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[[center:[[WMG:''Series/DoctorWho'' [[Characters/DoctorWho characters index]]\\
[-Incarnations of the [[Characters/DoctorWhoDoctors Doctor]]\\
[[Characters/DoctorWhoFirstDoctor 1]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoSecondDoctor 2]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoThirdDoctor 3]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoFourthDoctor 4]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoFifthDoctor 5]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoSixthDoctor 6]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoSeventhDoctor 7]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoEighthDoctor 8]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoWarDoctor War]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoNinthDoctor 9]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoTenthDoctor 10]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoEleventhDoctor 11]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoTwelfthDoctor 12]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoThirteenthDoctor 13]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoFourteenthDoctor 14]] | '''Other Doctors'''\\
'''[[Characters/DoctorWhoTheTARDIS The TARDIS]]'''\\
'''[[Characters/DoctorWhoCompanionsAndSupportingCast Companions and Supporting Cast]]'''\\
[[Characters/DoctorWhoClassicSeriesCompanions Classic Series Companions]] ([[Characters/DoctorWhoK9 K9]], [[Characters/DoctorWhoRomana Romana]]) | [[Characters/DoctorWhoRevivalSeriesCompanions Revival Series Companions]] ([[Characters/DoctorWhoRoseTyler Rose Tyler]], [[Characters/DoctorWhoJackHarkness Captain Jack Harkness]], [[Characters/DoctorWhoRiverSong River Song]], [[Characters/DoctorWhoClaraOswald Clara Oswald]]) | [[Characters/DoctorWhoOtherSupportingCast Other Supporting Cast]] ([[Characters/DoctorWhoThePaternosterGang The Paternoster Gang]]) | [[Characters/DoctorWhoUNITStaff UNIT Staff]]\\
'''[[Characters/DoctorWhoVillains Villains]]'''\\
[[Characters/DoctorWhoImmortalsAndEldritchAbominations Immortals and Eldritch Abominations]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoMasters The Master]] ([[Characters/DoctorWhoJohnSimmsMaster John Simm's Master]], [[Characters/DoctorWhoMissy Missy]], [[Characters/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverseMasters Expanded Universe Masters]])\\
'''[[Characters/DoctorWhoAliensAndMonsters Aliens and Monsters]]'''\\
[[Characters/DoctorWhoDaleks Daleks]] ([[Characters/DoctorWhoDavros Davros]]) | [[Characters/DoctorWhoCybermen Cybermen]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoRobots Robots]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoTheSilence The Silence]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoSilurians Silurians]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoSontarans Sontarans]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoTimeLords Time Lords]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoWeepingAngels Weeping Angels]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoSlitheen Slitheen]]-]]]]]
----
!Other Incarnations (Original Series)
[[folder:The "Morbius" Doctors]]
!!The "Morbius" Doctors
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/morbius_doctors.jpg]]
%%[[caption-width-right:350:some caption text]]
->'''Played by:''' Christopher Barry, Creator/RobertHolmes, Graeme Harper, Christopher Baker, Creator/PhilipHinchcliffe, Robert Banks Stewart, Creator/DouglasCamfield, George Gallaccio (1976)
->''"How far, Doctor? How long have you lived?!"''
-->-- '''Morbius''', [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E5TheBrainOfMorbius "The Brain of Morbius"]]
An octet of mysterious faces glimpsed on a monitor during the Fourth Doctor's mental showdown against the resurrected brain of the Time Lord Morbius, alongside the known past faces of the Doctor. These faces were intended to represent unseen past lives of the Doctor, portrayed by the production crew of the show. Their "canonical" [[note]]as much as that word means anything in ''Doctor Who''[[/note]] status is still a controversial and hotly debated topic in the fandom. The so-called Morbius Doctors went unseen and unreferenced for decades, barring some very minor cameos in a few ExpandedUniverse works, until 2020 unexpectedly saw them return to the picture in the main series…
----
%%* AdaptationExpansion: Obverse Books, publishers of the ''Franchise/IrisWildthyme'' spin-off franchise, produced a semi-official anthology novel for charity called ''Forgotten Lives'', with colourful new artwork of the Morbius Doctors by Paul Hanley. Hanley notably designed a new costume for Graeme Harper's Doctor, as well as TARDIS console rooms for every one of them. Obverse later produced a sequel anthology novel, ''Forgotten Lives 2'', again for charity.
* AmbiguousSituation: The identity of these figures was, and still is, a topic of fierce debate. Their debut story strongly implies that they are the Doctor's unseen past lives from before he was Creator/WilliamHartnell, which was playfully confirmed by the production staff who played them. The montage of their faces succeeds a montage of the known faces of the Fourth, Third, Second and First Doctors. Given that the thirteen-life limit was established in "The Deadly Assassin", only a year after "The Brain of Morbius" aired, this would imply that the Fourth Doctor was near the end of his natural regeneration cycle. This, of course, proved not to be the case.
** Some fans speculated that these faces actually represented Morbius's past lives. This is inconsistent with the presentation of the episode since Morbius only shows one of his past faces before the Doctor starts showing his. Also, these incarnations' peculiar dress senses are distinctly Doctor-like.
** The possibilities that Time Lords have more than thirteen lives and that the Doctor has had many unseen past incarnations has been kicked around many, many times in the show and expanded universe media. The show would eventually acknowledge these faces again in the episode "The Timeless Children", during a similar psychedelic sequence of the Thirteenth Doctor blasting out of the Matrix with her memories of them.
* AwesomeAnachronisticApparel: It's a surefire clue that these guys are definitely meant to be the Doctor. Even by usual standards, they all dress splendidly. Hinchcliffe's Doctor, as just one example, dresses like a Stuart nobleman, complete with a long, curly wig.
* BattleInTheCentreOfTheMind: Their first appearance was during a mind-bending contest between Morbius and the Doctor, inspiring their collective nickname.
* TheBusCameBack: They debuted in 1976's "The Brain of Morbius", but it took until 2020's "The Timeless Children" for them to finally reappear onscreen.
* CanonDiscontinuity: {{Subverted}}. As the rules of regeneration became firmly established and the First Doctor was clearly established to be the original in subsequent stories, the Morbius Doctors as a concept faded into trivial obscurity. That is, until everything about the Doctor's past was revealed to be a lie in "The Timeless Children", and they unexpectedly returned.
* CanonWelding: [[spoiler:They are implicitly connected to the Timeless Child legend central to the Thirteenth Doctor's story arc, appearing in another psychedelic sequence of the Doctor remembering her past lives while she undergoes a major existential crisis regarding her discovery of her past identity ''as'' the Timeless Child.]]
* PsychicBlockDefence: Both of their appearances in the show proper saw the current Doctor's powerful memories of them being used to protect their precious brain, first against Morbius, later against the Master's Matrix trap.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Watcher]]
!!The Watcher
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wtc3_4173.jpg]]
->'''Played by:''' Adrian Gibbs (1981)
->'''Adric:''' Why are you prepared for the worst, Doctor?\\
'''Fourth Doctor:''' Because he's here.
A manifestation of the Fourth Doctor's next incarnation (aka the Fifth Doctor) who helped him and his companions during his incoming regeneration.
----
* EyesAlwaysShut: Has some rather weird statue-like features like barely-open eyes.
* FemmeFatalons: Also sports pointy claws for some reason.
* FutureMeScaresMe: The Fourth Doctor is visibly disturbed by his presence (which means impending regeneration) hence the quote.
* {{Leitmotif}}: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciXACtP92zg This ominous theme]] always plays whenever he appears.
* MysteriousWatcher: Adric decides to call him "the Watcher" because that appears to be his thing, silently observing.
* NightmareFace: His face is somehow unformed and rather clay-looking, representing how he represents the Doctor-to-be (looking even closer shows he has a hairstyle similar to Peter Davidson's, more or less spoiling the Fifth Doctor's idenity).
* NoNameGiven: He's just "the friend of the Doctor". "The Watcher" is a nickname given by Adric.
* OffscreenTeleportation: How exactly he's following the Doctor and transported Nyssa from Traken to Logopolis is never revealed.
* TheVoiceless: Other characters refer to him speaking but even when he's having a dialogue scene with someone it's always shot from a distance and inaudible.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Valeyard]]
!!The Valeyard
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_valeyard.jpg]]
->'''Played by:''' Creator/MichaelJayston (1986)
->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/MichaelJayston (2003-present)
->''"There is nothing you can do to prevent the catharsis of spurious morality."''
The Valeyard was a particularly antagonistic Time Lord, who first appeared in "The Trial of a Time Lord". It was eventually revealed in Part 13 the Valeyard is really the Doctor. Or, rather, a future aspect of all the Doctor's evil and malice born from his 12th and final regenerations ([[UnreliableNarrator except that information came from the Master]] and which regenerations he's referring to exactly is [[ContinuitySnarl a bit muddled at this point]]). Though the Valeyard only showed up in the TV series for that one story (possibly), presumed dead ''and'' alive at the same time, [[BadFuture he will happen someday]]...
----
* AbortedArc: Creator/StevenMoffat ultimately decided to ignore the matter of the Valeyard's existence when writing [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E13TheNameOfTheDoctor "The Name of the Doctor"]] and [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor "The Time of the Doctor"]], stories which concerned the future fate of the Doctor and his gaining of a new regeneration cycle, respectively (however, the Valeyard ''does'' receive a brief shout-out as one of the many names the Doctor will take before his death). The Valeyard was mentioned again in [[Recap/DoctorWho2017CSTwiceUponATime "Twice Upon a Time"]], suggesting that [[SubvertedTrope he's not actually aborted]], he's just been pushed back.
* AmbulanceChaser: He seems to be this at first.
* BigBad: Of the Trial of a Time Lord arc.
* TheBully: An unfortunate trait that exceedingly parallels the Sixth Doctor’s own abrasive, condescending personality. Despite his verbose and serious demeanor, the Valeyard took the time to immaturely call Glitz names (“Oaf! Microbe!”) upon seeing him in the Matrix, before moving back to mock the Doctor some more.
* CardCarryingVillain: Once it's revealed that he's the main villain of the Trial of a Time Lord arc in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe "The Ultimate Foe"]], he starts to nonchalantly reaffirm that yes, he's a villain.
* CharacterTics: As he notes during [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe "The Ultimate Foe"]], he still displays some of the Doctor's habits and eccentricities.
* ContinuityNod: [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E13TheNameOfTheDoctor The Great Intelligence]] noted the Doctor will come to be known as the Valeyard while labeling him as a monster. [[Recap/DoctorWho2017CSTwiceUponATime The Testimony]] would later refer to him as the Shadow of the Valeyard while describing his influence on the universe.
* DragonInChief: To the entire Time Lord High Council. At least until the Master pulls the lid on his ultimate game plan. Then he makes the transition into full BigBad.
* DragonWithAnAgenda: The Master believed that he worked for him, but the Valeyard's plan all along was to obtain the Sixth Doctor's remaining regenerations for himself.
* TheDreaded: By both the Master and the Doctor.
* DrivingQuestion: Exactly ''who'' are the twelfth and final (at the time implied to be thirteen) incarnations of the Doctor who the Master spoke of? The Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor, born as an offshoot from aborted regeneration number twelve? The Eleventh Doctor, who had an evil projection of himself appear once and was his twelfth life born from his final regeneration in the original cycle? The Twelfth Doctor, his first life in the new cycle and thirteenth overall, who started off rather dark before mellowing? The later Thirteenth Doctor, who discovered she had many more incarnations than she thought and once split into three? The Dream Lord given flesh and a new face? Or some other incarnation in the future considered to be the last one?
* EnemyWithin: The Master's ambiguous wording when describing him infers that he's either the Doctor himself, after all their evil took them over in a potential future, or...
* EnemyWithout: The Doctor's evil split from them into a new entity.
* EvilCounterpart: Played literally straight for this one. He's either the Doctor after all his evil took over him, or straight up the Doctor's evil split from him into its own entity. Either way, he's an evil counterpart of the Doctor and it quite shows.
* EvilFeelsGood: He has no qualms about preferring to be evil.
* EvilGloating: Part of his [[EvilIsHammy evil hamminess]].
* EvilIsHammy: And ''revelling'' in it. Not that anyone's complaining...
* EvilIsNotAToy: As the High Council and the Master found out to their cost.
* EvilKnockoff: Of the Doctor, intentionally.
* EvilMeScaresMe: The Doctor's reaction to the Valeyard's true nature is one of abject horror. It's been argued that the Doctor is petrified of him returning in ''any'' form. The ExpandedUniverse went further on this, to the point that in the ''[[Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures New Adventures]]'' the Seventh Doctor temporarily sealed away the Sixth Doctor's personality for fear he'd become him. Hell, even ''[[AxCrazy the Master]]'' fears him.
* ExpandedUniverse: He was brought back, and apparently killed off, in the [[Literature/PastDoctorAdventures BBC Seventh Doctor novel]] ''Matrix''. Big Finish also brought him back in ''Trial of the Valeyard'', which also has him telling his backstory (though said backstory turned out to be bait for his attempt to lure the Doctor into a trap; however, the Doctor says there might have been some truth to this story).
* FaceHeelTurn: One possibility for his conception is that he's the Doctor after all his evil took over him.
* FutureMeScaresMe: Part of the issue with the Valeyard is that, previously, the Doctor always had the option of self-sacrifice if a cause was worthy enough. In most of their lives after the Time War, they likely don't have this option, as their death could unleash the Valeyard, who helped kill billions just to set up a GrandTheftMe gambit to steal the Doctor's remaining lives.
* AGodAmI: Shows signs of this when bragging to the Doctor about his mastery of the Matrix.
* HangingJudge: While admittedly he's the prosecutor in the Doctor's trial, it's clear that he wants the Doctor executed. If the trial was run on Earth laws he would have soon run into ArtisticLicenceLaw. Granted, the whole proceeding was a KangarooCourt case anyway.
* JerkassHasAPoint: In the ''[[Literature/DoctorWhoMissingAdventures Missing Adventures]]'' novel ''Millennial Rites'', when debating with a manifestation of the Valeyard in his mind, the Sixth Doctor concedes to the Valeyard's point that sometimes the more ruthless course of action is necessary, but the Doctor nevertheless rejects the idea that he has to enjoy such actions to commit them.
* MasterOfIllusion: When he escapes into the Matrix.
* MeaningfulName: In-universe. The name Valeyard is said to mean "''Doctor'' of Law" in Gallifreyan (so good luck finding it in any dictionary).
* MuggedForDisguise: If the final moments of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe "The Ultimate Foe"]] are anything to go by, he seems to have robbed the Keeper of the Matrix of his robes.
* NoodleIncident: His apparent history with the Ainley Master, assuming the Master didn't just find out about him while in the Matrix.
* NothingIsScarier: How the Valeyard even came into existence is unknown.
* NotSoAboveItAll: There is a golden moment where he's lecturing the Doctor in his typical dour manner, even explicitly stating that he "wishes not to be contaminated by [the Doctor's] whims and idiosyncracies"... then when Glitz tries to participate in the conversation, the Valeyard teleports directly behind him for the explicit purpose of insulting him in a rather comedic way. Then again, his compulsion to out-cool adult male companions and recurring characters was always one of the Doctor's most persistent character flaws...
* NotSoHarmlessVillain: At first he seems to be just another stuffy bureaucrat that's merely doing his job and at worst appears to secretly enjoy it a bit too much. Then the Master shows up and reveals what he's really in it for.
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: He initially appears to be an embodiment of everything that the Doctor despises about Time Lord society: a corrupt, officious, boring, loudmouthed and overtly-professional paper-pusher taking advantage of a decadent system. It makes it all the more shocking when it turns out he ''is'' the Doctor (sort of).
* ThePlan: The Valeyard's plan revolves around setting up a trial to frame the Doctor for the illegal actions of the Time Lord High Council, which he uses to try and steal the Sixth Doctor's remaining regenerations for himself — so that he can become a full being once again. However, ''on top of this'', the Valeyard also uses the setup of the trial to jack into the computer that records all of time, warp the records, ''and'' set up a death trap to kill off the ''entire Time Lord leadership'' in one blow! Oh, ''and'' this was all set up to begin a coup d'état of the ''entire Time Lord society''! Yeah, he's ''good''. All of that, while pretending to be TheDragon for everyone but the Doctor, and everyone but the Doctor being powerless to stop him once they realize his intent.
* PsychoForHire: He seems to be this, before becoming the DragonInChief.
* PurpleProse: Prone to overly-verbose language in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe "The Ultimate Foe"]], because his dialogue was penned by Pip & Jane Baker. His page quote is basically just a fancy way of saying it's impossible to keep an evil nature hidden beneath the guise of a good one.
* PutOnABus: It's been over 30 years since the Valeyard last appeared(?) on-screen in his "am I dead or not" ending.
** The Dream Lord from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E7AmysChoice "Amy's Choice"]] is another manifestation of the Doctor's dark side, suggesting the Valeyard is still around.
** The Valeyard is name-checked by the Great Intelligence in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E13TheNameOfTheDoctor "The Name of the Doctor"]], as one of the names the Doctor supposedly will take before the end.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWho2017CSTwiceUponATime "Twice Upon a Time"]], the Testimony also namechecks the Valeyard while listing off the Doctor's [[IHaveManyNames many names]], the name in question being "The Shadow of the Valeyard".
* ShadowArchetype: To the Doctor.
* TheSpook: There is much mystery surrounding him.
* UnreliableNarrator: In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E1TheMysteriousPlanet "The Mysterious Planet"]], he's tampered with the evidence in the Matrix, though not to as great an effect as he has in following stories.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: At least until the Master reveals what his true nature is.
* WhamLine:
-->'''The Master:''' They made a deal with the Valeyard — or, as I've always known him, the Doctor — to adjust the evidence! In return for which, he was promised the remainder of the Doctor's regenerations!\\
'''The Valeyard:''' My lady, this-!\\
'''The Doctor:''' ''Just a minute''! Did you call him... The Doctor!?
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: Ties in directly with his LargeHam status. And, wow, it's fun to watch.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Merlin]]
!!Merlin
An incarnation of the Doctor who will be Myth/{{Merlin}} in an AlternateUniverse based on Myth/ArthurianLegend with SufficientlyAdvancedMagic. Mentioned in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E1Battlefield "Battlefield"]]. A similar incarnation named Muldwych appears in several ExpandedUniverse short stories by Peter Anghelides where he's a red-haired man ([[RunningGag yes, he's finally ginger]]) in an Afghan coat and yellow knitted waistcoat (based on a description in the ''Battlefield'' novelisation). However, there is ''also'' an Expanded Universe short story ("One Fateful Knight" by Creator/PeterDavid) where the Eighth Doctor takes the role.
----
* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: Merlin is a Doctor who's been hopping universes. Guess there's something to River Song's complaints all the good wizards turn out to be him.
* TheGhost: He goes unseen throughout "Battlefield", though his influence is keenly felt.
* HelpYourselfInTheFuture: Leaves some hints for the Seventh Doctor alongside Arthur's body. Of course, he only finds them ''after'' they'd be helpful.
* SmartPeoplePlayChess: He and Morgaine used to play chess. According to her, she beat him every time.
* WizardClassic: He becomes Merlin.
[[/folder]]
!Other Incarnations (Revival Series)
[[folder:Doctor Moon]]
!!Doctor Moon
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/doctor_moon_salmon.jpg]]
->'''Played by:''' Creator/ColinSalmon (2008)
->''"What I want you to remember is this, and I know it's hard: [[WhamLine the real world is a lie. And your nightmares are real.]] The Library is real, there are people trapped in there. People who need to be saved. The shadows are moving again."''
A literal moon with artificial intelligence that orbits over the biggest library in the universe, manifesting in virtual reality as the human physician Doctor Moon to monitor the Library's central computer consciousness, CAL. Although the concept never made it to screen, the character's creator Creator/StevenMoffat intended for Dr. Moon to be the very last incarnation of the Doctor whose consciousness was saved within the Library.
----
* AbortedArc: Dr. Moon's possible fate as the Doctor's last incarnation uploaded to the Library mainframe goes unsaid in the televised story, leaving it an AmbiguousSituation for viewers to decide themselves. Also, River's connection to the Doctor was revised in later arcs, as her last encounter with her beloved before her team's fateful mission to the Library turned out to be with the [[Characters/DoctorWhoTwelfthDoctor Twelfth Doctor]], not the Forty-Fifth Doctor (though considering a night on Darillium lasts 24 years, it's still a possibility she met both). He could also have simply not revealed this version of himself to her until after the episode.
* AffirmativeActionLegacy: If you accept the premise that he is a virtual avatar of a far-future Doctor, he may count as the first canonical black incarnation seen onscreen.
* AllThereInTheManual: His connection to the Doctor was belatedly revealed in a 2020 Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine article and has yet to be used in a narrative context, though the idea has been widely accepted by the fanbase (and Creator/RussellTDavies). As the game-changing episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren The Timeless Children]]" opened the floodgates for noted writers to discuss their own ideas about the Doctor's past and future, it seems to still be on the cards.
* DareToBeBadass: He gives young Charlotte a hell of a WhamLine that the real world, as she perceives it, is a lie and that her nightmares of a giant library filled with carnivorous shadows are actually real. There's people trapped inside it that need help and only she can save them.
* FriendToAllChildren: While he seems a little untrustworthy at first, he ultimately shows he has a child's best interests at heart, just like any good Doctor.
* GeniusLoci: As a literal moon with artifical intelligence, he certainly qualifies.
* LotusEaterMachine: Dr. Moon keeps CAL's consciousness, as well as all the other "saved" human inhabitants, in a realistic suburban setting where she believes herself to be a normal human girl. It's eventually revealed that CAL was once the girl, Charlotte Abigail Lux, whose mind was uploaded to the Library.
* PunnyName: His name turns out to be incredibly literal. In the real world, he's a manmade satellite resembling Earth's moon who acts as an antivirus firewall to the Library's computer systems. The humanoid form we meet is merely his virtual avatar.
* TogetherInDeath: Although they don't seem to recognise each other in their current states, he and River reunite in the ArtificialAfterlife of the Library where they continue to live happily ever after.
* VirtualRealityWarper: In the cyberspace of the Library, he can instantaneously accelerate the passage of time simply saying variations of the phrase "And then... you went to *X*", as well as influence the virtual world in other subtle ways.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The "Meta-Crisis" Tenth Doctor]]
!!The "Meta-Crisis" Tenth Doctor
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/metacrisis_ten_3368.jpg]]
->'''Played by:''' Creator/DavidTennant (2008)
->''"I'm part human. Specifically, the aging part. I'll grow old and never regenerate. I've only got one life, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you, if you want."''
An unusual tangent from the Doctor we know as a side effect of his sidestepped eleventh regeneration. He was the final result of the original Doctor losing his hand in a Sycorax duel, which Jack rescued and returned to him. The Doctor kept it with him until a Dalek got in a cheap shot and made him regenerate. The Doctor, having a vain streak at the time, cheated the regeneration and used his severed hand as a container for the energy that would recreate his body. This in fact counted as far as his allotted regenerations went, leaving the Doctor with [[Characters/DoctorWhoEleventhDoctor one last regeneration]] in his first cycle.
Donna Noble interacted with the hand while it was coursing with regeneration energy that tried to heal the limb as though it was still a part of its Time Lord owner, but didn't have enough DNA to recognize the full picture of the Doctor's body. Donna's DNA got sampled and used to fill in the gaps, causing the hand to sprout into a whole new Doctor with a bit of Donna's temper inside him. He picked up her human body, leaving him a Time Lord brought down to human level- what he called a "biological meta-crisis". It led this clone to choose a different path from the Doctor, reciprocate his love for Rose Tyler in his stead, and live a happy life in a parallel universe with her.
However, the original Doctor also noticed the clone resembled his attitude right after coming out of the Time War, like the Ninth Doctor before mellowing out, and fewer qualms about killing his enemies. He left Meta-Crisis Ten in her care to help him overcome these dangerous qualities and satisfy her love for him that he couldn't provide as a Time Lord.
----
* BabiesEverAfter: Some ExpandedUniverse sources indicate he had at least one child with Rose.
* BigDamnKiss: Shares a very passionate one with Rose when he reveals that he really loves her, which the Tenth Doctor could not say because Rose would never leave his side and he would outlive her.
* ChekhovsBoomerang:
** The Doctor's hand was involved in a great deal of important events before it finally turned into him.
** The regeneration used to create him becomes important later on in [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor "The Time of the Doctor"]] when it turns out that, because of this, the Eleventh Doctor is actually the thirteenth and the last regeneration of his first cycle.
* CompositeCharacter: Wears the Tenth Doctor's suit and shoes, has Donna's characteristics stacked against Ten's, appears to have the Doctor's overall memories and has similar traits to the Ninth Doctor. He also wears a plain, collar-less shirt without buttons or a tie to go with it, similar to Nine's habit of wearing stripped-down attire and simple V-neck sweaters. Him being human also allows him to grow old with the woman he loves, similar to what the John Smith personality adopted by Ten wanted.
* DarkerAndEdgier: With respect to the Tenth Doctor, he's harsher and ''definitely'' less apprehensive about murder.
* TheDividual: Subverted. He looks just the same as the Tenth Doctor and is a mental duplicate of him, but he's still treated as a separate incarnation from the original Ten. While he's the "main" Doctor for the time he's around, he's still treated as a side incarnation and isn't put in the same roster as the rest of the numbered (and War) Doctors.
* DoppelgangerReplacementLoveInterest: Not only does he look just like Ten, he has all of Ten's memories, experiences, thoughts, and feelings.
* {{Fanservice}}: Born from an unclothed hand, he's naked right off the bat when it grows into a complete body.
* HalfHumanHybrid: Part human, part Time Lord.
* HappilyEverAfter: With Rose in exchange for the original Ten because he gets to grow old with the woman he loves.
* HotBlooded: Being created with the help of Donna's DNA gave him this. Unlike the Doctor, he doesn't hesitate to obliterate a Dalek fleet with the flick of a switch.
* IDidWhatIHadToDo: The Daleks had nearly destroyed the Universe, and if he left them around, even without a reality bomb they could ''still'' destroy the cosmos. He explicitly points this out before flipping the switch.
* LoveConfession: Implied and confirmed to tell Rose "I love you" in an inaudible whisper in her ear, triggering a kiss.
* MixAndMatchMan: He's an ArtificialHuman clone of the Tenth Doctor created from the combined DNA of him and Donna Noble.
* NakedOnArrival:
-->'''Donna:''' It's you!\\
'''Meta-Ten:''' Oh, yes!\\
'''Donna:''' ''[pointedly looking away ]'' ...You're ''naked''.\\
'''Meta-Ten:''' Oh, ''[[CaptainObvious yes]]''.
* OtherMeAnnoysMe: Ten makes it very clear his clone's creation was against his wishes after seeing him off millions of Daleks with the flick of a switch. This hits way too close to home and Ten is ''furious''.
-->'''Ten:''' Because we saved the universe, but at a cost. And the cost is ''him''. He destroyed the Daleks. He committed genocide. He's too dangerous to be left on his own.\\
'''Meta-Ten:''' ''[accusingly]'' You ''made'' me.\\
'''Ten:''' Exactly. You were born in battle, full of blood and anger and revenge. Remind you of someone? That's me, when we first met. And you made me better. Now you can do the same for him.\\
'''Rose:''' But he's not you.\\
'''Ten:''' He needs you. That's ''very'' me.
* OurClonesAreDifferent: The Tenth Doctor redirects his aborted regeneration's energy into his preserved severed hand, and Donna later comes into contact with the energized hand, resulting in a "biological meta-crisis" where the hand both literally and figuratively regenerates the rest of its missing body, now spliced with human DNA donated from Donna. The result is a physically-identical clone of the Tenth Doctor who has part-human DNA from Donna -- the effects of which include a more human-like internal biology, lacking a regeneration cycle, and having a mix of Donna's and the original Tenth Doctor's personality quirks -- and the new Meta-Crisis Doctor has the same thoughts and memories as the original Tenth Doctor up to the aborted regeneration, but with a more ruthless and aggressive streak due to the clone being "born in blood and battle and revenge".
* TheSlowPath: One reason Ten left the Meta-Crisis Doctor with Rose; no advanced age or regenerations and no TARDIS. [[labelnote:*]] In a deleted scene, the Doctor leaves them with a sort of a cutting from the TARDIS, which will eventually grow into a usable TARDIS itself, although possibly not within their lifetimes.[[/labelnote]]
* TheUnfettered: The ''other'' reason Ten left his clone with Rose. He '''''casually''''' ''committed genocide on the Daleks''. While Ten had his own moral code and wouldn't resort to killing unless it was absolutely necessary, Meta-Crisis immediately acted to blow the Daleks up. This scared Ten into wondering just how much terror he could bring to the universe if someone didn't reform him, so he decided Rose could do the trick after remembering how she reformed him when he was Nine.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Dream Lord]]
!!The Dream Lord
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2018_01_16_at_105311.png]]
->'''Played by:''' Creator/TobyJones (2010)
->''"Dream Lord. It's in the name, isn't it? Spooky. Not quite there."''
A strange, incorporeal being who once trapped the Doctor, Amy, and Rory in two worlds, making them choose which was real and which was just a dream.
----
* AnthropomorphicPersonification: He's a personification of the Doctor's dark side; more specifically, his self-loathing.
* DeadpanSnarker: Often, especially at Rory's expense.
-->'''Rory:''' If anyone here's the gooseberry, it's the Doctor.\\
'''Dream Lord:''' Now there's a delusion I'm not responsible for.
* EnemyWithin: He only exists inside the Doctor as his worst enemy: himself. He is basically a personfication of the Doctor's self-loathing.
* EvilRedhead: Looks like the Doctor [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor finally got to be ginger after all]].
* {{Expy}}: For the Valeyard. Scarily enough, [[AmbiguousSituation he very much might actually BE the Valeyard]].
* FanDisservice: At one point, he dresses in a ReadyForLovemaking style while Amy is alone with him in the TARDIS.
* FauxAffablyEvil: He's having so much ''fun'' with all his different costumes. He is genuinely AffablyEvil towards Amy, though.
* GracefulLoser: He withdraws gracefully after the heroes identify the real world. [[ILied It's just an act; turns out the "real" world is also a dream.]]
* GreatGazoo: A dark, malevolent dream-based version of this.
* IntangibleMan: He has no physical form. The Doctor briefly wonders if this is his motivation.
* {{Jerkass}}: Very much so, since he's willing to express the sorts of thoughts the Doctor typically holds back and enjoys tormenting him about it.
* LaughablyEvil: His bowtie and short stature bring to mind a demented Patrick Troughton, which makes sense, considering that that's exactly who he is.
* MeaningfulName: "Dream Lord". As in he creates and controls dreams. And is one, brought on by psychic pollen feeding on the Doctor's darker thoughts.
* TheNthDoctor: It's heavily implied he's a manifestation of the same dark side that gave rise to the Valeyard, and might end up becoming him.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: He talks to the Doctor ''entirely'' in these. Justified, as he essentially represents the Doctor's darkness and self-loathing.
-->'''Dream Lord:''' If you had any more tawdry quirks you could open up a tawdry quirk shop. The madcap vehicle, the cockamamie hair, the clothes designed by a first-year fashion student. I'm surprised you haven't got a little purple space dog just to ram home what an intergalactic wag you are.
* WholeCostumeReference: Normally is shown wearing a variation of the Eleventh Doctor's wardrobe and briefly adopts a similar blue suit and tie as the Tenth Doctor at one point. His other costumes are also, more subtly, this.
* YouCannotKillAnIdea: It's implied that he's still out there. If he is indeed the Doctor's dark side, then he may live for as long as the Doctor does. Especially if he turns out to be the Valeyard, who would go on to plague the Sixth Doctor.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Curator]]
!!The Curator
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/curator_1724.png]]
->'''Played by:''' Creator/TomBaker (2013)
->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/TomBaker (2020-2021), Creator/ColinBaker (2022)
->''"I'm only a humble curator, I'm sure I wouldn't know."''
From what is suggested on-screen, the Curator may be a much, much older incarnation of the Doctor following many regenerations. He chose to retire from his adventures through time and space, and became the curator of the National Gallery. He looks suspiciously familiar. (The Titan Comics Expanded Universe has since confirmed that the Curator ''is'' a future incarnation of the Doctor.)
----
* AmbiguousSituation: Metafictionally, this Doctor is the third appearance by Tom Baker as the "[[https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Doctor_(Shada) Narrator]] [[https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Introduction_to_the_Night_(TV_story) Doctor]]" from two 90s video releases. Whether he's "really" that Doctor is [[{{Fanon}} probably up to the individual viewer to decide]].
* BlatantLies: While he [[AmbiguousSituation skirts around]] the question of being a future incarnation of the Doctor and even claims ''not'' to be at one point, the Eleventh Doctor doesn't doubt that he's speaking to [[MyFutureSelfAndMe his future self]] for a second.
* CoolOldGuy: A very old man who is all but said to be the Doctor and who's still as affable as ever.
* CrypticConversation: Again, he implies that he's one of the Doctor's regenerations but at the same time doesn't give anything definitive.
** His later appearances in the Big Finish audios imply that these are just about the only conversations he's allowed to have. His retirement is suggested to be a deal the Curator made in the past, an agreement to stay out of events in exchange for... something.
* FictionAsCoverup: Mentions in the novelization that the Brigadier hated his idea to novelize The Doctor's adventures so people would think they were fiction.
* IconicOutfit: Averted, but ''not'': even though he's "revisiting the old favourites" in terms of faces, he's seen without Tom Baker's trademark scarf. WordOfGod has it that he gave it to Osgood.
* InteractiveNarrator: He claims to be writing the novelization to "The Day Of the Doctor" on psychic paper. He occasionally comments on what readers are doing and tells us to be quiet so we don't disturb the characters.
* IShouldWriteABookAboutThis: The novelization to "The Day Of the Doctor" is the result of him deciding this.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: His conversation with the Eleventh Doctor doubles as Creator/TomBaker congratulating Creator/MattSmith on becoming one of his successors in the role of the Doctor. This ties into the end of ''Film/AnAdventureInSpaceAndTime'', where Creator/MattSmith appears (in character) and meets Creator/WilliamHartnell.
* TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday: How his Undergallery is treated. It's not clear if it is in fact his TARDIS or something else entirely. All that's known is that it is attached in some way to the National Museum and that, in turn, it cannot always be seen, cannot always be found, and cannot always be ''remembered''.
* LoopholeAbuse: In his initial debut in the anniversary special and his later appearances in the Big Finish audio plays. He behaves as though he is absolutely forbidden from participating in events, and anyone who is aware of his nature refers to him as "retired". This doesn't stop him from making himself known to certain of the Doctor's companions, dropping extremely cryptic suggestions, and letting them draw their own conclusions.
* MeaningfulName: In Latin, the name ''Curator'' stems from the verb ''curare'', which means ''to take care of'' or ''to cure''. In other words... a Doctor by yet another name.
* NarratorAllAlong: The end of the novelization to "The Day Of the Doctor" revealed he was writing the parts between chapters.
* NoNameGiven: Just "The Curator".
* NoseTapping: ''Who'' knows, indeed.
* OnlyElectricSheepAreCheap: The novelization says the tourist board asked him to design robotic ravens to replace the ones that left the Tower Of London.
* RetiredBadass: Gave up saving the universe and settled down to become a simple museum curator on Earth. Just as Eleven mused he could do one day.
* SequelHook:
** He tells Eleven that Gallifrey was saved in "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor The Day of the Doctor]]", and encourages the Doctor to look for it. Which leads into the MythArc of Series 8 and 9.
** Mentions to the Eleventh Doctor that he may revisit familiar faces in the future, something that technology is slowly allowing as an option out-of-universe and would come to be with the Fourteenth Doctor.
* {{Shapeshifting}}: According to Creator/StevenMoffat, the Curator's creator, he's 'regeneration-fluid', his physical appearance flexible, which Big Finish took advantage of in ''Stranded 4'' to have Colin Baker play the role without technically regenerating. However, Matt Fitton, one of the writers on ''Stranded 4'', noted in ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'' #576 [[AmbiguousSituation that this could be]] because he can adopt several of his favorite faces as he likes, or it could be that he's compelled to by the changing timelines around him. Regardless, the box set confirms he took the form of the Fourth and Sixth Doctors, and implies he also took on the appearance of the Eleventh Doctor as well.
* ShroudedInMyth: The whole existence of the Curator is basically an enigmatic tease that the Doctor is going to live a very long life and eventually end up going into retirement... [[TenMinuteRetirement and not just for a short amount of time]], but for real. Maybe, it is the Doctor after all. The presence of a work of art in the background of his scene that looks identical to TARDIS roundels has also got people speculating that this is a clever hint that the museum is in fact the interior of the Curator's TARDIS — but then again, it could just be a meaningful selection to hang in the museum by the Curator because the Doctor loves the "round things", and at the very least, the sculpture strongly hints at the presence of the Doctor being the one actually overseeing the museum all along.
* VisualPun: Who knows? [[Series/DoctorWho Who]]... [[GagNose nose]].
* WhamLine: His introduction, startling the Eleventh Doctor with the same voice and features as his fourth incarnation.
-->'''Eleventh Doctor:''' I could retire and become the curator of this place.\\
'''The Curator:''' You know, I really think you ''might''.
* WhamShot: When he shows his face, both Eleven and fans know that he is the Doctor because he's played by Tom Baker.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Fugitive Doctor]]
!!Fugitive Doctor (Ruth Clayton)
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jo_martin_doctor.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"I'd quite like it if you got off my ship now."'']]
->'''Debut:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E5FugitiveOfTheJudoon "Fugitive of the Judoon"]] (2020)
%%->'''Regeneration Story:'''
->'''Played by:''' Creator/JoMartin (2020-)
->''"Let me take it from the top: Hello, I'm the Doctor. I'm a traveller in space and time, and that thing buried down there is called a TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space. You're gonna ''love'' this."''\\\
A mysterious incarnation of the Doctor who spent years undercover in Gloucester as a tour guide believing she was human. But when the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions, along with a hired squad of Judoon, converge while the latter are hunting her as a fugitive, her true identity is revealed.
----
* AmbiguousSituation: Neither she nor Thirteen have any memories of being the other, and have no idea where they fit relative to each other in the Doctor's timeline... or even if they're not alternate Doctors altogether (though an [[WordOfGod interview with Chris Chibnall]] in British newspaper ''[[https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/jo-martin-first-black-doctor-21373790.amp The Mirror]]'' indicates she is not an alternate or parallel Doctor, no fake-outs or tricks, she's the real deal). Thirteen guesses, based on the available evidence, that she's a past incarnation — but if so, it's a past she doesn't remember. "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS39E3FluxChapterThreeOnceUponTime Once, Upon Time]]" seems to back up her being a forgotten past incarnation.
* AtLeastIAdmitIt: Calls Thirteen out on her lack of moral high ground.
* BatmanGrabsAGun: Is willing to at least threaten people with weapons even if she won't shoot them herself, and is in general far more aggressive than Thirteen specifically, but also other new series Doctors in general. During the siege of Atropos she's shown calling down aerial bombardments and leading a small Division strike force, though she doesn't carry a gun herself.
* ContinuityNod:
** Has a pair of "[[PurelyAestheticGlasses brainy specs]]" like some of the other Doctors were fond of.
** Uses a Chameleon Arch to erase her memories and go into hiding as a human much like the [[Characters/DoctorWhoTenthDoctor Tenth Doctor]] did back in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E8HumanNature "Human Nature"]].
* ContrastingReplacementCharacter: Has two.
** To the War Doctor, another hidden incarnation of the Doctor introduced through a {{Retcon}}. The War Doctor was an incarnation that preceded the Revival era Doctors and had the appearance of an old white man while having spent centuries fighting in a Time War after abandoning the name of the Doctor, seeing his decision to become a warrior and a soldier as a betrayal of everything he stood for. However deep down he is still the Doctor and when given the chance he leaps at the opportunity to find a better way to end the Time War. The Fugitive Doctor meanwhile was an incarnation that appears to have preceded the Classic era Doctors and had the appearance of a black woman in her late thirties, who was on the run from a secret government agency in Time Lord society after having worked for them to enforce order. Despite choosing to leave this life, she is far more ruthless than most Doctors and willingly uses a gun with little reluctance. She doesn't see her actions as being at odds with what the Doctor stands for, and withdrew from being the Doctor only as a way to hide herself, like Ten did. Their companion situations also contrast: the War Doctor had no-one who was close to him long-term, while the Fugitive had an organized squad, one of whom she married and the others she abandoned when she went on the run.
** To the Curator. Where the Fugitive represents the Doctor's distant past that the Doctor has forgotten, the Curator represents the Doctor's distant future they could look forward towards. The Curator is portrayed by a [[Creator/TomBaker familiar face]] while the Fugitive is portrayed by someone completely new. In terms of personality, the Curator admits that they are "only a humble curator" and has seemed to have mellowed out with age, while the Fugitive is quite young with a personality reminiscient of the Classic Era Doctors.
* DeadpanSnarker: In the tradition of Classic Doctors especially, she has a very dry, condescending sense of humour.
* HappilyMarried: Ruth Clayton's husband Lee, who both clearly loves her... [[DidYouJustRomanceCthulhu and also knows who she really is the whole time]].
* HeroOfAnotherStory: What she ultimately turns out to be. Although [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren "The Timeless Children"]] makes it clear that [[spoiler:she ''is'' the Doctor, exactly where she fits into the timeline is not made clear. Like the Curator before (or [[TimeTravelTenseTrouble after]]) her, she essentially says that perhaps it doesn't matter either way.]]
* HumanityEnsues: Used a Chameleon Arch to turn into Ruth Clayton of Gloucester.
* NeverTheSelvesShallMeet: Downplayed. She's not worried about meeting another incarnation of herself (in contrast to the Gallifrey of her time, which finds it an abomination), but she is concerned about the temporal feedback loop if her TARDIS lands too close to Thirteen's (which hasn't been an issue for the [=TARDISes=] of other incarnations, as seen in "The Day of the Doctor" and "Twice Upon a Time").
* RaceLift: The first non-white-appearing version of the Doctor we meet, [[spoiler: though not the first non-white-appearing incarnation,]] regardless of how she fits into the sequence.
* ResignationsNotAccepted: She's on the run from the Time Lords partly because of a job that she didn't exactly accept and can't exactly leave, although she's clearly trying to.
* SassyBlackWoman: She's taken the form of a black woman, and she has a razor-sharp wit.
* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: "Senior" is a bit of an exaggeration (her human disguise is only in her 40s), but she has a dignified yet irascible edge reminiscent of Twelve and the older Classic era Doctors. It starkly contrasts the younger and politer Thirteen. [[https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2020-03-05/doctor-who-jo-martin-peter-capaldi/ Jo Martin]] confirmed that both her look and attitude were influenced by Twelve.
* TriggerPhrase: The text Lee sends her turns Ruth into a badass who's able to defeat a squad of Judoon with martial arts and a stolen gun. It leaves her unsettled afterwards because she doesn't see it as being ''her''.
* WaistcoatOfStyle: Wears a very nice navy one with gold buttons.
* WalkingSpoiler: It's very hard to talk about her without revealing she's a version of the Doctor.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Timeless Child]]
!!The Timeless Child
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/timelesschild1.jpg]]
->'''Debut:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E1E2Spyfall "Spyfall"]] (2020)
->'''Regeneration Story:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren "The Timeless Children"]] (2020)
What appears to be the Doctor's earliest incarnation known to any version of history, a mysterious child believed to be from an unknown dimension or universe, with an infinite capacity for regeneration. They became the source of the Time Lords' ability to regenerate.
Any of the Doctor's history prior to this point is unknowable.
----
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Before the First Doctor, courtesy of a secret group they belonged to known as the Division.
* MonsterProgenitor: The Timeless Child is essentially this for the Time Lords, as their capability to infinitely regenerate basically enabled the existence of the Time Lords to begin with. By extension, the Master further claims that the Doctor is also this to the regenerating Cybermen he created, under the notion that he made said Cybermen from the corpses of Time Lords.[[note]]Ironically, if one takes Big Finish as canon, then [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho034SpareParts the Doctor is technically this for the Cybermen twice]].[[/note]]
* MysteriousPast: A child of unknown origins and nature, found under a wormhole to another universe.
* NoNameGiven: Referred to mainly as the "Child", or the "Timeless Child". Whatever their real name is has likely been lost to time.
* TheNthDoctor: Went through numerous incarnations (including race and gender changes) before the Doctor we know.
* TheOlderImmortal: Being the Timeless Child, a being who predated Time Lord society, effectively makes the Doctor this to the vast majority of, if not all, Time Lords.
* PlayingWithSyringes: The child went through several regenerations before Tecteun discovered the secret of regeneration, implied to be linked to her experiments.
* Really700YearsOld: It was Tecteun's discovery of the child, and the secret of regeneration they held, that enabled the Shobogans to become Time Lords, which makes the child older than Time Lord civilisation and puts them easily into TimeAbyss territory - if the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe Sixth Doctor's rant]] is accurate, the Doctor is well over ten ''million'' years old. What happened to the child between then and the Doctor we know is unknown thanks to their LaserGuidedAmnesia, but Thirteen's flashback in her escape from the Matrix suggests that some of their incarnations included the faces from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E5TheBrainOfMorbius "The Brain of Morbius"]]. And we don't know whether or not she went through other incarnations before Tecteun found her.
* ResurrectiveImmortality: They have this even more than the Time Lords themselves, possessing an infinite number of regenerations rather than the standard twelve. However, it should be noted that they are the MonsterProgenitor of the Time Lords, with the Time Lords' ability to regenerate being derived from them.
* {{Retcon}}: The Annual for 2020 reveals that the Child has the same 12 Regeneration limit as the Time Lords would come to inherit.
* TimeAbyss: See Really 700 Years Old above.
* TransferableMemory: After the Child's collective personalities and memories were removed, [[spoiler:they were stored in a [[GhostMemory Weeping Angel]] before being transferred to one of the [[MemoryJar fob watches]] Time Lords normally use to store them.]]
* {{Unperson}}: The Division successfully erased them from history, even to themselves, wiping their mind clean and forcing them to regenerate into a child, who would apparently grow up to become the First Doctor.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Brendan]]
!!Brendan
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/a59c69de_e503_4159_ab03_3a3a0f2d0e09.jpeg]]
->'''Played by:''' Evan [=McCabe=] (2020)
A red-headed orphan found in the middle of a road by a kindly Irish couple named Patrick and Meg. He has a peaceful, quiet life as he trains to be a police officer, but his illusions of normalcy are shattered when he falls off a cliff... and somehow walks away unscathed. His entire life is revealed to be a parable of the Doctor's mysterious origin as the Timeless Child, concealed deep within the Matrix by the Time Lords.
----
* AllegoricalCharacter: An internalised example, as he is an allegory for the Timeless Child, while his parents symbolise the Time Lords who stole them and wiped their memories.
* BrickJoke: He's ginger, as later Doctors always aspired to be, though they can ironically never remember being him due to constant memory wiping. Of course, he was also merely a projection representing the Timeless Child, so the Doctor themself may or may not have ever looked like him in reality.
** Gallifrey had previously been mistaken for a place in Ireland in "Human Nature".
* ByTheBookCop: From what little we see of him, he's a good young copper.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: As a child, he’s seen wearing a jumper very similar in design to the one worn by the [[Characters/DoctorWhoSeventhDoctor Seventh Doctor]].
* InvincibleHero: He falls off a cliff after pursuing a mugger and survives unscathed.
* LotusEaterMachine: He's literally trapped in the Matrix.
* MemoryWipingCrew: He's strapped to a chair and painfully subjected to this by his own father and the police sergeant, who are actually stand-ins for the Division.
* {{Oireland}}: Brendan lives in a stereotypical Arcadian ideal of Ireland, full of lush green fields and cobblestone roads.
* SupermanSubstitute: His origin of being discovered by a kindly couple only to develop superhuman strength and durability seems to mirror Franchise/{{Superman}} more than the Doctor.
* TomatoInTheMirror: He gradually begins to understand there is something very wrong with his world, though he remains unaware that he's a Matrix replicant of the Doctor.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Thirteenth Doctor's Forced Regeneration ('''Unmarked Centenary Special Spoilers''')]]
!!The Master
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_master_doctor.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:'''''"I AM THE DOCTOR!"''''']]
->'''Debut:''' [[Recap/DoctorWho2022CENThePowerOfTheDoctor "The Power of the Doctor"]] (2022)
->'''Regeneration Story:''' "The Power of the Doctor" (2022)
->'''Played by:''' Creator/SachaDhawan (2022)
->''"I'm going to make 'the Doctor' a byword for fear, pain and destruction, so when people hear that name in future, they quake in fear."''
The result of a [[ComplexityAddiction typically convoluted]] gambit by the Master to possess the Doctor's body by forcing her to regenerate into him. Fully assuming her identity as the Doctor, he goes on a campaign to defame her legacy. See Characters/DoctorWhoMasters for more on Sacha Dhawan's Master as he appears in his original body.
----
* AxCrazy: Par for the course with this incarnation of the Master, but doubly so now that he has control of the Doctor's body.
* CompositeCharacter: Of the Doctor and the Master, naturally, but his wardrobe is a jumbled combination of many previous Doctors' outfits, including Four's scarf, Five's stick of celery, Seven's question-mark-patterned pullover, and Ten's dress shirt and tie.
* EvilIsPetty: The Master goes to enormous effort to take over the Doctor's life, all in a vain effort to destroy her reputation and make the universe fear her very name, because he hates her that much.
* FashionVictimVillain: InUniverse. He intentionally borrows various outfit quirks from every past Doctor (Thirteen's coat, Four's scarf, Five's leek, etc), but with no rhyme or reason to it. It's supposed to be an insult on his part, but others remark that he just looks completely ridiculous.
* FrameUp: In the Doctor's body, the Master causes all sorts of mayhem with the express intention of ruining their reputation as a hero. Luckily, his rampage doesn't last long enough for his attempts at defamation to stick. Obviously, the fact that he clearly looks like The Master probably didn't help.
* FreakyFridayFlip: A one-sided example, as the Thirteenth Doctor is not forced into the Master's old body, which simply remains as an empty, lifeless husk in the Winter Palace chamber. Her consciousness is sent to the same metaphysical space as all of her other past incarnations, though her sheer HeroicWillpower allows her to cling on and remain herself when Yaz successfully reverses the forced regeneration process.
* GoKartingWithBowser: He seriously expects Yaz to accept that he is now the Doctor without quarrel and continue travelling the universe with him as if nothing had happened. Yaz plays along to lull him into a false sense of security, and although he doesn't trust her, he clearly wants it to be true.
* HairTriggerTemper: Sacha Dhawan's Master was already violently unstable, but the painful and unnatural "forced regeneration" process seems to have left him with an even more unpredictable temperament. He gets quite scary when he furiously scolds Yasmin for denying him the title of "Doctor".
-->'''"[[SuddenlyShouting I AM THE DOCTOR! I AM THE DOCTOR!]]"'''
* IJustWantToBeYou: The Master's usual inferiority complex towards the Doctor comes to a head in his "Spy Master" incarnation, who realises just how out of his depth he was when he discovered, to his horror, the truth behind the Timeless Child legend. It leads to his new objective of wanting to literally take over the Doctor's life, though he fails to understand that merely taking her body does not make him the Doctor. As Yaz and her Holo-Doctor (in the guise of the Fugitive Doctor) find a way to reverse the forced regeneration procedure, the Master-Doctor makes a final desperate plea to not have to go back to being the Master.
* LegionOfDoom: The Master collaborates with the Daleks and the Cybermen in his plan to steal the Doctor's body, promising them both the opportunity to transform Earth into their new base of operations. As the two cyborg factions wreak havoc on the planet, the Master's end of the bargain is to simply release a statement to the universe, letting them know that he, the Doctor, caused this.
* PretenderDiss: Despite his best efforts, ''nobody'' gives him the satisfaction of regarding him as a "true" Doctor, even though he technically was for a brief period. None of the Guardians of the Edge (manifestations of the Doctor's past lives who have since come to rest in a metaphysical mindscape called the Edge of Existence) are pleased that the Master has taken over their body and urge the Thirteenth Doctor to restore herself. Yaz and the other companions work tirelessly to find a way to reverse the process. Even the Doctor's TARDIS gives the Master-Doctor an electric shock when he attempts to use her, making it clear that she's also far from happy with this change in management.
* RedBaron: What he hopes to turn the name of the Doctor into. Ironically, in some alien cultures, the Doctor is already feared in such a way, with some languages translating the name as "warrior" rather than "healer".
* ThatManIsDead: As soon as he possesses the Doctor's body, he discards his former identity as the Master and ''aggressively'' corrects anyone who calls him the wrong name.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Guardians of the Edge ('''Unmarked Centenary Special Spoilers''')]]
!!Guardians of the Edge of Existence
->'''Debut:''' [[Recap/DoctorWho2022CENThePowerOfTheDoctor "The Power of the Doctor"]] (2022)
->'''Played by:''' Creator/DavidBradley, Creator/PeterDavison, Creator/ColinBaker, Creator/SylvesterMcCoy and Creator/PaulMcGann (2022)
->''"It's symbolic, obviously, consciousness will do that. But this is the place you pass through during the process of regeneration. Go past here and there is no way back."''
Shapeshifting manifestations representing fragments of the Doctor's many past lives. They sit in a vast metaphysical plane called the Edge of Existence, deep within the Doctor's consciousness, and help to guide them through the torch-passing of regeneration. Except, when the Master forcibly takes over the Doctor's body, they step in to help stop the Thirteenth Doctor from passing through before her time is up. In the same episode, some of the same past incarnations (as well as the Fugitive Doctor, listed in her own folder above) manifest as "Holo-Doctors", interactive A.I. holograms implanted into Yaz, Tegan and Ace to help guide them when the real Doctor is briefly put out to pasture.
----
* BadassLongRobe: They all wear very stylish black robes with red accents, reminiscent of traditional Time Lord garb... Well, all except the Eighth Doctor's manifestation, who insists on wearing a tidier version of his "Night of the Doctor" outfit because of his usual RebelliousSpirit.
* TheBusCameBack: While the First, Fifth and Eighth Doctors have all cameoed before in the revived series -- the latter two played by their original actors -- the Sixth and Seventh Doctors never returned before outside of archive footage from the Classic era, so "The Power of the Doctor" marks Colin Baker and Sylvester [=McCoy=]'s first appearance in "[=NuWho=]".
* CanonImmigrant: The idea that all past personas of the Doctor exist somewhere within their subconscious had been thrown around countless times in ExpandedUniverse media before the show picked up on the idea. The Guardian implies that future incarnations also exist there, just waiting for the right time to receive the torch from the incumbent incarnation. The Doctor hasn't yet integrated their forgotten lives into their mind, so they're probably absent from the Guardian for the time being, but they still have some lingering memories of them.
* CharacterAgedWithTheActor: Barring the manifestation of the First Doctor, who looks roughly the same as ever thanks to TheOtherDarrin still being in effect, the Guardian Doctors have all visibly aged with the actors that portrayed them. As Holo-Doctors, the Fifth and Seventh Doctors justify it as a result of their companions' emotional memories affecting the interface. It's likely that the same applies for the Thirteenth Doctor's own memories of each of them.
* DareToBeBadass: While the Thirteenth Doctor already had the determination and strength of character to refuse to pass on, which they praise her for, they give some additional encouragement to go back and stop the Master from taking over their body forever.
* GateGuardian: It's in the name. They wait by the Edge of Existence to guide newly regenerated Doctors through the process of regeneration.
* HufflepuffHouse: In "Power of the Doctor", the Fifth and Seventh Doctor get extra scenes of them interacting with Tegan and Ace through holographic implants, while the Eighth Doctor gets a memorable quip about his stubbornly personalised fashion sense. Unfortunately, that leaves little for the First and Sixth Doctors to do in the episode.
* MyGreatestFailure: As Holo-Doctors, the Fifth and Seventh Doctors both lament how they treated Tegan and Ace and try to make amends with them. The Fifth Doctor also still regrets Adric's death.
* TheOtherDarrin: David Bradley again reprises his role as the First Doctor after "Twice Upon a Time", filling in for the late Creator/WilliamHartnell (as well as fellow other-Darrin, Richard Hurndall). Bradley's frequent reprisal of the role almost makes him more iconic to revived series fans than Hartnell himself.
* RebelliousSpirit: The Eighth Doctor refuses to wear robes, unlike the others. Unimpressed, the Seventh Doctor instead views him as a CommanderContrarian.
-->'''Eighth Doctor:''' I don't do robes [...] [[DeadpanSnarker I'm a manifestation of our consciousness, I can wear what I like.]]
* TalkingToThemself: As a sort of "regeneration-fluid" manifestation of every incarnation of the Doctor, they seem to regularly bicker among themselves, as most Doctors are wont to do whenever they encounter each other.
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: The Guardian takes the form of the First, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Doctors, switching between all five of them rapidly when talking to the Thirteenth Doctor.
[[/folder]]
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%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.
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[[center:[[WMG:''Series/DoctorWho'' [[Characters/DoctorWho characters index]]\\
[-Incarnations of the [[Characters/DoctorWhoDoctors Doctor]]\\
[[Characters/DoctorWhoFirstDoctor 1]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoSecondDoctor 2]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoThirdDoctor 3]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoFourthDoctor 4]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoFifthDoctor 5]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoSixthDoctor 6]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoSeventhDoctor 7]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoEighthDoctor 8]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoWarDoctor War]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoNinthDoctor 9]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoTenthDoctor 10]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoEleventhDoctor 11]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoTwelfthDoctor 12]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoThirteenthDoctor 13]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoFourteenthDoctor 14]] | '''Other Doctors'''\\
'''[[Characters/DoctorWhoTheTARDIS The TARDIS]]'''\\
'''[[Characters/DoctorWhoCompanionsAndSupportingCast Companions and Supporting Cast]]'''\\
[[Characters/DoctorWhoClassicSeriesCompanions Classic Series Companions]] ([[Characters/DoctorWhoK9 K9]], [[Characters/DoctorWhoRomana Romana]]) | [[Characters/DoctorWhoRevivalSeriesCompanions Revival Series Companions]] ([[Characters/DoctorWhoRoseTyler Rose Tyler]], [[Characters/DoctorWhoJackHarkness Captain Jack Harkness]], [[Characters/DoctorWhoRiverSong River Song]], [[Characters/DoctorWhoClaraOswald Clara Oswald]]) | [[Characters/DoctorWhoOtherSupportingCast Other Supporting Cast]] ([[Characters/DoctorWhoThePaternosterGang The Paternoster Gang]]) | [[Characters/DoctorWhoUNITStaff UNIT Staff]]\\
'''[[Characters/DoctorWhoVillains Villains]]'''\\
[[Characters/DoctorWhoImmortalsAndEldritchAbominations Immortals and Eldritch Abominations]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoMasters The Master]] ([[Characters/DoctorWhoJohnSimmsMaster John Simm's Master]], [[Characters/DoctorWhoMissy Missy]], [[Characters/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverseMasters Expanded Universe Masters]])\\
'''[[Characters/DoctorWhoAliensAndMonsters Aliens and Monsters]]'''\\
[[Characters/DoctorWhoDaleks Daleks]] ([[Characters/DoctorWhoDavros Davros]]) | [[Characters/DoctorWhoCybermen Cybermen]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoRobots Robots]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoTheSilence The Silence]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoSilurians Silurians]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoSontarans Sontarans]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoTimeLords Time Lords]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoWeepingAngels Weeping Angels]] | [[Characters/DoctorWhoSlitheen Slitheen]]-]]]]]
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!Other Incarnations (Original Series)
[[folder:The "Morbius" Doctors]]
!!The "Morbius" Doctors
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/morbius_doctors.jpg]]
%%[[caption-width-right:350:some caption text]]
->'''Played by:''' Christopher Barry, Creator/RobertHolmes, Graeme Harper, Christopher Baker, Creator/PhilipHinchcliffe, Robert Banks Stewart, Creator/DouglasCamfield, George Gallaccio (1976)
->''"How far, Doctor? How long have you lived?!"''
-->-- '''Morbius''', [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E5TheBrainOfMorbius "The Brain of Morbius"]]
An octet of mysterious faces glimpsed on a monitor during the Fourth Doctor's mental showdown against the resurrected brain of the Time Lord Morbius, alongside the known past faces of the Doctor. These faces were intended to represent unseen past lives of the Doctor, portrayed by the production crew of the show. Their "canonical" [[note]]as much as that word means anything in ''Doctor Who''[[/note]] status is still a controversial and hotly debated topic in the fandom. The so-called Morbius Doctors went unseen and unreferenced for decades, barring some very minor cameos in a few ExpandedUniverse works, until 2020 unexpectedly saw them return to the picture in the main series…
----
%%* AdaptationExpansion: Obverse Books, publishers of the ''Franchise/IrisWildthyme'' spin-off franchise, produced a semi-official anthology novel for charity called ''Forgotten Lives'', with colourful new artwork of the Morbius Doctors by Paul Hanley. Hanley notably designed a new costume for Graeme Harper's Doctor, as well as TARDIS console rooms for every one of them. Obverse later produced a sequel anthology novel, ''Forgotten Lives 2'', again for charity.
* AmbiguousSituation: The identity of these figures was, and still is, a topic of fierce debate. Their debut story strongly implies that they are the Doctor's unseen past lives from before he was Creator/WilliamHartnell, which was playfully confirmed by the production staff who played them. The montage of their faces succeeds a montage of the known faces of the Fourth, Third, Second and First Doctors. Given that the thirteen-life limit was established in "The Deadly Assassin", only a year after "The Brain of Morbius" aired, this would imply that the Fourth Doctor was near the end of his natural regeneration cycle. This, of course, proved not to be the case.
** Some fans speculated that these faces actually represented Morbius's past lives. This is inconsistent with the presentation of the episode since Morbius only shows one of his past faces before the Doctor starts showing his. Also, these incarnations' peculiar dress senses are distinctly Doctor-like.
** The possibilities that Time Lords have more than thirteen lives and that the Doctor has had many unseen past incarnations has been kicked around many, many times in the show and expanded universe media. The show would eventually acknowledge these faces again in the episode "The Timeless Children", during a similar psychedelic sequence of the Thirteenth Doctor blasting out of the Matrix with her memories of them.
* AwesomeAnachronisticApparel: It's a surefire clue that these guys are definitely meant to be the Doctor. Even by usual standards, they all dress splendidly. Hinchcliffe's Doctor, as just one example, dresses like a Stuart nobleman, complete with a long, curly wig.
* BattleInTheCentreOfTheMind: Their first appearance was during a mind-bending contest between Morbius and the Doctor, inspiring their collective nickname.
* TheBusCameBack: They debuted in 1976's "The Brain of Morbius", but it took until 2020's "The Timeless Children" for them to finally reappear onscreen.
* CanonDiscontinuity: {{Subverted}}. As the rules of regeneration became firmly established and the First Doctor was clearly established to be the original in subsequent stories, the Morbius Doctors as a concept faded into trivial obscurity. That is, until everything about the Doctor's past was revealed to be a lie in "The Timeless Children", and they unexpectedly returned.
* CanonWelding: [[spoiler:They are implicitly connected to the Timeless Child legend central to the Thirteenth Doctor's story arc, appearing in another psychedelic sequence of the Doctor remembering her past lives while she undergoes a major existential crisis regarding her discovery of her past identity ''as'' the Timeless Child.]]
* PsychicBlockDefence: Both of their appearances in the show proper saw the current Doctor's powerful memories of them being used to protect their precious brain, first against Morbius, later against the Master's Matrix trap.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Watcher]]
!!The Watcher
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wtc3_4173.jpg]]
->'''Played by:''' Adrian Gibbs (1981)
->'''Adric:''' Why are you prepared for the worst, Doctor?\\
'''Fourth Doctor:''' Because he's here.
A manifestation of the Fourth Doctor's next incarnation (aka the Fifth Doctor) who helped him and his companions during his incoming regeneration.
----
* EyesAlwaysShut: Has some rather weird statue-like features like barely-open eyes.
* FemmeFatalons: Also sports pointy claws for some reason.
* FutureMeScaresMe: The Fourth Doctor is visibly disturbed by his presence (which means impending regeneration) hence the quote.
* {{Leitmotif}}: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciXACtP92zg This ominous theme]] always plays whenever he appears.
* MysteriousWatcher: Adric decides to call him "the Watcher" because that appears to be his thing, silently observing.
* NightmareFace: His face is somehow unformed and rather clay-looking, representing how he represents the Doctor-to-be (looking even closer shows he has a hairstyle similar to Peter Davidson's, more or less spoiling the Fifth Doctor's idenity).
* NoNameGiven: He's just "the friend of the Doctor". "The Watcher" is a nickname given by Adric.
* OffscreenTeleportation: How exactly he's following the Doctor and transported Nyssa from Traken to Logopolis is never revealed.
* TheVoiceless: Other characters refer to him speaking but even when he's having a dialogue scene with someone it's always shot from a distance and inaudible.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Valeyard]]
!!The Valeyard
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_valeyard.jpg]]
->'''Played by:''' Creator/MichaelJayston (1986)
->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/MichaelJayston (2003-present)
->''"There is nothing you can do to prevent the catharsis of spurious morality."''
The Valeyard was a particularly antagonistic Time Lord, who first appeared in "The Trial of a Time Lord". It was eventually revealed in Part 13 the Valeyard is really the Doctor. Or, rather, a future aspect of all the Doctor's evil and malice born from his 12th and final regenerations ([[UnreliableNarrator except that information came from the Master]] and which regenerations he's referring to exactly is [[ContinuitySnarl a bit muddled at this point]]). Though the Valeyard only showed up in the TV series for that one story (possibly), presumed dead ''and'' alive at the same time, [[BadFuture he will happen someday]]...
----
* AbortedArc: Creator/StevenMoffat ultimately decided to ignore the matter of the Valeyard's existence when writing [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E13TheNameOfTheDoctor "The Name of the Doctor"]] and [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor "The Time of the Doctor"]], stories which concerned the future fate of the Doctor and his gaining of a new regeneration cycle, respectively (however, the Valeyard ''does'' receive a brief shout-out as one of the many names the Doctor will take before his death). The Valeyard was mentioned again in [[Recap/DoctorWho2017CSTwiceUponATime "Twice Upon a Time"]], suggesting that [[SubvertedTrope he's not actually aborted]], he's just been pushed back.
* AmbulanceChaser: He seems to be this at first.
* BigBad: Of the Trial of a Time Lord arc.
* TheBully: An unfortunate trait that exceedingly parallels the Sixth Doctor’s own abrasive, condescending personality. Despite his verbose and serious demeanor, the Valeyard took the time to immaturely call Glitz names (“Oaf! Microbe!”) upon seeing him in the Matrix, before moving back to mock the Doctor some more.
* CardCarryingVillain: Once it's revealed that he's the main villain of the Trial of a Time Lord arc in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe "The Ultimate Foe"]], he starts to nonchalantly reaffirm that yes, he's a villain.
* CharacterTics: As he notes during [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe "The Ultimate Foe"]], he still displays some of the Doctor's habits and eccentricities.
* ContinuityNod: [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E13TheNameOfTheDoctor The Great Intelligence]] noted the Doctor will come to be known as the Valeyard while labeling him as a monster. [[Recap/DoctorWho2017CSTwiceUponATime The Testimony]] would later refer to him as the Shadow of the Valeyard while describing his influence on the universe.
* DragonInChief: To the entire Time Lord High Council. At least until the Master pulls the lid on his ultimate game plan. Then he makes the transition into full BigBad.
* DragonWithAnAgenda: The Master believed that he worked for him, but the Valeyard's plan all along was to obtain the Sixth Doctor's remaining regenerations for himself.
* TheDreaded: By both the Master and the Doctor.
* DrivingQuestion: Exactly ''who'' are the twelfth and final (at the time implied to be thirteen) incarnations of the Doctor who the Master spoke of? The Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor, born as an offshoot from aborted regeneration number twelve? The Eleventh Doctor, who had an evil projection of himself appear once and was his twelfth life born from his final regeneration in the original cycle? The Twelfth Doctor, his first life in the new cycle and thirteenth overall, who started off rather dark before mellowing? The later Thirteenth Doctor, who discovered she had many more incarnations than she thought and once split into three? The Dream Lord given flesh and a new face? Or some other incarnation in the future considered to be the last one?
* EnemyWithin: The Master's ambiguous wording when describing him infers that he's either the Doctor himself, after all their evil took them over in a potential future, or...
* EnemyWithout: The Doctor's evil split from them into a new entity.
* EvilCounterpart: Played literally straight for this one. He's either the Doctor after all his evil took over him, or straight up the Doctor's evil split from him into its own entity. Either way, he's an evil counterpart of the Doctor and it quite shows.
* EvilFeelsGood: He has no qualms about preferring to be evil.
* EvilGloating: Part of his [[EvilIsHammy evil hamminess]].
* EvilIsHammy: And ''revelling'' in it. Not that anyone's complaining...
* EvilIsNotAToy: As the High Council and the Master found out to their cost.
* EvilKnockoff: Of the Doctor, intentionally.
* EvilMeScaresMe: The Doctor's reaction to the Valeyard's true nature is one of abject horror. It's been argued that the Doctor is petrified of him returning in ''any'' form. The ExpandedUniverse went further on this, to the point that in the ''[[Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures New Adventures]]'' the Seventh Doctor temporarily sealed away the Sixth Doctor's personality for fear he'd become him. Hell, even ''[[AxCrazy the Master]]'' fears him.
* ExpandedUniverse: He was brought back, and apparently killed off, in the [[Literature/PastDoctorAdventures BBC Seventh Doctor novel]] ''Matrix''. Big Finish also brought him back in ''Trial of the Valeyard'', which also has him telling his backstory (though said backstory turned out to be bait for his attempt to lure the Doctor into a trap; however, the Doctor says there might have been some truth to this story).
* FaceHeelTurn: One possibility for his conception is that he's the Doctor after all his evil took over him.
* FutureMeScaresMe: Part of the issue with the Valeyard is that, previously, the Doctor always had the option of self-sacrifice if a cause was worthy enough. In most of their lives after the Time War, they likely don't have this option, as their death could unleash the Valeyard, who helped kill billions just to set up a GrandTheftMe gambit to steal the Doctor's remaining lives.
* AGodAmI: Shows signs of this when bragging to the Doctor about his mastery of the Matrix.
* HangingJudge: While admittedly he's the prosecutor in the Doctor's trial, it's clear that he wants the Doctor executed. If the trial was run on Earth laws he would have soon run into ArtisticLicenceLaw. Granted, the whole proceeding was a KangarooCourt case anyway.
* JerkassHasAPoint: In the ''[[Literature/DoctorWhoMissingAdventures Missing Adventures]]'' novel ''Millennial Rites'', when debating with a manifestation of the Valeyard in his mind, the Sixth Doctor concedes to the Valeyard's point that sometimes the more ruthless course of action is necessary, but the Doctor nevertheless rejects the idea that he has to enjoy such actions to commit them.
* MasterOfIllusion: When he escapes into the Matrix.
* MeaningfulName: In-universe. The name Valeyard is said to mean "''Doctor'' of Law" in Gallifreyan (so good luck finding it in any dictionary).
* MuggedForDisguise: If the final moments of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe "The Ultimate Foe"]] are anything to go by, he seems to have robbed the Keeper of the Matrix of his robes.
* NoodleIncident: His apparent history with the Ainley Master, assuming the Master didn't just find out about him while in the Matrix.
* NothingIsScarier: How the Valeyard even came into existence is unknown.
* NotSoAboveItAll: There is a golden moment where he's lecturing the Doctor in his typical dour manner, even explicitly stating that he "wishes not to be contaminated by [the Doctor's] whims and idiosyncracies"... then when Glitz tries to participate in the conversation, the Valeyard teleports directly behind him for the explicit purpose of insulting him in a rather comedic way. Then again, his compulsion to out-cool adult male companions and recurring characters was always one of the Doctor's most persistent character flaws...
* NotSoHarmlessVillain: At first he seems to be just another stuffy bureaucrat that's merely doing his job and at worst appears to secretly enjoy it a bit too much. Then the Master shows up and reveals what he's really in it for.
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: He initially appears to be an embodiment of everything that the Doctor despises about Time Lord society: a corrupt, officious, boring, loudmouthed and overtly-professional paper-pusher taking advantage of a decadent system. It makes it all the more shocking when it turns out he ''is'' the Doctor (sort of).
* ThePlan: The Valeyard's plan revolves around setting up a trial to frame the Doctor for the illegal actions of the Time Lord High Council, which he uses to try and steal the Sixth Doctor's remaining regenerations for himself — so that he can become a full being once again. However, ''on top of this'', the Valeyard also uses the setup of the trial to jack into the computer that records all of time, warp the records, ''and'' set up a death trap to kill off the ''entire Time Lord leadership'' in one blow! Oh, ''and'' this was all set up to begin a coup d'état of the ''entire Time Lord society''! Yeah, he's ''good''. All of that, while pretending to be TheDragon for everyone but the Doctor, and everyone but the Doctor being powerless to stop him once they realize his intent.
* PsychoForHire: He seems to be this, before becoming the DragonInChief.
* PurpleProse: Prone to overly-verbose language in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe "The Ultimate Foe"]], because his dialogue was penned by Pip & Jane Baker. His page quote is basically just a fancy way of saying it's impossible to keep an evil nature hidden beneath the guise of a good one.
* PutOnABus: It's been over 30 years since the Valeyard last appeared(?) on-screen in his "am I dead or not" ending.
** The Dream Lord from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E7AmysChoice "Amy's Choice"]] is another manifestation of the Doctor's dark side, suggesting the Valeyard is still around.
** The Valeyard is name-checked by the Great Intelligence in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E13TheNameOfTheDoctor "The Name of the Doctor"]], as one of the names the Doctor supposedly will take before the end.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWho2017CSTwiceUponATime "Twice Upon a Time"]], the Testimony also namechecks the Valeyard while listing off the Doctor's [[IHaveManyNames many names]], the name in question being "The Shadow of the Valeyard".
* ShadowArchetype: To the Doctor.
* TheSpook: There is much mystery surrounding him.
* UnreliableNarrator: In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E1TheMysteriousPlanet "The Mysterious Planet"]], he's tampered with the evidence in the Matrix, though not to as great an effect as he has in following stories.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: At least until the Master reveals what his true nature is.
* WhamLine:
-->'''The Master:''' They made a deal with the Valeyard — or, as I've always known him, the Doctor — to adjust the evidence! In return for which, he was promised the remainder of the Doctor's regenerations!\\
'''The Valeyard:''' My lady, this-!\\
'''The Doctor:''' ''Just a minute''! Did you call him... The Doctor!?
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: Ties in directly with his LargeHam status. And, wow, it's fun to watch.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Merlin]]
!!Merlin
An incarnation of the Doctor who will be Myth/{{Merlin}} in an AlternateUniverse based on Myth/ArthurianLegend with SufficientlyAdvancedMagic. Mentioned in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E1Battlefield "Battlefield"]]. A similar incarnation named Muldwych appears in several ExpandedUniverse short stories by Peter Anghelides where he's a red-haired man ([[RunningGag yes, he's finally ginger]]) in an Afghan coat and yellow knitted waistcoat (based on a description in the ''Battlefield'' novelisation). However, there is ''also'' an Expanded Universe short story ("One Fateful Knight" by Creator/PeterDavid) where the Eighth Doctor takes the role.
----
* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: Merlin is a Doctor who's been hopping universes. Guess there's something to River Song's complaints all the good wizards turn out to be him.
* TheGhost: He goes unseen throughout "Battlefield", though his influence is keenly felt.
* HelpYourselfInTheFuture: Leaves some hints for the Seventh Doctor alongside Arthur's body. Of course, he only finds them ''after'' they'd be helpful.
* SmartPeoplePlayChess: He and Morgaine used to play chess. According to her, she beat him every time.
* WizardClassic: He becomes Merlin.
[[/folder]]
!Other Incarnations (Revival Series)
[[folder:Doctor Moon]]
!!Doctor Moon
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/doctor_moon_salmon.jpg]]
->'''Played by:''' Creator/ColinSalmon (2008)
->''"What I want you to remember is this, and I know it's hard: [[WhamLine the real world is a lie. And your nightmares are real.]] The Library is real, there are people trapped in there. People who need to be saved. The shadows are moving again."''
A literal moon with artificial intelligence that orbits over the biggest library in the universe, manifesting in virtual reality as the human physician Doctor Moon to monitor the Library's central computer consciousness, CAL. Although the concept never made it to screen, the character's creator Creator/StevenMoffat intended for Dr. Moon to be the very last incarnation of the Doctor whose consciousness was saved within the Library.
----
* AbortedArc: Dr. Moon's possible fate as the Doctor's last incarnation uploaded to the Library mainframe goes unsaid in the televised story, leaving it an AmbiguousSituation for viewers to decide themselves. Also, River's connection to the Doctor was revised in later arcs, as her last encounter with her beloved before her team's fateful mission to the Library turned out to be with the [[Characters/DoctorWhoTwelfthDoctor Twelfth Doctor]], not the Forty-Fifth Doctor (though considering a night on Darillium lasts 24 years, it's still a possibility she met both). He could also have simply not revealed this version of himself to her until after the episode.
* AffirmativeActionLegacy: If you accept the premise that he is a virtual avatar of a far-future Doctor, he may count as the first canonical black incarnation seen onscreen.
* AllThereInTheManual: His connection to the Doctor was belatedly revealed in a 2020 Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine article and has yet to be used in a narrative context, though the idea has been widely accepted by the fanbase (and Creator/RussellTDavies). As the game-changing episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren The Timeless Children]]" opened the floodgates for noted writers to discuss their own ideas about the Doctor's past and future, it seems to still be on the cards.
* DareToBeBadass: He gives young Charlotte a hell of a WhamLine that the real world, as she perceives it, is a lie and that her nightmares of a giant library filled with carnivorous shadows are actually real. There's people trapped inside it that need help and only she can save them.
* FriendToAllChildren: While he seems a little untrustworthy at first, he ultimately shows he has a child's best interests at heart, just like any good Doctor.
* GeniusLoci: As a literal moon with artifical intelligence, he certainly qualifies.
* LotusEaterMachine: Dr. Moon keeps CAL's consciousness, as well as all the other "saved" human inhabitants, in a realistic suburban setting where she believes herself to be a normal human girl. It's eventually revealed that CAL was once the girl, Charlotte Abigail Lux, whose mind was uploaded to the Library.
* PunnyName: His name turns out to be incredibly literal. In the real world, he's a manmade satellite resembling Earth's moon who acts as an antivirus firewall to the Library's computer systems. The humanoid form we meet is merely his virtual avatar.
* TogetherInDeath: Although they don't seem to recognise each other in their current states, he and River reunite in the ArtificialAfterlife of the Library where they continue to live happily ever after.
* VirtualRealityWarper: In the cyberspace of the Library, he can instantaneously accelerate the passage of time simply saying variations of the phrase "And then... you went to *X*", as well as influence the virtual world in other subtle ways.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The "Meta-Crisis" Tenth Doctor]]
!!The "Meta-Crisis" Tenth Doctor
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/metacrisis_ten_3368.jpg]]
->'''Played by:''' Creator/DavidTennant (2008)
->''"I'm part human. Specifically, the aging part. I'll grow old and never regenerate. I've only got one life, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you, if you want."''
An unusual tangent from the Doctor we know as a side effect of his sidestepped eleventh regeneration. He was the final result of the original Doctor losing his hand in a Sycorax duel, which Jack rescued and returned to him. The Doctor kept it with him until a Dalek got in a cheap shot and made him regenerate. The Doctor, having a vain streak at the time, cheated the regeneration and used his severed hand as a container for the energy that would recreate his body. This in fact counted as far as his allotted regenerations went, leaving the Doctor with [[Characters/DoctorWhoEleventhDoctor one last regeneration]] in his first cycle.
Donna Noble interacted with the hand while it was coursing with regeneration energy that tried to heal the limb as though it was still a part of its Time Lord owner, but didn't have enough DNA to recognize the full picture of the Doctor's body. Donna's DNA got sampled and used to fill in the gaps, causing the hand to sprout into a whole new Doctor with a bit of Donna's temper inside him. He picked up her human body, leaving him a Time Lord brought down to human level- what he called a "biological meta-crisis". It led this clone to choose a different path from the Doctor, reciprocate his love for Rose Tyler in his stead, and live a happy life in a parallel universe with her.
However, the original Doctor also noticed the clone resembled his attitude right after coming out of the Time War, like the Ninth Doctor before mellowing out, and fewer qualms about killing his enemies. He left Meta-Crisis Ten in her care to help him overcome these dangerous qualities and satisfy her love for him that he couldn't provide as a Time Lord.
----
* BabiesEverAfter: Some ExpandedUniverse sources indicate he had at least one child with Rose.
* BigDamnKiss: Shares a very passionate one with Rose when he reveals that he really loves her, which the Tenth Doctor could not say because Rose would never leave his side and he would outlive her.
* ChekhovsBoomerang:
** The Doctor's hand was involved in a great deal of important events before it finally turned into him.
** The regeneration used to create him becomes important later on in [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor "The Time of the Doctor"]] when it turns out that, because of this, the Eleventh Doctor is actually the thirteenth and the last regeneration of his first cycle.
* CompositeCharacter: Wears the Tenth Doctor's suit and shoes, has Donna's characteristics stacked against Ten's, appears to have the Doctor's overall memories and has similar traits to the Ninth Doctor. He also wears a plain, collar-less shirt without buttons or a tie to go with it, similar to Nine's habit of wearing stripped-down attire and simple V-neck sweaters. Him being human also allows him to grow old with the woman he loves, similar to what the John Smith personality adopted by Ten wanted.
* DarkerAndEdgier: With respect to the Tenth Doctor, he's harsher and ''definitely'' less apprehensive about murder.
* TheDividual: Subverted. He looks just the same as the Tenth Doctor and is a mental duplicate of him, but he's still treated as a separate incarnation from the original Ten. While he's the "main" Doctor for the time he's around, he's still treated as a side incarnation and isn't put in the same roster as the rest of the numbered (and War) Doctors.
* DoppelgangerReplacementLoveInterest: Not only does he look just like Ten, he has all of Ten's memories, experiences, thoughts, and feelings.
* {{Fanservice}}: Born from an unclothed hand, he's naked right off the bat when it grows into a complete body.
* HalfHumanHybrid: Part human, part Time Lord.
* HappilyEverAfter: With Rose in exchange for the original Ten because he gets to grow old with the woman he loves.
* HotBlooded: Being created with the help of Donna's DNA gave him this. Unlike the Doctor, he doesn't hesitate to obliterate a Dalek fleet with the flick of a switch.
* IDidWhatIHadToDo: The Daleks had nearly destroyed the Universe, and if he left them around, even without a reality bomb they could ''still'' destroy the cosmos. He explicitly points this out before flipping the switch.
* LoveConfession: Implied and confirmed to tell Rose "I love you" in an inaudible whisper in her ear, triggering a kiss.
* MixAndMatchMan: He's an ArtificialHuman clone of the Tenth Doctor created from the combined DNA of him and Donna Noble.
* NakedOnArrival:
-->'''Donna:''' It's you!\\
'''Meta-Ten:''' Oh, yes!\\
'''Donna:''' ''[pointedly looking away ]'' ...You're ''naked''.\\
'''Meta-Ten:''' Oh, ''[[CaptainObvious yes]]''.
* OtherMeAnnoysMe: Ten makes it very clear his clone's creation was against his wishes after seeing him off millions of Daleks with the flick of a switch. This hits way too close to home and Ten is ''furious''.
-->'''Ten:''' Because we saved the universe, but at a cost. And the cost is ''him''. He destroyed the Daleks. He committed genocide. He's too dangerous to be left on his own.\\
'''Meta-Ten:''' ''[accusingly]'' You ''made'' me.\\
'''Ten:''' Exactly. You were born in battle, full of blood and anger and revenge. Remind you of someone? That's me, when we first met. And you made me better. Now you can do the same for him.\\
'''Rose:''' But he's not you.\\
'''Ten:''' He needs you. That's ''very'' me.
* OurClonesAreDifferent: The Tenth Doctor redirects his aborted regeneration's energy into his preserved severed hand, and Donna later comes into contact with the energized hand, resulting in a "biological meta-crisis" where the hand both literally and figuratively regenerates the rest of its missing body, now spliced with human DNA donated from Donna. The result is a physically-identical clone of the Tenth Doctor who has part-human DNA from Donna -- the effects of which include a more human-like internal biology, lacking a regeneration cycle, and having a mix of Donna's and the original Tenth Doctor's personality quirks -- and the new Meta-Crisis Doctor has the same thoughts and memories as the original Tenth Doctor up to the aborted regeneration, but with a more ruthless and aggressive streak due to the clone being "born in blood and battle and revenge".
* TheSlowPath: One reason Ten left the Meta-Crisis Doctor with Rose; no advanced age or regenerations and no TARDIS. [[labelnote:*]] In a deleted scene, the Doctor leaves them with a sort of a cutting from the TARDIS, which will eventually grow into a usable TARDIS itself, although possibly not within their lifetimes.[[/labelnote]]
* TheUnfettered: The ''other'' reason Ten left his clone with Rose. He '''''casually''''' ''committed genocide on the Daleks''. While Ten had his own moral code and wouldn't resort to killing unless it was absolutely necessary, Meta-Crisis immediately acted to blow the Daleks up. This scared Ten into wondering just how much terror he could bring to the universe if someone didn't reform him, so he decided Rose could do the trick after remembering how she reformed him when he was Nine.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Dream Lord]]
!!The Dream Lord
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2018_01_16_at_105311.png]]
->'''Played by:''' Creator/TobyJones (2010)
->''"Dream Lord. It's in the name, isn't it? Spooky. Not quite there."''
A strange, incorporeal being who once trapped the Doctor, Amy, and Rory in two worlds, making them choose which was real and which was just a dream.
----
* AnthropomorphicPersonification: He's a personification of the Doctor's dark side; more specifically, his self-loathing.
* DeadpanSnarker: Often, especially at Rory's expense.
-->'''Rory:''' If anyone here's the gooseberry, it's the Doctor.\\
'''Dream Lord:''' Now there's a delusion I'm not responsible for.
* EnemyWithin: He only exists inside the Doctor as his worst enemy: himself. He is basically a personfication of the Doctor's self-loathing.
* EvilRedhead: Looks like the Doctor [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor finally got to be ginger after all]].
* {{Expy}}: For the Valeyard. Scarily enough, [[AmbiguousSituation he very much might actually BE the Valeyard]].
* FanDisservice: At one point, he dresses in a ReadyForLovemaking style while Amy is alone with him in the TARDIS.
* FauxAffablyEvil: He's having so much ''fun'' with all his different costumes. He is genuinely AffablyEvil towards Amy, though.
* GracefulLoser: He withdraws gracefully after the heroes identify the real world. [[ILied It's just an act; turns out the "real" world is also a dream.]]
* GreatGazoo: A dark, malevolent dream-based version of this.
* IntangibleMan: He has no physical form. The Doctor briefly wonders if this is his motivation.
* {{Jerkass}}: Very much so, since he's willing to express the sorts of thoughts the Doctor typically holds back and enjoys tormenting him about it.
* LaughablyEvil: His bowtie and short stature bring to mind a demented Patrick Troughton, which makes sense, considering that that's exactly who he is.
* MeaningfulName: "Dream Lord". As in he creates and controls dreams. And is one, brought on by psychic pollen feeding on the Doctor's darker thoughts.
* TheNthDoctor: It's heavily implied he's a manifestation of the same dark side that gave rise to the Valeyard, and might end up becoming him.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: He talks to the Doctor ''entirely'' in these. Justified, as he essentially represents the Doctor's darkness and self-loathing.
-->'''Dream Lord:''' If you had any more tawdry quirks you could open up a tawdry quirk shop. The madcap vehicle, the cockamamie hair, the clothes designed by a first-year fashion student. I'm surprised you haven't got a little purple space dog just to ram home what an intergalactic wag you are.
* WholeCostumeReference: Normally is shown wearing a variation of the Eleventh Doctor's wardrobe and briefly adopts a similar blue suit and tie as the Tenth Doctor at one point. His other costumes are also, more subtly, this.
* YouCannotKillAnIdea: It's implied that he's still out there. If he is indeed the Doctor's dark side, then he may live for as long as the Doctor does. Especially if he turns out to be the Valeyard, who would go on to plague the Sixth Doctor.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Curator]]
!!The Curator
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/curator_1724.png]]
->'''Played by:''' Creator/TomBaker (2013)
->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/TomBaker (2020-2021), Creator/ColinBaker (2022)
->''"I'm only a humble curator, I'm sure I wouldn't know."''
From what is suggested on-screen, the Curator may be a much, much older incarnation of the Doctor following many regenerations. He chose to retire from his adventures through time and space, and became the curator of the National Gallery. He looks suspiciously familiar. (The Titan Comics Expanded Universe has since confirmed that the Curator ''is'' a future incarnation of the Doctor.)
----
* AmbiguousSituation: Metafictionally, this Doctor is the third appearance by Tom Baker as the "[[https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Doctor_(Shada) Narrator]] [[https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Introduction_to_the_Night_(TV_story) Doctor]]" from two 90s video releases. Whether he's "really" that Doctor is [[{{Fanon}} probably up to the individual viewer to decide]].
* BlatantLies: While he [[AmbiguousSituation skirts around]] the question of being a future incarnation of the Doctor and even claims ''not'' to be at one point, the Eleventh Doctor doesn't doubt that he's speaking to [[MyFutureSelfAndMe his future self]] for a second.
* CoolOldGuy: A very old man who is all but said to be the Doctor and who's still as affable as ever.
* CrypticConversation: Again, he implies that he's one of the Doctor's regenerations but at the same time doesn't give anything definitive.
** His later appearances in the Big Finish audios imply that these are just about the only conversations he's allowed to have. His retirement is suggested to be a deal the Curator made in the past, an agreement to stay out of events in exchange for... something.
* FictionAsCoverup: Mentions in the novelization that the Brigadier hated his idea to novelize The Doctor's adventures so people would think they were fiction.
* IconicOutfit: Averted, but ''not'': even though he's "revisiting the old favourites" in terms of faces, he's seen without Tom Baker's trademark scarf. WordOfGod has it that he gave it to Osgood.
* InteractiveNarrator: He claims to be writing the novelization to "The Day Of the Doctor" on psychic paper. He occasionally comments on what readers are doing and tells us to be quiet so we don't disturb the characters.
* IShouldWriteABookAboutThis: The novelization to "The Day Of the Doctor" is the result of him deciding this.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: His conversation with the Eleventh Doctor doubles as Creator/TomBaker congratulating Creator/MattSmith on becoming one of his successors in the role of the Doctor. This ties into the end of ''Film/AnAdventureInSpaceAndTime'', where Creator/MattSmith appears (in character) and meets Creator/WilliamHartnell.
* TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday: How his Undergallery is treated. It's not clear if it is in fact his TARDIS or something else entirely. All that's known is that it is attached in some way to the National Museum and that, in turn, it cannot always be seen, cannot always be found, and cannot always be ''remembered''.
* LoopholeAbuse: In his initial debut in the anniversary special and his later appearances in the Big Finish audio plays. He behaves as though he is absolutely forbidden from participating in events, and anyone who is aware of his nature refers to him as "retired". This doesn't stop him from making himself known to certain of the Doctor's companions, dropping extremely cryptic suggestions, and letting them draw their own conclusions.
* MeaningfulName: In Latin, the name ''Curator'' stems from the verb ''curare'', which means ''to take care of'' or ''to cure''. In other words... a Doctor by yet another name.
* NarratorAllAlong: The end of the novelization to "The Day Of the Doctor" revealed he was writing the parts between chapters.
* NoNameGiven: Just "The Curator".
* NoseTapping: ''Who'' knows, indeed.
* OnlyElectricSheepAreCheap: The novelization says the tourist board asked him to design robotic ravens to replace the ones that left the Tower Of London.
* RetiredBadass: Gave up saving the universe and settled down to become a simple museum curator on Earth. Just as Eleven mused he could do one day.
* SequelHook:
** He tells Eleven that Gallifrey was saved in "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor The Day of the Doctor]]", and encourages the Doctor to look for it. Which leads into the MythArc of Series 8 and 9.
** Mentions to the Eleventh Doctor that he may revisit familiar faces in the future, something that technology is slowly allowing as an option out-of-universe and would come to be with the Fourteenth Doctor.
* {{Shapeshifting}}: According to Creator/StevenMoffat, the Curator's creator, he's 'regeneration-fluid', his physical appearance flexible, which Big Finish took advantage of in ''Stranded 4'' to have Colin Baker play the role without technically regenerating. However, Matt Fitton, one of the writers on ''Stranded 4'', noted in ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'' #576 [[AmbiguousSituation that this could be]] because he can adopt several of his favorite faces as he likes, or it could be that he's compelled to by the changing timelines around him. Regardless, the box set confirms he took the form of the Fourth and Sixth Doctors, and implies he also took on the appearance of the Eleventh Doctor as well.
* ShroudedInMyth: The whole existence of the Curator is basically an enigmatic tease that the Doctor is going to live a very long life and eventually end up going into retirement... [[TenMinuteRetirement and not just for a short amount of time]], but for real. Maybe, it is the Doctor after all. The presence of a work of art in the background of his scene that looks identical to TARDIS roundels has also got people speculating that this is a clever hint that the museum is in fact the interior of the Curator's TARDIS — but then again, it could just be a meaningful selection to hang in the museum by the Curator because the Doctor loves the "round things", and at the very least, the sculpture strongly hints at the presence of the Doctor being the one actually overseeing the museum all along.
* VisualPun: Who knows? [[Series/DoctorWho Who]]... [[GagNose nose]].
* WhamLine: His introduction, startling the Eleventh Doctor with the same voice and features as his fourth incarnation.
-->'''Eleventh Doctor:''' I could retire and become the curator of this place.\\
'''The Curator:''' You know, I really think you ''might''.
* WhamShot: When he shows his face, both Eleven and fans know that he is the Doctor because he's played by Tom Baker.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Fugitive Doctor]]
!!Fugitive Doctor (Ruth Clayton)
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jo_martin_doctor.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"I'd quite like it if you got off my ship now."'']]
->'''Debut:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E5FugitiveOfTheJudoon "Fugitive of the Judoon"]] (2020)
%%->'''Regeneration Story:'''
->'''Played by:''' Creator/JoMartin (2020-)
->''"Let me take it from the top: Hello, I'm the Doctor. I'm a traveller in space and time, and that thing buried down there is called a TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space. You're gonna ''love'' this."''\\\
A mysterious incarnation of the Doctor who spent years undercover in Gloucester as a tour guide believing she was human. But when the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions, along with a hired squad of Judoon, converge while the latter are hunting her as a fugitive, her true identity is revealed.
----
* AmbiguousSituation: Neither she nor Thirteen have any memories of being the other, and have no idea where they fit relative to each other in the Doctor's timeline... or even if they're not alternate Doctors altogether (though an [[WordOfGod interview with Chris Chibnall]] in British newspaper ''[[https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/jo-martin-first-black-doctor-21373790.amp The Mirror]]'' indicates she is not an alternate or parallel Doctor, no fake-outs or tricks, she's the real deal). Thirteen guesses, based on the available evidence, that she's a past incarnation — but if so, it's a past she doesn't remember. "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS39E3FluxChapterThreeOnceUponTime Once, Upon Time]]" seems to back up her being a forgotten past incarnation.
* AtLeastIAdmitIt: Calls Thirteen out on her lack of moral high ground.
* BatmanGrabsAGun: Is willing to at least threaten people with weapons even if she won't shoot them herself, and is in general far more aggressive than Thirteen specifically, but also other new series Doctors in general. During the siege of Atropos she's shown calling down aerial bombardments and leading a small Division strike force, though she doesn't carry a gun herself.
* ContinuityNod:
** Has a pair of "[[PurelyAestheticGlasses brainy specs]]" like some of the other Doctors were fond of.
** Uses a Chameleon Arch to erase her memories and go into hiding as a human much like the [[Characters/DoctorWhoTenthDoctor Tenth Doctor]] did back in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E8HumanNature "Human Nature"]].
* ContrastingReplacementCharacter: Has two.
** To the War Doctor, another hidden incarnation of the Doctor introduced through a {{Retcon}}. The War Doctor was an incarnation that preceded the Revival era Doctors and had the appearance of an old white man while having spent centuries fighting in a Time War after abandoning the name of the Doctor, seeing his decision to become a warrior and a soldier as a betrayal of everything he stood for. However deep down he is still the Doctor and when given the chance he leaps at the opportunity to find a better way to end the Time War. The Fugitive Doctor meanwhile was an incarnation that appears to have preceded the Classic era Doctors and had the appearance of a black woman in her late thirties, who was on the run from a secret government agency in Time Lord society after having worked for them to enforce order. Despite choosing to leave this life, she is far more ruthless than most Doctors and willingly uses a gun with little reluctance. She doesn't see her actions as being at odds with what the Doctor stands for, and withdrew from being the Doctor only as a way to hide herself, like Ten did. Their companion situations also contrast: the War Doctor had no-one who was close to him long-term, while the Fugitive had an organized squad, one of whom she married and the others she abandoned when she went on the run.
** To the Curator. Where the Fugitive represents the Doctor's distant past that the Doctor has forgotten, the Curator represents the Doctor's distant future they could look forward towards. The Curator is portrayed by a [[Creator/TomBaker familiar face]] while the Fugitive is portrayed by someone completely new. In terms of personality, the Curator admits that they are "only a humble curator" and has seemed to have mellowed out with age, while the Fugitive is quite young with a personality reminiscient of the Classic Era Doctors.
* DeadpanSnarker: In the tradition of Classic Doctors especially, she has a very dry, condescending sense of humour.
* HappilyMarried: Ruth Clayton's husband Lee, who both clearly loves her... [[DidYouJustRomanceCthulhu and also knows who she really is the whole time]].
* HeroOfAnotherStory: What she ultimately turns out to be. Although [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren "The Timeless Children"]] makes it clear that [[spoiler:she ''is'' the Doctor, exactly where she fits into the timeline is not made clear. Like the Curator before (or [[TimeTravelTenseTrouble after]]) her, she essentially says that perhaps it doesn't matter either way.]]
* HumanityEnsues: Used a Chameleon Arch to turn into Ruth Clayton of Gloucester.
* NeverTheSelvesShallMeet: Downplayed. She's not worried about meeting another incarnation of herself (in contrast to the Gallifrey of her time, which finds it an abomination), but she is concerned about the temporal feedback loop if her TARDIS lands too close to Thirteen's (which hasn't been an issue for the [=TARDISes=] of other incarnations, as seen in "The Day of the Doctor" and "Twice Upon a Time").
* RaceLift: The first non-white-appearing version of the Doctor we meet, [[spoiler: though not the first non-white-appearing incarnation,]] regardless of how she fits into the sequence.
* ResignationsNotAccepted: She's on the run from the Time Lords partly because of a job that she didn't exactly accept and can't exactly leave, although she's clearly trying to.
* SassyBlackWoman: She's taken the form of a black woman, and she has a razor-sharp wit.
* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: "Senior" is a bit of an exaggeration (her human disguise is only in her 40s), but she has a dignified yet irascible edge reminiscent of Twelve and the older Classic era Doctors. It starkly contrasts the younger and politer Thirteen. [[https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2020-03-05/doctor-who-jo-martin-peter-capaldi/ Jo Martin]] confirmed that both her look and attitude were influenced by Twelve.
* TriggerPhrase: The text Lee sends her turns Ruth into a badass who's able to defeat a squad of Judoon with martial arts and a stolen gun. It leaves her unsettled afterwards because she doesn't see it as being ''her''.
* WaistcoatOfStyle: Wears a very nice navy one with gold buttons.
* WalkingSpoiler: It's very hard to talk about her without revealing she's a version of the Doctor.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Timeless Child]]
!!The Timeless Child
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/timelesschild1.jpg]]
->'''Debut:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E1E2Spyfall "Spyfall"]] (2020)
->'''Regeneration Story:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren "The Timeless Children"]] (2020)
What appears to be the Doctor's earliest incarnation known to any version of history, a mysterious child believed to be from an unknown dimension or universe, with an infinite capacity for regeneration. They became the source of the Time Lords' ability to regenerate.
Any of the Doctor's history prior to this point is unknowable.
----
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Before the First Doctor, courtesy of a secret group they belonged to known as the Division.
* MonsterProgenitor: The Timeless Child is essentially this for the Time Lords, as their capability to infinitely regenerate basically enabled the existence of the Time Lords to begin with. By extension, the Master further claims that the Doctor is also this to the regenerating Cybermen he created, under the notion that he made said Cybermen from the corpses of Time Lords.[[note]]Ironically, if one takes Big Finish as canon, then [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho034SpareParts the Doctor is technically this for the Cybermen twice]].[[/note]]
* MysteriousPast: A child of unknown origins and nature, found under a wormhole to another universe.
* NoNameGiven: Referred to mainly as the "Child", or the "Timeless Child". Whatever their real name is has likely been lost to time.
* TheNthDoctor: Went through numerous incarnations (including race and gender changes) before the Doctor we know.
* TheOlderImmortal: Being the Timeless Child, a being who predated Time Lord society, effectively makes the Doctor this to the vast majority of, if not all, Time Lords.
* PlayingWithSyringes: The child went through several regenerations before Tecteun discovered the secret of regeneration, implied to be linked to her experiments.
* Really700YearsOld: It was Tecteun's discovery of the child, and the secret of regeneration they held, that enabled the Shobogans to become Time Lords, which makes the child older than Time Lord civilisation and puts them easily into TimeAbyss territory - if the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe Sixth Doctor's rant]] is accurate, the Doctor is well over ten ''million'' years old. What happened to the child between then and the Doctor we know is unknown thanks to their LaserGuidedAmnesia, but Thirteen's flashback in her escape from the Matrix suggests that some of their incarnations included the faces from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E5TheBrainOfMorbius "The Brain of Morbius"]]. And we don't know whether or not she went through other incarnations before Tecteun found her.
* ResurrectiveImmortality: They have this even more than the Time Lords themselves, possessing an infinite number of regenerations rather than the standard twelve. However, it should be noted that they are the MonsterProgenitor of the Time Lords, with the Time Lords' ability to regenerate being derived from them.
* {{Retcon}}: The Annual for 2020 reveals that the Child has the same 12 Regeneration limit as the Time Lords would come to inherit.
* TimeAbyss: See Really 700 Years Old above.
* TransferableMemory: After the Child's collective personalities and memories were removed, [[spoiler:they were stored in a [[GhostMemory Weeping Angel]] before being transferred to one of the [[MemoryJar fob watches]] Time Lords normally use to store them.]]
* {{Unperson}}: The Division successfully erased them from history, even to themselves, wiping their mind clean and forcing them to regenerate into a child, who would apparently grow up to become the First Doctor.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Brendan]]
!!Brendan
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/a59c69de_e503_4159_ab03_3a3a0f2d0e09.jpeg]]
->'''Played by:''' Evan [=McCabe=] (2020)
A red-headed orphan found in the middle of a road by a kindly Irish couple named Patrick and Meg. He has a peaceful, quiet life as he trains to be a police officer, but his illusions of normalcy are shattered when he falls off a cliff... and somehow walks away unscathed. His entire life is revealed to be a parable of the Doctor's mysterious origin as the Timeless Child, concealed deep within the Matrix by the Time Lords.
----
* AllegoricalCharacter: An internalised example, as he is an allegory for the Timeless Child, while his parents symbolise the Time Lords who stole them and wiped their memories.
* BrickJoke: He's ginger, as later Doctors always aspired to be, though they can ironically never remember being him due to constant memory wiping. Of course, he was also merely a projection representing the Timeless Child, so the Doctor themself may or may not have ever looked like him in reality.
** Gallifrey had previously been mistaken for a place in Ireland in "Human Nature".
* ByTheBookCop: From what little we see of him, he's a good young copper.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: As a child, he’s seen wearing a jumper very similar in design to the one worn by the [[Characters/DoctorWhoSeventhDoctor Seventh Doctor]].
* InvincibleHero: He falls off a cliff after pursuing a mugger and survives unscathed.
* LotusEaterMachine: He's literally trapped in the Matrix.
* MemoryWipingCrew: He's strapped to a chair and painfully subjected to this by his own father and the police sergeant, who are actually stand-ins for the Division.
* {{Oireland}}: Brendan lives in a stereotypical Arcadian ideal of Ireland, full of lush green fields and cobblestone roads.
* SupermanSubstitute: His origin of being discovered by a kindly couple only to develop superhuman strength and durability seems to mirror Franchise/{{Superman}} more than the Doctor.
* TomatoInTheMirror: He gradually begins to understand there is something very wrong with his world, though he remains unaware that he's a Matrix replicant of the Doctor.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Thirteenth Doctor's Forced Regeneration ('''Unmarked Centenary Special Spoilers''')]]
!!The Master
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_master_doctor.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:'''''"I AM THE DOCTOR!"''''']]
->'''Debut:''' [[Recap/DoctorWho2022CENThePowerOfTheDoctor "The Power of the Doctor"]] (2022)
->'''Regeneration Story:''' "The Power of the Doctor" (2022)
->'''Played by:''' Creator/SachaDhawan (2022)
->''"I'm going to make 'the Doctor' a byword for fear, pain and destruction, so when people hear that name in future, they quake in fear."''
The result of a [[ComplexityAddiction typically convoluted]] gambit by the Master to possess the Doctor's body by forcing her to regenerate into him. Fully assuming her identity as the Doctor, he goes on a campaign to defame her legacy. See Characters/DoctorWhoMasters for more on Sacha Dhawan's Master as he appears in his original body.
----
* AxCrazy: Par for the course with this incarnation of the Master, but doubly so now that he has control of the Doctor's body.
* CompositeCharacter: Of the Doctor and the Master, naturally, but his wardrobe is a jumbled combination of many previous Doctors' outfits, including Four's scarf, Five's stick of celery, Seven's question-mark-patterned pullover, and Ten's dress shirt and tie.
* EvilIsPetty: The Master goes to enormous effort to take over the Doctor's life, all in a vain effort to destroy her reputation and make the universe fear her very name, because he hates her that much.
* FashionVictimVillain: InUniverse. He intentionally borrows various outfit quirks from every past Doctor (Thirteen's coat, Four's scarf, Five's leek, etc), but with no rhyme or reason to it. It's supposed to be an insult on his part, but others remark that he just looks completely ridiculous.
* FrameUp: In the Doctor's body, the Master causes all sorts of mayhem with the express intention of ruining their reputation as a hero. Luckily, his rampage doesn't last long enough for his attempts at defamation to stick. Obviously, the fact that he clearly looks like The Master probably didn't help.
* FreakyFridayFlip: A one-sided example, as the Thirteenth Doctor is not forced into the Master's old body, which simply remains as an empty, lifeless husk in the Winter Palace chamber. Her consciousness is sent to the same metaphysical space as all of her other past incarnations, though her sheer HeroicWillpower allows her to cling on and remain herself when Yaz successfully reverses the forced regeneration process.
* GoKartingWithBowser: He seriously expects Yaz to accept that he is now the Doctor without quarrel and continue travelling the universe with him as if nothing had happened. Yaz plays along to lull him into a false sense of security, and although he doesn't trust her, he clearly wants it to be true.
* HairTriggerTemper: Sacha Dhawan's Master was already violently unstable, but the painful and unnatural "forced regeneration" process seems to have left him with an even more unpredictable temperament. He gets quite scary when he furiously scolds Yasmin for denying him the title of "Doctor".
-->'''"[[SuddenlyShouting I AM THE DOCTOR! I AM THE DOCTOR!]]"'''
* IJustWantToBeYou: The Master's usual inferiority complex towards the Doctor comes to a head in his "Spy Master" incarnation, who realises just how out of his depth he was when he discovered, to his horror, the truth behind the Timeless Child legend. It leads to his new objective of wanting to literally take over the Doctor's life, though he fails to understand that merely taking her body does not make him the Doctor. As Yaz and her Holo-Doctor (in the guise of the Fugitive Doctor) find a way to reverse the forced regeneration procedure, the Master-Doctor makes a final desperate plea to not have to go back to being the Master.
* LegionOfDoom: The Master collaborates with the Daleks and the Cybermen in his plan to steal the Doctor's body, promising them both the opportunity to transform Earth into their new base of operations. As the two cyborg factions wreak havoc on the planet, the Master's end of the bargain is to simply release a statement to the universe, letting them know that he, the Doctor, caused this.
* PretenderDiss: Despite his best efforts, ''nobody'' gives him the satisfaction of regarding him as a "true" Doctor, even though he technically was for a brief period. None of the Guardians of the Edge (manifestations of the Doctor's past lives who have since come to rest in a metaphysical mindscape called the Edge of Existence) are pleased that the Master has taken over their body and urge the Thirteenth Doctor to restore herself. Yaz and the other companions work tirelessly to find a way to reverse the process. Even the Doctor's TARDIS gives the Master-Doctor an electric shock when he attempts to use her, making it clear that she's also far from happy with this change in management.
* RedBaron: What he hopes to turn the name of the Doctor into. Ironically, in some alien cultures, the Doctor is already feared in such a way, with some languages translating the name as "warrior" rather than "healer".
* ThatManIsDead: As soon as he possesses the Doctor's body, he discards his former identity as the Master and ''aggressively'' corrects anyone who calls him the wrong name.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Guardians of the Edge ('''Unmarked Centenary Special Spoilers''')]]
!!Guardians of the Edge of Existence
->'''Debut:''' [[Recap/DoctorWho2022CENThePowerOfTheDoctor "The Power of the Doctor"]] (2022)
->'''Played by:''' Creator/DavidBradley, Creator/PeterDavison, Creator/ColinBaker, Creator/SylvesterMcCoy and Creator/PaulMcGann (2022)
->''"It's symbolic, obviously, consciousness will do that. But this is the place you pass through during the process of regeneration. Go past here and there is no way back."''
Shapeshifting manifestations representing fragments of the Doctor's many past lives. They sit in a vast metaphysical plane called the Edge of Existence, deep within the Doctor's consciousness, and help to guide them through the torch-passing of regeneration. Except, when the Master forcibly takes over the Doctor's body, they step in to help stop the Thirteenth Doctor from passing through before her time is up. In the same episode, some of the same past incarnations (as well as the Fugitive Doctor, listed in her own folder above) manifest as "Holo-Doctors", interactive A.I. holograms implanted into Yaz, Tegan and Ace to help guide them when the real Doctor is briefly put out to pasture.
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* BadassLongRobe: They all wear very stylish black robes with red accents, reminiscent of traditional Time Lord garb... Well, all except the Eighth Doctor's manifestation, who insists on wearing a tidier version of his "Night of the Doctor" outfit because of his usual RebelliousSpirit.
* TheBusCameBack: While the First, Fifth and Eighth Doctors have all cameoed before in the revived series -- the latter two played by their original actors -- the Sixth and Seventh Doctors never returned before outside of archive footage from the Classic era, so "The Power of the Doctor" marks Colin Baker and Sylvester [=McCoy=]'s first appearance in "[=NuWho=]".
* CanonImmigrant: The idea that all past personas of the Doctor exist somewhere within their subconscious had been thrown around countless times in ExpandedUniverse media before the show picked up on the idea. The Guardian implies that future incarnations also exist there, just waiting for the right time to receive the torch from the incumbent incarnation. The Doctor hasn't yet integrated their forgotten lives into their mind, so they're probably absent from the Guardian for the time being, but they still have some lingering memories of them.
* CharacterAgedWithTheActor: Barring the manifestation of the First Doctor, who looks roughly the same as ever thanks to TheOtherDarrin still being in effect, the Guardian Doctors have all visibly aged with the actors that portrayed them. As Holo-Doctors, the Fifth and Seventh Doctors justify it as a result of their companions' emotional memories affecting the interface. It's likely that the same applies for the Thirteenth Doctor's own memories of each of them.
* DareToBeBadass: While the Thirteenth Doctor already had the determination and strength of character to refuse to pass on, which they praise her for, they give some additional encouragement to go back and stop the Master from taking over their body forever.
* GateGuardian: It's in the name. They wait by the Edge of Existence to guide newly regenerated Doctors through the process of regeneration.
* HufflepuffHouse: In "Power of the Doctor", the Fifth and Seventh Doctor get extra scenes of them interacting with Tegan and Ace through holographic implants, while the Eighth Doctor gets a memorable quip about his stubbornly personalised fashion sense. Unfortunately, that leaves little for the First and Sixth Doctors to do in the episode.
* MyGreatestFailure: As Holo-Doctors, the Fifth and Seventh Doctors both lament how they treated Tegan and Ace and try to make amends with them. The Fifth Doctor also still regrets Adric's death.
* TheOtherDarrin: David Bradley again reprises his role as the First Doctor after "Twice Upon a Time", filling in for the late Creator/WilliamHartnell (as well as fellow other-Darrin, Richard Hurndall). Bradley's frequent reprisal of the role almost makes him more iconic to revived series fans than Hartnell himself.
* RebelliousSpirit: The Eighth Doctor refuses to wear robes, unlike the others. Unimpressed, the Seventh Doctor instead views him as a CommanderContrarian.
-->'''Eighth Doctor:''' I don't do robes [...] [[DeadpanSnarker I'm a manifestation of our consciousness, I can wear what I like.]]
* TalkingToThemself: As a sort of "regeneration-fluid" manifestation of every incarnation of the Doctor, they seem to regularly bicker among themselves, as most Doctors are wont to do whenever they encounter each other.
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: The Guardian takes the form of the First, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Doctors, switching between all five of them rapidly when talking to the Thirteenth Doctor.
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