A Biography of the Doctor
The First Doctor
Season Two
"One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine."
- The Doctor bids farewell to Susan in The Dalek Invasion of Earth
Planet of GIants
The TARDIS doors open in flight, causing the TARDIS to shrink when it materialises on Earth in the 1960's. When the now tiny crew leave the TARDIS they manage to foil a scientist's plans to market a lethal insecticide, DN6, by using the telephone. When they return to the TARDIS the Doctor is able to undo the damage to the TARDIS.
Notes: The TARDIS shrinking is probably caused by the removal of what appears to be a Marston Sphere in City at World's End.
The Time Travellers
The TARDIS arrives in 2006, where England is fighting a defensive war against South Africa and conducting time travel experiments. Duplicates from different histories have been appearing in the area. It turns out that the TARDIS is acting as an anchor for these duplicates, having been sent through the experimental time portal to 1948. Eventually the TARDIS crew travel back to 1972, when the experiments began and prevent them from starting.
During the course of these events, Ian sees a future version of himself who is married to Barbara shot dead. This leads both Ian and Barbara to realise that they are attracted to each other.
Notes: It appears to follow on from Planet of Giants, and Barbara remembers The Witch Hunters on page 36. The Doctor is now planning to find a permanent home for Susan. This story is when Ian and Barbara finally begin to realise that they have romantic feelings towards each other. The alternative history seen here is the result of the Doctor not being present during the events of several of his future adventures (The War Machines, The Tenth Planet, and Remembrance of the Daleks).
Tell Me You Love Me
(Short Trips: The Ghosts of Christmas)
The TARDIS arrives during a World War 2 air raid, Barbara is freaked out because of how she lost her father. Also caught in the air raid are aliens called the Banshara. They need each others' love to survive, but in an emergency they can take other forms to feed from the love of other species.
Notes: Given the Doctor and Susan's comments about a World War I air raid in Planet of Giants, this has to be afterwards.
Campaign
The TARDIS crew play the Game of Me – a game that makes them believe they are alternative versions of themselves.
Notes: It is clearly after The Reign of Terror (page 23). They appear to be aware of their destination, suggesting some control over the ship. That suggests that this is shortly after The Witch Hunters (and, so, presumably, also after Planet of Giants – unless they are playing during the journey between the two.)
A Long Night
(Short Trips: Companions)
Barbara shares a dream with her mother, who then knows that she will return eventually.
Notes: This is exactly a year since An Unearthly Child for Barbara's mother, so probably the same for Barbara.
The Reign Makers
(Short Trips: Indefinable Magic)
The TARDIS lands in France shortly before the battle of Agincourt.The Doctor decides that to make history run its course, he needs to use rockets to seed the clouds so that it rains. Susan takes on the task of joining the English army and distracting King Henry so that he doesn't see the rockets.
Notes: Barbara is arguing that they should just let the battle take its course, whilst the Doctor is convinced that they have to ensure that the historical rain happened, so it's presumably after The Aztecs. Ian tells Barbara that she looks lovely., suggesting it's later in their travels.
Room for Improvement
(Short Trips: Destination Prague)
The TARDIS lands in 30th Century Prague, and the Doctor sees a news report about a plague called the Blue Flu. He goes to the local hospital to investigate, discovers that it is a nanobot created by a political group, and creates a cure.
Notes: Ian says that they never stop to rest anywhere for more than a day or so. The Doctor has definitely lost any scruples about interfering in history.
The Mother Road
(Short Trips: Farewells)
The Doctor loses the TARDIS in a game of cards, but does win an Oldsmobile car. The new owner auctions the police box online. To use up the period of the auction, the Doctor persuades everyone to drive Route 66 to California – letting them believe that the auction will happen there.
Notes: This isn't the first time the Doctor's gambled away the TARDIS (page 2, referring to Marco Polo). Susan may be alluding to The Aztecs on page 8. Someone mistakes Ian and Barbara for newlyweds on page 9, suggesting it is later on in their time in the TARDIS. Placed immediately after Room for Improvement on the grounds that the Doctor's actions here could be a deliberate response to Ian's comment about never taking more than a day to rest in that story.
Mire and Clay
(Short Trips: A Universe of Terrors)
The TARDIS arrives in Afghanistan, 1842. Ian and Barbara end up in British-held Kabul as it is under attack from Afghan forces. Ian is imprisoned and tortured by the Afghans. He is rescued by the Doctor, who has infiltrated another group of Afghans. Barbara has nightmares about these events.
Notes: There are no references to other adventures. Ian now has a proper double bed in the TARDIS. Barbara kisses Ian when they get him back. Since this, The Mother Road, and The Duke's Folly all seem quite likely to take place in the same gap, this is placed between the other two so it seems less odd that neither of them shows Ian remembering his other trip across the United States.
Sloth: The Duke's Folly
(Short Trips: Seven Deadly Sins)
The TARDIS lands in late 19th Century England, where the Doctor poses as a member of the House of Lords. He acts as guardian to David Chilgrove, whose recently deceased father met the Doctor and Susan during the Indian Mutiny. He sends Ian and Susan to America to look for information about Joy St Peter, who David is in love with, to try and discourage the match. Chilgrove proves to be a wastrel, and Ian leaves behind stories of "Dead Man's Chestington and Black-Eyed Susan" in parts of the Wild West.
Notes: The Doctor is happy to send Susan away, suggesting it's towards the end of their travels. The story refers to the elder Duke of Chilgrove as a notable historical figure. However, he appears to be fictional.
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
The TARDIS lands in London in the 22nd century in the middle of the Dalek occupation of Earth. The efforts of the Doctor and his companions ultimately defeat the Daleks' plan to extract the Earth's core through a mine in Bedfordshire, which would allow them to pilot Earth. During the course of these events Susan falls in love with resistance fighter David Campbell. As the TARDIS prepares to leave the Doctor locks Susan out of the TARDIS, believing that she is torn between her love for him and for David.
Venusian Lullaby
Following the departure of Susan the Doctor discovers an invitation to the funeral of his old Venusian friend Dharkig. On arrival Ian is captured by a group that is attempting to thwart the oncoming death of the Venusian race. Events are complicated when an alien race called the Sou(ou)shi arrive offering to rehouse the Venusians on the still primeval Earth. The Venusians initially accept this offer but the Doctor soon realises that the Sou(ou)shi intend to kill the Venusian race. His and his companions' intervention thwarts the Sou(ou)shi and gives the Venusians another 10,000 generations to live. The Doctor leaves with a Venusian formula that allows him to calculate the whereabouts of another individual.
During these events, the Doctor, Barbara, and a group of Venusians spend some time travelling in the TARDIS before making it back to Ian.
Notes: The story follows on immediately from the departure of Susan, and there is no possibility of anything happening in between. It is said to have been about a year since An Unearthly Child. Ian says that it's past the second Christmas since they've been gone from Earth (page 15), so it's over a year since An Unearthly Child.
The Book of Shadows
(Decalog)
The Doctor visits the mines of Alexandria, looking for gold with which to make a wedding ring for Susan. He discovers that the great library has been fitted with temporal baffles so books can be collected by patrons from the future. These propel Barbara 9 years into the past, where she translates for the alien Rhakotis, who has crashed. She eventually becomes queen and meets the Doctor. After both Ian and her husband Ptolemy are killed she is given the choice to change history so she was never propelled into the past. This means that Rhakotis perished in the crash and the TARDIS never landed here.
Notes: Follows on directly from the end of Venusian Lullaby p.312, with the Doctor collecting gold to make a wedding ring for Susan (p.156).
Set in Stone
(Short Trips: The History of Christmas)
The TARDIS arrives in Kilmartin, Scotland, 1950. The Doctor decides they need a holiday, and enrolls Ian and Barbara as teachers in the local school. At Christmas they decide to take a trip down to London, where they discover that the Stone of Scone is really a psychic lifeform from the planet Micah, which the Doctor believes to be dangerous. They steal it and, four months later, the Doctor returns an inert replica to Arbroath Abbey.
Notes: Barbara thinks that the Doctor's idea for a holiday is to get over the loss of Susan, so I'm placing it immediately after The Book of Shadows.
ARIES: The True and Indisputable Facts in the Case of the Ram’s Skull
(Short Trips: Zodiac)
The Doctor, Ian, and Barbara are invited (by a friend who doesn't tell them anything about it) to an event that appears to be some kind of séance, centred around a ram's skull. The skull begins to gain some kind of flesh at the expense of one of the guests. The Doctor, with the help of fellow guest Edgar Allen Poe, is able to set fire to the head. The being that was entering this plane of existence was prevented from doing so, though the girl whose flesh was being supplied died.
Notes: This is presented as an in-universe account written by Edgar Allen Poe. It's not impossible that this could be whilst the Doctor, Ian, and Barbara are travelling with Susan or Vicki, but it seems unlikely. If the visitor to his grave mentioned in the endnote is the Doctor, said visit may be much later in the Doctor's timeline. We might speculate that the invite was from a future Doctor (most likely the Seventh).
The Nine Day Queen
(Decalog 2)
The TARDIS is invaded by a Vrij, an energy being feeding on negative emotions. It escapes into England 1553, inhabiting the Duke of Northumberland. Several months later its influence causes popular support for Queen Jane Grey. The army assembled by the Vrij/Duke of Northumberland disperses when the Doctor is able to capture the Vrij. Jane Grey is later executed.
Notes: This story has to happen after Venusian Lullaby and The Book of Shadows, as they follow straight on from The Dalek Invasion of Earth. It is possible that Jane's similarity to Susan - at least in the Doctor's eyes - is responsible for dialogue in The Rescue suggesting that Susan's departure is a recent event, despite the two months that this story takes.
The Rescue
The TARDIS lands on Dido in 2493. Its crew encounters the survivors of a spaceship crash, a crippled man called Bennett and a young woman named Vicki. They believe that they are being protected from the natives by a being named Koquillion. Knowing that the natives are peaceful the Doctor soon discovers that Koquillion is Bennett in disguise. He also discovers that Koquillion is guilty of murdering the other survivors. Bennett is accidentally killed fleeing from the natives. The Doctor, missing Susan, offers Vicki the chance of a new life aboard the TARDIS and she accepts.
Notes: There are several references to Susan's departure, as if it were recent. Obviously their most recent adventure has reminded them of the girl.
Byzantium!
The TARDIS lands on a cliff in Thrace, March 64 AD. The TARDIS crew spend several uneventful days relaxing in nearby Byzantium. Just before they are due to leave the city they are caught in the marketplace in the middle of a zealot attack. Ian is injured and then locked up by the Roman army. Barbara finds sanctuary in the local synagogue, Vicki is taken in by a Greek family and the Doctor is rescued by Christians. Ian is responsible for uniting the local prefect and general, who embark on a purge of their enemies. In the midst of this chaos the travellers are reunited. However, they are forced to walk to Rome, as a local Senator has found the TARDIS and taken it to his villa near Rome.
Notes: This follows on immediately from the last scene of The Rescue and potentially sets the scene for The Romans (although it fits very awkwardly with several pieces of dialogue in that story). However, it is impossible to properly reconcile the book with Romans Cutaway. The best compromise is probably that the start of Romans Cutaway is partly a flashback to the start of Byzantium!
Romans Cutaway
(More Short Trips)
The TARDIS lands on a cliff in Italy 64AD. The TARDIS crew encounter a lion and kill it. In the process, they agree to look after a Roman villa as the slave who had been guarding it had been mortally wounded by the lion.
Notes: This follows on immediately from the last scene of The Rescue and sets the scene for The Romans. However, it is impossible to properly reconcile the story with Byzantium!. The best compromise is probably that the start of Romans Cutaway is partly a flashback to the start of Byzantium!.
The Romans
After spending a month at the villa the Doctor and Vicki get bored. They head off to Rome and end up in the court of Nero, where the Doctor accidentally gives him the idea of burning down Rome. Meanwhile, Ian and Barbara are kidnapped and taken into slavery. They eventually escape and return to the villa, where the two groups of companions are reunited.
Notes: They have been living at the villa for a month.
The Eleventh Tiger
The Doctor tries to set the TARDIS to the shortest possible increment, wanting to get Ian and Barbara home. Instead, the TARDIS lands in 19th Century China, where Ian is mistaken for his ancestor, an army officer. Ian is injured, and finally tells Barbara that he loves here, and asks her to marry him if they ever get home. The Doctor ends up fighting (and winning) in a martial arts duel, and the TARDIS crew foil a plan by an alien helix to conquer China using the terracotta army.
Notes: The Doctor says that they've just left Rome on page 30, so it's immediately after The Romans.
The Web Planet
The TARDIS is drawn to the planet Vortis. The crew find themselves in the middle of a war between the butterfly-like Menoptra and the ant-like Zarbi. They discover that the Zarbi are controlled by a being known as the Animus. Eventually, Barbara destroys the Animus using a device known as the Isotope. This causes the Zarbi to revert to their natural state of mindless cattle.
Notes: The Romans is still fairly recent, as the TARDIS crew are still wearing their Roman costumes. Barbara hasn't had the chance to tell Vicki about her adventures in Rome.
White Man's Burden
(Part Two; Short Trips: Past Tense)
The TARDIS arrives in Pretoria, and the Doctor contracts a fever. Vicki stays in the TARDIS to look after him, whilst Ian and Barbara are free to explore. They pose as the new commissioner from Natal and his wife, and persuade the British Special Commissioner not to annex the Transvaal. However, only two days later he announces the annexation.
Notes: Placed shortly before The Crusade on the arbitrary basis that these events could inspire Ian's chat with the Doctor at the beginning of the novelisation.
The Crusade
The TARDIS lands on the tiny planet Tyron in the seventeenth galaxy, and its crew have an adventure involving talking stones. After this adventure, Barbara and Vicki play a game of Martian Chess (which has 72 pieces, and allows pieces to be married off for a dowry), whilst Ian and the Doctor have a conversation about why they can't interfere in human history in the same way that they can interfere on other planets.
The TARDIS arrives in 12th century Palestine. The crew is caught in a Saracen ambush and Barbara is captured. The others are taken to King Richard's palace in Jaffa. Ian is knighted Sir Ian of Jaffa and allowed to go in search of Barbara. He rescues her and returns to the TARDIS. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Vicki make an enemy of the Earl of Leicester. and are forced to flee the court. The Doctor is captured by Leicester, but Ian saves him by claiming the right to execute him. They then escape in the TARDIS, making it appear as if Sir Ian has been spirited away by sorcerers.
Notes: The first paragraph is from the prologue to the novelisation. Ian is wearing the same clothes as in The Web Planet, though nobody else is.
The Space Museum
The TARDIS "jumps a time track" and arrives on Xeros. Its crew discovers that they are destined to end up as exhibits in a museum. They eventually realise that they must help the native Xerons rebel against the Morok invaders to forestall this fate. When the revolt is successful, the Xerons give the Doctor a time-space visualiser from the museum.
Notes: Given that "jumping a time track" is almost certainly against the laws of time travel, it seems very strange that the TARDIS would allow this to happen. If it was due to a fault with the TARDIS, you'd have expected it to be mentioned, or for this to happen again at some point. We can, therefore, suspect that there is some kind of external influence causing these events.
The Plotters
The TARDIS arrives in London during November 1605. Ian and Barbara take the opportunity to visit the Globe theatre, but instead Barbara is captured by a group of Catholics plotting to kill the king. She escapes, but Ian ends up trapped in a cellar beneath the houses of Parliament that is filled with gunpowder. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Vicki have been visiting the court of King James. The Doctor hopes to observe history in the making, using the cover of helping with the King James translation of the Bible. He discovers that the King's advisor Robert Cecil has been involved in the gunpowder plot with the aim of exposing the Catholic threat. His intervention rescues Ian. The TARDIS crew is able to use the confusion created by the widespread discovery of the gunpowder plot to slip away.
Notes: Placed from the back cover blurb.
Every Day
(Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury)
The TARDIS lands in what appears to be the attic of a London house at Christmas. They are trapped there for several days, but every day is Christmas day. Eventually, they break the cycle, and the Doctor suggests that they were actually trapped in a man's mind.
Notes: The Doctor has the Time and Space Visualiser on page 95, and there's another reference to The Space Museum on page 100.
The Chase
The Doctor experiments with the time-space visualiser and discovers that the Daleks have constructed a time machine and sent it after his TARDIS. This leads to a pursuit across numerous locations in time and space. Vicki is accidentally left behind at the house of horror in 1995, but she manages to stow away on the Dalek ship. When the two ships land on Mechanus the Daleks release a robot duplicate, which is defeated when it makes a factual slip. The TARDIS crew (including Vicki) are captured by the Mechanoids, (robots which have been tending an Earth colony where the colonists never arrived). The Mechanoids and Daleks destroy each other. Ian and Barbara are able to take the Dalek ship back to England, 1965. The Doctor and Vicki leave in the TARDIS, not knowing that Steven Taylor, a prisoner of the Mechanoids, has stowed away.
Notes: It is likely that the Time-Space Visualiser stops working at some time after this, as we never see it again, even at times when it would have proved very useful. The Doctor says that he's been trying to get Ian and Barbara home for "two years". There's a December 1965 car tax disc, leading Ian and Barbara to think that they've been gone for two years, though Byzantium! says that they were gone for "nearly three years".
The Time Meddler
The Doctor and Vicki discover Steven just before the TARDIS lands in Northumbria in 1066. Taking a look outside the TARDIS he is eventually convinced that he has travelled in time. Whilst the local villagers deal with a small Viking scout party; the Doctor discovers a member of his own race, who is posing as a monk. He is planning to change history by destroying the Viking fleet. He believes that, if Harold only has William's invasion to deal with, then England's future will be vastly improved. The Doctor eventually sabotages Mortimus' TARDIS so that it shrinks. He leaves the monk temporarily stranded and vowing revenge.
Notes: This appears to follow immediately on from The Chase, as the Doctor and Vicki discover Steven has stowed away on the TARDIS. The novels later identify the monk as Mortimus.
Are You Listening?
(DWM Summer Special 1994)
The TARDIS lands in a sentient city called Xenith. It uses a robot drone to try and communicate with the travellers. Unfortunately, they think the robot is attacking them. They then leave in the TARDIS, unaware of the nature of where they have been.
Notes: This features the first Doctor, Steven, and Vicki, who are wearing the same costumes as in The Time Meddler, so it could be straight afterwards.
UNRECORDED ADVENTURE
The Doctor installs a system that can detect disturbances in time that can threaten the whole of history. Meanwhile, Vicki decides to research "Ancient America" after having briefly been there.
Notes: The device was installed "after our experience with that Monk fellow", according to The Schoolboy's Story (Short Trips: Repercussions) page 131, and Vicki's research into America is mentioned on page 132, following her visit to the Empire State Building in The Chase.
The Three Doctors
(First Doctor)
The Doctor is snatched from his timestream by Time Lords from the future. He is caught in a Time Eddy and thus advises, rather than helps, his second and third incarnations to defeat Omega, a renegade Time Lord from Gallifrey's distant past. Just before he is returned to the TARDIS, the Doctor is given an invitation to the Armageddon Convention by Irving Braxiatel. Unfortunately, Irving wasn't told that the Doctor would have his mind wiped.
Notes: Immediately before The Empire of Glass (p.9), which establishes that the only thing the Doctor remembers is a dandy and a clown.
The Empire of Glass
The invitation to the Armageddon Convention brings the TARDIS to Venice in 1609. The Doctor is taken to be Cardinal Bellarmine, who is to advise the Doge on the telescope recently invented by Galileo. Galileo, however, has seen spaceships travelling between the Earth and the moon. Aliens attempt to kidnap the Doctor, but end up kidnapping the real Cardinal Bellarmine instead. The Cardinal ends up chairing an interplanetary arms limitation conference, believing the aliens to be angels. Vicki soon ends up as a guest of Irving Braxiatel, who is hosting the conference. The Doctor and Steven find themselves thrown together with Galileo, Shakespeare (who is a spy for King James) and the presumed dead Christopher Marlowe (who dies in a duel).
After discovering what's going on, the Doctor is instrumental in discovering two plots to sabotage the conference. The Greld planned to destroy the conference by implanting parts of a cobalt bomb in humans together with hypnotic controls. The Jamarians, servitors to Braxiatel, planned to steal the military secrets of those at the conference. The first plot is averted when the humans involved are taken into orbit, where they can explode away from anyone. The second is foiled when Shakespeare uses the telepathic device in which the secrets are stored. He travels to England, where the Doctor uses the premiere of Macbeth to slip him Shakespeare amnesia pill, so he forgets the advanced knowledge he has learned. The conference is successful, and the TARDIS crew are able to slip away.
Notes: Placed from back cover blurb.
Feel free to Contact Us if you have any questions about the site, or any technical problems with it. You may also want to check out our Privacy Policy. There is also an About Us page, if you really want to read one.
Add new comment