Incarnations of the Doctor appearing in Big Finish Doctor Who, the Audio Play series based on Doctor Who.
Please keep in mind that, although the series is officially part of the Whoniverse, it encompasses many different timelines/continuities and includes adaptations of existing works from the Doctor Who Expanded Universe. Due to Big Finish's sheer size and complexity, it also plays by the rules of the Doctor Who Expanded Universe: the TV series can at times contradict or overwrite the timelines described here, or adapt them for the televised continuity.
For a still-growing recap list of the audio dramas featuring these characters, feel free to look here.
For the other cast pages relating to Big Finish Doctor Who, see:
- Big Finish Doctor Who – Companions
- Big Finish Doctor Who – Villains
- Bernice Summerfield
- Gallifrey
- Iris Wildthyme
For tropes pertaining to this character in the original TV series, see the general Doctor Who – Doctors page.
- First Doctor
- Second Doctor
- Third Doctor
- Fourth Doctor
- Fifth Doctor
- Sixth Doctor
- Seventh Doctor
- Eighth Doctor
- War Doctor
- Ninth Doctor
- Tenth Doctor
- Eleventh Doctor
- Twelfth Doctor
- Thirteenth Doctor
- Fourteenth Doctor
- Fifteenth Doctor
Several alternate Doctors appear in Big Finish, who each inhabit their own Alternate Continuity. These have, on rare occasion, interacted with the main timeline.
First Doctor
An alternate incarnation of the Doctor who never chose to leave Gallifrey in the first place. Instead, this Doctor (who is still known as the Doctor) is a novelist, spending his time in simulations and interacting with fictional versions of people on Earth. However, after a long time and in one possibility, he eventually does leave in a TARDIS together with his granddaughter Susan (many, many years after he would have done so in other media). His choices and actions taken, however, aren't tempered by being a grumpy young man, stubborn to keep time intact. So instead, we wound up with spacefaring sailing Steampunk vessels cruising through the solar system in the Elizabethan Era. His story is told in "Auld Mortality" and "A Storm of Angels".
- Alternate Self: A version of the First Doctor who remained on Gallifrey for much longer and ended up becoming an author, but would later flee much like his mainstream counterpart.
- Cool Old Guy: While nowhere near as grumpy or (potentially) action-oriented as William Hartnell's version of the character, this Doctor takes a childlike glee in exploring the universe and wants to share it with everyone.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": In spite of never leaving Gallifrey, much less exiling himself into the time vortex, the Doctor is still known as the Doctor. Even to the Time Lords, which brings up a potentially interesting question... that's basically ignored anyhow. (Susan is also still called Susan, despite never having gone undercover as a London schoolgirl.)
- Failed a Spot Check: He doesn't really notice the problems he's caused with his meddling in the time stream until it's finally shoved in his face.
- Unscrupulous Hero: One of the things retained from Hartnell's First Doctor. While he adores Susan and cannot stand to see people brought to harm, he also doesn't see the problem with altering history or draining power from the ship that rescued him and Susan from death in space to repower his TARDIS. While it's running into serious problems itself.
- What Have I Done: Upon realizing he's kinda screwed over the natural flow of history permanently and possibly even doomed humanity.
Third Doctor / Unbound Doctor
An alternate incarnation of the Doctor, who accidentally arrived for his banishment to Earth a few decades too late. This Doctor appeared in two Big Finish Unbound tales: "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Masters of War" — the former dealing with the consequences to the Earth over the Doctor's inability to interfere with the events of time, with the latter showing off how the Daleks evolved without the Doctor's interference. Took on the Brigadier as a companion, astonishingly. Probably the most significant of the "other" Doctors, he returned again to team up with Bernice Summerfield when she went universe-hopping, in a story which ended with him following Benny back to the main universe and becoming trapped there. He's now living a quiet retirement as a university professor, though he still helps out Benny occasionally.
- Alternate Self: To the Third Doctor, the catalyst being he ended up with a different face and arrived on Earth much later in this universe. And then things got far more complicated…
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: A trait he shares with many of the Doctors from the main universe which is precisely why, despite being extremely intelligent and being well-intentioned, he makes for a terrible President of the Universe.
- Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: According to the cover art to The Masters of War, this Doctor seems to wear near-Victorian-era apparel, while having a hairstyle right out of the 1880s. Complete with muttonchops.
- Beware the Nice Ones
- Breakout Character: His audio stories are one of the most popular, and he's the only Unbound Doctor to return with him even moving to the main universe.
- The Cameo: In 100 Days Of The Doctor Six and Evelyn are sidetracked by being sucked into this alternate universe. Though we don't see what happened, this Doctor and the Brigadier helped them save the day.
- Composite Character: He's the Third Doctor, but he fought in a Time War like the War Doctor.
- The Chains of Commanding: For most people, mistakes are soluble or something that can be lived with. It weighs on him that his new job as President of the Universe means that for him a mistake can result in an apocalypse.
- The Chessmaster: He and Alistair are extremely at home with military tactics.
- At the conclusion of The Ruler of The Universe boxset it's revealed he arranged a series of events ranging from the Master trying to summon an ancient evil to ensuring his own impeachment in order to save (most) of his universe, leave the Master in a job he hates with the Mother Superior to keep him in line and most impressively, get Bernice back to her home universe.
- Deadpan Snarker: The older he gets, the snarkier he becomes.
- Deal with the Devil: In his first two appearances, this Doctor makes a deal with the Master and the Daleks respectively. He gets called out on it both times, but is wary of the Master in the first place, and the Daleks are much more reasonable(ish) in this altered universe.
- The Dreaded: Played for Laughs. His reputation for always winning coupled with sudden fame from being President of the Universe means that the assorted villains he challenges keep surrendering the moment he turns up. He's delighted when he finally encounters someone who drugs and imprisons him but even then keeps dragging out the conflict just to get some excitement.
- Drunk on Milk: Learns in "Asking For A Friend" that he has difficulty metabolizing tonic water.
- The Exile: The Time Lords tried to do this to the Doctor, much like his canonical version. Luckily, a well-placed nuke kicks the TARDIS back to normal. Amusingly, perhaps out of spite, the Doctor's exile was simply being given a limiter that kept it from moving through time, or away from Earth (with, of course, the Doctor's knowledge of how to fix this ripped from his head) rather than being stripped from knowing how to work the TARDIS at all.
- The Fettered: This Doctor very calmly states that his job is to protect the oppressed. If the Daleks want him to stop fighting them, they should stop being the oppressor.
- I Warned You: An extremely dark version while wandering the ruins of what is presumably his Gallifrey. He screams out something he's always wanted to say to the Time Lords, "I TOLD YOU SO!". It's implied that his universe's version of the Last Great Time War was born from the Time Lords being attacked by the rest of the universe for refusing to share their powers. He advised that they should stop the war by agreeing to share their power, but even while losing they refused to do so. (One wonders if it's because in this universe, the Fourth Doctor never met Romana, who'd go on to found the Temporal Powers Alliance and liberalise Gallifreyan society.)
- Jade-Coloured Glasses: By the time he meets Benny Summerfield, he's ready to jump ship and leave the universe altogether. He's seen it all, done it all and gotten fed up with it all.
- Last of His Kind: Unlike in the main universe this Doctor (and Master) became the last of their kind a little earlier in their lives. And their Time Lords are very definitely, permanently dead.
- Lighter and Softer: This Third Doctor is a whole lot nicer than Pertwee (though just as snarky), thanks to his exile only lasting a few hours, as opposed to a few years. In regards to his life, however, he ends up involved in notably bleaker circumstances.
- Manipulative Bastard: A well-meaning but still somewhat harmful example. When he discovers his therapist never had a family he tries to be kind by going back in time and ensuring her fiancé won't die so when he talks to her in the present she is not only Happily Married but also she has had Babies Ever After. However when she discovers this she is furious with him for completely altering her life without her knowledge.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: Actually subverted somewhat in "Sympathy for the Devil" in that the Doctor uses it as an excuse to get close to an injured man to obtain more information.
- Quintessential British Gentleman
- Refuge in Audacity: This Doctor, perhaps inadvertently, engages in this a lot in his plans. They tend to work quite well.
- Refusal of the Call: He accidentally ends up President Of The Universe, by virtue of having defeated everyone else who wanted a go at it. He's not happy about it.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: His universe's version of the Time War left him with a lot of scars, not the least of which is he sacrificed whole chunks of his memory as part of whatever he had to do to end it.
- All Therapists Are Muggles: He gets a therapist in "Asking for a Friend". It doesn't go well (see above). Even when he finally confesses he's terrified by the prospect of the countless billions who will die if he makes any mistakes and the massive amount of guilt and various trauma he is constantly coping with it causes his therapist to admit she cannot help him.
- Trapped in Another World: Enters the main universe, with no apparent way back to his own, along with Bernice Summerfield at the end of The True Saviour of the Universe.
- What the Hell, Hero?: ...teaming up with Daleks? Even the Brigadier calls the Doctor out on this one, although the Daleks actually aren't nearly as bad in this universe. (Since the Fourth Doctor never existed, he never interfered in the Genesis of the Daleks, and Davros ended up developing his creations in a slightly different direction after realizing how dangerous they were on his own.)
- Worthy Opponent: The Daleks start listening to Doctor's plans more when they realize just who he is.
Future Doctor
Time has passed for this Doctor, who has but a few regenerations left, and time has hardened him quite a bit. Stranded on Earth and with unfinished business waiting for him at the bottom of the ocean, this incarnation no longer plays nice. Only appears in the audio drama "Full Fathom Five".
- Combat Pragmatist: Has no problem murdering people with one clean shot, if it's necessary.
- Downer Ending: He's trapped in the bottom of an undersea base and the woman who he adopted as his daughter has just killed him. And she's going to keep killing him until his regenerations are all spent and gone. On the other hand, though, his daughter actually kinda has a point.
- It's All About Me: This Doctor not only kills people with relatively limited justification, but it's implied that he would have let his unofficially adopted daughter think he was dead just so that he can retrieve the TARDIS.
- Knight Templar Parent: The Doctor has little problem with risking his own life, but he absolutely refuses to let his adopted daughter Ruth do the same.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Doctor basically argues that his actions are always justified, but at one point he kills a man just on the chance that another scientist's work will be continued based on analysis of the man's condition. Considering that his victim had regained control of himself after the initial traumatic transformation and made it clear he just wanted to find a cure, it's hard not to feel that other Doctors would have been more willing to take the risk of other scientists trying to copy that research in the name of an innocent life.
The Valeyard
Only appearing in "He Jests at Scars", this alternate Valyard is the end result of what might have happened had the Valeyard actually won the events of The Ultimate Foe, thus becoming the Doctor himself. Rather than gallivant around the universe like the Doctor would normally do, this Valeyard-Doctor instead decided to run around, blowing everything out of existence — eventually killing every single one of his previous incarnations.
- Alternate Self: A version of the Valeyard who won (at least at first).
- And I Must Scream: This Doctor was finally defeated (technically) by a Future Badass version of Mel. Doomed to spend an eternity in the TARDIS control room (the only remaining aspect of reality left), unable to move or even do much more than breathe or think while reality slowly sorts itself out. Maybe.
- And Then What?: So the Valeyard defeats the Sixth Doctor in the Matrix, secures immortality for himself and becomes ruler of his own city in the time vortex. What now? Uh... kill more Doctors, I guess?
- Byronic Hero: His selfish mission to become "real" causes problems for both himself and the entire universe at large.
- Didn't Think This Through: Accurately summarises his whole misadventure after "winning" the Trial of the Time Lord. After killing various past incarnations of the Doctor, his attempts to rectify the increasingly unstable timeline only continue to escalate the problem, as he keeps failing to anticipate the near-omnipresent impact that the Doctor had on the universe.
- Enemy Without: This alternate version is explicitly said to be the Doctor's Watcher, which is usually a ghostly manifestation of a future regeneration as seen in "Logopolis", that somehow gained independent consciousness.
- Evil Counterpart: Subverted for perhaps the only time in the franchise, seeing how he's finally the real article.
- Evil Feels Good: At least, at first.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: His reckless, wanton fuckery with the space-time continuum eventually ruins reality so thoroughly that he is last seen petrified in a corner of the TARDIS, so terrified of ruining the timestream further that he can't let himself move a muscle.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: The TARDIS becomes one to him, projecting comforting illusions of him gaining godlike powers and wiping out the Time Lords to distract him from the universe's approaching annihilation.
- My God, What Have I Done?: He only realises far too late the damage his reckless actions have caused and can only apologise sincerely to Mel as the last vestiges of reality crumble around them.
- Survivor Guilt: Considering the ending, this one actually makes sense.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: After assuming control of what's left of space-time, the Doctor-Valeyard can literally do whatever he desires. This is, of course, because it's all an illusion.
Third Doctor
A female Doctor who came about after the Second Doctor (voiced here by Nicholas Briggs) killed himself and escaped to avoid the trial at the end of "The War Games". Realising the CIA won't find her as long as she lies low, she gets a job pushing trolleys at Sainsbury's and falls into a life of drunkenness and ennui. Appears in "Exile".
- Alternate Self: A female version of the Third Doctor who leads a much simpler, but sillier, life.
- Downer Ending: She ends up getting captured and sentenced to confinement in her TARDIS for the rest of her life. Should she try to escape, she will dematerialise forever, and it would be as if she never existed. Or not. The story leaves it open who's tricking whom, as even the Time Lords themselves are played as rather thick.
- Gargle Blaster: The "speckled goat".
- Gender Bender: It seems suicidal Time Lords switch genders upon regeneration. Who knew?
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Eventually leads to her downfall.
- Not So Great Escape: The Doctor is soon discovered, thanks in part to her incredible alcoholism-induced stupidity.
- Talking to Themself: She frequently talks to a possible hallucination of her previous incarnation. He isn't that reliable, so it's likely she's just dead drunk.
- Took a Level in Dumbass: The Doctor appears to have lost some of her usual intelligence, falling into relatively obvious traps and making flawed judgements.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: Regularly gets drunk to avoid having to face the fact that she's basically escaped being punished by the Time Lords by essentially putting herself into exile and rejecting her real self.
Eighth Doctor (Johann Schmidt)
A Doctor from an alternate timeline, where the Seventh Doctor, Ace and the TARDIS were captured in Colditz Castle and the Nazis wound up winning World War II as an accidental aftereffect. After being killed and regenerating, the (now) Eighth Doctor spent decades manipulating the Nazis and trying to reset the timeline. Was first mentioned in the audio "Colditz", and much later properly appeared in the mini-episode "Klein's Story".
- Alternate Self: To the Eighth Doctor, regenerating early due to different circumstances and ends up spending his life trying to undo them.
- The Atoner: This alternate Eighth Doctor spends pretty much his entire regeneration trying to correct time to its proper course. It's up to interpretation if he's trying to atone for the corruption of the timeline, or if he's trying to prevent Ace's untimely death by meddling. Probably both.
- The Chessmaster: "Johann" spends over 10 years just trying to find a person whom he can potentially convince to step back in time and correct things. He then spends the next several months slowly convincing her to go back in time to "save" the Doctor from the original timeline on the pretense of using him to explain how the TARDIS works. He's good.
- Faking the Dead: Done quite easily, considering he regenerated into another body.
- Heroic Sacrifice: "Johann" gets at least shot trying to get Klein into the TARDIS, not to mention essentially erased from history once his plan works.
- In Spite of a Nail: Apparently still becomes Paul McGann.
- Temporal Paradox
Lord Burner
An incarnation of the Doctor living on an alternate-timeline Gallifrey, seen in series 4 of Gallifrey. In this timeline, there exists a Temporal Intervention Agency instead of a Celestial Intervention Agency, with a habit of retconning events and people out of history and gravely altering their timelines. This Doctor was dragged back to Gallifrey for his own equivalent of the Sixth Doctor's trial and forcibly rehabilitated into Time Lord society.
- Badass Long Robe: He wears full Time Lord regalia.
- Cain and Abel: With Braxiatel.
- Loss of Identity: His life was altered by the TIA and shaped into something more suitable for Gallifreyan society.
- Retired Badass: He's living a quiet, inconspicuous life on Gallifrey. Or so it seems. He's actually the Lord Burner, the Lady President's personal Professional Killer.
- Temporal Paradox: Once he enters the Axis of Time. A killer and his victim can't exist in the Axis simultaneously, even if they're from different realities. This Doctor had, long ago, killed his timeline's version of Braxiatel.
- Uncertain Doom: Last seen dragged into a portal by Braxiatel.
The Warrior
In this reality, the Fourth Doctor completed his mission to destroy the Daleks in "Genesis of the Daleks", but his actions created a serious temporal rift that resulted in deaths of his companions Sarah Jane and Harry while the Last Great Time War started "early". Narvin gave the Doctor an elixir to ensure that he would regenerate into an incarnation who could fight in the new war, creating a more ruthless Doctor who could do what has to be done to end the war.
- Alternate Self:
- He's a version of the Doctor where in his fourth incarnation he tried to destroy the Daleks, which led to the deaths of Sarah Jane and Harry while he was forced to regenerate into a more violent incarnation. The resulting time paradox also created several other alternate Doctors from potential timelines known as aberrations who the Warrior decided to kill, including a version of the Sixth Doctor who was travelling with Peri.
- In The Key to Key to Time, the Warrior catches glimpses of alternate versions of himself named the Pilgrim and the Wanderer.
- Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: In the final story the Warrior becomes the Key to Time along with Davros, with both seemingly being erased from the history of their universe to undo the existence of the Time War. The Warrior ends up experiencing all the infinite ways his story could have gone and ended, as well as becoming aware that he's both real and a fictional character being played by Colin Baker. It's also implied that part of him did reset the timeline so that he never destroyed the Daleks and allowed him to make a different choice, before leaving with Harry and Sarah Jane.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: In The Key to Key to Time the Warrior Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence after becoming the Key to Time, and becomes aware that while he does really exist, he's also a fictional character and briefly becomes Colin Baker. The audio ends with him speaking to the listener while wondering what happens when his story ends.
- Composite Character: The Warrior is based on three incarnations of the Doctor: he has the appearance of the Sixth Doctor despite actually being the Doctor's fifth incarnation, and fights in a Time War like the War Doctor while wearing a similar outfit to him.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Despite the many things he has already done and never having met Leela, the Warrior was still disgusted by the Master's plan in Who Am I? where he manipulates events to use Leela and Gentek's children as the start of a race of warriors to fight the Daleks.
- In Spite of a Nail: Abandons his name to become the Warrior just like the War Doctor did. And is also played by Colin Baker, albeit one regeneration earlier.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: More so than the War Doctor, the Warrior is often willing to kill Time Lords trying to change the past to stop the War and condemn innocent planets to death in the name of the big picture.
- What You Are in the Dark: In the final stand to end the War, the Warrior chooses to abandon conflict to comfort the dying Davros, affirming that he is truly the Doctor where it counts.
The Spriggan
A creature made of wood that terrorizes a remote village on a distant planet by kidnapping young women on the day of their eighteenth birthday. He’s actually an alternate nightmarish version of the Doctor from a universe of dreams that entered the main universe when the Time War ripped holes in reality. He’s using the girls to power his version of the TARDIS.
- Evil Me Scares Me: Naturally the Doctor is disturbed to realise that the Spriggan is his counterpart.
- Outside-Context Problem: By its very nature, the Spriggan exists outside the usual rules of the universe.
