John Smith (Tenth Doctor)


 * This article is specifically about the human incarnation of the Doctor created by the Chameleon Arch. For information on the name as an alias, see Aliases of the Doctor.

John Smith, born circa 1880, was the son of Sydney Smith, a watchmaker from Nottingham, and Verity Smith, a nurse. He was raised in Nottingham. The family retained a maid, Martha Jones, who continued to serve John after the deaths of his parents. John, a talented artist, studied art in "Gallifrey", presumably in Ireland.

A schoolteacher, John took a new job in the fall of 1913: history teacher at a boys' school. Not long after arriving, he began having strange and vivid dreams: that his maid Martha was in fact a medical student from 2007, and that he himself was an adventurer in time and space known only as "the Doctor".

John kept a notebook of his dreams; a journal of them, insofar as he could remember them, illustrated with rough sketches.

By November of 1913, John was fairly well settled, and was surprised to find himself falling for the school's nurse, Matron Joan Redfern. Though in his mid-30s, John had never before been romantically involved.

His courtship of her, however, was interrupted by an increasingly bizarre series of events centered around himself, and it became increasingly evident to John that, deny it though he would, he was not entirely human. His dreaming-self, the Doctor, was the true self; he was, as he put it, "just a story".

"Just a Story"
He was, in fact, formed from the Doctor when he used a Chameleon Arch to turn himself into a Human to escape the Family of Blood. The name "John Smith" was actually one of the Doctor's many aliases.

His cover story was that he was a teacher and Martha Jones was his family's maid, although since his parents, Sydney (a watchmaker from Nottingham) and Verity (a nurse), had died, she only had him to serve.

Despite his humanity, he showed some incredible skills, most likely from the Doctor, such as the ability to throw a cricket ball to an exact point, starting a chain reaction and saving someone and her baby from being crushed by a falling piano by causing a barrel to roll in the way of the pram, halting it. (DW: Human Nature)

On the other hand, he was also far more emotional than the Doctor, who could often appear heartless, and burst into tears when he learnt that he had to sacrifice himself and become the Doctor again, and so would have to leave his love, Joan Redfern, and "die". However, he had to save her and the rest of Humanity, so he did finally sacrifice himself and become the Doctor again, although the Doctor assured Joan that John Smith was still somewhere in his mind.

At one point Smith/Doctor envisions a possible future in which he and Joan marry, have children, grow elderly, and Smith ultimately passes away from old age.

Behind the Scenes

 * His parents Sydney and Verity were references to Sydney Newman and Verity Lambert, the creators of the early Doctor Who.
 * In his video diary (released with the Series 3 DVD set), David Tennant remarks that the makeup used to make him look elderly (in the "alternate future" sequence) made him look uncannily like his real-life father.