| Fred | Talk |
"Fred" was the name eventually chosen by a time traveller (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt [+]Callum Phillpott, Novelisations in Time & Space (BBV Productions, 2021).) who was a potential future of the Seventh Doctor. When he met the Seventh Doctor at Bonjaxx's birthday party on Maruthea while travelling with Ria, he openly called himself the Doctor. (COMIC: Party Animals [+]Gary Russell, DWM Comics (Marvel Comics, 1991).)
However, the same man ultimately made a deal with a mysterious man in black to restore his homeworld after it was destroyed. The price he paid was to be separated from his past completely, with his former name taken from him and a different individual being brought into existence to fill the void he had left. He continued travelling in time and space, now exclusively under the name of "Fred", though as a side-effect of the process he was prone to amnesia about his former life. (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt [+]Callum Phillpott, Novelisations in Time & Space (BBV Productions, 2021).)
Biography[]
As the Doctor[]
Accompanied by his companion Ria, the Doctor bumped into his seventh incarnation and Ace at Maruthea during Bonjaxx's birthday celebration. The two Doctors reminisced over their graduation party, specifically the part involving the First Rani and her giant mouse. The Seventh Doctor also asked his future self "if [the Time Lords] ever repealed the First Law of Time", with him answering that they hadn't done so in his time. The Doctor and Ria then departed as Beep the Meep started a riot. (COMIC: Party Animals [+]Gary Russell, DWM Comics (Marvel Comics, 1991).)
He travelled with Truman Crouch for a time, and saw his homeworld destroyed in traumatic circumstances. (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt [+]Callum Phillpott, Novelisations in Time & Space (BBV Productions, 2021).)
As Fred[]
The time-traveller made his way to Carson's Planet, where he met with the man in black. The two brokered an agreement, with the man in black pledging to restore the time-traveller's homeworld if he successfully held back the Cyberons' technological development. After the man in black left him to his own devices, the time-traveller met a damaged Cyberon unit and made the mistake of repairing him. He managed to evade the creature by hiding in a bomb creature, but did get shot, whereupon the man in black reappeared to put him into a hypnotic sleep to help him recover.
The time-traveller was found in a half-delirious state by Olivia, whom he briefly confused for Ria, having gained a temporary amnesia from the trauma of the wound and hypnosis. When the time-traveller told her that he did not even remember her name, Olivia decided to dub him "Fred", after her old goldfish who also kept forgetting who he was. Now well enough to walk, Fred joined Olivia and Captain Halloran's military group, who she was following around as an "embedded journalist", in their further explorations of the planet. They found an abandoned Cyberon laboratory where the Cyberons were developing nanites that could convert any humanoids by entering any wound in their body, however small, with no need for the cumbersome surgical process on which the Cyberons had previously relied to expand their numbers.
After the group managed to reprogram the nanite cloud to destroy cybernetics instead of converting flesh, thus turning it into a powerful weapon against the Cyberons themselves, (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt [+]Callum Phillpott, Novelisations in Time & Space (BBV Productions, 2021).) which put an effective end to the Cyberon War, (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death [+]Tyche McPhee Letts, Cyberon (Arcbeatle Press, 2020).) they escaped the planet in a Cyberon escape pod. Olivia put in a good word for him with Galactic Net News to give him the opportunity to get a new job as a reporter himself, although he was hesitant to take the offer.
After they returned to Carson's Planet to give the original wounded Cyberon, whose human name had been Lewis, a decent burial, Fred met with the man in black one last time. Acknowledging that Fred had held up his end of the bargain, the man in black used a knife to sever Fred from his past identity, erasing his timeline in the process and therefore restoring his homeworld as promised, while a different individual filled the void of his former identity. As a side-effect, Fred's amnesia became permanent, with him only remembering the broadest of details about his former life. Choosing to take this as a chance for a fresh start, he invited Olivia to travel with him in his ship. (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt [+]Callum Phillpott, Novelisations in Time & Space (BBV Productions, 2021).)
Legacy[]
Shayde poses as the balding Doctor. (COMIC: Wormwood [+]Scott Gray, DWM Comics (Marvel Comics UK, 1998).)
When the Eighth Doctor decided to sacrifice himself to save Gallifrey by throwing himself into the heart of Luther's Watchtower, (COMIC: The Final Chapter [+]Alan Barnes, DWM Comics (Marvel Comics UK, 1998).) he asked the shapeshifting construct Shayde to switch places with him and fake a regeneration as part of a plot to defeat the Threshold. (COMIC: Wormwood [+]Scott Gray, DWM Comics (Marvel Comics UK, 1998).) Fey Truscott-Sade and Izzy Sinclair witnessed "the Doctor" seemingly regenerate into his ninth Doctor, (COMIC: The Final Chapter [+]Alan Barnes, DWM Comics (Marvel Comics UK, 1998).) and Shayde kept up the pretence until the Eighth Doctor was ready to reveal his survival. The Pariah speculated that Shayde pulled a persona imprint from the Matrix in order to impersonate the Doctor so well. (COMIC: Wormwood [+]Scott Gray, DWM Comics (Marvel Comics UK, 1998).)
Appearance[]
The Doctor greets his seventh incarnation. (COMIC: Party Animals [+]Gary Russell, DWM Comics (Marvel Comics, 1991).)
The Doctor had a receding hairline of short, dark hair. His outerwear consisted of a dark suit jacket with light-coloured piping along the lapels, and he carried a toothbrush in his outer breast pocket. He also wore a badge shaped like a teapot. (COMIC: Party Animals [+]Gary Russell, DWM Comics (Marvel Comics, 1991).) As "Fred", he wore a business suit with a floral pattern, with a black shirt underneath. (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt [+]Callum Phillpott, Novelisations in Time & Space (BBV Productions, 2021).)
Behind the scenes[]
Origins[]
Nicholas Briggs and Patricia Merrick dressed as the Nth Doctor and Ria.
"Fred" started out as the so-called "Nth Doctor", an unofficial incarnation of the Doctor portrayed, and modeled after, Nicholas Briggs in the fan Audio Visuals productions that were more-or-less contemporaneous with Party Animals.[1][2]
Briggs would later portray other unique incarnations of the Doctor in licenced Doctor Who audios, including in Exile [+]Nicholas Briggs, Doctor Who Unbound (Big Finish Productions, 2003). and Seven Keys to Doomsday [+]Terrance Dicks, adapted from Doctor Who and the Daleks in Seven Keys to Doomsday (Terrance Dicks), The Stageplays (Big Finish Productions, 2008)., with no clear links with this previous character.
After the Audio Visuals[]
After the Audio Visuals ceased production, Nicholas Briggs resurrected the character in two commercial audio plays that were part of BBV Productions' Audio Adventures in Time & Space, Cyber-Hunt and Vita Signs (the former also notable as the introduction of the Cyberons). Although Briggs freely discussed in interviews the fact that this was a continuation of the Nth Doctor's adventures, the stories used only the aspects of the character created and owned by Briggs, using an amnesia plot point to have him go by a different name, "Fred", and unable to recall much of his past history.[3][4] The two Fred audios were also sold under the series title of The Wanderer, although he never actually used this as a title within the narratives.[5] However, though not fanfiction, these stories did not use the licenses to any concepts which had debuted in licensed DWU sources, and thus still fall outside the scope of this Wiki.
Into the licensed DWU[]
On the other hand, the character also appeared in the Doctor Who Magazine comic story Party Animals [+]Gary Russell, DWM Comics (Marvel Comics, 1991)., which confirmed him as an "official" future incarnation of the Doctor, postdating the seventh incarnation. He made a cameo in The Incomplete Death's Head [+]Dan Abnett, Marvel Comics UK (1993). (which showed the events of Party Animals from the perspective of Hob) and was then impersonated by Shayde in Wormwood [+]Scott Gray, DWM Comics (Marvel Comics UK, 1998).. While Wormwood was being serialised, and prior to the reveal that the Eighth Doctor who had regenerated into the Nth Doctor was not the real one, Doctor Who Magazine briefly acted as though they had indeed perennially regenerated the Eighth Doctor into an official ninth incarnation as a type of hoax. Briggs recalled that it had been Gary Gillatt's idea.[6]
The Audio Visuals' Doctor as seen in Doctor Woah! [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW. from DWM 376.
The Nth Doctor made a final licensed appearance in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine in 2006, in the Doctor Whoah! strip printed in DWM 376. He appeared as part of a congregation of "not-really-the-Doctor Doctors", alongside the Valeyard, Peter Cushing's Doctor, Rowan Atkinson's Ninth Doctor, Richard Hurndall's First Doctor, and the Shalka Doctor. Standing next to Atkinson's Doctor, the Nth Doctor complained of the smell as Atkinson's Doctor spoke Tersuran.
In 2021, BBV released a novelisation of Cyber-Hunt, which, unlike the audio version, is covered by this Wiki, as it also made use of the license to the planet Aurichall, which had debuted in a DWU story, The Blue Scream of Death [+]Tyche McPhee Letts, Cyberon (Arcbeatle Press, 2020).. Like the original version, the book took pains to avoid using any BBC-copyrighted elements of the character, going so far as to further distinguish them in-universe: the book reveals that Fred becomes "untethered" from his past identity as part of his deal with a mysterious man in black to undo the destruction of "his homeworld" (Gallifrey, which, in the Audio Visuals continuity, was destroyed by the Daleks in Planet of Lies). This simultaneously explained how the Audio Visuals could coexist with mainstream Doctor Who continuity, and gave an in-universe meaning to the fact that Fred as used in BBV products was "no longer" the same person as the Doctor, but had used to be.
Information from invalid sources[]
After his previous incarnation was forced to regenerate when he was aged to death by waves from Dalek experiments with the Temperon, the Doctor went to the planet Temperos with his companions, Greg Holmes and Nadia, to free the Temperon from the Daleks. (NOTCOVERED: The Time Ravagers [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.) They then travelled to 1990 Earth and helped UNIT stop the Rigellons from taking over Earth with a network of satellites, though Nadia sacrificed her life in order to destroy the Rigellons after being taken hostage. (NOTCOVERED: Connection Thirteen [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.)
The TARDIS brought the Doctor and Greg to a deserted Conglomerate city, where they managed to escape after several confusing and dangerous encounters with Conglomerate technology. (NOTCOVERED: Conglomerate [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.) The Doctor and Greg next encountered the Psionovores and were subjected to various nightmares born from their minds. (NOTCOVERED: Cloud of Fear [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.)
Arriving on the planet Kelfer, the Doctor and Greg met the stranded Time Lord Askran and his assistant Miranda, who were distributing the Sargol drug among Kelferans in order to access the "Shadow World". The Doctor and Greg stopped their scheme, but they were both exposed to the Sargol, gaining a physical dependence on the drug. (NOTCOVERED: Shadow World [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.) To save Greg from withdrawal, the Doctor left him at Cal-Med 1 above Calfadoria, where he also stopped a scheme to abuse the prisoners of Cal-Med 2 while he himself struggled with withdrawal from Sargol. The Doctor befriended the artificial being Ria and asked her to join him in his travels. (NOTCOVERED: Maenad [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.)
External links[]
Footnotes[]
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
