aliens known as the Gods of Rrrrrragnarrrrrok. Oh boy.
* WaistcoatOfStyle: In the television movie, along with a plain necktie.
* WatchThePaintJob: Until the Ninth Doctor's exploits, the TARDIS saw more vandalism done to it than during any other Doctor's watch. Since no surface in Paradise Towers is safe for long, the Police Box gets covered in graffiti almost immediately after it's parked. In "The Happiness Patrol," it was painted bright pink(!) by Helen A's shock troopers after touching down on Terra Alpha.
* WeaponOfChoice: His ''brain'' (and, technically, ''words''). This is the first Doctor to [[BreakThemByTalking get a Dalek to self-destruct by talking to it]].
* WeComeInPeaceShootToKill: The Seventh Doctor's death in a nutshell. The Doctor lands in San Francisco, and barely gets two feet outside the door when a Chinatown gang immediately opens fire on him. [[SarcasmMode No wonder]] [[TriggerHappy he rarely goes to America]].
* WhatTheHellHero: Seven tends to keep his eye on the big picture, and while he won't directly kill anyone, he's been known to leave -- or nearly leave -- psychological scars, especially in Ace. He gets called out on it. Hard.
* WhereItAllBegan: In "Remembrance of the Daleks," Seven makes a return trip to Totter's Lane to tie up some loose ends; the Daleks just happen to be pursuing the same object. According to the Vicar, this episode is set mere days after "An Unearthly Child."
* WorstAid: Bullets? Not a problem. Paramedics mistaking your alien heart rates for fibrillation? That's another matter.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Eighth Doctor]]
!!Eighth Doctor
[[quoteright:312:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eighth_doctor_2_5334.jpg]]
[[quoteright:312:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_eighth_doctor_by_theartistictwins-d6uu91z_4355cropped_8830.jpg]]

->'''Debut:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie Doctor Who: The TV Movie]]

->'''Played by:''' Creator/PaulMcGann (1996, 2013)

-->''"The universe hangs by such a delicate thread of coincidences - it's useless to meddle with it unless, like me, you're a Time Lord."''

The bouncy, charming romantic, slowly darkened into a WarriorPoet by loss and sorrow. From the little we saw of him, the Eighth Doctor was a chatty, passionate figure who reveled in life and living and -- uniquely among the Doctors -- seemed to enjoy giving people hints about their futures. Notably, he was the Doctor who shattered the NoHuggingNoKissing policy forever, happily snogging his companions just because he wanted to. He also claimed to be half-human, which was either ignored or denied in later stories. Got fleshed out considerably in the ExpandedUniverse media, including the ''[[Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures Eighth Doctor Adventures]]'' novels (tropes [[Characters/EighthDoctorAdventures here]]), the ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'' comics (tropes [[Characters/DoctorWhoMagazine here]]) and the ''Creator/BigFinish'' audio series (tropes [[Characters/BigFinishDoctorWhoDoctors here]]), before finally coming BackForTheDead in the TV series. And along the way to that return onscreen, [[BreakTheCutie he really went through the wringer]]. The happy, cheerful days this Doctor enjoyed were soon a distant memory, as he was subjected to an unfairly tortured existence as the violence and loss across the universe rapidly grew until it kindled into the Last Great Time War.
----
* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Until the very end.
* AmnesiacHero: Starts out this way, and manages to find new and exciting ways to contract amnesia every couple of stories -- both in the ''Eighth Doctor Adventures'' novels and in Big Finish.
* AskAStupidQuestion: Gets this gem in "The Night of the Doctor":
-->'''Cass:''' Where are we going?
-->'''Eight:''' Back of the ship.
-->'''Cass:''' Why?
-->'''Eight:''' Because the front crashes first. Think it through.
* AsTheGoodBookSays: Eight quotes ''Luke 4:23'' before downing a potion which changes him into the War Doctor.
* AttentionDeficitOohShiny: In reaction to scheming Seven, Eight can't stay on one task or thought for more than two seconds. Everything carries the same weight. This became his principal trait in the ''Eighth Doctor Adventures'' novels.
** ... to the point where, dying and with four minutes left to live, he proclaims boredom due to no books, TV, or knitting on hand.
* AwesomeAnachronisticApparel: Victorian clothes, long hair and Grace's ex-boyfriend's shoes.
* BackForTheDead: He appears in "The Night of the Doctor" to regenerate into the War Doctor.
* BadassLongcoat: Has a beautiful green one during the MadeForTVMovie. His second appearance has it longer, greener, and much more badass. His (so-far) audio-only second outfit is a badass leather peacoat.
* BatmanGrabsAGun: As a symbolic shedding of his peacemaker persona, Eight gets tooled up in "The Night of the Doctor".
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor
--> ''Make me a warrior now.''
* BookEnds:
** Begins his existence as a man fighting to reclaim his identity as the Doctor and ends it as a man who renounces his identity as the Doctor in order ''to'' fight.
** In the TV movie, the Doctor steals his Wild Bill Hickok costume, but specifically does not take the gunbelt. Here, before regenerating, he picks up the BadassBandolier his next incarnation wears.
** He regenerated from the Seventh Doctor several hours after his previous incarnation's "death". He regenerates into the War Doctor after dying permanently in a spaceship crash and being [[DeadManWalking briefly resurrected]] by the Sisterhood of Karn in order to regenerate.
** At the beginning of Eight's life, after Eight tells Grace that he is a Time Lord, she runs from him, locks the doors to her home, and declares him a madman. At the end of Eight's life, after Eight tells Cass that he is a Time Lord, she backs away from him, deadlocks the door to her ship, and declares him as despicable as a Dalek. While the former ends up regaining trust in him, the latter takes her fears to the grave, reflecting the darker atmosphere that the Eighth Doctor lived through amidst the death and destruction of the Time War.
** In ''[[Recap/EighthDoctorAdventuresTheEightDoctors The Eight Doctors]]'', which takes place moments after the TV movie, the Eighth Doctor says: "Let's just say that I'm ''a'' Doctor. There's more than one, you know. Clearly, I'm not the one you were expecting." The lines are repeated almost word-for-word by this Doctor in his final appearance.
** In a meta example, Eight's life began with Creator/SylvesterMcCoy coming BackForTheDead after a six-and-a-half year hiatus to pass the torch to Creator/PaulMcGann. It ended with [=McGann=] coming BackForTheDead after a 17 year hiatus to retroactively pass the torch to Creator/JohnHurt.
* BigDamnKiss: Has a habit of randomly snogging people when he gets excited, and was consequently the first Doctor ''ever'' to be properly romantic with his companions. His kiss with Grace in the movie was as much a surprise for the audience as it was for her. Has another BigDamnKiss in Creator/BigFinish with companion Charley, although it's played for horror, with Grace (again) and Destrii in the comics, and with companions Sam, Fitz and Characters/BerniceSummerfield in the novels.
* BreakTheCutie: "The Night of the Doctor", leading to his DespairEventHorizon and regeneration into the War Doctor.
** This comes after more than a decade of BreakTheCutie adventures in Big Finish. By "The Night of the Doctor" he seems to be barely holding on after all he's been through.
* ChangedMyJumper: for "The Night of the Doctor" Paul [=McGann=] got his wish and has a BadassLongcoat, similar in style to the Tenth Doctor's but in a dark green, along with a well worn and broken-in revision of his TV movie outfit that's much less stylized than his original costume. It's a mix of his classic TV movie costume and his updated Dark Eyes look from AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho.
* CharacterDevelopment: His long arcs with his Creator/BigFinish companions lead him to adopt a much more solemn outlook on life -- and he ends up world-weary and alone in the very end.
** It doesn't help that most of the companions he recited in "The Night of the Doctor" prior to his regeneration were killed during his travels. In fact, only one of them is still alive, and the Doctor was made to think they also died.
* ChronicHeroSyndrome: During the Time War, he actually tried to save [[MadScientist Davros]] from the Nightmare Child.
** Even more heroic when AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho is in continuity, considering [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho072TerrorFirma what Davros did to Eight in those stories]].
* ClassyCravat: He originally wore a grey one that came with his original Victorian ensemble. When he switches to a Regency era clothing he wears a more rugged blue one.
* ClockKing: Perhaps in an attempt to ease Americans into the setting, this Doctor has a collection of clocks inside his TARDIS (because he's a ''Time'' Lord - geddit?). On a deeper level, Eight exhibits an ability to sense the fate of people and see into their timestreams. Another suggestion of this occurs when he handles the Wild Bill Hickok costume he adopts as his outfit; he seems to pick up a psychic impression from the period clothing.
* CloudCuckoolander: He's a bit loopy even by Doctor standards, though it doesn't stop him getting the job done.
* ContinuityCavalcade: "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho016StormWarning Charley]]. [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho053TheCreedOfTheKromon C'rizz]], [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWhoNEDAS1E1BloodOfTheDaleksPartOne Lucie]], [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWhoNEDAS4E2SituationVacant Tamsin]], [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWhoNEDASDarkEyesE1TheGreatWar Molly]]..."
* TheDandy: With his Victorian ensemble he gives Three a run for his money as the best dressed Doctor. Even when his clothes become ragged by the Time War they still have a rugged charm to them.
* DeadManWalking[=/=]NormallyIWouldBeDeadNow: Actually dies (as in permanently) in a spaceship crash, but is temporarily brought back to life for around 4 minutes by the Sisterhood of Karn, so he could choose his next regeneration.
* DealWithTheDevil: His decision to accept the Sisterhood of Karn's offer to pick his next incarnation definitely has this vibe.
* DeathSeeker: Claims he won't leave Cass to die while she refuses to leave with a Time Lord. This means he stays on a spaceship as it crashes, killing him (for good). He appears to be broken enough from the Time War to accept this, or perhaps he feels culpability for the atrocities of his people.
** He certainly wasn't happy about being revived, at least; referring to the Sisters of Karn's elixir, he calls them the "keepers of the flame of [[WhoWantsToLiveForever utter boredom]]" and, when glaring at the goblet he's to drink, Eight angrily [[GetOut screams at them to leave]].
* DefiantToTheEnd: A running gag in the Big Finish audios. When Eight's in danger of dying, he gets snarky. There's a nod to it in "The Resurrection of Mars" ("he uses it to suppress his fear"), and of course it recurs in his second -- and terminal -- live-action appearance: When informed he has 4 minutes to live, the Doctor brashly lists off a half dozen hobbies he could indulge in that time. "[[RealMenWearPink Bring me knitting!]]"
* DespairEventHorizon: Having endured, and run from, the still waging Time War, his failure to save the pilot Cass, and the accompanying realization of the reputation his people have brought upon themselves, appears to serve as the final straw on his state of mind. With some coaxing from the Sisters of Karn, he resignedly embraces his regeneration into the War Doctor. This comes after being thoroughly broken by his adventures in AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho.
-->'''Doctor''': I don't suppose there's any need for a Doctor anymore.
* DistressedDude: Courtesy of the Master, who's trying to steal the rest of his regenerations.
* DitzyGenius: Possibly the ditziest Doctor of them all, at least at first. Not so much later on.
* DownerEnding[=/=]CerebusSyndrome: Started out as the sunniest Doctor yet, with an unadulterated glee about the prospect of living that would not be seen again until his Tenth or even Eleventh iteration. By the time he got to Karn, however, he is a broken and emotionally haggard man who believes he deserves to have his life ended in agony.
* DullSurprise: One of the notorious aspects of the movie. Paul [=McGann=] couldn't move his forehead too much without the seam of the wig showing, which is part of the reason why he hated it so much. In the minisode, he's not dealing with a cheap wig anymore and has the freedom to be quite expressive, though most of his facial reactions show either fear, sadness, shock, or most of all: vein-pulsing explosive anger.
* FaceDeathWithDignity
* FamousLastWords: "Physician, heal thyself."
* {{Foil}}: His upbeat and forgiving attitude contrasted Seven's MagnificentBastard tendencies.
* FinalSpeech: Gets a brief final monologue before his regeneration.
-->"Charley. C'rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Molly... friends, companions I've known, I salute you. And Cass... I apologize. Physician, heal thyself..."
* FiveFingerDiscount: In his single TV adventure, the Eighth Doctor demonstrated a talent for pickpocketing people while directly speaking with them. He uses this talent to steal an ID card and a gun... [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome which he uses to hold himself hostage.]]
* HeroesWantRedheads: Though they ultimately decide to part ways, the first person he meets who fills the traditional role of companion is the redheaded Dr. Grace Holloway. As soon as he gets over his regeneration trauma, he snogs her a few times out of sheer joy. (She's also the only companion ever in the TV series to directly inadvertently ''kill him'', thus forcing him to regenerate from Seven to Eight.)
* GetOut: Shoos out the Sisterhood of Karn to leave before he regenerates.
* GotVolunteered: Since the alternative was being KilledOffForReal with the universe still in peril.
-->'''Doctor:''' I would rather die.\\
'''Sister:''' You're dead already. How many more would you let join you?
* HeroicBystander: He refused to fight in the Time War until he had no choice.
--> '''Eighth Doctor:''' It is not my war. I will have no part of it.
* HeroicSuicide: Enforced by the Sisters Of The Flame.
* IconicItem: His fob watch and Edwardian dress. Also, his shoes, which [[NiceShoes fit]] [[EstablishingCharacterMoment perfectly]].
* ILetGwenStacyDie: He was ''this'' close to rescuing Cass and packing off to a brand new adventure... until she saw his TARDIS, whereupon she recoiled as if in the presence of the Death Star or a Nazi flag.
* ImportantHaircut: Eight's "Night" attire looks like it's seen a few wars already, and his hairstyle follows suit.
* InnocentBlueEyes[=/=]IcyBlueEyes: Used in alternating ways to highlight both the lighter romantic sides of his personality as well as the more understated darker ones. The former is prominently on display in the movie promo-pictures, while the latter has come to the forefront in the ''Dark Eyes'' and "The Night of the Doctor" promo-pictures.
* InnocentFanserviceGuy: Gets a a few shirtless scenes right off the bat, while still very confused and amnesiac.
* ItHasBeenAnHonor[=/=]ToAbsentFriends: Before consuming the Sisterhood's regeneration elixir, he raises a toast to each of his Big Finish companions.
* {{Keet}}: ''Extremely''.
* KirkSummation: "You want dominion over the living, but all you do is kill!"
* LargeHam: With big arm gestures.
* LongBusTrip: ''Seventeen years'' between regenerations.
* LongHairedPrettyBoy: Starts off as this, squeaky-clean shaven and bright and cutesy. Then the breaking starts and he migrates directly toward {{Hunk}}, now sporting PermaStubble, an ExpositoryHairStyleChange, and a much grittier outlook on life. But somehow, the pretty boy and hunk qualities merge at the end of his life to create pure badass.
* LooseCanon: The ''first'' destruction of Gallifrey, in the [=EDAs=] that is, was the one the Eighth Doctor enacted to save Gallifrey from Faction Paradox (''The Ancestor Cell''). A previous book, ''Alien Bodies'', introduced the War storyline which would become central to the Revival Series: the loss of the Time Lords results in a universe where the laws of time are no longer being enforced ("The Book of the Still"). The BigFinish anniversary episode "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho050Zagreus Zagreus]]" cleared up the confusion over those novels' canonicity, by stating they're an alternate timeline possibility (and forcing Eight to watch that alternate self for a bit). Although BigFinish still tends to be, as Creator/NicholasBriggs likes to put it, "a bit naughty" in regards to canon, and has Eight referencing the novels ''and'' the comics a few times later on.
* ManChild: Easily the most boyish, carefree and bouncy Doctor when he's not in trouble.
* MessianicArchetype: The only hope to stop the Time War from tearing the universe apart? Drinking from a goblet? [[RuleOfSymbolism Quoting the Bible?]]
** DarkMessiah: What he actually becomes.
* MortonsFork: The circumstances of his death, the Time War, and the intervention of the Sisterhood of Karn hand him one of these. Either die for real, and condemn the universe to a horrific end at the hands of the Time Lords, the Daleks, and all the other too-horrible-to-think-of things that spawned from their battle, or cast aside everything he's sworn to be and join the fight in order to end it. He chooses the latter option, and apparently has regretted it ever since, despite it actually having ''worked''.
* MrFanservice: Eight has a habit of losing his shirt with some frequency in any medium he appears in, and spends his first few minutes in the movie dressed in just a sheet.
* NiceGuy: Eight is the sweetest Doctor there's ever been... until BreakTheCutie sets in.
* NiceShoes: "THESE SHOES!"
** Also part of a running gag, as Three and Four both babbled about their shoes shortly after regenerating (of course, because they had the TARDIS key in them)
* NoIndoorVoice: When excited or upset, he tends to go wild with the volume.
-->'''Eighth Doctor:''' The Master wants to take all my remaining lives... SO THAT HE WILL LIVE AND I WILL ''DIE!''
* NoSenseOfPersonalSpace: Something he shares with a few other Doctors. While his TraumaInducedAmnesia eventually gets better, his sense of personal space definitely does not.
* NotSoDifferent: As Cass points out to him, he and the Time Lords as a whole have committed so many atrocities during the Time War that there really is little difference between them and the Daleks.
* OlderThanTheyLook: Obviously, being the Doctor, but this incarnation in particular. If Big Finish is counted, this version lasted roughly ''1000 years''; the longest living Doctor until the Eleventh.
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: As seen in "The Name of the Doctor", he had a mostly off-screen adventure with the Second Doctor.
** His (audio drama) Big Finish adventures are given a shout-out in "The Night of the Doctor".
* PrettyBoy: Bordering on foxy, even.
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: After seeing his reflection for the first time after regeneration, whilst wandering about the hospital: "WHO! AM! I?!"
* RefusalOfTheCall: In "The Night of the Doctor", we learn the Eighth Doctor steadfastly refused to take any part in the Time War, even after it started to rip the universe apart. It is only [[TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive his own death and forced resurrection by the Sisterhood of the Flame]] which causes him to break this rule and regenerate into [[TheDreaded the War Doctor]].
* RetroactivePrecognition: An ability no other Doctor has ever shown again. Fan explanations vary from "it's a regeneration trauma thing" to "maybe Eight is special" to "Rule One: The Doctor Lies".
* SenselessSacrifice: Played with. Eight stubbornly refused to leave Cass despite telling him, quite clearly, to shove off. He's at the emotional crux of being broken and won't have any more of it. So he decides that if she's going to die, it would be worse if he went on living, dooming Cass to the fate of her own choosing, and having additional blood on his hands after losing multiple companions and loved ones. This time, he'll gladly allow himself to bite the big one. However, the crashed ship lands on Karn, causing a sequence of events that transform him into the War Doctor.
* SharpDressedMan: In gorgeous Victorian clothes.
* StopOrIShootMyself: The gun that Eight pulls on himself was actually the ''policeman's''. He's great at [[KleptomaniacHero sleight of hand]].
* TakeMyHand: To the Master, who refused and let himself be dragged into the Eye of Harmony; and to Cass, who refused and elected to die instead of being saved by a ''Time Lord'', seeing it as the better alternative. (It's a bit of a recurring trope for Eight that [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho052Scherzo offering to take someone's hand ends very badly]].)
* ThenLetMeBeEvil: In a way. He chooses to cast aside being a good man, being the Doctor, when he drank the chalice of the Warrior.
* TookALevelInBadass: A fatal example. At the end of his life, he chose his next regeneration to be a 'warrior' so he could fight in the Time War. The Doctor regenerates almost immediately afterward.
* TakeUpMySword: When considering his options for his next life, the Doctor pointedly claims Cass' [[BadassBandolier bandolier]] off her corpse.
* TraumaInducedAmnesia: Regenerating several hours after his death and under the influence of surgical-grade anesthetics apparently constitutes less-than-ideal circumstances.
* VerbalTic: He liked monosyllables. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!" "No, no, no, no, no..." "Grace, Grace, Grace, Grace!" Like that. Generally when he was excited, really thinking, or, as one character in the ExpandedUniverse observes, when he was distressed.
* WaistcoatOfStyle: Came with the outfit.
* WakingUpAtTheMorgue: Wakes up in a morgue in the middle of amnesia-inducing regeneration trauma. Finds a few feet of camera probe coming out of his chest. His first day was a bit scary.
** Wakes up again with Cass' body lying on a bier next to him. Told he has only a few minutes to live. His last day was also pretty bad.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: This only applies to his televised appearances, a whopping ''two'' over the course of '''''17''''' years. It is worth noting that Big Finish took the wheel and patched up the vast in-between space. The Eighth Doctor has been somewhat of a phantom in the TV series, but far from it in audio format. Ironically, and fittingly, Paul [=McGann=] was once quoted as not owning a TV in his household to watch the post-movie ''Doctor Who'', making the actor just as distanced from the new developments as his Doctor.
[[/folder]]
----

* KillEmAll: This trope seemed to follow the Fifth like the plague -- at least a third of his stories ended with a ''massive'' body count. His last story had ''two'' survivors, and neither was him. [[TheNthDoctor He got better, of course.]]

* VerbalTic: "Hmmm?" and "eh?". This came about because Hartnell suffered from arteriosclerosis, which affected his ability to remember lines, and this allowed the producers to use lines where Hartnell got his lines wrong (re-shooting and dubbing dialogue was not usually an option).

* BoundAndGagged: In "Day of the Daleks."

* GoodOldFisticuffs: This old fella may have some snow on the roof, but there's fire in the chimney. He boxes by Queensbury rules, having taken lessons from the great John L. Sullivan himself. ("Carnival of Monsters")

* IMeantToDoThat: There's something very blasé about his announcing that he has gotten the TARDIS working again that suggests it's bluster covering up for the fact that the Time Lords are still pulling his strings. ("The Monster of Peladon")

* MilitaryMaverick: There is a bitter quality to the Third Doctor as he clearly needs the protection and technology that UNIT provides. On the other hand, the Doctor finds himself trying to pull mankind up to his own level and failing, such as in "The Silurians." Trivia: The ending to this episode would be recycled for "The Christmas Invasion", cementing that the Doctor will ''never'' see eye-to-eye with UNIT.

** The Second Doctor was more than willing to kill the Ice Warriors on their first appearance. In "The Curse of Peladon," the Ice Warriors surprise him by turning face, proving that even monsters, at least in some cases, are just people who haven't achieved their full historical development yet. So in that sense, being exiled to Earth was an education for him.
* PrideBeforeAFall: Three's entire arc. Best remembered for his flamboyant confidence, he nicks the wrong crystal in "The Green Death" and is killed by spiders who are still seeking it a year later. Adding insult to injury, The Great One uses her psychic powers to make him [[PlayingWithPuppets dance like a toy]].

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The UNIT years are vaguely set somewhat in a "near future", which could be anywhere from the [=1960s=] to the [=1980s=]. The Brigadier's daughter lampshaded this continuity (or lack thereof) in "The Day of the Doctor" when she requested an archive file.

* WhatHaveWeEar: Sometimes did this sort of magic trick for fun, and also to distract his jailer in "The Monster of Peladon," except in this case, the coin came out of his own mouth.

* BewareTheSillyOnes: On a few occasions, it's even acknowledged he is ObfuscatingStupidity. ("City of Death")

* BigEntrance: Loved to ensure that all eyes were on him when he entered a room. Especially in "Horror of Fang Rock": since the lighthouse was cramped and the camera had to be very static, Creator/TomBaker insisted on entering each room with a flourish to make up for it.

* BlingOfWar: As part of his coronation as Lord President in "The Invasion of Time," the Fourth Doctor adorned himself with the giant gold Sash of Rassilon and its accompanying scepter.

* ClimbingClimax: This Doctor was defeated while trying to overpower the Master inside a radio telescope. It was up to the Fifth Doctor to finish the job.

* FaceFullOfAlienWingWong: In one rather bizarre example, his brain became the nest of a pregnant space shrimp in "The Invisible Enemy."

* FantasticVoyagePlot: In "The Invisible Enemy," he has himself and Leela cloned and shrunk down so he can be injected into his own brain, fight the pregnant monster that's nesting inside it, make sure Leela's clone dies inside his head, and then absorb her corpse into his bloodstream to gain her natural immunity to the thing!

** AGodIAmNot: He is, after all, a vagabond at heart, with no interest in toys such as the Key to Time, or the Staff of Rassilon. That's not to say he doesn't enjoy trolling people with them, as seen in "The Armageddon Factor."

* IdenticalGrandson: Of a sort. A retired incarnation of the Doctor, now peacefully pottering around the National Gallery, is wearing the Fourth Doctor's face for nostalgia's sake. ("The Day of the Doctor")

* NotSoAboveItAll: Occasionally his temper got the better of him: The Collector is happy to spill the beans about his exploitation of Pluto and how he taxed its inhabitants into indentured servitude. In the middle of wheedling the Collector with flattery, the Doctor turns around and declares him a bloodsucking leech. For more, see "Full Circle," which features one of the Doctor's all-time greatest freakouts. He also found it impossible to break bread with the Tharils in "Warriors' Gate", overturning his goblet and disrupting the banquet they throw for him.

* OurPresidentsAreDifferent: Through a twist of fate in "The Deadly Assassin," he finds himself elected President of Gallifrey -- and when he returns to the planet to take up the position in "The Invasion of Time," he promptly turns into a PresidentEvil. Actually, it's part of TheInfiltration to fool some Sontaran marauders; he clearly had fun tormenting his subordinates, though (his Emperor Nero moment with the jelly babies being a highlight).

* SmartPeoplePlayChess: In "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," Magnus Greel and Four casually shuffle around chess pieces while Greel delivers his evil speech. Four wins, of course.

* SwordFight: Got into a rather magnificent and very long fencing duel at the climax of "The Androids of Tara." He keeps the scarf on.

* UnwittingPawn: The Master coerces him into an alliance in "Logopolis". If the whole universe disintegrates, there will never be a galaxy to rule, right? Not so fast: The Master plans to bargain the healing technobabble for the unquestioned allegiance of the universe's inhabitants.

* TheWorfEffect : All it takes is nerve-pinching the Fourth Doctor into oblivion, and he's down for the count. Amusingly, this is the exact opposite of Venusian akido.

* IWasQuiteAFashionVictim: As happy as the Tenth Doctor is to see him again, he doesn't seem to miss the days of dressing like a vegetarian Dick Tracy.

* [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth Too Good For This Sinful Galaxy]]: He witnessed the mutual destruction of humans and primordials in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E1WarriorsOfTGheDeep Warriors of the Deep]]". He saw what the future had in store for mankind in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E3Frontios Frontios]]". In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E4ResurrectionOfTheDaleks Resurrection of the Daleks]]", Five was pushed to the point where he considered executing Davros, but he lost his nerve and everyone else croaked anyway. "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21ETheCavesOfAndrozani Caves of Androzani]]" presented a society so corrupt that even the Doctor couldn't save it (at least not entirely), and the sheer filth of the place destroyed him.
* TorturePorn: His final serial. Also, Five's last companion was Peri Brown, who gets tied up often enough to make Wonder Woman green with envy.

* WalkingDisasterArea: People pretty much tend to drop dead as soon as he walks in. Lampshaded in "[[Recap/DpctprWhoS21E3Frontios Frontios]]" (a comparatively upbeat episode).

* NervesOfSteel: The Doctor knows the difference between a lean killer and a coward raining down death from rooftops. He has the audacity to sneak up on some snipers, puff out his chest and dare them to kill him honorably. And then snatches the gun away, when they hesitate. ("The Happiness Patrol")

* NoodleIncident: "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" and "The Curse of Fenric" pits him against {{the Old Gods}}, and it's suggested that he's tangled with them before.

* PrinciplesZealot: Seven doesn't wander around aimlessly as much as prior versions. (Or most future versions for that matter.) He's a man on a mission. By Season 26, the Doctor goes around toppling dictatorships for sport. In "The Happiness Patrol," he makes a bet with himself to dismantle their entire police state by sunrise ([[BadassBoast he does]]).

* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: "The Empty Child" & "Listen" imply that as a child, he was not well-liked among the other children. When a character makes a passing remark about whether he knew what it was like to be "the only child left outside", the Ninth Doctor replied he ''did''.

* BavarianFireDrill: Does a ''masterful'' one in "The Reign of Terror," giant hat and all.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: He claims he left Galifrey because he was bored. The Twelfth Doctor in "Heaven Sent" confirms that this was a lie. He left because he was scared. What he was scared of however we don't know...yet.

* DoesntLikeGuns: Typified in "The Gunfighters". When the Doctor is landed in jail, Steven passes him a gun through his cell window as part of a plan to bust him out. The Doctor immediately hands the gun over to the sheriff.

* HeroicComedicSociopath: On occasion, especially in more humourous stories such as "The Romans", and whenever he encounters the Medding Monk. Vicki seems to bring out the worst in him.
* HeroicFatigue: Fell ill during the events of "The Tenth Planet," putting him out of commission for most of it. He finally mustered the energy to blow up the Snowcap base along with the Cybermen, whereupon he collapsed from exhaustion.

* ImMrFuturePopCultureReference: The First Doctor's alias in Tombstone is "[[TheCabinetOfDrCaligari Dr. Caligari]]." ("The Gunfighters")

* InformedAttribute: His status as a HumanAlien, which is occasionally mentioned but not demonstrated in any way until he regenerates for the first time. Sometimes, as in "The Savages," he seems to actually forget that he's ''not'' a human (since this wasn't yet clear to the writers at the start of the show).

* InsufferableGenius: He will point out how much smarter he is than his companions, or anyone else who happens to be in the room with him. He is in fine form during "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" where he answers a fellow prisoner's cynicism with jabs at his intelligence and orders him to stop bothering him.

* NoodleIncident: Whatever drove him to leave Gallifrey in a stolen TARDIS and take Susan with him. An old classmate Runcible says he was "expelled" due to a "scandal". When the Time Lords catch up to him in his second incarnation, they're more mad he's been breaking their non-interference law than anything else. [[note]] The Big Finish {{Audioplay/Gallifrey}} Series suggests that he was forced to flee after the president issued an assasination order ('burn edict') against him. Fortunately for him, the would-be assassin was Braxiatel, who is heavily implied to be the Doctor's brother; Brax warns the Doctor so he can flee, and then assassinates the president instead! [[/note]]

* SmartPeopleWearGlasses: Seen most prominently in "The Sensorites," in which he uses both regular glasses and a monocle.
* ThickerThanWater: He and Susan are extremely close, and they never even fought before "The Sensorites." Letting her go is a very difficult choice for the Doctor.

* WhamLine: Kicks off the climax of "The Day of the Doctor".

* {{Badass Adorable}}

* BatmanGambit: Pulled one on his own companion, Jamie, in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E9TheEvilOfTheDaleks Evil of the Daleks]], knowing that Jamie would "infect" the Daleks with all that was good noble in humanity. [[WhatTheHellHero Jamie didn't take it well]].

* FunPersonified: He starts out as this just after regenerating. His later stories turn him into a very dark MagnificentBastard instead, although still with plenty of juggling, spoon dancing and hat tricks.

* BornUnlucky: Want to know how unlucky Five was? Everything that happens in "The Caves of Androzani" is thanks to his companion tripping and ''[[TheLoad falling down a hole.]]''

* ChekhovsGun: Davison begged the showrunner, John Nathan-Turner, to explain the purpose of the celery before his Doctor's number was up. He got his wish in the final episode, "The Caves of Androzani."

* NotHelpingYourCase: The Doctor must not be familiar with ''Murder, She Wrote''. In "Black Orchid," he won't state his name for the record because it's infamous in faraway lands, he doesn't carry I.D., and his idea of arguing one's innocence is shouting that he knows where to find more bodies.

* NotNowKiddo: If Five has something resembling a character flaw, it's his impatience. Ironically for someone who dealt with thick-headed generals or {{obstructive bureaucrat}}s almost weekly, he had a low attention span when it came to complaints from his team. This proved a serious mistake in "Snakedance."

* OfferedTheCrown: Was offered the presidency in The Five Doctors. He wasn't keen on it.

* PurelyAestheticGlasses: Occasionally. Creator/PeterDavison actually admitted he stopped wearing what were later called the "brainy specs" after a while because of ribbing from certain members of the cast. He put them back on for the "Time Crash" mini-episode with David Tennant.

* RailEnthusiast: Five once confessed that, when he was a child, he always wanted to be a train conductor. This is [[EvenNerdsHaveStandards too geeky even for Nyssa]]. ("Black Orchid")

* ShooOutTheClowns: "Resurrection of the Daleks" was a critique of the show's premise: this isn't fun anymore, people are getting hurt. Unfortunately, it takes until Androzani for the Doctor to realize the perils of dropping into worlds on a whim. His friendly handshakes [[HandshakeRefusal are refused]] and his witty repartee [[DoNotTauntCthulhu falls on deaf ears]]. There’s a sense, leading into Davison's regeneration, that the universe is shifting and changing around the Doctor.

* ThousandYardStare: The denouement of "Earthshock." The Doctor turns to stone while Tegan, almost penitently, demands some sort of miracle from him and receives none.
* [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth Too Good For This Sinful Galaxy]]: He witnessed the mutual destruction of humans and primordials in "Warriors of the Deep." He saw what the future had in store for mankind in "Frontios." In "Resurrection of the Daleks," Five was pushed to the point where he considered executing Davros, but he lost his nerve and everyone else croaked anyway. "The Caves of Androzani" presented a society so corrupt that even the Doctor couldn't save it (at least not entirely), and the sheer filth of the place destroyed him.

* WalkingDisasterArea: People pretty much tend to drop dead as soon as he walks in. Lampshaded in "Frontios" (a comparatively upbeat episode).

* ManipulativeBastard: The Curse of Fenric and Ghost Light. And then there's ''Literature/TheNewAdventures''...

* CharacterTics: Wringing his hands together, pouting his jaw, and a really quirky jog-run.

* CharacterTics: A habit of saying, "Yes, well" to start his sentences, answering "Yes, of course", humming a ditty when tinkering on things, displaying a half-interested attitude when people try talking to him while he's working with lab equipment, and touting a very cheeky grin when he makes a clever joke.

* CloudCuckooLander: Possibly loopier than all other Doctors ''combined.'' If you ever need evidence for why this Doctor was the weirdest, fire up the scene "The Seeds of Doom" when he barges into Sir Colin’s office. He walks around with a chair on his head, puts it down, goes to sit on it, doesn’t bother, soliloquizes on the nature of greed, throws a fit, accuses them of having a security leak whilst staring the guilty party right in the face, insults Sir Colin and orders a car! As written it is functional; but as read by Tom Baker, it is utterly barmy.

* CharacterTics: Upon greeting/farewell, Seven likes to tip his hat.

* {{Foil}}: His outspoken, harsh demeanor makes him one to Five.

* BadassAdorable

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He can be pompous, arrogant, rude and stubborn, but he's still a good guy and genuinely cares about his companions, however much he may insult them.

* RecycledInSpace: Is often described as Charlie Chaplin [-IN SPACE-]!

* MasterSwordsman: Not shocking for this action hero, quite frankly, but the Doctor is able to out-fight the Master in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E3TheSeaDevils The Sea Devils]]" in a fencing duel. [[WithMyHandsTied He then eats a sandwich while holding the Master at swordpoint]]. [[UpToEleven A sandwich that happened]] [[CrowningMomentOfFunny to be the Master's lunch]]. And ''then'' he throws the Master back his sword so they can have some more fun. According to the Twelfth Doctor, he learned from the best: Richard the Lionheart, Hannibal Barca and... ErrolFlynn.

* ManipulativeBastard: The Curse of Fenric and Ghost Light. And then there's Literature/TheNewAdventures...

** And now thanks to Big Finish, which has created a genuine final story accepted as the true canonical ending, his last words are going to change yet again.

** Then, Seven goes from a manipulator to a terror who breaks people with his manipulative schemes and eventually descends into heavy remorse, opting to travel alone. He becomes so weary that he grows complacent and forgets to check his TARDIS scanner on the one night when a Chinese-American gang was raising hell in the San Francisco alleyways.

* CatchPhrase: "Mmm, I wonder...Aha!"

* FamousLastWords: "Carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice..." Or if you go by the novel ''Spiral Scratch'', "Local...tractor beam..."

-->"Nothing but the... urk!... grinding engines of the universe! The...crushing boredom of eternity! [=HAAAAAHahahahAHAhahahaA!=]"

* [[XanatosSpeedChess Xanatos Speed Chess Player]]: Once Six actually figures out what the hell is going on, his quick thinking and planning is pretty much this in curly blond hair and a multicoloured coat. That does, of course, depend on the Sixth Doctor actually being involved enough in the main story to realize what's going on —- [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E6RevelationOfTheDaleks one example]] left him clueless until the final 20 minutes of the story.

** Wakes up again with Cass' body lying on a bier next to him. Told he has only a few minutes left to live. His last day was also pretty bad.

** As for all the gadgets and undercover military work in Three's era -- in 2013, footage unearthed by journalists revealed that Creator/JonPertwee worked for Naval Intelligence during WorldWarTwo, and [[RealitySubtext his job involved]] briefing spies and commandoes in the use of [[ShoePhone espionage and assassination gadgets]].