Okay, first off, I am a massive fan of Doctor Who - but not confident enough to have it as my specialist subject on Mastermind - so I was very interested in who would be the next Doctor after it was revealed at Matt Smith was to be leaving and regenerating at the turn of the year.
I was terrified and worried as to who they'd pick as I had all these awful actors names going round in my head as who I didn't want to play him.
The Doctor first appeared in The Unearthly Child (23rd November 1963) as William Hartnell - during The Tenth Planet (29th October 1966) plotline The First Doctor collapsed of exhaustion after defeating the Cybermen and he regenerated into the younger Patrick Troughton.
The last episode of The War Games (21st June 1969) saw The Doctor's own race, The Time Lords, accuse him of meddling with Time and sentence him to be exiled to Earth and forced him to regenerate into Jon Pertwee - his first episode was Spearhead From Space (3rd January 1970).
Whilst on The Planet Of The Spiders (8th June 1974) The Doctor suffered from a type of radiation poisoning and collapsed and regenerated into Tom Baker. Baker went onto be one of the most popular actors to play the Time Lord in the past 50 years.
During the Logopolis story (21st March 1981), he fell from a tower whilst stopping a renegade Time Lord, The Master, from destroying the planet. A mysterious entity then merged into the Doctor and he regenerated into Peter Davison, who was then the youngest actor ever to play the Time Lord.
The Fifth Doctor and his then assistant Peri became poisoned during the brilliant The Caves Of Androzani (16th March 1984), the Doctor found the antidote, but only enough to save Peri, so he died and regenerated it to Colin Baker.
In Time And The Rani (7th September 1987) the TARDIS was hit by a shot by an evil female Time Lord, The Rani, and The Doctor was fatally wounded and regenerated into Sylvester McCoy. The show it self was in trouble as it was loosing viewers and the then head of the BBC was looking for a reason to cancel it, and on 6th December 1989 the last episode of Survival was shown and Doctor Who was cancelled.
Then a film was brought out in 1997 that saw Seventh shot during a gang gun fight and he regenerated into Paul McGann. This film was broadcast on 27th May 1997. McGann went onto do quite a few radio stories as The Doctor.
Nothing was seen on TV again until 26th March 2005 when Christopher Eccleston arrived in the episode Rose as the Ninth Doctor, how the Eighth had regenerated into him has yet to be revealed, but some people believe it may have happened during the last great Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks.
During The Parting Of The Ways (18th June 2005) the Doctor absorbed part of the Time Vortex to stop it killing Rose and it forced him to regenerate into David Tennant - who went on to become one of the most popular Doctors, he was the first one to beat Tom Baker in a poll of Doctors.
Ten became Eleven when to save Wilfred Mott in The End Of Time (1st January 2010), The Doctor absorbed a fatal amount of radiation, and after saying his goodbyes, regenerated into Matt Smith.
Matt Smith is to continue as The Doctor until the end of 2013, during which time we have the 50th anniversary special, which will apparently have John Hurt appearing as a not so good incarnation of the Doctor that would have been between McGann and Eccleston, making Smith 12th not 11th. So, seeing as Time Lords only have 12 regenerations, therefore 13 lives, then...
Peter Capaldi, just announced earlier today as the man who will be replacing Matt Smith as The Doctor, should technically by the 13th Doctor, therefore the last - but that depends on head of Doctor Who, Steven Moffet, and what he has planned.
Capaldi is an accomplished actor, with a few BAFTAs under his belt, so I am happy with that pick as our new Doctor - let's just hope he sticks around from sometime an doesn't do an Eccleston (left after 13 episodes).
Fingers crossed for the future.
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