Fourth Doctor

Filled with wanderlust and a renewed curiosity towards exploring time and space, the Fourth Doctor left all ties of his previous incarnation's exile behind on Earth, setting off to travel the universe, taking advantage of his freedom once more.

This incarnation of the Doctor initially travelled with Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan, but Harry chose to remain on Earth when the opportunity arose. The Doctor and Sarah continued on their adventures until the Doctor was summoned to Gallifrey, necessitating that he leave Sarah Jane behind as humans were not allowed on Gallifrey at the time.

After tangling with on Gallifrey when he tried to heal himself and renew his regeneration cycle, he met and travelled with Leela of the Sevateem. During his travels with Leela, the Doctor gained a new companion in the robot dog, K9. Returning once more to Gallifrey to stop an invasion of Vardans, Leela and the original K9 stayed behind there.

On the White Guardian's orders, the Doctor began looking for the Key to Time with fellow Time Lady Romana and K9 Mark II. Once that search was concluded, the Doctor and Romana went on the run from the Black Guardian. Not long after, Romana regenerated into a new body and continued to travel with the Doctor and K9. When they attempted to answer a Gallifreyan summons, the trio accidentally passed into the smaller universe of E-Space.

During his travels in E-Space, the Doctor gained a new companion in the teenaged mathematical genius Adric. Romana and K9 stayed behind in E-Space as the Doctor and Adric departed for N-Space. There, they encountered a Trakenite named Nyssa and a human named Tegan. The foursome successfully prevented the destruction of the universe by, but only at the cost of this incarnation's life.

The Doctor prepared for the worst when the Watcher, an entity born of his own immediate future, appeared to warn him of his demise. Due to the Master messing with the rotation controls for the Pharos radio telescope, the Doctor fell a great height. Suffering terrible injuries, he was assisted by the Watcher in his last moment, who joined with him and helped him regenerate into his next incarnation.

Alternate timelines
When the Faction Paradox altered events to cause the Third Doctor to regenerate on Dust, (PROSE: Interference: The Hour of the Geek) the Fourth Doctor went on to combat the Eight Legs, (PROSE: The Blue Angel) but was only able to halt their eventual conquest of the universe. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell)

Under the influence of the Valeyard and the Dark Matrix, the Fourth Doctor was corrupted into destroying the Daleks at their very beginning. This timeline was negated when the Seventh Doctor defeated the Valeyard and released the Dark Matrix from his control. (PROSE: Matrix)

In an alternate timeline created by the Discordia, the Doctor had a passionate romantic relationship with River Song that began in his first incarnation, having married her by his fourth incarnation. When he learned that the only way to defeat the Discordia was to dismantle his timeline, the Doctor admitted that he was afraid to lose River, but was reassured that they would meet again in another timeline. (AUDIO: Someone I Once Knew)

The Doctor and Leela met the Eighth Doctor's companion, Charley Pollard, when she appeared aboard the TARDIS. As he had detected temporal disturbances in the Time Vortex, the Fourth Doctor realised that Charley was one of his companions from the future. He later met the Eighth Doctor himself and got along well with him. He also briefly met his fifth, sixth and seventh incarnations. The Sixth Doctor was able to bring the eight versions of the Doctor together, using the dimensional stabiliser on the TARDIS owned by the Time Lord Straxus, and together the Doctors stopped the reality bomb from going off. Afterwards, the First Doctor turned off the automatic distress actions, which had brought all of the doctors to the pocket dimension and had triggered the TARDIS' destruction, making it so none of that had happened. (AUDIO: The Light at the End)

At two different points in the Doctor's fourth incarnation, one during his time traveling with Leela and another during his adventures with Romana's second incarnation, the TARDIS picked up the signal of a temporal distorsion coming from the planet Henlen, and the Doctor went to investigate. With the Doctor and Leela in a thick jungle and the Doctor and Romana in an ever-changing city, the Doctors and their companions were pursued into a refuge where they found writings in ancient Gallifreyan, and realised they were in the TARDIS prototype that was used for the first experiment of time travel by the Time Lords, and that they were being chased by the original six pilots, who explained that the experiment was sabotaged by the Sirens of Time.

They turned into the starting point of a massive temporal paradox, which was splitting reality apart, and which trapped the pilots into a time loop. They begged the Doctor to stop the experiment and kill them, but he refused. The leader then chose to have the experiment fail himself, thus causing Time Lords never to discover time travel. As a result of his choice, the Doctors, Romana and the TARDISes were erased from time, and Leela was left to die at the hands of the Sirens. However, these events were later cancelled when the paradox was resolved. (AUDIO: Collision Course)

When the Cybermen allied with Rassilon to take over history, (COMIC: Supremacy of the Cybermen) the Fourth Doctor was confronted by a cyber-converted K9 while facing the Cybermen in a mansion, (COMIC: Prologue: the Fourth Doctor) and was then ambushed by the Cybermen. (COMIC: Supremacy of the Cybermen)

While travelling in E-Space, the Doctor arrived on the planet Veridis, where scientists had created a machine that could bring the dead back to life, this discovery completely destabilising society as everyone clamored for their loved ones to be brought back from the dead. The Doctor was able to destroy the machine, but this was only possible when he and Romana sacrificed themselves to destroy it. Adric was left to make a life for himself on Veridis as the TARDIS decayed and K9 ran out of power, but when he began to experience dreams of the destruction of N-Space in the Doctor's absence, Adric developed his own time machine to go back and undo the events of the Doctor's death so that he could live to save the universe again. (AUDIO: A Full Life)

Age
While on Earth, the Doctor stated his age to be 749 years. (TV: The Seeds of Doom) After ageing four years from crossing a split in time, the Doctor said he would "still think of myself as 743", before admitting he "could never remember" his age. (COMIC: Doctor Who and the Time Witch) He was approximately 813 when he regenerated into his fifth incarnation. (PROSE: Cold Fusion)

Casting
Actors considered for the role of the fourth incarnation included Michael Bentine, Bernard Cribbins, Graham Crowden, Fulton Mackay and Jim Dale. Tom Baker was cast based on his role as the villain Koura in.

Appearance
According to the creators of the show and Baker, the character's look was originally based on paintings and posters by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec of his friend, Aristide Bruant, a singer and nightclub owner whose trademark was a black cloak and long red scarf.

Possible romances
Since the fourth incarnation was the youngest in appearance at the time, he therefore appeared closer in age to his companions. This led to concerns being expressed of possible "hanky panky in the TARDIS", a term often used in the tabloid press to suggest the impression of off-screen dalliances between the various Doctors and their young, female companions.

Perhaps to address this, according to the Information Text commentary on the 2007 DVD release of The Stones of Blood, Baker generally tried to emphasise the asexuality of the character, apart from possible subtle romantic tension such as that with Sarah Jane Smith. Despite this, Baker was not above tossing in occasional visual jokes that suggested sexual tension.

For example, in The Stones of Blood the Doctor and Romana have to huddle close in order to be within the confines of a transporter beam and enter what would, in normal circumstances, be seen as a romantic clinch, but neither character appears to recognise this. Likewise, the Doctor and Romana are forced into close proximity in The Ribos Operation when hiding from Graff Vynda-K and neither seem to recognise this as a romantic moment.

Secondary media, on the other hand, has often restrained less from romantic moments; particularly with Romana II. For instance, in the Short Trips story Special Occasions: 2. Do You Love Anyone Enough?, the Doctor gave Romana the last Rolo in the Universe for St Valentine's Day. In PROSE: The Well-Mannered War, the Doctor kissed Romana on the cheek.

In popular culture
The fourth incarnation's distinctive appearance and mannerisms have made him a target for affectionate parody. The character appeared several times on The Simpsons and twice on. Even in 2011, a full 30 years after he left his tenure as the Doctor, an animated parody of his incarnation appeared an episode of. In Hugo 2: Whodunnit?, a computer game, the player's character can save Tom Baker's Doctor from a Dalek, who in return gives the player his sonic screwdriver.

He was frequently impersonated by impressionist Jon Culshaw on the radio and television series. Even had an episode featuring an eccentric man claiming to be a time-traveller and wearing a long striped scarf. Archival footage of the fourth incarnation's first title sequence was also used in the episode "Blue Harvest" to represent and parody Star Wars' hyperspace.

Tom Baker, as the narrator of the series, has referenced Doctor Who. He also appeared in Doctor Who and the Daleks in Seven Keys to Doomsday, a stage play that opened two weeks before Baker began his tenure as the Doctor. In the play, Trevor Martin plays an alternative version of the fourth incarnation.

In the book, there was a scene in which a bunny sits on top of the TARDIS with a noose around its neck as the fourth incarnation runs into it, being chased by a Dalek.

Peter Jackson wore a costume similar to the fourth incarnation's when he played Derek in his film Bad Taste.

On, in the episode, "The Justice League Recombination", Stuart wears the Fourth Doctor's costume to a New Year's Eve costume party at his comic book shop.

The video game Team Fortress 2 features the Fourth Doctor's scarf and hat as cosmetics for the Medic class. The items were renamed as the Chronoscarf and Das Ubersternmann. The hat was the first item added in the game in a 2013 patch while the scarf was not added until a year later in the 18 June 2014 update.

Reprising the role
Unlike his predecessors Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee or his successors Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann, Tom Baker was notoriously hesitant to reprise the role of the Doctor. Originally intended as a major player in the 20th-anniversary special, The Five Doctors, Baker pulled out before production began, citing other obligations as his reasoning. The production team rewrote the scripts to give much of his role to the Fifth Doctor, and included the Fourth Doctor by making use of unbroadcast footage from Shada. A Madame Tussauds wax mannequin of his incarnation was used in publicity shots to keep the "five Doctors" concept afloat.

In 1993, Baker was hired to play the Doctor full-on for the planned 30th Anniversary Special The Dark Dimension, but the special was cancelled and instead shot a small cameo for Dimensions in Time. Around this time, he also introduced a VHS reconstruction of Shada, though not apparently in character as the Doctor. In 1997 he returned to the role in a more serious manner in the video game Destiny of the Doctors and in a Superannuation advertisement. He also appeared as Tom Baker as Fourth Doctor in the comedy docudrama Who on Earth is Tom Baker.

Despite his hesitancy to play the role again, Baker made frequent appearances on DVD releases of his stories, recording audio commentaries for many and conducting on-camera interviews for others.

In the 2000s, Baker made a tentative step towards reprising the role by agreeing to record audio books for BBC Audio, reading the texts from several Target novelisations from his era. Finally, in 2009, Baker agreed to return to the role of the Doctor in a dramatic context, performing the five-part Hornets' Nest story arc, again for BBC Audio, in which he was paired up with Richard Franklin, reprising the Pertwee-era companion Mike Yates.

In March 2010, Baker announced on his official website that he was in discussions with Big Finish Productions to record Doctor Who audio dramas for the company. Big Finish confirmed this on 3 June 2010. A few days later it was also confirmed that Baker would be doing additional stories for BBC Audio, AUDIO: Demon Quest, released at end of 2010.

Prior to the cancellation of The Sarah Jane Adventures following the death of Elisabeth Sladen, Tom Baker was briefly considered to play a role in the series, specifically in a planned 2011 Christmas special entitled Miracle on Bannerman Road, in which he would portray a mysterious traveller. (DWMSE 32)

In 2013, Tom Baker made a cameo appearance in the 50th anniversary story, The Day of the Doctor, as the curator of the National Gallery.

Other matters
From a real world perspective, the Fourth Doctor was the first incarnation to ever face a form of time war in any Doctor Who media, in the DWM comic stories The Deal and The Neutron Knights. However, this only became clear in retrospect following the Fifth Doctor's clash with the Millennium Wars in The Tides of Time.

Narratively, the Fourth Doctor is also one of the few incarnations besides the Eighth who has encountered the mythology of the War in Heaven. However, these encounters are not original stories focused on him, but instead recontextualisations of certain serials within various stories of the Faction Paradox series. Pyramids of Mars, The Brain of Morbius, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, and Image of the Fendahl all became direct aftermaths of War-or War-preparation- events. The DWM comic Doctor Who and the Iron Legion is also strongly implied to be connected to Warlords of Utopia.