Sixth Doctor

Bumptious, melodramatic, and above all stubborn, the Sixth Doctor instantly believed himself superior to almost anyone he encountered. He would often browbeat others into submission with his savage wit and his grammarian's interest in language. Even so, his mercurial and flippant tendencies did not define the true heart of his persona. Beneath his thunderous and turbulent exterior, he was quite the opposite: a passionate, warm, virtuous and empathetic individual.

He was profoundly difficult with his first companion, Peri Brown, whom he initially challenged for her use of American English and her as-yet-incomplete education. Indeed, during the early hours after his regeneration he physically assaulted her due to post-regenerative paranoia. It took considerable time for himself and Peri to stop bickering and speak together on amiable terms, but the Sixth Doctor eventually became someone she could rely upon. With enough distance from the regenerative event, she was able to look to the Doctor for strength after her mother's death.

Despite his bluster, the Sixth Doctor did possess great reserves of compassion. His gentler side began to blossom largely as a consequence of travelling with Evelyn Smythe, a university lecturer whose verbal dexterity was on a par with his own. Also helpful to this transition were Frobisher, a shapeshifting private eye who often masqueraded as a penguin, Flip Jackson, a young woman from twenty-first century London, and Melanie Bush, a brilliant computer programmer from Earth in the 1980s.

A dominant feature of his life was yet another Time Lord trial. Though this one sought to blame him for a shifting docket of crimes, it in fact turned out to be an elaborate ruse. He later found himself in a reverse situation where he became the prosecutor against the Valeyard, the malicious being that had framed him in an attempt to steal his regenerations. He discovered that the Valeyard's dubious existence was somehow tied to his own and took shape from his inherently darker characteristics.

Long after this trial, the Doctor was slowly manipulated by the Valeyard across different moments of his life until the Valeyard had the means to replace all Time Lords in existence. Forced to arrange his own demise to prevent this genocidal plot, the Sixth Doctor influenced his younger self into inadvertently crossing paths with the Rani, who dealt him a fatal blow. He regenerated, putting his future in the hands of his successor.

A day to come
The Sixth Doctor was described as "the rhetorician" by the Doctor's first TARDIS to the Fifth Doctor. (AUDIO: Prisoners of Fate)

Post-regeneration
Whilst on Androzani Minor, both the Fifth Doctor and Peri Brown contracted a fatal condition called spectrox toxaemia. He gave Peri the only antidote available, saving her at the cost of his own life. He expressed uncertainty as to whether he would regenerate or not, as it felt "different this time". However, he managed to regenerate (TV: The Caves of Androzani) after Nyssa prevented 's interference. (AUDIO: Winter)

He expressed joy at the change, seeing his new incarnation as an improvement over the previous one, which he considered unbecoming. Despite having stabilised physically, he suffered initial personality and mental issues that caused him to lapse into extreme paranoia and violence, even trying to strangle Peri. After regaining his senses, the horror of his actions caused him to exile himself on Titan III as punishment until he had attained appropriate humility. On Titan III, he met another Time Lord, his old friend Azmael. Instead of a self-imposed exile, he soon became involved with stopping the Gastropod Mestor from launching his eggs into space, which would cause death and destruction on every world they landed on. These efforts cost Azmael his life, as he sacrificed himself to trap Mestor in his own mind to prevent him having the chance to assault the Doctor's still-fragile new persona, but left the Doctor affirmed in his new identity. (TV: The Twin Dilemma)

Dark beginnings
The Doctor set out to fix everything wrong with his aging TARDIS, even succeeding in partially repairing its broken chameleon circuit. Picking up an extraterrestrial signal, he and Peri were drawn into an adventure involving a Cybermen attempt to destroy the Earth with Halley's Comet. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen) The Doctor later disconnected the chameleon circuit, (PROSE: Hall of Mirrors) causing the TARDIS to resume using its police box exterior. (TV: Vengeance on Varos)

The Doctor and Peri foiled the invasion attempt of the telepathic worms. (PROSE: Old Boys)

The Doctor and Peri visited what seemed to be a house inhabited by old men and women who still saw themselves as children. They investigated and discovered that they were in an underground shelter on the colony world Eldair, which had been wiped out in a nuclear war. When the house's mad artificial intelligence began killing its inhabitants, the Doctor and Peri tried to save the two survivors, Roger and Carl, but they refused to leave the only home they'd ever known. (PROSE: House)

Discovering that the TARDIS was running low on vital Zeiton-7 crystals, the Doctor travelled to their source on the planet Varos. While searching for the crystals, the Doctor was nearly forced to participate in deadly "games" when he attempted to free those trapped in the Punishment Dome. Stopping Sil, the greedy Mentor who had caused this devolution, the Doctor obtained the required Zeiton-7, restoring the TARDIS' supply of it. (TV: Vengeance on Varos)

The Doctor discovered that aliens were selling stories of his life to the very rich of the universe. They offered to stop doing so if he promised to take over their story-telling machine when the current operator died. The Doctor, faced with no other choice, agreed, before visiting Laurence, a man trapped in time due to the aliens' interference. Explaining to him what had happened, he promised to someday find a way to help him. (PROSE: Telling Tales)

In an attempt to recalibrate his TARDIS, the Doctor visited Earth in the far future, where he helped stop the Pararachnids from consuming the few surviving humans, and received aid from the microscopic Wibliwee. (PROSE: Moon Graffiti)

Visiting the Dorsill islands, the Doctor discovered that the British government was conducting experiments with alien genetic material dubbed "Denarian". Intending to find an end to injury and disease, their tests were instead threatening to transform humanity through the material's collective consciousness. The Doctor created a solution which cured everyone under Denarian control. (PROSE: Grave Matter) He then visited Reef Station One in the 101st century, where he prevented the Nestene Consciousness and its Autons from conquering the New Earth Republic. (PROSE: Synthespians™)

The Doctor visited the Habitat of Dramos in 3174, where he discovered that the Node of Titania had been inadvertently responsible for causing the unrest there by its attempts at communication. (PROSE: Burning Heart)

Tracing a time distortion to 19th century England, the Doctor discovered that had teamed up with another renegade Time Lord, the Rani, to aid her experiments in the extraction of the chemical responsible for inducing sleep from human miners, and also foe his plan to accelerate Earth technology beyond its normal level. Sabotaging the Rani's TARDIS, the Doctor sent the pair flying through the time vortex while he took back the chemical and cured the miners. (TV: The Mark of the Rani)

He also visited Kowloon, Hong Kong in December 1974, where he dealt with Platinum Dragon with the aid of Hu Cheung, a monk he had saved from a Triad gang. (PROSE: Exclave)

For Peri's birthday, the Doctor took her to Las Vegas in 1971 to meet Elvis Presley, only for him and Elvis to be kidnapped by alien traders called the Mongarians. Stopping them from making several clones of Elvis to sell throughout the 20th century, he ensured that Elvis was returned just in time for his performance at the Hilton. (PROSE: Priceless Junk)

After the Doctor and Peri went on a fishing trip, the Doctor felt a time slip in his subconscious where he saw his younger second incarnation get executed. Upon Peri's suggestion to see a doctor, he went to Space Station Camera to see the station's head of projects Joinson Dastari. When they arrived, they found there had been a massacre there, with no signs of life. In the service ducts, they found Jamie McCrimmon, who claimed that the Doctor he was travelling with, the Second Doctor, had been executed by the Sontarans during a battle on board the space station. After letting Jamie rest, the Sixth Doctor deduced that the Second Doctor's supposed death was an illusion created by the Sontarans. The Sixth Doctor used telepathy to track the Second Doctor to a hacienda near Seville, where he was being held captive while Dastari tried to isolate the symbiotic nuclei in a Time Lord's cells so that the Sontarans could be given the secret to time travel. While Peri distracted the hacienda's occupants, a local woman called Anita helped the Sixth Doctor and Jamie find a secret passageway into the cellars.

The Sixth Doctor sabotaged a TARDIS copy that was being developed on the space station, and lied to Jamie about its workings while he knew the Sontaran Group Marshal Stike was listening in on them. Jamie wounded Stike, and the two of them escaped. Knowing there was another Time Lord present, the technologically augmented Androgum Chessene changed the plan into having Dastari alter the Second Doctor into Chessene's Androgum consort. Chessene also betrayed the Sontarans. The effect on the Second Doctor was not permanent, however, as the condition was not stabilised. The Sixth Doctor, Peri, and Jamie followed the Second Doctor to Las Cadenas restaurant in Seville. Dastari and Chessene had the Doctors and their companions brought back to the hacienda. The Sixth Doctor saved Jamie from being butchered and eaten by the Androgum Shockeye. Dastari then freed the Second Doctor upon realising his mistake in augmenting a primitive Androgum, and was shot by Chessene for betraying her. With Peri's help, the Sixth Doctor deceived Chessene into using the faulty prototype TARDIS, and Chessene was killed by molecular disintegration. (TV: The Two Doctors)

After witnessing the vampire Saric Warder kill Sacha Mary Palmer, the Doctor pursued him into an office building. There he succeeded in killing him, but not before Warder had killed many innocent bystanders in a lift, causing the Doctor to blame himself for their deaths. (PROSE: Trapped!)

Mellowing out
On Stella Stora, the Doctor met an investigator named Hallett, (TV: Terror of the Vervoids) and a reporter called Willis. (AUDIO: Davros)

Feeling it strangely necessary, the Doctor and Peri visited Bob Dovie at 59A Barnsfield Crescent in Totton, Hampshire on 23 November 1963, unaware of what had drawn them there. (AUDIO: The Light at the End)

The Doctor dropped Peri off at a botany symposium, while he responded to a call from Willis, travelling to a planet owned by TransAllied, Inc. Investigating the landing of a mysterious craft, he was forced to work with Davros by the owner of TAI, Arnold Baynes. Unable to trust Davros, the Doctor investigated the dome they were situated inside in order to discover what Davros' ulterior motives were. Discovering that Davros had found a formula by which he could pervert Earth's economy into a twisted militaristic dictatorship, the Doctor defeated him, causing the rocket he planned to escape in to crash into the planet with him inside. (AUDIO: Davros)

The Doctor collected Peri from her symposium and took her on a cruise in 1900 on the steamboat Lancaster. On board, the Doctor seemingly became the prime suspect in a murder, but this turned out to be a ruse by Captain Callany to convince the Doctor to help him find the real criminal. A conman named De Requin, acting as chief mate and second-in-command, had smuggled a mermaid, Amfetriti, and her daughter on board, and was planning to sell them when they reached New Orleans. The Doctor handed the criminal to the Mermen to exact justice for the murder of one of their kind, resulting in him being incarcerated at the bottom of the sea. (AUDIO: Cryptobiosis)

The Doctor took Peri to Koturia to attend the wedding of Lord Evris Makshi's son, Jonos. However, the wedding was a front for the Rani's experiments, and the Doctor had to prevent the wedding to foil her plans. (PROSE: Something Borrowed)

When the TARDIS became caught in a time corridor oriented from the planet Karfel, the Doctor discovered that Megelen, a human who had become mutated into a half-Morlox hybrid, now ruled the planet. Calling himself the Borad, Megelen was using a device known as the Timelash to banish his disobedient subjects through time. The Doctor found the amulet that powered the Timelash, preventing Megelen from mutating Peri into a hideous mutant like himself in order to mate with her and sent Megelen through his own device. (TV: Timelash)

Using the HADS to land in the TARDIS in the Forest of Arden, the Doctor and Peri became separated from the ship and had to search for it. (PROSE: As You Like It)

Shortly afterwards, the Doctor and Peri visited a galactic fair and took part in a virtual immersion experience that played out as a fantasy. Peri became trapped, while the Doctor tried to convince her virtual self of the danger. An alien parasite using the name Mr. Darcy asked Peri to marry him, knowing that if she accepted, he'd be able to take over her mind. The Doctor intervened, but fell prey to Darcy, who had planned on taking him over from the very start. Peri woke up in the immersion room and supplied the system administrator with her own story to feed into the fantasy before returning to help the Doctor and defeat Darcy. (AUDIO: A Most Excellent Match)

The Doctor went to Necros to pay his respects to an old friend, Arthur Stengos, at Tranquil Repose, but discovered that Davros had falsified the news of Stengos' death to lure him to the planet. The Doctor learned that Davros had created a new breed of Imperial Daleks, loyal to him alone. The situation was resolved with the arrival of the Renegade Daleks, who sought to take Davros to Skaro for trial. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks) The Doctor then began looking for the Grand Order of Oberon to give them Orcini's cross, but was unable to find them. (PROSE: Lucifer Rising)

After the TARDIS was drawn to 1980s Blackpool, the Doctor and Peri encountered the Celestial Toymaker and foiled a plot involving video games. (PROSE: The Nightmare Fair; AUDIO: The Nightmare Fair)

The Doctor and Peri arrived in a medieval kingdom where a cybernetic created creature called the Herne was terrorising the villagers into accepting their fates when their "time" came. Investigating, they discovered that the entire kingdom was an artificially created environment stored on a gigantic space ship. (AUDIO: Leviathan)

Travelling to the Gogglebox in search of a book he left behind on a previous trip, Peri learned of the death of a family friend, Anthony Chambers, and the Doctor rushed her back to Earth in 1984, where they met Peri's mother, Janine Foster, and her best friend, Katherine Chambers. They also learned that the Cybermen were converting the deceased, such as Anthony, and the Doctor was captured by the Cyber-Leader, who informed him that he had travelled back in time to lay a trap for the Doctor to force him to time travel them back to Earth's early history and create a new timeline for the Cybermen.

The Doctor, however, managed to trick the Cyber-Leader by taking him to 1984 Mondas. He left and found that Nate, Katherine's brother, had been brutally attacked and paralysed by Anthony. Peri, feeling the weight of all the deaths, decided to leave the Doctor after a tearful goodbye. The Doctor returned to the Gogglebox and learned of an explosion in Peri's house. Rushing back to Earth, the Doctor arrived too late to save Peri's mother, and Peri, with no family left on Earth, returned to the TARDIS. (AUDIO: The Reaping)

Travelling alone
Peri soon became homesick for 1980s America, (PROSE: CHAOS) so she parted company with the Doctor for a short time to travel to New York City. (COMIC: Kane's Story) Travelling alone, the Doctor visited Zazz and met the Lorduke. (COMIC: The Gift)

After obtained a Time Instant Replay Unit, a device with the ability to chop and splice time, the Doctor was sent to Rijar with a highly sophisticated robot cat called Splinx to retrieve the device. (GAME: Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror)

The Doctor was trapped in the Determinant by the Master, along with his five previous incarnations and his successor. He was saved when the Graak defeated the Master, sacrificing its life force to free the trapped Doctors. (GAME: Destiny of the Doctors)

Meeting Frobisher
Investigating events that he had left unresolved in his previous incarnation, the Doctor met a Whifferdill who called himself "Avan Tarklu." Tarklu had planned to kidnap the Doctor, as a bounty had been put on the Time Lord's head by Josiah W. Dogbolter, but had a change of heart, and took on the form of the Doctor before giving himself up to Dogbolter. He and the Doctor escaped, and Tarklu decided to stay with the Doctor, (COMIC: The Shape Shifter) changing his name to Frobisher, in deference to the Doctor's love of all things English, and his shape to that of a large penguin. (COMIC: Voyager)

Soon afterwards, the Doctor was forced by the cosmic being known as Voyager to engage in a quest to find Astrolabus, a renegade Time Lord who had stolen important star-charts. (COMIC: Voyager) During this mission, he was reunited with his old friend Dr. Ivan Asimoff. (COMIC: Polly the Glot)

The Doctor defeated Plink, whom he had encountered before, in battle. After the Doctor referred to their encounter as their "peripatetic perigrinations", Frobisher asked for a dictionary. (COMIC: Death to the Doctor!)

The return of Peri
After Peri rejoined the Doctor on his travels, the trio travelled together for some time. (COMIC: Kane's Story)

Tracking a distress signal to Marinus, the Doctor, Peri and Frobisher found a dying Time Lord trying to inform them of "Planet 14". Seeking out Jamie McCrimmon in the hope of him recalling where he had heard the name before, the Doctor was reminded by Jamie that they had first heard of Planet 14 during the Cybermen's invasion of London. Returning to Marinus, the Doctor discovered that the planet had been rapid-evolved by a machine known as a Worldshaper.

Realising that Marinus was Planet 14, the Doctor discovered that the native Voord had evolved into Cybermen, prompting him to track down the Worldshaper in the hope of destroying it. However, he discovered that the machine was being guarded by semi-evolved Cybermen, and was unable to prevent Jamie from sacrificing his life to destroy the Worldshaper. Hurrying back to the TARDIS, the Doctor narrowly escaped a wave of accelerated time, and was greeted by a party of Time Lords. Despite the Doctor's arguments, the Time Lords told him to leave the situation to them, and he dematerialised in disgust. (COMIC: The World Shapers) Shortly afterwards, Frobisher left the TARDIS to resume working as a private detective. (AUDIO: The Maltese Penguin)

After being warned in a dream about time experiments, the Doctor brought Peri to a spaceship and became separated from her after she fell through a ventilation shaft. The Doctor discovered that the ship's computer was planning to cause the Big Bang and avert man's creation in order to prevent their development into a violent race. Before he could intervene, a Time Lord drew him, Peri and his TARDIS away and informed him that this event was always destined to occur. Angry at almost averting the existence of the universe, the Doctor took off to find a library and study up on his history. (AUDIO: Slipback)

After a series of stressful adventures, the Doctor decided to take Peri to the planet Ravolox to relax. Soon discovering that Ravolox was Earth, moved thousands of light years from its original position, they encountered the primitive descendants of humanity, and prevented L3 robot Drathro from allowing a black light explosion. The Doctor also met con man Sabalom Glitz, who explained that "Ravalox" had been moved to protect the secrets of a "higher species" from the Andromedan "Sleepers". (TV: The Mysterious Planet)

On the planet Thoros Beta, the Doctor re-encountered Sil, and discovered that he and his fellow Mentors were trying to make deals with a savage king named Yrcanos through manipulating his mind. After a failed attempt to probe his mind to see if the Time Lords had sent him to intervene on their behalf, the Doctor pretended to be on the Mentors' side and helped a scientist named Crozier transplant the mind of Kiv, the Mentor leader, to a deceased Mentor. Though the process was successful, Kiv's mind was unable to adjust to new body, and so Crozier made plans to have Peri's mind was overwritten with Kiv's consciousness, which would kill her in the process. Rushing to her rescue, the Doctor was suddenly influenced by the Time Lords, who put him under their control and forced him to board his TARDIS (TV: Mindwarp) and travel to a Time Lord space station. (TV: The Mysterious Planet)

On trial
Upon arriving at a courtroom on the CIA's Space Station Zenobia, (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) the Doctor initially tried to use his status as Lord President to avoid a trial, but was informed by the Inquisitor that he had long since been removed from office due to his perpetual absence. Alerted to the fact that he was the defendant, the Doctor chose to represented himself in the trial, during which he and his prosecutor, the Valeyard, would present as evidence events from his life via the Matrix. The Valeyard proceeded to display his recent adventures on Ravalox (TV: The Mysterious Planet) and Thoros Beta. (TV: Mindwarp) Having been under the effects of partial amnesia due to being taken out of time, the Doctor was unable to defend his actions properly, (TV: The Mysterious Planet) and also suffered an emotional blow when he witnessed what seemed to be Peri's death. (TV: Mindwarp)

The Doctor presented the case for his defence, offering an adventure from his future, featuring an Earth woman named Melanie Bush as his companion, where he was forced to destroy an artificial race known as the Vervoids. However, the Valeyard seized on this to charge the Doctor for the genocide of the Vervoids, prohibited by Article 7 of the Constitution. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids) The Doctor tried to pointed out the hole in the Valeyard's claim of genocide; the Vervoids were artificial in nature and never truly alive to begin with. (TV: The Ultimate Foe)

When the Inquisitor pressed the Doctor to provide evidence against the Valeyard's claims, the Doctor was surprised at the arrival of both Mel and Glitz, who were brought to act as witnesses. Furthering his shock, the Doctor learned that the Master had supplied this aid from inside the Matrix, and that the Valeyard was in fact a manifestation of his inner darkness created "between [his] twelfth and final regeneration". Taking advantage of the confusion, the Valeyard fled into the Matrix. The Doctor and Glitz followed and entered a battle of wits with the Valeyard. However, the Master intervened with this and tried using the Doctor as bait for his own plots. The Doctor overcame this and proceeded to find out that the Valeyard had prepared a weapon to kill all the Time Lords in the court room.

The Doctor defeated him and learned that the Valeyard falsified some of the evidence with the aid of the High Council in a plot to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations. To his surprise, he learned Peri had not died, but was now wed to Ycarnos as his queen. As the populace of Gallifrey reacted to news of the dishonesty of their High Council, the Doctor left in his TARDIS with Mel. (TV: The Ultimate Foe)

Following an encounter with an older version of himself and a younger Mel in a pocket of cauterised time, (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors) the Doctor returned Mel to Oxyveguramosa, her original point in time, (PROSE: Business Unusual) after which the Time Lords wiped his memory of much of his trial, on the grounds that it is dangerous for him to know his own future. (PROSE: Time of Your Life)

Pessimistic about his future
The Doctor travelled to Torrok to become a recluse in order to ensure that he would not become the Valeyard. However, the Time Lords manipulated the Doctor into coming out of seclusion to save Earth in 2191 from Krllxk. During this adventure, the Doctor met Grant Markham, who subsequently joined him on his travels. (PROSE: Time of Your Life)

On their first adventure in the TARDIS, the Doctor and Grant arrived on Agora in the year 2191, when it was being invaded by the Cybermen. While Grant helped the human colony on Agora defeat the Cybermen, the Doctor was imprisoned and tortured on a Selachian warcraft. After they left Agora, the Doctor spent weeks in the TARDIS recovering from radiation poisoning sustained on board the craft. (PROSE: Killing Ground)

After Grant left him, the Doctor travelled to a bar named Bianca's, and discovered that it was built on the remains of an old TARDIS. There, he fell in love with the bar's star singer, Bianca, who he later learned was an evil future distillation of one of Iris Wildthyme's regenerations who had a similar plan to that of the Valeyard involving stealing the remainder of Iris' lives. After confirming his love for Bianca, almost shooting Iris and causing a time ram, together with Iris, the two managed to defeat Bianca and her army of shadows and psychic worms. (AUDIO: The Wormery)

The TARDIS landed in a museum in the city of Excelis on the planet Artaris. The Doctor attempted to free a thief from the security system, but was forced to hide in his TARDIS while the wardens searched the building. He was arrested shortly afterwards on a suspicion of thieving, but succeeded in convincing the officers of his innocence, immediately before he met Reeve Maupassant, who he recognised as Grayvorn. The Doctor discovered that when the Mother Superior and Grayvorn fell from the convent bell tower, the Relic merged Grayvorn and the Mother Superior's minds into one, making Grayvorn immortal at the cost of ever being able to sleep.

Realising that Grayvorn was behind the raid, the Doctor reasoned that he had intended to use a failed theft of the Relic as an excuse to claim it for himself under the guise of protecting evidence. However, just as Grayvorn tried to open the Relic to transfer the second soul into a new host, he was distracted by Danby, an Inquisitor who had been helping the Doctor's enquiries, giving the Doctor the chance to open the Relic on Grayvorn and dispel him from his physical form, whilst simultaneously absorbing the Mother Superior into it. (AUDIO: Excelis Rising)

After another reclusive period, the Doctor travelled to ancient Greece where he met Plato and had an adventure with the Spindle of Necessity and an alien race called the Fates. (PROSE: The Spindle of Necessity)

Optimistic travels
The Doctor investigated a series of murders committed by a shapeshifting Logovore in Hogarth City, (PROSE: Death Sentences) walked past a splinter of Clara Oswald in a corridor that resembled his TARDIS, (TV: The Name of the Doctor) and defeated the Krotons. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

The Doctor arrived during the middle of a war on Cawdor, and discovered a plot by a figure called "Tenebris" to use a secret weapon called the Acheron Pulse. However, discovering that Tenebris was an old acquaintance, Kylo Sorsha, the Doctor foiled his plan and gave him a second chance. (AUDIO: The Acheron Pulse)

The Doctor visited a bed and breakfast surrounded by an impenetrable fog, and discovered that the owners, Chloe and Arthur, were killed by versions of themselves every night, only to wake in their beds the next morning, and now he was destined to share in this fate. After over a month of trying, the Doctor managed to persuade the couple to escape the loop by refusing to go outside and be killed. (PROSE: The Death of Me)

Visiting the planet of the Kuskaroo, the Doctor repelled an invasion by the Galyari, adopting the title of "the Sandman" in an attempt to scare them off. When all else failed, he resorted to destroying their Shushkubra, inadvertently imprinting himself onto the Galyari consciousness. (AUDIO: The Sandman)

Attempting to brew a pot of tea, the Doctor was interrupted by turbulence caused by the TARDIS becoming caught in another vessel's wake. Crash landing on a barren planet, the Doctor was attacked, only to be awaken by Peri, who revealed that they where on a planet called Refiloe, where she had become stranded after fleeing her unhappy marriage. The two discovered the Doctor's TARDIS was emitting a dangerous form of temporal energy that was ageing the people of the planet into dust. While investigating, Peri contracted a deadly disease and died. Furious, the Doctor set about to uncover the plot he was being tangled in, and discovered that everything that had happened after his arrival had been a hallucination and that he was hooked up to a dream machine, with the demises of Peri and his TARDIS being used to lure the Doctor into committing suicide. (AUDIO: Her Final Flight)

Recalling an adventure he had had in his fifth incarnation, the Doctor travelled to Los Angeles, 2009 to meet a version of Peri who was transported to Earth, with all her memories of travelling in the TARDIS wiped. During an adventure involving the Piscons, the Doctor and Peri discovered that due to the manipulations of the Time Lords, five alternate Peris existed simultaneously in the universe. After this encounter, the Doctor offered Peri the chance to return to the TARDIS, but she declined. (AUDIO: Peri and the Piscon Paradox)

Travelling with a historian
Tracking a nexus point distortion, the Doctor encountered university lecturer and historian Evelyn Smythe. Realising her importance to the timelines, the Doctor allowed her to come with him back in time to stabilise the nexus point and save her life. Upon doing so, Evelyn insisted on joining the Doctor on his travels, as she did not won't to pass up the opportunity to explore history first-hand. (AUDIO: The Marian Conspiracy)

Arriving in Lanyon Moor, the Doctor once again met his old friend Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart and uncovered a slew of unsolved mysteries that centred around the malevolent work of a stranded Tregannon named Sancreda. Sancreda had been trapped on Earth for many millennia, and, upon awakening, tortured and destroyed several humans with his psionic powers. Discovering that he had not been abandoned as he had believed, and that instead he had caused his brother's accidental death, Sancreda threatened to destroy the Earth in a fit of rage, prompting the Brigadier to trick him into causing his own demise before he exacted his wrath on the entire planet. (AUDIO: The Spectre of Lanyon Moor)

While Evelyn was trapped in the TARDIS, (PROSE: Instruments of Darkness) the Doctor visited the Kurgon Wonder, where he was led into a series of events involving an alternate timeline, the Knights of Velyshaa and an invasion of Gallifrey. Following an encounter with the Temperon, who he had been tricked into releasing by the Sirens of Time, he found himself on Gallifrey with his fifth and seventh incarnations. Together, they worked to escape Gallifrey and set history along its correct path. The Sixth Doctor freed the Temperon, allowing it to set history amongst its correct path. (AUDIO: The Sirens of Time)

While on the planet Etra Prime, the Doctor discovered a Dalek plot to sabotage the talks going on there. Re-encountering Romana, the Doctor aided her escape from Dalek slavery, and transported her to Gallifrey, where she repelled a Dalek invasion. (AUDIO: The Apocalypse Element)

Visiting the Galápagos Islands as a treat for Evelyn, the Doctor teamed up with Charles Darwin and two residents named Greta and Emilio Rodrigues, working together to defeat an insane Silurian scientist named Tulok whose experiments had provided the evolutionary leap from ape to man. (AUDIO: Bloodtide)

Stopping for food in the south of England, the Doctor and Evelyn met Amelia Doory and Reggie Mead, a couple apparently experimenting with finding a cure to their contamination with vampire DNA. On their trail was a vampire named Nimrod, head of a secret Black Ops organisation called the Forge, who managed to hunt the pair down in an effort to correct the failed experiment he had conducted decades earlier, code-named Project: Twilight. Evelyn befriended a young mother named Cassie Schofield, while the Doctor helped Amelia perfect a cure to stop their mutation, only for Amelia to betray the Doctor and turn the cure into a superior virus, first infecting Cassie, before fleeing to infect the rest of the world. Nimrod teamed up with the Doctor to stop Amelia, blowing up Amelia's blood bank, while the Doctor pursued her, knocking the virus into the water of the River Thames, prompting her to dive for it and drown. The Doctor took Cassie to Norway to live in secret while he developed a cure for her condition. (AUDIO: Project: Twilight)

The Doctor returned to the Clutch to scare the Galyari into submission, and learned of mysterious deaths blamed on his actions. Upon investigating, he came under attack by a Galyari seeking to end his terror, but the Doctor managed to convince him that another force was using his reputation against them. After dealing with the looming threat, the Doctor made peace with the Galyari. (AUDIO: The Sandman)

With Evelyn by his side, (PROSE: Instruments of Darkness) the Doctor met Captain Travers, (TV: Terror of the Vervoids) who proposed to Evelyn. (PROSE: Instruments of Darkness) The Doctor and Evelyn then travelled to Mortlake in 1568 and met Dr John Dee, (PROSE: Mortlake) and prevented Edward Grainger from being falsely convicted of treason. (PROSE: Old Boys)

On a visit to 2010, the Doctor and Evelyn encountered Thomas Brewster, who was trying to return to his own time when he was contacted by Symbios, a sentient planet, who was being invaded by the Terravore. Brewster provided Symbios with hosts who were riding the tube. After the Doctor defeated the Terravores with aid from Brewster, Flip Jackson and DI Patricia Menzies, Brewster stole the TARDIS key, hid aboard and held the Doctor and Evelyn at gunpoint, demanding they return him to his own time. (AUDIO: The Crimes of Thomas Brewster)

While they were travelling in the Time Vortex, the Doctor and Evelyn managed to disarm Brewster, and change course before they arrived at their destination. The Doctor justified his actions by saying that if Brewster returned to his own time, then using his future knowledge would cause chaos and anarchy. The Doctor, Evelyn and Brewster materialised on the Axos spaceship that the Third Doctor had trapped in a time loop on 20th century Earth. (AUDIO: The Feast of Axos)

Accepting Brewster's wishes after an adventure in Victorian Lancashire, the Doctor left Brewster behind in his own time after he killed the creature that caused the chaos. (AUDIO: Industrial Evolution)

After attending a funeral, (AUDIO: Real Time) the Doctor and Evelyn joined an expedition group investigating an ancient Mayan temple on the planet Chronos after being informed of a distress call mentioning Cybermen. The Doctor met a young doctor named Reece Goddard who turned out to be a hybrid Cyberman from an alternate timeline, and came under attack by partially converted Cybermen. After nearly causing a paradox involving 20th century Earth and the late 33rd century, the Doctor was able to defeat the Cyber-Controller. (WC: Real Time)

After finding a cure for the Twilight virus, the Doctor and Evelyn returned to find Cassie, only to discover that Cassie was now an agent of the Forge. The Doctor was captured by Nimrod, who attempted to force him into undergoing regeneration so that he could study it, while Evelyn tried to restore memories of Cassie's that had been suppressed by Nimrod. Evelyn was successful, and Cassie was freed from Nimrod's influence and rescued the Doctor, only to be killed by Nimrod before she could escape. (AUDIO: Project: Lazarus) Cassie's death and the Doctor's inability to save her strained Evelyn's relationship with him. Spending time on the planet Világ, Evelyn grew close to a man named Rossiter, but was unable leave the Doctor for him. (AUDIO: Arrangements for War)

The TARDIS fell through a time barrier to 1828 Edinburgh, where Robert Knox, a time travelling showman, was manipulating the timeline of the William Burke and Billy Hare murders to profit from a viewing audience of alien businessmen while ostensibly finding a cure for an alien race which was dying from flu at the same time. The Doctor brought one of the murder victims, Daft Jamie, who was infected with the virus, out of the barrier to January 1829, and tricked him into infecting Knox, who had no resistance and was unable to reset time to undo the infection, forcing Knox to escape in his own TARDIS. Putting time back on track, the Doctor brought Jamie back into the Doctor's TARDIS, and dropped him off a few yards away from where Burke and Hare would murder him. (AUDIO: Medicinal Purposes) They travelled to Fortune, where he was accused of murder. He began to investigate why he was accused in order to help the murdered man's daughter. He went to the local gold mine where he was captured in order to be killed in an explosion. With Evelyn's and the local barmaids help he moved the explosives to strategic positions to redirect the underground river so that the locals could become ranchers again instead of being miners under the tyranny if the town['s mayor. (AUDIO: A Town Called Fortune)

The Doctor came under the influence of an external force that informed him that they had sent an assassin to inject him with a lethal virus that would kill him in a hundred days. Together with Evelyn, he narrowed down the planets and went to investigate, witnessing his previous incarnation, Peri and Erimem attending a party, his next incarnation being held at gunpoint before being rescued by Ace and Hex, and two versions of his eighth incarnation playing poker in a bar. Spending days flying a kite on an archaeological expedition with Bernice Summerfield, he finally tracked down the assassin and tricked him supplying the antidote. (AUDIO: The 100 Days of the Doctor)

According to one account, on a return trip to Világ, Evelyn left the Doctor to marry Rossiter. The Doctor reacted badly and refused to say goodbye properly. (AUDIO: Thicker Than Water) However, another account suggested that it was the Doctor who decided to leave Evelyn behind, on Earth in 1988, to "keep an eye out for any old enemies", such as the Irish Twins. According to this account, both the Doctor and Evelyn parted on bad terms. (PROSE: Instruments of Darkness)

Old acquaintances
Saddened by Evelyn's absence, the Doctor travelled to 1987 Pease Pottage to officially meet Melanie Bush. However, an earlier version of himself arrived with the older Mel from after his trial, causing confusion while battling Stapleton Petherbridge. It soon became clear that Petherbridge was an alien who had create a fake Pease Pottage and isolated it outside of time, in an attempt to trap the Doctor.

The two Doctors and the two Mels defeated Petherbridge, resulting in the younger Mel's death. Noticing a discrepancy in the timeline, the older Doctor used Petherbridge's technology to alter events, putting her back in the real Pease Pottage in 1987, while the younger Doctor decided to deposit the older Mel on Oxyveguramosa, where she was taken from by the Time Lords during the trial. Resigning himself to the fact history must run its natural course, the Doctor decided to continue travelling alone. (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors)

Summoned by the Space-time telegraph, the Doctor became involved in an adventure in 2001 with Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, where they attempted to solve a mystery involving Adolf Hitler and prevent the rise of the Fourth Reich. Travelling back to the Second World War in Germany and infiltrating the German government by befriending Hitler, the pair were forced to investigate the connection between a Neo-Nazi society and a conspiracy involving an alien spaceship that had crashed on the southern coast of England during the 1940s. After this, the Doctor once again parted company with the Brigadier. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)

The Doctor was summoned by Inquisitor Darkel to act as the Valeyard's defence after he was arrested on the moon of Etarho. However, the trial had been fixed to ensure the Valeyard's execution, and the Doctor was powerless to prevent it. Going to investigate the Valeyard's activities on Etarho, the Doctor found what appeared to be him in his final incarnation, only for Darkel to arrive and frighten the man into a mud hole, where he drowned. Darkel then demanded the Doctor to open the Valeyard's Black Scrolls, but he refused. The Valeyard, who had been the "future Doctor" all along, then emerged from the mud hole and revealed that he had planned the entire trial to lure the Doctor and Darkel into a death trap. Powerless to prevent his escape, the Doctor and the other Time Lords fled the planet moments before it was destroyed. (AUDIO: Trial of the Valeyard)

The Doctor reunited with Frobisher in the 82nd century, where he had resumed his job as a private detective, and was investigating mysteries. After solving a case involving Josiah W. Dogbolter, Frobisher was encouraged by his ex-wife to travel with the Doctor again. (AUDIO: The Maltese Penguin)

During their adventures, the Doctor and Frobisher met Sabalom Glitz whilst on the run from bounty hunters, (PROSE: Mission: Impractical) were approached by the Seventh Doctor while fishing for Gumblejacks, (COMIC: Time & Time Again) and encountered the descendants of a Peri that married Yrcanos and defeated a Nahrung which had possessed a regent named Farlig. (COMIC: The Age of Chaos)

The Doctor was arrested and faced execution on the planet Baspral by an Inquisitor due to the fact that he had saved a young boy's life on his last visit, allowing him to become a vicious dictator who caused billions of deaths, something the Inquisitor held the Doctor responsible for. However, the Doctor showed him that the slaughter the population had suffered strengthened the people of Baspral, who went on to defeat a Dalek attack force, saving the whole universe. After this, the Inquisitor released the Doctor, and the Doctor saved the Inquisitor from execution in return. (PROSE: The Inquisitor's Story)

New friends
The Doctor went on the trail of a parasite known as "the Darkness", and arrived on Earth, where he was saved from a mugging by UNIT officers, Will Hoffman and Emily Chaudhry. Aided by Will, Emily and UNIT, the Doctor stopped the Darkness from influencing the human population into murdering their loved ones. (PROSE: The Terror of the Darkness)

Planning to take Emily and Will home in the TARDIS, the Doctor got sidetracked by a distress signal, leading him to an army base in World War II and a reunion with Edward Grainger. The two old friends worked to return a Mim back to its home world. After this, the Doctor witnessed the birth of Edward's son, John. Preparing to take Emily and Will home, the Doctor received a mission to travel to 1957 to investigate discrepancies in the UNIT archive. (PROSE: Incongruous Details) Arriving in 1957, the Doctor discovered his whole history of defending the Earth had been wiped off the record at the Ministry of Defence by a British government agent called Ronnie Tillyard. After this, the Doctor finally returned Emily and Will home. (PROSE: Defining Patterns)

Arriving during the French Revolution in 1789, the Doctor rescued a man named Jason from death by the guillotine, and allowed him to become his new companion. (AUDIO: The Ultimate Adventure)

The Doctor took Jason to Metebelis III in the Acteon Galaxy, (AUDIO: Beyond the Ultimate Adventure) before receiving a summons from Margaret Thatcher in 1988. The Doctor and Jason defeated a plot by the Daleks and the Cybermen to kill the Doctor and destroy the TARDIS. This led them to arrive in Bar Galactica, meet Madame Delilah and Karl the Dalek mercenary, and to return to the French Revolution. During this adventure, they were helped by Crystal and Zog, whom the Doctor invited to join them on their travels. (AUDIO: The Ultimate Adventure)

The Doctor, with Jason, Crystal and Zog visited Leisureworld on the living planet, Krennos, where they uncovered a plot by the Chameleons. (PROSE: Face Value)

After Zog left the TARDIS crew, the Doctor, Jason and Crystal were summoned by Karl to Bar Galactica to attend Madame Delilah's funeral, her last request. After this, Karl sent the TARDIS crew on a quest for treasure on the icy world of Ultima Thule in an obscure dimension, where they met a being who called itself the Eidolon. The Doctor managed to convince the Eidolon that he would do its bidding, but tricked it into entering the TARDIS, which he had set up to go straight to Gallifrey, where the creature could be dealt with. (AUDIO: Beyond the Ultimate Adventure)

The companion from the future
While travelling alone, the Doctor picked up a distress signal from a desert island in the year 500002. (AUDIO: The Condemned) There, he rescued a young girl named Charley Pollard who, unbeknownst to him, was in fact a companion of the Eighth Doctor, one of his future incarnations. (AUDIO: The Girl Who Never Was) Together they landed in a hotel room on 29 February, 2008 and found a dead body. While trying to investigate the death, the Doctor and Charley encountered DI Patricia Menzies prior to their earlier meeting. She believed that the Doctor was the murderer, but he managed to convince her that he was a time traveller, prompting the pair to team up. Investigating further, they realised that an alien named Robert Slater had let slip a case full of a strange new toxin that bonded its victims to the building itself, and that it had infected a man named Sam. The Doctor was too late to save Slater from Sam's wrath and reluctantly took Charley on as his companion. (AUDIO: The Condemned)

After Charley accidentally alerted the Library of Alexandria to an overdue book in the Doctor's possession, the duo landed in the family tomb of the Doomwood family. There, they learned of a mysterious curse that loomed over the family and before long, one of its members died. Charley became influenced into thinking that she was the bride of a nobleman before turning into Gypsy Charlotte, a highway robber partnered with Dick Turpin, a character in the novel they were planning on returning. The Doctor followed on horseback and realised that Charley had the Doomwood curse. He followed Charley and Dick to York where he learned that the particles that were making up the fiction were spreading and that before long, everyone would become possessed by fiction. Realising that the only way to save Charley was to surrender to fiction, the Doctor took on the personality of a fictional character and met up with Charley, who snapped out of her trance and freed him too. (AUDIO: The Doomwood Curse)

After preventing the resurrection of a Kroton army on the colony world Onyakis, (AUDIO: Return of the Krotons) the Doctor and Charley travelled to 2008, where they once again encountered DI Menzies. Investigating a pound coin from 2012 that had appeared in a coin-operated vending machine four years too early, the duo discovered a secret gambling operation and were caught in the middle of a war between the Cyrox and the Tabbalac, two races who were using Earth as their battleground. After the war was ended, Menzies asked the Doctor if she could travel with him. The Doctor politely refused, citing the growing mystery surrounding Charley's true identity, but indicated that one day he might take her up on the offer. (AUDIO: The Raincloud Man)

The Doctor became suspicious of Charley's secretiveness and eventually confronted her, only for her to collapse in the TARDIS and fall into a long-lasting coma. Placing her in the Zero Room to recover, the Doctor discovered that Charley had been infected with a virus and spent several years trying to cure her.

After tracing the virus to the Amethyst Viral Containment Station, the Doctor became caught in the crossfire of a battle between an invading force of Daleks and the mysterious creators of the facility the Viyrans. The Daleks were trying to find Patient Zero. Charley woke up in the TARDIS and confronted a strange woman that seemed to have a large amount of knowledge about the Doctor. This person identified herself as Patient Zero and confessed that she had infected Charley with the virus. The virus was created to turn infected people into copies of whoever infected them. Patient Zero had been experimented on by the Daleks and infected with the virus.

She snuck abroad the TARDIS while the Doctor was being chased by them and had remained in the TARDIS ever since. While the Doctor took care of the Daleks, Charley discovered that Patient Zero, whose true name was Mila, was transforming into a copy of her, as she infected Charley. Mila had planned to take over Charley's life by transforming into a replica of her. Unable to stop her, Charley faded out of existence while Mila took her place. (AUDIO: Patient Zero)

The Doctor received a summons from an old deceased friend and travelled to Draconia. There he discovered a conspiracy involving the new crown prince of Draconia, his mother and an army of paper soldiers that were used by the previous kings of Draconia to amuse themselves while they drifted in their tombs in space. (AUDIO: Paper Cuts)

After travelling for several months, the Doctor and Mila landed in an alternate timeline created by the Viyrans' attempt to remove a virus from Earth's population. Here, the Doctor discovered that Mila wasn't the real Charley, and Charley had been found and cured by the Viyrans, whom she helped for several millennia in their quest to expunge all the viruses which had escaped from the Amethyst station. After Mila sacrificed herself to save the Doctor and the Earth, Charley revealed her identity to the Doctor, and pleaded with him to allow her to restore the Web of Time. To make him want to forget his travels with her, she told him of the truth of her situation, and her belief that she knew how he would die. He accepted, and she used the Viyrans' memory-altering technology to replace the Doctor's memories of their travels together with fabricated ones of Mila in their place. (AUDIO: Blue Forgotten Planet)

The Land of Fiction
Arriving in what appeared to be Scotland, the Doctor was seemingly reunited with an apparently amnesiac Jamie McCrimmon who had no memories of his travels with the Doctor. The Doctor and Jamie tried to discover why there was Oil Pump Jacks in Scotland in a century where they shouldn't exist, they discovered that the Red Cap's master was trying to exploit the "Black Water" for his own ends. After this adventure, Jamie accepted the Doctor's offer to travel with him. (AUDIO: City of Spires) On their way back to the TARDIS, the two encountered the villainous Merodach, who had something to do with a Kelpie. The Doctor was tortured by Merodach but just cited MacBeth. (AUDIO: Night's Black Agents) They later apparently landed aboard the RMS Titanic. When the Doctor noticed that there was something wrong, such as the song that played during its sinking, the ship became the Titan which soon hit the iceberg. He was stranded on the Iceberg but was rescued by the Nautilus by Captain Nemo who was hunting a squid that produced the "Black Water". Nemo later drove the Nautilus into a whirlpool the Doctor and Jamie were left in a white void. (AUDIO: The Wreck of the Titan)

However, the Doctor and Jamie soon discovered that they had been in the Land of Fiction all along, and that Jamie was a fictional character created by Zoe Heriot, the new Master of the Land, as a mystery for the Doctor to solve. Discovering that they were being used by Zoe to combat an invasion by the Cybermen, the duo managed to defeat their old foes. After their adventure, Jamie decided to remain in the Land, telling the Doctor to seek out the real Jamie if he ever found himself in the Scottish Highlands again. The Doctor returned Zoe to the Wheel, saddened at the fact that she would once again fall under the Time Lords' conditioning and lose all memories of him. (AUDIO: Legend of the Cybermen)

Stranded in Victorian London
The Doctor crash landed in Victorian London during the 1890s due to the temporal experiments performed by Professor Elliot Payne, which caused him to become stranded. Using the alias "Professor Claudius Dark", the Doctor attempted to investigate Payne and his experiments, (AUDIO: The Hourglass Killers) locating and attempting to convince Johnny Skipton of Payne's intentions. (AUDIO: Dead Men's Tales) However, the Doctor discovered that Henry Gordon Jago, George Litefoot and Leela were already investigating the incidents, (AUDIO: The Hourglass Killers) and tried to contact them. (AUDIO: The Man at the End of the Garden) Unsuccessful, he resolved to work on the TARDIS, (AUDIO: The Hourglass Killers) employing the services of an electric supplier. (AUDIO: Chronoclasm)

After Jago, Litefoot and Leela successfully stopped Payne and his temporal experiments, the Doctor found he was still trapped on Earth, and discovered that he was now stuck due to the interventions of Mr Kempston and Mr Hardwick, who had also crashed on Earth due to Payne's experiments. The pair were set on stealing the TARDIS in order to gain access to more advanced time travel equipment, prompting him to sink the TARDIS into the Thames embankment to avoid its location. (AUDIO: The Hourglass Killers)

Inviting Jago and Litefoot to meet him and help him investigate Kempston and Hardwick, the Doctor chose not to reveal his identity, raising Jago and Litefoot's suspicion. (AUDIO: Chronoclasm) Warning them of the approaching Sandmen, they fled, but he was recognised by Leela, prompting him to make the suggestion that she recommend they all go to Brighton. (AUDIO: Jago in Love) However, this failed to work out, necessitating the Doctor to give them all tickets to Oscar Wilde's new play, A Woman of No Importance, where they had an adventure with Wilde. (AUDIO: Beautiful Things)

The Doctor arrived in time to save Jago and Litefoot from a train trapped in a time loop caused by Kempston and Hardwick, where he revealed his true identity to them. (AUDIO: The Lonely Clock) With their help and Leela, the Doctor discovered that Kempston and Hardwick were members of the crew of a crashed Temparon vessel. But Kempston and Hardwick had predicted this an put a trap to capture him so that he couldn't stop their plan, in Bedfordshire. Returning to London he devised a way to defeat them. After retrieving his TARDIS and seeing Leela off, the Doctor offered Jago and Litefoot the chance to travel with him in the TARDIS, which they accepted. (AUDIO: The Hourglass Killers)

Voyages with Jago and Litefoot
On their first trip through space and time, the Doctor took Jago and Litefoot to Venus in the far future, where they discovered the corrupt Venusian Queen Vulpina was enslaving the young of the Cytherians, the native Venusian race, which they called the Thraskins. Together they defeated Vulpina and freed the young Cytherians, resulting in a peaceful treaty between the Cytherians and Venusians, before departing. (AUDIO: Voyage to Venus)

Intending to return to London, the TARDIS instead arrived in the Roanoke Island, 1590, where the friends were held hostage by a local tribe of Native Americans. They discovered that the tribe were being terrorised by a group of ethereal children, who had been present for four hundred years. Whenever they kidnapped natives, they would leave behind the word "Croatoan", inscribed in the place where they once were. The trio discovered that Croatoan was an island, which they planned to explore, and were galvanised into action when Jago disappeared.

Arriving on Croatoan Island, they found Jago and discovered the TARDIS, which had been on Croatoan for four hundred years. Discovering Jago's captor, he revealed himself to be Sir Walter Raleigh, who had discovered the TARDIS while the Doctor and Litefoot were venturing to Croatoan. After tampering with the controls, Raleigh travelled back four hundred years, and encountered a group of alien beings, who would later become the children who had terrorised the tribe. He taught them how to live and hunt and, in return, they extended his life. However, the Doctor managed to communicate with the Native American Wanchese in the TARDIS, four hundred years prior, who prevented Raleigh from travelling in the TARDIS and restored the timeline. After the aliens disappeared, the Doctor encouraged the now paradoxical Raleigh to step outside and see the true fate of the settlers before he ceased to exist, and dematerialised. Finally managing to return to the Red Tavern, the Doctor bid his farewells to Jago and Litefoot, and set out to discover what had caused the disturbances in the Vortex, not realising he had left them in 1968. (AUDIO: Voyage to the New World)

Travelling with Flip Jackson
Tracking Davros and the Daleks to 18 June 1815, the Doctor learned that they were plotting to change history by helping Napoléon Bonaparte win the Battle of Waterloo. He used Davros' mind exchange machine to switch bodies with him to try and attempted to reform the Daleks, but Davros escaped and reunited with one of his former associates, Flip Jackson, and her boyfriend Jared. Convincing Flip that the Doctor she been accompanying was an imposter, the Doctor managed to gain her aid, while Davros convinced the Daleks of his identity. Together, the Doctor and Flip tricked the Daleks into thinking that he was Davros and showed Napoleon their true nature, prompting him to surrender. Afterwards, Flip asked the Doctor to allow her join him, something he accepted. (AUDIO: The Curse of Davros)

Sitting down to watch cricket on his Time-Space Visualiser, the Doctor and Flip encountered a disturbance which trapped Flip in another dimension. The Doctor tracked the signal to the planetoid Transmission, where he found Porcians attempting to steal a new television station's Reality Generator – a device that could project recordings into reality. Flip was caught in the movie dimension, but, due to a sabotage, the dimension's villain, Lord Kran, escaped into reality and started to invade it. The Doctor used the Reality Generator to create a bomb that would destroy any fictional aspects, but leave anything that belongs in reality alone. (AUDIO: The Fourth Wall)

The Doctor and Flip transmatted to Earth in 16127 to see how the planet was getting on. Arriving in Scotland, they befriended a family, only for the Transmat system to become inactive. Detecting the presence of the Wirrn, the Doctor arranged for Flip to hang-glide to the nearest city to warn them. She crashed, prompting the Doctor to go and look for her. The Wirrn awoke and began attacking, but the Doctor used the Transmat system to freeze them under the surface of Lake Loch. (AUDIO: Wirrn Isle)

The Doctor took Flip to meet Henry Gordon Jago and George Litefoot, and become caught up in another battle with the Valeyard. (AUDIO: Stage Fright)

While resting on Tranquility, the Doctor and Flip received a distress signal from another TARDIS, which the Doctor traced to Earth in the 24th century. However, this signal was a trap arranged by Sil using Anzor's TARDIS, as Sil wanted access to a Time Lord to try and copy their remarkable ability to cope with disease as part of a plan to reduce Earth's population to a more manageable level via a series of plagues. Despite the involvement of Cordelia Crozier, who blamed the Doctor for the death of her father, and the involvement of the Velandari, a race of sentient diseases, the Doctor was able to turn the tables on Sil and force him to flee Earth while Cordelia destroyed Sil's allies. (AUDIO: Antidote to Oblivion)

Reunited with Peri
After defeating his childhood imaginary friend, the Doctor was rejoined in his travels by Peri. (AUDIO: The Widow's Assassin) The two travelled to Scotland during the 22nd century Dalek invasion and became involved in a training program for the Roboman Elite, (AUDIO: Masters of Earth) before re-encountering the Rani at the College of Advanced Galactic Education. (AUDIO: The Rani Elite)

Companionless travels
As part of a plan by the Monk to take the Doctor's place, the Monk arranged for the Sixth Doctor to swap places with the Second just as the Second Doctor discovered a long-lost Cyber-tomb, prompting the Sixth Doctor to remain and investigate what had attracted the concern of his previous self where the Second Doctor would have left. Although his actions nearly gave the Cybermen the chance to alter the outcome of the last Cyber-war, prompting the Sixth Doctor to contemplate calling the Time Lords for help despite the risks, Zoe Heriot was able to help him realise what his past self would have done and take action to stop the Cybermen, simply trapping them in a loop while he returned to his own place in time (AUDIO: Last of the Cybermen).

The Sixth Doctor teamed up with all of his other incarnations to save Gallifrey from destruction at the end of the Last Great Time War, but lost all memory of the event due to the timelines not being synchronised. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)

The Doctor tried to save a young girl from a book printed on psychic paper. However, his attempts at communication only made the girl feel uncomfortable about him until the book claimed her. (PROSE: Academic Notes)

The Doctor tracked Ulrik to the site of an early Dalek battle between Ulrik's ancestors and the Daleks. He convinced Ulrik to trust him, turn a Roboman under his control and meet him on the roof of the building. There, the Doctor used his TARDIS to transport the Dalek Prime and Ulrik backwards in time. The Doctor joined his fifth, seventh and eighth incarnations briefly before being returned to his own timeline. (AUDIO: The Four Doctors)

He received a message from Henry Gordon Jago and George Litefoot. Arriving too early he posed as Madame Sosostris' assistant until the message was sent. He suggested that Madame Sosostris de-hypnotise Percival Quick and discovered that was behind it. He went with Percival Quick and Sosostris to the Master's lair where he revealed his real identity. He reversed the flow of the Master's machine so that energy flowed from the Master to Jago and Litefoot, instead of the other way which the Master had wanted. (AUDIO: Masterpiece)

Constance Clarke
The Doctor met Constance Clarke, one of the WRENs stationed at Bletchley Park and the pair worked to together to defeat the extraterrestrial Waveform and a triple agent named Robbie Flint. (AUDIO: Criss-Cross) She joined him on his travels, meeting the Rani on Miasimia Goria (AUDIO: Planet of the Rani), combating the Talessh in 2029 Arizona (AUDIO: Shield of the Jötunn), and landing in a dimensional nexus created by the Parallel Sect. There, they encountered the Master, who was attempting to gain power over every universe. (AUDIO: The End of the Line)

Preparing for the end
Now alone, the Doctor assisted a group of revolutionaries fight against the repressive regime of their planet, but was captured and taken to House Osmo, a palatial structure that contained books that predicted the events of someone's life. Reading his own book, the Doctor learned he was nearing his death. (PROSE: The Book of My Life)

He decided to prepared for his demise by returning to the dawn of time and carving "The Doctor was here" on the first inhabitable planet, and then travelled to Germany to play guitar with the Beatles. He observed the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven and gave his mother enough money to ensure that she would be able to keep the child her husband didn't want. He then visited his old mentor at the time of his death, to bid him thanks and farewell. (PROSE: Gone Too Soon)

The Doctor defeated the Bonepuppets and buried Amaca's umbilicus. (PROSE: Nobody's Gift)

He presided as Kybo's council for the defence. He initially met Kybo rescuing him from his damaged ship. After this he followed Kybo to Earth and found out that he had become a member of a circus. When Eliza Jenkins noticed that he started to learn English, the Doctor got him to start reading the works of literature. When the Judoon came to Earth he tricked them into the hall of mirrors which alarmed them. He learnt the plight of Aetius and decided to show the Judoon the reason why Kybo went AWOL. (AUDIO: Judoon in Chains)

History takes its course
After foiling a plot by the Master and a Usurian to take over the stock market, (PROSE: Millennial Rites) the Doctor finally became aquatinted with Mel on a beach in Brighton in 1989, before they were forced to defeat the Nestene Consciousness together with the Brigadier. After the situation was resolved, Mel elected to travel with the Doctor. (PROSE: Business Unusual)

With Mel by his side, (PROSE: Millennial Rites) the Doctor was involved in a battle with the Terrible Zodin that involved multiple incarnations of himself, though he lost his memory of the adventure after Zodin used "mind rubbers" on him and his other incarnation. (PROSE: Cold Fusion)

Briefly separated from Mel when the spaceship they were on was attacked, the Doctor was 'rescued' by the Daleks while Mel ended up working as part of a scientific research team led by a disguised Davros. Learning that Davros was modifying salvaged Mechonoids into the new Juggernauts, the Doctor and Mel were shaken when they learned that the Juggernauts used human tissue in their construction, Mel utilising a back door she had installed in their programming to turn them against Davros and the Daleks, the colony being destroyed in the resulting battle while Mel's new friends escaped. (AUDIO: The Juggernauts)

While visiting Mel's uncle, John Hallam, in 2003, Mel was transported to 1782 where she awoke with amnesia. The Doctor and Hallam travelled there and learned that she had been taken in by a local aristocrat. Mel had mistakenly been drugged by one of the village doctors, not knowning it was partly because of the medicine that her memory stayed distorted. The Doctor realised that Mel had become one of her own ancestors and struggled with trying to maintain the timeline, but found a way around it in order to save Mel. (AUDIO: Catch-1782)

Arriving on Earth in 1999, the Doctor visited his old friend Dame Anne Travers, while Mel became unwittingly caught up in Ashley Chapel's attempt to summon the powerful entity Saraquazel to Earth, a resulting disruption of reality as Chapel tried to summon Saraquazel and Anne- misinterpreting Chapel's plans as an attempt to summon the Great Intelligence- tried to banish the Intelligence turning Chapel, Anne and Mel into the three rulers of three great kingdoms, each adhering to a different law of physics. The Doctor was nearly mutated into the Valeyard by the resulting disruption of reality, but he was able to resist his other self's influence long enough to undo the damage and restore Mel and the others to normal. (PROSE: Millennial Rites)

While playing a game of Monopoly, the Doctor's TARDIS answered a distress signal from the Vulgar End of Time, a point in the far future where everything had already been discovered. Arriving on the planet Generios 1, he and Mel encountered a scam artist named Banto Zame, who, together with his assistant, Sally-Anne Stubbins, were claiming to be the Doctor and his companion and were creating fake dangers to con the people into paying them to help. However, a real threat appeared in the skies and offered to let the people live if they handed over the three greatest treasures of the Generios system. The Doctor and Mel teamed up with their pretenders and underwent a quest to find the treasures. Convincing Sally of her own worth, the Doctor managed to defeat the Cylinder, tricking it into taking Zame instead of himself. (AUDIO: The One Doctor)

The Doctor was called to a spaceship to be used as a scapegoat to drive out hijackers. However, this plan turned sour when a genetically engineered species known as the Vervoids emerged from their pods in storage and killed many of the passengers, simultaneously causing several others to mutate into new members of their own kind. With the Vervoids attempting to convert all of humanity, the Doctor was forced to destroy them by fast-forwarding their lifecycle, as he knew that just one Vervoid making it to Earth would allow this to happen. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids)

The Doctor and Mel defeated the Rainbow, (PROSE: Old Boys) and took a trip to Oxyveguramosa, where Mel was taken by to give testament at the Doctor's trial, (PROSE: Business Unusual) and later returned by the past Doctor after a brief stop at Pease Pottage. (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors)

In 1957, the Doctor and Mel investigated UFO sightings in the proximity of Hammerston, Louisiana and became involved in the production of the film Swamp of Horrors after attacking an actor in a rubber alien suit whom they mistook for a genuine alien. The Doctor, who used his pseudonym "Dr. John Smith", and Mel were assumed to be uncredited actors playing fictional characters by film critics. (PROSE: Swamp of Horrors (1957) - Viewing Notes)

The Doctor and Mel encountered the Wishing Beast on an asteroid (AUDIO: The Wishing Beast) and again in 1965 in Salford. (AUDIO: The Vanity Box) The pair then travelled to Tantane Spaceport, where the Doctor discovered two warring tribes of humans who had been stranded there by a group Wailers. (AUDIO: Spaceport Fear)

Suicide
According to one account, just after almost becoming the Valeyard and nearly killing Mel on 1 January 2000, the Doctor was influenced by his next incarnation into killing himself. The Seventh Doctor did this out of fear of becoming the Valeyard (PROSE: Head Games) and because he felt he needed to be born. According to Death's version of events, the Doctor joyfully piloted his TARDIS towards the Rani's tractor beam, (PROSE: Love and War) though Mel witnesses him attempting to activate the HADS. (PROSE: Time and the Rani) The Rani's attack buffeted the TARDIS out of flight, (TV: Time and the Rani) and caused the Doctor's head to collide with the TARDIS control console, (PROSE: Time and the Rani) forcing him to regenerate (PROSE: Head Games) as the TARDIS was pulled on to Lakertya. (TV: Time and the Rani)

However, the Seventh Doctor eventually dismissed his involvement as a delusion brought about by an increasingly fragile and scared mind, realising that such a thing was impossible as all his incarnations were the same person rather than separate consciousnesses. (PROSE: The Room With No Doors)

Fighting the Lamprey
According to a second account, the Doctor's adventures eventually led him to the Library of Carsus, after encountering his future self in the TARDIS, where he worked with an old Time Lord friend, Professor Rummas, and many alternative versions of himself from different universes to stop the Lamprey, a pan-dimensional being, from destroying creation with the power of the Spiral Chamber, a powerful Time Lord artefact that acted as a portal into the nexus of the Time Vortex. However, the Doctor was forced to sacrifice much of his chronal energy to trap the Lamprey inside the Chamber. The toll of the Lamprey's imprisonment drained the vitality out of the Doctor as time-sensitive chronon particles, which helped sustain his life force, were stripped away from his body.

Dying, the Doctor materialised the TARDIS in deep space to take one last look at the universe. Satisfied with the life he had led, the Doctor told Mel not to feel cheated by his demise, before he drifted into a half-conscious haze and slumped over. (PROSE: Spiral Scratch) However, the TARDIS became under attack from the Rani and lured into a tractor beam and forced to land on the planet Lakertya. (TV: Time and the Rani) Weakened from the loss of his chronal energies, the Doctor's body rapidly withered, and prevented him from raising the defences of the TARDIS. The attack on his TARDIS knocked him into the TARDIS console, where he struck his head. As the Doctor was already dying from chronal starvation, (PROSE: Spiral Scratch) the head injury became a killing blow. (PROSE: Head Games)

Attack from Lakertya
According to another account, the Doctor tried to travel to the Lakertyan System, but discovered there was deadly radiation nearby. Before he could divert the TARDIS away, he received a signal from a future version of his current incarnation and froze up for a moment. For reasons he couldn't explain, the Doctor was now compelled to visit Lakertya despite the danger, and continued his present course. His TARDIS was soon caught in a barrage of laser fire made of focused radiation beams. As the ship was struck and jolted repeatedly, the radiation caused Mel to lose consciousness, but the Doctor feared that he would fare far worse.

Unable to tell Mel before she passed out, he revealed that the radiation was fatal to Time Lords, and fell over onto the floor. Weakened by the attack, the Doctor made peace with the idea his time had come, fearing that he might fail to regenerate. However, as he lay dying, a figure appeared to him and told him it was "far from being all over." The Doctor wondered who it was as regenerative energy began to flow out of him, (AUDIO: The Brink of Death) and the TARDIS was snared by a tractor beam and forced to land on Lakertya. (TV: Time and the Rani)

Regeneration
As the Doctor lay unconscious on the floor of his TARDIS after the TARDIS landed on Lakertya, the Rani and her Tetrap servant, Urak, invaded the TARDIS, and Urak was ordered to leave Mel behind and take the Doctor to the Rani's laboratory. As Urak rolled the Doctor onto his back in preparation to take him away, the final stages of his regeneration commenced, and he transformed into his seventh incarnation. (TV: Time and the Rani)

Post-mortem
Due to his innate hubris and pre-inclination towards violence, the Seventh Doctor feared that his predecessor was a darker incarnation than his other selves, a fact which caused his memory of the Sixth Doctor to become increasingly twisted, to the point that the memories of the other five Doctors kept the sixth incarnation imprisoned deep in the Doctor's mind for fear of him becoming the Valeyard. (PROSE: Head Games) However, after he was shot by an arrow and woke up in his own grave, the Seventh Doctor accepted that nobody deserved to be locked up forever, recognising the need to forgive himself and remove the guilt that would have corrupted the Sixth Doctor's memory into becoming the Valeyard. (PROSE: The Room With No Doors)

When the Eighth Doctor and the TARDIS were contaminated by Anti-time, the TARDIS created various historical projections of past encounters with the mysterious "Divergence" to consider its options, with the TARDIS's "good" side using images of the Doctor's past selves and companions to represent key players in these projections. The image of the Sixth Doctor was used for the vampire Lord Tepesh, granting the Tepesh projection some of the Doctor's knowledge and experience of events that the original Tepesh could not have known. Although Rassilon "killed" the projection, when Charley stabbed the Eighth Doctor, he was greeted by his immediate three predecessors in his mind, the previous three Doctors working with the Eighth to allow Zagreus to take control and heal their injury. (AUDIO: Zagreus)

When the Tenth Doctor was confronted by Es'Cartrss within the TARDIS' Matrix, he summoned the Sixth Doctor, among his other past incarnations, to use their united memories and willpower to take back control of the Matrix. (COMIC: The Forgotten)

After the Eleventh Doctor was accused of committing deadly crimes against the Overcast, he brooded in the TARDIS for two days, imagining all his previous numbered incarnations, including the Sixth Doctor, interrogating him over the crimes. When he offered the rational that he always left things better than he found them, they all turned and left him in disgust and disgrace. (COMIC: Pull to Open)

When the Eleventh Doctor entered into the T'keyn Nexus in order to defend himself, Matrix projections of his previous incarnations, including the Sixth Doctor, appeared inside it to defend themselves as well. When auditor Sondrah accused the Doctor of being a meddler, the Sixth Doctor protested the description, denying that he had ever meddled in the ways of the Earth, only for the Seventh Doctor to admit to having meddled "just a little". When the Eleventh Doctor began to deduce Sondrah's true identity, the past Doctors faded away as Oscar Wilde interfered with the Nexus. (COMIC: Dead Man's Hand)

When Clara Oswald entered the Doctor's time stream, she saw the sixth incarnation among the Doctors that ran past her, with the Eleventh Doctor claiming them to be his "ghosts". (TV: The Name of the Doctor)

When he was exposed to energy from a time storm, the Twelfth Doctor degenerated through all of his previous incarnations, including the Sixth Doctor. (AUDIO: The Lost Magic)

Undated events

 * The Sixth Doctor attended the funeral of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, as did all of his other incarnations. (PROSE: The Gift, Shroud of Sorrow)
 * River Song met the Sixth Doctor, but did not care for him, comparing him to a clown put through a woodchipper. She had his memory wiped with mnemosine recall-wipe vapour so the timeline would remain intact. (GAME: The Eternity Clock)
 * On a Thursday in the summer of 1966, the Sixth Doctor visited Andy Warhol to have his face added to a portrait of eleven incarnations of the Doctor. (PROSE: The War of Art, COMIC: The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who)

Alternative timelines
In an alternative timeline, the Doctor had his throat slit by Shockeye. In another, he saved Oscar Botcherby's life by arriving 30 seconds before Oscar was killed by Shockeye, instead of 30 seconds afterwards. (PROSE: So Vile a Sin)

In a negated timeline, the Doctor and Peri were forced to land in a pocket universe by travelling to 23 November, 1963, where had summoned the first eight Doctors to set off a conceptual bomb inside the mind of Bob Dovie, so that a thought that he would think would become reality. When Bob Dovie entered the Fifth Doctor's TARDIS, his refusal to accept it's existence caused the TARDIS to exploded in its own timeline until it never existed. Encountering the Seventh Doctor and Ace, and after being contacted by CIA agent Straxus, the Sixth Doctor discovered that the Master had blackmailed the CIA into giving him the weapon. The Sixth Doctor then expanded the dimensional stabiliser on Straxus' TARDIS and was able to summon his other seven incarnations to help stop the Master. The Fifth Doctor went further back in time to 1962, and showed Bob Dovie the TARDIS then, so that he would not be dumbfounded by the TARDIS's interior and therefore preventing the bomb's detonation. The First Doctor completed the restoration by turning off the automatic distress actions, which were what brought all the Doctors together in the first place, so that none of the events had ever happened. (AUDIO: The Light at the End)

When his eighth incarnation arrived at his trial, the Valeyard was able to force an alternate timeline where a guilty verdict was delivered against the Sixth Doctor. Rescued from execution by his future self, the alternate Sixth Doctor created by the Valeyard's actions accompanied the Eighth Doctor to Gallifrey. The two set up a Presidential Inquiry into their current trial. Te Sixth Doctor managing to deliver his own testimony before the timeline that created him ceased, leaving his future self to continue the investigation into the trial, to the point of bringing in Borusa to stabilise the situation. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)

In another alternative timeline, the Doctor became President of the Time Lords, and in his sixth incarnation, led a battle in the war with the Daleks. With the assistance of the Master, the enemy began winning the war. Rather than letting them take control of the universe, the Doctor activated the Armageddon Sapphire, destroying the entire universe. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel)

In a timeline where Rome never fell, the Sixth Doctor wore a dark coat and lost his left eye in the events that led to the death of his companion Perpugilliam of the Brown, keeping the injury as a reminder of his shame. In another timeline, one where humans and Silurians were at peace, the Doctor travelled with human/Silurian hybrid Melanie Baal. (PROSE: Spiral Scratch)

In a timeline where a Dalek invasion of Earth in 1903 was thwarted by the Doctor and Evelyn, the British Government trapped the Doctor in the Tower of London along with the two surviving Daleks to keep him as a symbol of their victory, cutting off his legs in order to keep him trapped. Driven insane over the years, the Doctor sometimes spoke to hallucinations of Evelyn after she died of old age, not even fully aware when a younger Evelyn came to see him in the Tower. He was eventually exterminated by the last surviving Dalek when it came to ask him for orders as it didn't know what else to do with itself. (AUDIO: Jubilee)

In another alternative timeline in which Gallifrey encouraged interference in time, the Doctor had to leave Gallifrey after challenging the Time Lords' temporal intervention policy. He fled Gallifrey, but was captured by the Time Lords and put on trial. The outcome resulted in his reintegration into Time Lord society by becoming the President's personal temporal assassin who "burned" people from history. (AUDIO: Disassembled)

In another alternative timeline in which Rassilon failed to finish the Eye of Harmony before his death, a version of the Doctor, calling himself "Theta Sigma", existed. Theta Sigma never left Gallifrey. He became a commentator and appeared to be in his sixth incarnation. (AUDIO: Forever)

During the time when the prime Doctor was travelling with Mel Bush, several alternate Doctors were travelling with different companions. One wore a blue coat and travelled with Evelyn Smythe. Another travelled with a half cyber-converted Evelyn Smythe. Another travelled with Frobisher. One Doctor was still travelling with Peri Brown. (PROSE: Spiral Scratch)

When the Cybermen allied with Rassilon to take over history, the Doctor found that the Cybermen had taken over the Matrix during his battle with the Valeyard. (COMIC: Prologue: the Sixth Doctor)

Adventures that were wiped from history
Before meeting Frobisher, the Doctor travelled with William. (PROSE: Gone Fishing, Walkin' City Blues, Certificate of Destruction, The Earwig Archipelago) These events were undone by the Eighth Doctor in order to stop Flora Millrace embarking on her murder spree. (PROSE: DS Al Fine)

Facing the final curtain
The Doctor tried to travel to the Lakertyan System, but discovered there was deadly radiation nearby and quickly fled, attempting to take Mel to Zastros 8, but instead ending up on Zastros 9, a totalitarian state, and becoming caught up in another awkward situation they only narrowly escaped from when the planet's denizens, flying lizards, set chase after them. Back onboard his TARDIS, the Doctor found the underside of his TARDIS console smoking. As he went to examine the problem, his consciousness was suddenly transported to the Matrix, and the Valeyard at last took over his body. Inside the Matrix, the Doctor met a Gallifreyan technician named Genesta, who warned him he was dying. He eventually discovered her to be the Valeyard in disguise.

Throughout their climactic encounter, the Valeyard gloated and taunted the Doctor, informing him that he had effectively used creatures called Nathemus to replace the entire Time Lord civilisation with his consciousness and implanted them inside the symbiotic nuclei of the TARDIS. Since the Nathemus fed off telepathic energy, they gained access to its telepathic link, and by extension, the Doctor's mind when he interacted with his ship symbiotically, which let them feed until they were able to gain access to the Matrix, giving the Valeyard a means to take it over and alter history. Because of this, both the Doctor and his TARDIS were now empowering the Nathemus and subject to their influence.

Having been completely defeated in the present, the Doctor realised the only way to break the parasitic hold the Nathemus had on him would be to put a halt to the Valeyard's master scheme in the past. He sent himself a psychic signal via a telepathic impulse from his own TARDIS to go to Lakertya regardless of the danger and experience the deadly radiation, believing he would die if he did so. Suddenly put in a threatened position, the Valeyard tried to convince the Doctor not to go with his plan, but the Doctor carried on, readying himself for the end by reminiscing of all the companions he had during this lifetime. The Valeyard challenged him with the fact that if he didn't die, but regenerated, the Nathemus would survive. However, the Doctor knew through the process of regeneration, all the cells in his body would be replaced anew, including those of his mind. The Nathemus were linked to the unique mind he had in his present state, but with his mind reshaped, the Nathemus would no longer have any connection with him to feed on it or subsequently manipulate the TARDIS, starving them to death.

After sending his past self the message, therefore undoing all the damage the Valeyard managed to inflict on history, the Valeyard found himself reduced to a powerless form in the Matrix, cut off from the universe and left to shrivel up and die, though it also meant the end for the Doctor's current self as well. His consciousness began to wane in the wake of time being rewritten, and he sensed the change occurring. (AUDIO: The Brink of Death)

Personality
The Sixth Doctor could be unpredictable, consistently self-absorbed, stubborn, argumentative, moody, melodramatic and arrogant, believing himself greatly superior to anyone he encountered. (TV: The Twin Dilemma, Attack of the Cybermen, Vengeance on Varos, The Two Doctors, Timelash, The Mysterious Planet) However, he was critical of himself in some situations, (TV: The Twin Dilemma, Attack of the Cybermen, Revelation of the Daleks) and, beneath his thunderous exterior, he was a passionate and emphatic individual. (AUDIO: Arrangements for War)

The Doctor described himself as "pragmatic", and considered compassion and a "capacity for self-sacrifice" as "some of [his] defining traits". (AUDIO: The Sirens of Time) He also believed himself to be blessed with both "tact and finesse", (TV: Terror of the Vervoids) and believed he could subdue opponents with his charm. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen) He would often browbeat others into submission with his grammarian use of language, with Banto Zame complaining that "talking [to him was] like arguing with a thesaurus". (AUDIO: The One Doctor)

While he believed that the "purpose of life [was] too big to be knowable", the Doctor felt that "everything in life [had a] purpose" and that "every creature [played] its part". (TV: The Mysterious Planet) While he was willing to leave Hugo Lang for dead after Lang made an attempt to kill him, (TV: The Twin Dilemma) the Doctor was, for the most part, always willing to lend a helping hand wherever he could, (TV: Attack of the Cybermen, The Mark of the Rani, Revelation of the Daleks, The Mysterious Planet) and see that justice triumphed over the guilty. (TV: Mindwarp)

The Doctor's adventurous side still remained, but the sixth incarnation was more selfish about it, especially when it came to decision making. He would often decide he knew what Peri wanted out of her travels and often told her where she wanted to go instead of asking her. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen, The Two Doctors, Timelash, The Mysterious Planet)

The Sixth Doctor did not suffer fools gladly, and sometimes seemed to endure the presence of others more than he enjoyed it. (TV: The Twin Dilemma, The Two Doctors, Timelash) However, he enjoyed his companions company, saying that Peri was important to him, and assuring her he wouldn't abandon her, (TV: The Mark of the Rani) had no problem saying that he loved Evelyn Smythe as a friend, (WC: Real Time) and refused to leave Constance Clarke in harm's way when she begged him too. (AUDIO: The End of the Line)

Despite his often unstable demeanour, the Doctor was quick to act when the situation called for it, and very little, even his companions, could hope to get in his way. (TV: The Twin Dilemma, The Mysterious Planet, The Ultimate Foe) More than his other incarnations, the Sixth Doctor was a fatalist, more than once deciding he was doomed and resolving to accept his fate. (TV: Timelash, The Mysterious Planet, The Ultimate Foe)

A man of little fear, the Doctor would remain unfazed when in the line of fire, (TV: Attack of the Cybermen, The Mysterious Planet) or in the face of the unknown. (TV: Vengeance on Varos, The Ultimate Foe) Even when helpless or under threat, the Doctor would be unafraid to speak his mind. (TV: The Twin Dilemma, The Mark of the Rani, The Two Doctors, Revelation of the Daleks)

The Doctor could be literal minded, checking Peri's back after she complained about "her heart being where her liver should be", and taking Lytton's "look around you" statement seriously. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen) When Lord Ravensworth asked the Doctor what he and Peri did in the TARDIS, the Doctor answered with, "argue, mainly". (TV: The Mark of the Rani) On Ravolox, the Doctor misunderstood Peri's reluctance to enter an abandoned building as her stating their inability to find an entrance. (TV: The Mysterious Planet)

He also seemed unable to see his own faults, but would hypocritically criticise those that showed them, particularly the Valeyard. (TV: The Ultimate Foe) He accused Peri of being an "egotistical young lady", (TV: The Caves of Androzani) and of being overweight. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks) He also rebuked Balazar for boasting about his knowledge. (TV: The Mysterious Planet) He did, however, admit he had misjudged Lytton following his death and their defeat of the Cybermen, feeling bad even after they had kept Earth safe and the timeline intact. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen)

During his sixth incarnation, the Doctor began to see the logic in murder, (PROSE: Alien Bodies) and was more willing to resort to a "modicum of force". (TV: The Mysterious Planet) While his physical attack on Peri could be attributed to post-regenerative trauma, (TV: The Twin Dilemma) he stabbed a Cyberman scout to death with a Sonic lance, killed the Cyber-Controller at close range with a Cyber-gun, (TV: Attack of the Cybermen) seemed unperturbed after witnessing two men fall to their death in an acid bath, (TV: Vengeance on Varos) smothered Shockeye to death with a cyanide rag in self-defence, (TV: The Two Doctors) shot out a Renegade Dalek's eyestalk, (TV: Revelation of the Daleks) and Chintor with a double-barreled shotgun at close range. (PROSE: Retribution) He was also willing to allow a few deaths if it would protect the majority from harm, (WC: Real Time) such as destroying the Vervoids to stop them from dooming the human race, although he felt regretful with his actions. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids)

However, the Sixth Doctor also had a more emotional and caring side, determined to not to let people die "if [there was] a chance of saving them". (TV: The Mysterious Planet) He was ashamed with himself when he learned he had attacked Peri in his post-regenerative trauma, (TV: The Twin Dilemma) worried what would become of Flast after he exposed her to warmer conditions, (TV: Attack of the Cybermen) commanded Peri to save herself instead of him when being carted away by the Rani's miners, (TV: The Mark of the Rani) comforted a mutanted man as he died, was outraged by Davros's disregard for life, offered to find a way to avoid Orcini needing to sacrifice his life, and then agreed to honour his last request. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks) He claimed he would begin a "vegetarian diet" after almost transforming into an Androgum. (TV: The Two Doctors)

He also mourned for Azmael, (TV: The Twin Dilemma) Gustave Lytton, (TV: Attack of the Cybermen) Luke Ward, (TV: The Mark of the Rani) Oscar Botcherby, (TV: The Two Doctors) Arthur Stengos, the DJ, (TV: Revelation of the Daleks) Dorf, (TV: Mindwarp) and Hallett. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids) He became grief-stricken when presented with evidence of Peri's untimely death, (TV: Mindwarp) describing his pain as "like dying [him]self," (AUDIO: Her Final Flight) and was most pleased when he discovered the evidence had been tampered with, and that Peri was alive. (TV: The Ultimate Foe)

When Peri was distressed over the idea that Ravalox was a devastated Earth, the Doctor tried to comfort her, even showing empathy for her plight, despite initially telling her not to get emotional. (TV: The Mysterious Planet) He was devastated when presented with the news of Peri's demise on Thoros Beta, and was enraged that the Time Lords had engineered her execution, threatening he had every intention of discovering what they were up to. (TV: Mindwarp) When he discovered the Time Lords had relocated Earth and renamed it Ravalox to keep the secrets of the Matrix from being exposed, the Doctor announced his purpose was to stop evil and power mad conspirators. (TV: The Ultimate Foe)

After the events of his trial, the Doctor became more aggressive and irascible. (PROSE: Time of Your Life) However, this was used to cover up a deep feeling of depression which resided within. This depression was so deep and consuming, that he even got to the stage where he contemplated suicide. (PROSE: Killing Ground) Furthermore, the Doctor showed a lack of faith and even a dislike for his companion, Grant Markham, as a means of changing his future, demonstrating his lack of consideration for his companion, and even self-absorption for his own problems. (PROSE: Time of Your Life) However, his opinion of Grant changed after Grant proved that he wasn't as dislikeable as he initially believed. (PROSE: Killing Ground) After Grant left, the Doctor became a sombre individual, rather than being genuinely depressed. (AUDIO: The Wormery, Excelis Rising)

After being, in Melanie Bush's words, "tamed" by Evelyn Smythe, the Doctor mellowed out of his faults, keeping his egotistical outbursts to himself, and noting how annoying his previous habits were. (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors) While travelling with Frobisher again, the Doctor became friendlier and more playful, sharing jokes with Frobisher even during serious situations. (AUDIO: The Holy Terror) By the time he travelled with Mel, the Doctor acted disciplined, aware that his actions had consequences, and was careful about what he did and where he went. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids)

While his predecessor had a disdain for cats, (AUDIO: No Place Like Home) Charley Pollard noted that the Sixth Doctor "had a way with cats", which he countered by stating that "cats had a way with [him]". (AUDIO: The Condemned) He wore several cat brooches on his left lapel, (TV: The Twin Dilemma) as well as cat cufflinks, (AUDIO: Trouble in Paradise) and even carried a cat themed face mask on his person. (TV: The Mysterious Planet)

Although he would dismiss his third incarnation as "more interested in axle grease and looking in the mirror" than in reading great literature, (AUDIO: Year of the Pig) and as having had a "strange taste in clothes", he was willing to acknowledge his superior skill in swordplay when the situation called for it. (PROSE: State of Change)

Immediately after his regeneration, the Doctor saw his new body as an improvement and felt that the Fifth Doctor had "a feckless charm that was never really [him]", (TV: The Twin Dilemma) but later admitted to Evelyn Smythe that "Being him was like a holiday. A very wonderful holiday." (AUDIO: The 100 Days of the Doctor) He also noted that he and the Eighth Doctor made a good team when dealing with the crisis caused by the Valeyard's machinations on Gallifrey. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)

While suffering from post-regeneration trauma, Peri Brown called the Doctor a "manic depressive paranoid personality", while Mestor described him as "egocentric, wilful and quite mad". (TV: The Twin Dilemma) On Thoros Beta, King Yrcanos noted that the Doctor thought like a warrior but did not act like one. (TV: Mindwarp) River Song described the Sixth Doctor as like "a clown put through a woodchipper." (GAME: The Eternity Clock) The Doctor's first TARDIS described the Sixth Doctor as "the retroaction". (AUDIO: Prisoners of Fate) When reflecting on his blue coat, Mel used "understated", "sombre", and "boring" as words not often associated with the Sixth Doctor. (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors) once described the Sixth Doctor as "the carnival clown". (AUDIO: The Two Masters)

When the Doctor learned his mind had been infested with the Nathemus, allowing the Valeyard to overwrite every Time Lord and reduce them to formless inhabitants of the Matrix, the Doctor had no qualms about giving up his life in the past to kill the Nathemus if it meant wiping out both them and the Valeyard. Although the Doctor did not have the highest opinion of the Time Lords, and admitted they were imperfect, he gladly saved them in favour of not suffering the Valeyard's stunted and immoral ways. He toasted all the companions he had in his sixth incarnation. Though the Valeyard tried to tempt him not to die because he would be throwing away his "precious moral scruples," the Doctor humbled himself and decided these would die with him, in sharp contrast to how he had originally behaved.

His past self, having been influenced by his future self, showed a similar complacency with dying when he learned he was exposed to fatal radiation, simply remarking that this was it and wasn't sure if he'd regenerate, but he had a "good innings" and hoped the footstep he left behind would be "light, but apposite". However, when his seventh incarnation began manifesting, he looked on with confusion, believing it to be a stranger.

Upon discovering that he would truly regenerate in the future as timelines began to change, the last echo of the Sixth Doctor felt himself surviving and died in blissful peace, allowing himself to become reborn as the Seventh Doctor. (AUDIO: The Brink of Death)

In another account, after sacrificing much of his chronal energy to trap the Lamprey inside the Spiral Chamber, the Doctor decided to spend his last moments taking one last look at the universe before resigning himself to his fate. While Mel protested that it was unfair for the Doctor to die the way he did, he testified that his sacrifice was his time to donate and his chance to give to the universe. Satisfied with the life he led as his sixth incarnation, the Doctor couldn't complain about his death this time and told Mel not to feel cheated by his untimely demise. (PROSE: Spiral Scratch)

Regardless of what had weakened him, the Sixth Doctor of the Eighth Doctor's subconscious viewed the final cause of his regeneration, which he described as "a bang on the head", as being unfitting. (AUDIO: Zagreus)

Habits and quirks
Commonly, the Sixth Doctor would overreact with rage when questioned about his methods, repeating a single word from the criticism, often getting louder as each repeat went on. (TV: The Twin Dilemma, Attack of the Cybermen, The Mark of the Rani, Timelash) He also had a taste for poetry and literature, often reciting bits of them. (TV: The Twin Dilemma, The Mark of the Rani, Terror of the Vervoids, The Ultimate Foe)

The Doctor was prone to saying, "Mmm, I wonder...", when thinking aloud, and then exclaiming, "aha!", when his suspicions were proved correct. He was also known to let out an annoyed, "doh", when dismissing someone. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen, Timelash) As well as this, he had a tendency to exclaim, "Great Gallifrey!" (COMIC: The Gift)

For good luck, (PROSE: Time Wake) the Doctor would stroke his cat brooches before attempting something risky. (TV: The Twin Dilemma, Attack of the Cybermen, Vengeance on Varos)

Much like his previous incarnation, he would also stand with his hands in his pockets, also while flicking the long tails on his frock coat back. (TV: The Twin Dilemma, Attack of the Cybermen, Vengeance on Varos, The Mark of the Rani, The Two Doctors, Timelash, Revelation of the Daleks, Terror of the Vervoids) When not in his pockets, he would keep his hands hovering above his waist, wringing his fingers together. (TV: The Twin Dilemma, Attack of the Cybermen, The Mark of the Rani, The Two Doctors, Timelash, Revelation of the Daleks, The Mysterious Planet, Mindwarp, Terror of the Vervoids)

On occasion, the Doctor would carry a multi-coloured umbrella that matched the clashing colours of his clothing. (TV: The Two Doctors, The Mysterious Planet, Time and the Rani)

Something of a foodie, the Sixth Doctor was known to fill himself up on food, such as eating two biscuits meant for him and the Brigadier, and then "coyly eyeing [a] half-eaten custard cream". (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) He took four sugars in his tea. (AUDIO: Project: Lazarus)

Skills
The Sixth Doctor was highly deductive, able to understand a situation based on small details that others overlooked, (TV: The Twin Dilemma, Vengeance on Varos, The Two Doctors, Terror of the Vervoids, The Ultimate Foe) and identify his location by studying his surroundings. (TV: The Two Doctors; AUDIO: Trial of the Valeyard) He was also able to see through attempts at deceptions. (WC: Real Time)

The Doctor had great mechanical skills, being able to briefly repair the TARDIS's damaged chameleon circuit. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen) He was also shown to have great acting skills, (TV: Attack of the Cybermen, Mindwarp, The Ultimate Foe) as well as being a decent singer, (AUDIO: Doctor Who and the Pirates) and organ player. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen)

The Doctor was also a skilled hypnotist, able to put an erratic Jamie McCrimmon into a trance in order to extract information from him. (TV: The Two Doctors) He was later able to use hypnotism to calm a violent mutant human, but the mutation rendered the man unable to remain calm for long. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks)

Despite his larger build, the Doctor still possessed the fighting skills of his predecessors, being able to overpower Azmael, (TV: The Twin Dilemma) one of Gustave Lytton's fake policeman, Russell, (TV: Attack of the Cybermen) Maldak, (TV: Vengeance on Varos) a wounded Stike, (TV: The Two Doctors) one of the Borad's androids, (TV: Timelash) and Davros's guards. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks) He was also able to disarm and defeat an attacker who was trying to claim the bounty on his head in an alleyway. (COMIC: The Shape Shifter) However, he recognised that combat was not a strength when faced with experienced and prepared opponents, once going to great lengths to allow his third persona to essentially take control when he was forced to act as a gladiator in an alternate version of Rome. (PROSE: State of Change)

Constance Clarke was of the opinion that his handwriting was terrible. (AUDIO: Absolute Power)

Appearance
Physically, the Sixth Doctor was identical in appearance to the Time Lord Maxil, (TV: Arc of Infinity) being a tall man, with long, curly, blond hair (TV: The Caves of Androzani) Upon first seeing his reflection, the newly regenerated Doctor was pleased with his new face, describing himself as having "a noble brow," as well as "a firm mouth, [and] a face beaming with a vast intelligence". (TV: The Twin Dilemma)

Over time, the Doctor gained weight and his hair significantly grew out. (TV: The Mysterious Planet) Consequentially, Melanie Bush thought him overweight and forced him to undergo a vigorous fitness program, which he felt he didn't need or enjoyed, taking every available opportunity to deviate from Mel's program behind her back. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids)

Dibber described the Doctor as "a dilly in a long coat", (TV: The Mysterious Planet) and Sabalom Glitz described him as a "flashy, fair-haired person". (TV: The Ultimate Foe) Madame Razetskia described the Sixth Doctor as a "great handsome bull of a man", (PROSE: Endgame) while the Fifth Doctor described him as a "jester", (PROSE: Five Card Draw) and Death called him "the colourful jester". (PROSE: Love and War)

When Legion took on the appearance of the Sixth Doctor, William Blake saw him as "a fat, jolly fellow wearing a multicoloured coat". (PROSE: The Pit)

When Affinity took on the Sixth Doctor's appearance to approach the Twelfth Doctor, he noted that the sixth incarnation was a "large man in [a] garish coat". (PROSE: Silhouette)

Main attire
Much like his fourth and fifth incarnations, the Sixth Doctor wore a plain white shirt with question marks embroidered on the collar, (TV: The Twin Dilemma) and braces adorned with question mark symbols. (TV: Vengeance on Varos) He took to wearing a set of striped, yellow trousers, and his generally preferred footwear was a pair of orange spats over green ankle boots. (TV: The Twin Dilemma) Sabalom Glitz confused his spats with "ankle armour". (TV: The Ultimate Foe)

Most distinctive of his new attire was his patchwork frock coat, which featured a patches of red tartan, red, green, pink and maroon felt, peach wool, a woven back piece, checked collar and yellow and pink lapels. (TV: The Twin Dilemma) The Tenth Doctor told Gabby Gonzalez that the coat was "at the height of sartorial elegance". (COMIC: Laundro-Room of Doom) The Eleventh Doctor told Clara Oswald that his patchwork coat was "made for a spectrum invisible to the human eye", and that he had won an award for it. (COMIC: Dead Man's Hand) The coat was the subject of much ridicule, with Mel Bush and Peri Brown each thinking it as resembling "an explosion in a paint factory", (PROSE: Instruments of Darkness; AUDIO: An Eye For Murder) though the Doctor insisted that there were places where his coat was considered the "height of fashion". (PROSE: Palace of the Red Sun) The Doctor would often be nicknamed "Joseph" because of his coat, in reference to the biblical Joseph.

The Doctor also included a range of waistcoats, oversized bow-tied cravats, and fob watches with coloured chains to accompany his patchwork coat, each possessing a different colour scheme and design. (TV: The Twin Dilemma, The Mysterious Planet, Terror of the Vervoids) He first wore a knitted waistcoat that was dark brown, orange and purple in colour and featured dark green buttons, along with a dark green metal watch chain and both a turquoise (TV: The Twin Dilemma) and a dark blue coloured polka-dot cravat. (AUDIO: Prime Winner)

After briefly wearing a shirt with blue question marks on the collar and dark purple squared waistcoat with an orange cravat decorated with yellow polka-dots and pink hearts, (PROSE: Burning Heart) a waistcoat with tweed pattern on the right side and a zig-zag pattern on the left, (PROSE: Time Wake) and another with a blue striped theme, (AUDIO: Year of the Pig) the Doctor's prominent waistcoat became a red and white gingham waistcoat with bear face buttons, with which he wore both his original cravat and a new neon green plastic watch chain, before replacing his turquoise cravat with a plain red polka-dot one and his green watch chain with a bright pink plastic one. (TV: The Mysterious Planet) After this waistcoat was ruined at the Network, he switched it for one striped with diagonal greens and oranges, (PROSE: Time of Your Life) and also donned a periwinkle purple cravat. (PROSE: Killing Ground)

During his travels with Mel, the Doctor wore both a pink, purple and green waistcoat with red ladybug buttons, a yellow cravat decorated with a starfield pattern and plastic watch chain that was a half neon green and half bright pink, (TV: Terror of the Vervoids) and an iridescent black and white waistcoat with a purple polka-dot cravat. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel)

Attending a funeral with Evelyn Smythe, (AUDIO: Real Time) the Doctor abandoned his multi-coloured coat for a more subdued blue one, alongside a plain white shirt, a dark blue waistcoat, gold metal watch chains, blue trousers and boots, and a plain turquoise cravat. (WC: Real Time) Adopting this as his regular attire, he took to also wearing this coat with both his original shirt, (AUDIO: The Doomwood Curse) and his blue shirt, (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors) as well as with his purple, (AUDIO: The Condemned) dark blue (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors) and turquoise polka-dot cravats, (AUDIO: The Crimes of Thomas Brewster) and a blue cravat decorated with starfield patterns. (AUDIO: Project: Lazarus) He would later resume wearing his original garb (TV: Time and the Rani) for the benefit of an amnesiac version of Mel, who liked his original outfit. (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors)

Due to his fondness of cats, the Doctor always wore one of a number of cat-shaped pins or brooches on his left lapel. (TV: The Twin Dilemma, The Mark of the Rani, The Two Doctors, Revelation of the Daleks, The Mysterious Planet, Time and the Rani) He also wore cat cufflinks. (AUDIO: Trouble in Paradise) On occasion, the Doctor would carry a multi-coloured umbrella that matched the clashing colours of his clothing. (TV: The Mysterious Planet, Time and the Rani)

Peri once described the Doctor as "the worst dressed man in all of time and space", (AUDIO: Of Chaos Time The) with the Twelfth Doctor also showing a disgust for the Sixth Doctor's clothing, (PROSE: Silhouette) and the Fourth Doctor wondering how he could ever end up with "such a terrible sense of fashion" after seeing the Sixth Doctor's coat. (AUDIO: The Light at the End)

When he appeared in the black and white film Swamp of Horrors, the Doctor commented that his "clothes were made for Technicolor". (PROSE: Swamp of Horrors (1957) - Viewing Notes)

Minor clothes
While confronting the Sontarans in Seville, Spain in 1985, the Doctor removed his coat, left his cravat-less shirt unbuttoned, and replaced his usual waistcoat with an Hawaiian-styled one. (TV: The Two Doctors) He wore them again whilst on Galápagos Islands with Evelyn Smythe. (AUDIO: Bloodtide)

On Necros, the Doctor briefly wore a large and eloquent royal blue cloak with gold trim over his usual attire as a sign of mourning for the death of Professor Arthur Stengos. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks) When two different versions of the Sixth Doctor met in a pocket of cauterised time, the younger Doctor noted that his future incarnation's blue suit reflected the Necros mourning colours. (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors)

While relaxing on the beaches of the planet Halcyon, the Doctor wore a pair of striped yellow trunks, along with a white shirt he kept unbuttoned. (COMIC: The Gift)

In place of his frock coats, the Doctor also owned a blue long-tailed jacket, with matching blue striped trousers. (AUDIO: Paper Cuts)

Trying to take Jamie to the Queen Elizabeth II, the Doctor donned a white tuzedo with a black bow tie (AUDIO: The Wreck of the Titan).

While stranded in Victorian London, the Doctor wore a blue variation of the typical clothing of the time period while posing as Professor Claudius Dark. (AUDIO: The Hourglass Killers)

Circumstances
Colin Baker declined an invitation to film the regeneration sequence at the start of Time and the Rani due to the circumstances of his dismissal from the role. Wishing to play the Doctor for the whole of Season 24, he was instead offered one last full story to reappear and regenerate. Baker declined, reasoning that he did not want to make the audience think he was still the de facto Doctor for a sliver of 1987 when he had been removed from the series. His successor, Sylvester McCoy, donned a blonde wig and briefly appeared on screen as the unconscious sixth Doctor. McCoy's face was obscured from camera view, first by the TARDIS console and then by the regeneration FX, before the final reveal of the Seventh Doctor. McCoy thus became the first actor to play more than one incarnation of the Doctor. Paul McGann would later play both the Eighth Doctor and the War Doctor in the final moments of The Night of the Doctor (again with his face obscured by the camera placement). Also, Tom Baker has played both the Fourth Doctor and The Curator, though it is not completely confirmed that the Curator is, in fact, a future regeneration of the Doctor.

Following this, Colin Baker did not personally enjoy an official regeneration story until 2015, when he was approached to perform one in audio format, The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure. It provides an anthology of four stories spread out across various points in his Doctor's lifetime that are far distanced from each other in the grand scheme of the Sixth Doctor's life, but all play a part in ultimately setting the stage for his Doctor's sendoff, as a complex scheme by The Valeyard to take the Doctor's place via resources acquired across the universe forces the Sixth Doctor to trigger his own regeneration to prevent the Valeyard subverting his timeline. It also made Colin Baker, along with Paul McGann, one of two actors who played the Doctor to receive belated regeneration stories, and including John Hurt in that lineup as the War Doctor, whose introduction and regeneration were both deliberately done in a retroactive manner, one of three actors which portrayed the Doctor whose regeneration took place anachronistically.

The "bang on the head" myth
Due to lack of any information as to what caused the Sixth Doctor to regenerate, viewers were left to draw their own conclusions. At some point, it became the subject of ridicule that the Doctor had regenerated because he hit his head in some manner, an idea which some writers ran with, while others teased it. Some fans even joked it was because he fell off the exercise bike Mel had been forcing him to use since Terror of the Vervoids- the very subject was brought before Colin Baker himself, as evidenced by a YouTube video entitled "Colin Baker Reacts to his Regeneration (50th Anniversary Convention)" by MrTARDISreviews, which shows Baker found it disappointing.

Spiral Scratch by Gary Russell gives a "revisionist" account of the circumstances behind the Doctor's regeneration, explaining that it had not happened simply because he had hit his head, but was drained of the time-based life force that sustained him. Love and War by Paul Cornell offered a different explanation, indicating the Seventh Doctor had willed himself into existence by influencing the Sixth Doctor's demise.

The Brink of Death by Nicholas Briggs, a radiation lethal to Time Lords is the reason behind the Sixth Doctor's end. However, it did not appear to factor in the infamous "bang on the head" as an event coinciding with the Doctor's regeneration in any explicit way due to the fact it is not mentioned through dialogue nor possible to tell if the Doctor hit his head because there is no visual indicator of such a thing happening in the story. However, the Doctor is heard screaming in agony after being buffeted from a strong burst of radiation while a violent crashing sound is audible, proving he suffered some kind of physical trauma. Furthermore, though the Doctor soon afterwards collapses to the floor, there is no evidence of him hitting his head on the way down. It also seems to pull elements from Spiral Scratch and Love and War in terms of spoken dialogue and plot, as well as a charity publication by the late Craig Hinton and associates, Time's Champion.

If anything, the Doctor is either recalling his regeneration inaccurately or generalising it. The former is possible because not only does the stressful process of regeneration often hamper the Doctor's mind and ability to remember things correctly, the Seventh Doctor was subjected to a heavy dose of an amnesia-inducing drug by the Rani not long after regenerating that may have jumbled some of his memories in a lasting manner even after it was out of his system. Moreover, Mel did not witness him regenerate or learn why exactly he did so, robbing both of them of credible accounts of the regeneration. In addition, the latter becomes a possibility as the Doctor is known to lie, make light of events in a dismissive and/or joking manner and even make up things as he goes along as the Tenth Doctor later admitted in The Age of Steel, which further blurs the lines regarding the alleged and contested hit to his head.

Other matters

 * According to an interview with Colin Baker in DWM 118, the Doctor's coat was created because John Nathan-Turner had the idea that it should be in "very bad taste" to show the Doctor's alien nature. Baker himself had wanted to wear black to display the Doctor's darker side.
 * More recently, Colin Baker has expanded upon this, stating that what he wanted to wear was pretty much what would become the costume for Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor. (DOC: Doctor Who: The Ultimate Guide)
 * In AUDIO: The Curse of Davros, the Sixth Doctor was played by Terry Molloy as the Doctor switched bodies with Davros in an attempt to reform the Daleks.
 * Colin Baker related the character of the Doctor to a quote from Rudyard Kipling "I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me". This made him decide to wear a different cat badge on his costume in each story arc. He subsequently received a lot more cat badges from fans in the mail. When he played the Doctor on stage in 1989 these gifts gave him the opportunity to wear a different badge in every single performance.