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The Valeyard was an alias used by a Renegade Time Lord who was an emanation of the Doctor, although his exact nature was shrouded in mystery, with even the Valeyard himself creating multiple fanciful accounts of his own origins, with the one constant in all the tales being that he served as prosecutor for the Sixth Doctor's sham trial on Space Station Zenobia on behalf of a corrupt sect of Time Lords in return for gaining the Doctor's remaining regenerations in a bid to gain his own independent existence.
The Tremas Master famously claimed that the Valeyard's origins lay "somewhere between [the Doctor's] twelfth and final incarnation", with the Valeyard himself affirming to Bernice Summerfield that "[he could] not be averted, only postponed".
Biography[]
A day to come[]
All Gallifreyans possessed a dark side of the mind, (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors [+]Lance Parkin, BBC Books (1998).) called the Dark Design, (PROSE: Falls the Shadow [+]Daniel O'Mahony, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1994).) which was a true form of evil that was locked inside the DNA of every Time Lord. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors [+]Lance Parkin, BBC Books (1998).) The Seventh Doctor knew there were possible "cold futures" in which his own way of thinking and feeling would become alien to his present self due to the Dark Design, (PROSE: Falls the Shadow [+]Daniel O'Mahony, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1994).) with the Valeyard having begun as a voice inside the Doctor's head "waiting to bubble to the surface", encouraging him to indulge in his darker instincts, such as when the Second Doctor was converted into an Androgum and when the Sixth Doctor gunned down the CyberTelosian Controller. (PROSE: The Dark Scrolls of the Valeyard [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.)
After meeting the Valeyard at his trial, (TV: The Mysterious Planet [+]Robert Holmes, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).) the Sixth Doctor tried avoiding Melanie Bush, terrified that he would eventually become the Valeyard if he took her on as his companion. (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Gary Russell, BBC Past Doctor Adventures (BBC Books, 1997).)
When the Seventh Doctor slept, he dreamed of his other selves in his mind, and heard the Valeyard threaten that "when the [Doctor's] strength was at its lowest, he would reach out from the recesses of [the Doctor's] subconscious and seize [his body]." (PROSE: Head Games [+]Steve Lyons, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1995).) He once saw the Valeyard's "burning eyes raking at him from beneath a black skull cap" in his thoughts. (PROSE: Original Sin [+]Andy Lane, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1995).)
When the Eighth Doctor looked into a Tomorrow Window, he saw the Valeyard standing "alone on a sand dune, [his] hair in a ponytail, [and] cloak flapping in the wind". (PROSE: The Tomorrow Windows [+]Jonathan Morris, BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures (BBC Books, 2004).)
Origins[]
Creation of the High Council[]
The Tremas Master explained that the Valeyard was an "amalgamation of the darker sides of [the Doctor's] nature, [taken] somewhere between [his] twelfth and final incarnation", (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Robert Holmes and Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).) though another account had him instead say the Valeyard came "somewhere between [the Doctor's] twelfth and thirteenth regenerations". (PROSE: The Ultimate Foe [+]Pip and Jane Baker, adapted from The Ultimate Foe (Robert Holmes and Pip & Jane Baker), Target novelisations (Target Books, 1988).)
An account embracing the notion that the Valeyard was an artificial projection of the Doctor's darkness, rather than an incarnation of the Doctor, stated that he had reportedly been brought into being by the High Council, (PROSE: The Eight Doctors [+]Terrance Dicks, BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures (BBC Books, 1997).) though another account suggested that they played no part in his creation, but were still aware of his identity. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords [+]Steve Tribe, BBC Books (2017).) As written in the Dark Scrolls of the Valeyard, the High Council of the Time Lords "plucked" the Valeyard from the Doctor's time stream as "a great, daring impossibility from before the end". They offered to give the Valeyard his existence if he prosecuted the trial of the Sixth Doctor, with his reward being the Doctor's remaining regenerations. (PROSE: The Dark Scrolls of the Valeyard [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.)
According to Genesta, the Valeyard was created by the Time Lords using black ops technology, possibly as a weapon. However, Genesta was seemingly replaced by the disguised Valeyard himself at some point and he refused to reveal whether the claims were made by the real Genesta or him. (AUDIO: The Brink of Death [+]Nicholas Briggs, The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure (Big Finish Productions, 2015).)
A rogue Watcher[]
The Sixth Doctor suggested at the Valeyard's trial that he might have been a "rogue Watcher" — an emanation of the Doctor's essence who was naturally created as a product of the Doctor's regeneration from their penultimate into their final incarnation, but refused to rejoin with the "real" Doctor and escaped into the wider universe, trying to attain his reality. (AUDIO: Trial of the Valeyard [+]Alan Barnes and Mike Maddox, The Sixth Doctor Adventures (Big Finish Productions, 2013).) In another universe, Vansell and a Time Lord President were certain that the Valeyard was the first known Watcher to be thinking, self-aware and independent, and wanted to study him while simultaneously using him as an agent. (AUDIO: He Jests at Scars... [+]Gary Russell, Doctor Who Unbound (Big Finish Productions, 2003).)
The Shadow House story[]
According to a tale told by the Valeyard himself, which the Doctor noted could have "a grain of truth [to] it", the Valeyard was created as a Time Tot on a mud planet orbiting Etarho during a period when the final incarnation of the Doctor was experimenting with ways to break the twelve-regeneration limit imposed on Time Lords by Rassilon. At the young age of twenty, the Valeyard was found wandering the mud swamps of the planet by a group of scavengers, who kindly gave him food to eat and, when they learned what race he belonged to, sent him to Gallifrey. The Time Lords examined the Valeyard's biodata and found that it was an exact match with the Doctor's sample. Knowing that this meant that the Valeyard was a temporal anomaly, they sent him to a Shadow House. In the Shadow House, the Valeyard met a Time Lord who had been damaged due to temporal interventions by his future self and therefore had his regeneration permanently stuck in a paradox. The man told the Valeyard to study the science of regeneration, in order to gain revenge on the Time Lords for what they had done to every member of the Shadow House. (AUDIO: Trial of the Valeyard [+]Alan Barnes and Mike Maddox, The Sixth Doctor Adventures (Big Finish Productions, 2013).)
Temporal anomaly[]
According to yet another account, the Valeyard had "splintered" from the Doctor before his final incarnation as a causal imbalance, meaning he only had one life and could not regenerate. As such, Bernice Summerfield did not consider him to be a true incarnation of the Doctor, saying that he was a twisted little fragment that "just fell off the back of a lorry". (AUDIO: Every Dark Thought [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.)
Prosecuting the Doctor[]
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The Valeyard faces the Sixth Doctor in court. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).)
On behalf of the corrupt High Council, seeking to cover up the Ravolox affair that the Sixth Doctor had accidentally uncovered, the Valeyard acted as the prosecutor in the Doctor's trial in exchange for his seven remaining regenerations. (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Robert Holmes and Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).) Keeping his end of the bargain, the Valeyard presented extracts from the Matrix depicting recent events in the Doctor's life as evidence of the Doctor violating the Time Lords' non-interference policy on Ravolox (TV: The Mysterious Planet [+]Robert Holmes, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).) and Thoros-Beta, tampering with the Matrix extracts to show the Doctor in the worst possible light and steer the trial to a guilty verdict. He created the impression of the Doctor abandoning his companion, Peri Brown, to save himself, (TV: Mindwarp [+]Philip Martin, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).) and also added the charge of the genocide of the Vervoids, despite their artificial nature and the act being from the Doctor's future. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).)
Attempting to secure a guilty verdict, the Valeyard was somehow able to force an alternate timeline where the Doctor would be judged guilty and arranged to oversee his execution, intending for this timeline to become real once the Doctor had been shot. However, the Doctor was saved from execution when the Eighth Doctor arrived to save him, the temporal stasis created when two incarnations met allowing the Sixth Doctor to retreat into the Eighth Doctor's TARDIS. Although the timeline that created him was erased after his departure, and the Sixth Doctor travelling with the Eighth Doctor vanished a short while later, he existed long enough to assist the Eighth Doctor in setting up an inquiry into the trial using their previous role as President. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors [+]Terrance Dicks, BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures (BBC Books, 1997).)
The Valeyard faces the Doctor in the Matrix. (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Robert Holmes and Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).)
Back on the station, the Tremas Master eventually stepped in after taking delight in seeing the Doctor's plight, sending Sabalom Glitz and Melanie Bush to act as witnesses for the Doctor's version of events, and revealed the Valeyard's origin and motives. The Valeyard escaped into the Matrix via the Seventh Door, which he opened with a copy of the Key of Rassilon. He was pursued the Doctor and Glitz, and finally defeated when he tried to use a particle disseminator to destroy the court at the Doctor's trial. The Doctor programmed the disseminator to feed back into the Matrix and escaped before the resulting blast apparently destroyed the Valeyard. However, he managed to escape and replace Zon as the Keeper of the Matrix, and watched from a distance as Inquisitor Darkel dismissed the trial and the Doctor departed with Mel. (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Robert Holmes and Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).) Back on Gallifrey, the Eighth Doctor's Commission of Inquiry into his sixth incarnation's trial resulted in the dismissal of the renegade High Council responsible, as well as the temporary restoration of Borusa to guide Gallifrey through the immediate turmoil caused by the exposure of their crimes. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors [+]Terrance Dicks, BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures (BBC Books, 1997).)
After the trial[]
Info from The Dark Scrolls of the Valeyard [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW. needs to be added
The Valeyard was captured by the Time Lords on the moon of Etarho and was ordered to reveal the secret research into regeneration the thirteenth incarnation of the Doctor had allegedly performed to create the Valeyard. He refused and was placed on trial with a faked charge of having hacked into the Matrix. He asked for the Doctor to be his defence. The Valeyard told the Doctor and Inquisitor Darkel of his supposed origins, during which he voiced heresy against the limit Rassilon had imposed on regeneration, suggesting it was only a measure of control from Rassilon's side and possible to break. As a result, he was judged to immediate termination, but he managed to fake his execution by using a hidden Matrix door placed under the dock, and escaped through it onto the surface of Etarho's moon, where the Valeyard impersonated the Eleventh Doctor and tricked the Sixth Doctor into taking a bomb from him. The Doctor discovered his ruse, and the Valeyard escaped again by entering another Matrix door. The Doctor assumed that the Valeyard would likely try again at some point to exact revenge on both himself and Darkel, and warned Darkel that it was very likely the Valeyard had received help from someone powerful on the Time Lord council, pointing out that it would have been very difficult for him to sneak a Matrix door into the courtroom all by himself. (AUDIO: Trial of the Valeyard [+]Alan Barnes and Mike Maddox, The Sixth Doctor Adventures (Big Finish Productions, 2013).)
The Valeyard subsequently devised the identity of a man called "Zimmerman" to send assassins after the Doctor and sell various Time Lord secrets. However, both plans failed when the Doctor's investigation into the assassins' activities revealed "Zimmerman's" actions, though not his identity, with his link to the Matrix ensuring that the Time Lords learned about them as well. The Doctor later managed to get the assassins off his trail by using a stolen temporal circuit to put himself in temporal stasis, frozen between heartbeats and thus legally dead, resulting in the assassins being forced to accept that they had technically killed him even if he was still alive. (PROSE: Mission: Impractical [+]David A. McIntee, BBC Past Doctor Adventures (BBC Books, 1998).)
Master plan[]
The Valeyard uses an an avatar in the reality nexus. (AUDIO: The End of the Line [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.)
Another encounter with the Doctor left the Valeyard in such a weakened state that he was not even able to maintain his normal appearance. He travelled to the Parallel Sect's Dimensional Nexus to use its properties to restore himself, but his plan was brought to a halt when the Tremas Master arrived, possessing an ordinary human because of the dangers the dimensional nexus posed to his person, desiring to use the Nexus to be able to take over any dimension he wished. His interference accidentally began to cause different universes to intersect at the Nexus, which would eventually cause an infinite number of dimensions to appear there. Fortunately for the Valeyard, the Doctor and Constance Clarke arrived. Masquerading as a man named Tim Hope, the Valeyard waited until the Doctor figured out what the Master was up to, and planted the dimensional stabiliser, the item that the Doctor needed to fix things, on Constance. Once the Doctor was victorious, the Valeyard confronted the Master and threatened him, forcing him to leave and never return, and to also leave the Doctor alone, as the Valeyard had a plan to deal with him. The Master refused at first, but the Valeyard reached out to the Master in his TARDIS to ensure the Master heeded his threat. With the Dimensional Nexus restored to normal, the Valeyard was mostly restored, having retaken his normal appearance. (AUDIO: The End of the Line [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.)
Once fully restored, the Valeyard journeyed to the moon of Plestinious, having learned of the existence of a native species called the Nathemus, a cluster of intelligent microscopic creatures with strong psychic abilities that fed on thoughts. Knowing that the Nathemus' native habitat would be destroyed by the authorities of Plestinious, the Valeyard saved them from their fate by extracting them into a container filled with volcanic gas from Plestinious, the only environment they could survive in. Thankful for being saved from extinction, the Nathemus pledged their loyalty to the Valeyard. He then revealed his plan to use their psychic abilities to take control of the Matrix, allowing himself to overwrite every Time Lord whoever had existed and retroactively replace them with copies of himself, to a point where he would eventually be able to replace even Rassilon, and thereby have free reign to shape Time Lord society in any way he pleased. In exchange for the Nathemus' help, he would give them the unique and colourful mind of the Doctor to feed on. (AUDIO: The Brink of Death [+]Nicholas Briggs, The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure (Big Finish Productions, 2015).)
The Valeyard then travelled to a planet in the 31st century, where he set himself up as a porter, assisting Dr. Paignton as she used her Psychic Extractor to remove the feral urges of the werewolves of said planet. Once the Doctor and Charlotte Pollard arrived and interfered, the Valeyard was able to steal the Extractor, using his knowledge of Charley's past with the Eighth Doctor to trick her into helping him distract the Doctor. He then went to the Doctor's TARDIS and implanted the Nathemus into the symbiotic nuclei of the TARDIS, where they would stay and feed on the Doctor's mind until they were able to access the Matrix. (AUDIO: The Red House [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.) In the process of doing so, the Valeyard was confronted by a future Doctor, who demanded to know what he was trying to accomplish. The Valeyard believed that the Doctor's visit was a sign that his plan would succeed in the future, and, pleased by this, he allowed the Doctor to have an audience with the Nathemus to have them explain the plan to him until he was dragged back into the Matrix which he had previously escaped from. (AUDIO: The Brink of Death [+]Nicholas Briggs, The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure (Big Finish Productions, 2015).)
The Valeyard at the New Regency Theatre. (AUDIO: Stage Fright [+]Matt Fitton, The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure (Big Finish Productions, 2015).)
The Valeyard travelled to Victorian London and posed as a man named Timothy Yardvale, convincing Henry Gordon Jago to rent him the New Regency Theatre by claiming he wanted to stage a play. He then lured actors to the theatre and had them help him act out the regenerations of the first five Doctors, with him playing the role of the past Doctors. He would then use the Psychic Extractor on the actors, absorbing their negative emotions and killing them. He would then place the bodies in easy-to-find locations as a message to the Doctor, who eventually arrived with Flip Jackson. Having abducted Flip to act as Zoe Heriot in a twisted version of the Second Doctor's regeneration, he used the Extractor on the Doctor, goading him into feeling more negative emotions, which continued the Valeyard's restoration. Flip managed to distract the Doctor, bringing an end to the Valeyard's plan, though what he managed to get from the actors and the Doctor was enough to complete his restoration. (AUDIO: Stage Fright [+]Matt Fitton, The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure (Big Finish Productions, 2015).)
The Valeyard enacts his masterplan. (AUDIO: The Brink of Death [+]Nicholas Briggs, The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure (Big Finish Productions, 2015).)
Once the Nathemus finally got access to the Matrix, the Valeyard was able to take over the Doctor's life, and he made arrangements for the Nathemus to continue to influence the Matrix and managed to replace at least two other Time Lords with himself. However, an echo of the Doctor remained in the Matrix and managed to foil the Valeyard's plan by telling his past self through the telepathic circuits to fly into beams of radiation from Lakertya, thus forcing him to regenerate into the Seventh Doctor, and killing the Nathemus before they could completely link with him, laving the Valeyard trapped in the Matrix with the echo of the Doctor. The Valeyard angrily protested that the Doctor had killed them both and robbed himself of a future, but the echo of the Doctor declared he would rather die than have a future as the Valeyard and added he would do so happily, knowing the last words the Valeyard would ever hear would be his. With his regeneration into the Seventh Doctor, however, the timelines shifted, leading the echo of the Doctor to quietly fade away as he was from a timeline that now no longer existed. The Valeyard, meanwhile, remained stuck in the Matrix, having once again been reduced to a weakened form. (AUDIO: The Brink of Death [+]Nicholas Briggs, The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure (Big Finish Productions, 2015).)
Scheme on Ogoychao[]
Having survived the Doctor's attempt to "deny [him his] right to exist", the Valeyard was pursued by the Caragot, who wanted to capture and integrate him in order to gain his knowledge and intelligence. In a TARDIS that would not work properly for him due to him not being a regular Time Lord, he travelled to Ogoychao in search of an elixir that would grant him the ability to regenerate, and ensure that the Doctor's feelings of responsibility for the universe would not resurface in any future incarnation. Posing as "the Doctor", the Valeyard manipulated Bernice Summerfield into helping him by claiming that the Caragots were conquerors and that they were looking for a way to defeat them, only for the ruse to fail when she saw him kill Chorus. As Bernice made her escape, the Valeyard remained in the caves with his spilt elixir whilst the Caragot exploded. (AUDIO: Every Dark Thought [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.)
Mastering the Dark Matrix[]
In another plot to give himself a true body, the Valeyard managed to gain mastery of the Dark Matrix, and took on the identity of Jack the Ripper in 1888 to "feed" the Dark Matrix as he used it to reach into his past to corrupt the Doctor, such as driving the First Doctor to kill other Time Lords as he fled Gallifrey, moving the Fourth Doctor into destroying the Daleks at their beginning and making the Fifth Doctor drink the bat's milk so that Peri died in his place on Androzani Minor. These corrupted incarnations became wraiths in the Valeyard's TARDIS, resembling cloaked, twisted versions of themselves, which he could subsequently use to animate golems to act as his agents.
After the Seventh Doctor was attacked by one of the Valeyard's golems, he attempted to leave Ace with the First Doctor for safety, only to arrive in the alternate 1963 that would result from the Valeyard's presence in London. He learned the full details of the new timeline from that world's versions of Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. He travelled back to 1888 to investigate the Ripper murders after identifying them as the divergent point with Barbara's help, but nearly fell under the Valeyard's influence before he sealed his conscious mind in the TARDIS' telepathic circuits. After wandering London as an amnesic cardsharp by the name "Johnny", the Doctor was reunited with the circuits in time to save Ace from being the Ripper's sixth victim.
Tracking the Valeyard to the church where he had established his base, the Doctor confronted the Valeyard, who stated that he now called himself "the Ripper" as he found the name more evocative, while he summoned the wraiths of the other twelve Doctors to confront the Seventh Doctor. Fleeing deeper into the tomb that was the Valeyard's TARDIS, the Doctor provoked the Matrix into rebellion against the Valeyard's control, informing it that it was still as trapped now as it had been on Gallifrey, resulting in it lashing out from its prison in the Valeyard's TARDIS. The Doctor fought the Valeyard on the top the church, but the destruction of the Valeyard's TARDIS and the subsequent release of energy caused by the rebellion of the Dark Matrix killed the Valeyard and restored history to normal. (PROSE: Matrix [+]Robert Perry and Mike Tucker, BBC Past Doctor Adventures (BBC Books, 1998).)
Reborn in the Time War[]
The Valeyard works with the Eighth Doctor. (AUDIO: The War Valeyard [+]John Dorney, The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume Three (The Eighth Doctor: Time War, Big Finish Productions, 2019).)
The Valeyard was reconstituted from the Eighth Doctor (AUDIO: The War Valeyard [+]John Dorney, The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume Three (The Eighth Doctor: Time War, Big Finish Productions, 2019).) when he used a transmat to leave Thellian. (AUDIO: Fugitive in Time [+]Roland Moore, The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume Three (The Eighth Doctor: Time War, Big Finish Productions, 2019).) He was set to work by the Sixth Tamasan to fight in the Last Great Time War. He won many battles for the Time Lords by not hesitating to sacrifice planets when necessary.
Eventually, the Time Lords learned of a weapon on the planet Grahv that would allow the Daleks to erase the Time Lords from existence so completely that the Daleks would be the only ones to remember the Time Lords ever existed. The Valeyard was sent to Grahv to use the weapon on the Daleks. He was able to successfully use it, but with the cost of damaging his own memory, along with the deaths of the native Grahvians. The Time Lords placed the planet in a time lock, trapping the Valeyard as the the Dalek Time Strategist escaped through a rift. With his memory damaged, and the weapon's true nature of being a memory weapon providing illusions of the Grahvians and the Daleks still being alive, the Valeyard repeated his mission over and over again, with the continuous mental resets causing damage the Valeyard's memory of his own identity, leading to him eventually coming to define himself as the Doctor.
After two centuries, the Valeyard was confronted by the Doctor and Bliss after they stole Tamasan's TARDIS to break through the time lock to rescue him. However, the Valeyard refused to leave, as he knew his memories would reassert themselves if he left Grahv, and he preferred to continue being the Doctor, with the addition reason of the continous resets allowing him to keep the Grahvians alive in some form. With the Doctor's departure, the Valeyard remained trapped on Grahv, fighting against the Daleks as the Doctor. (AUDIO: The War Valeyard [+]John Dorney, The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume Three (The Eighth Doctor: Time War, Big Finish Productions, 2019).)
References[]
The Carrionites knew "Valeyard" as a name for the Doctor and used it to taunt the Sixth Doctor. Reverend Douglas Bell would advise the Doctor to take heed of their prediction that hatred would consume him, though the Doctor insisted that becoming the Valeyard was still only a possibility and not set in stone. (AUDIO: The Carrionite Curse [+]Simon Guerrier, Classic Doctors and New Monsters: Volume Two (Classic Doctors, New Monsters, Big Finish Productions, 2017).)
For a time, it was believed that the corrupted memory of the Sixth Doctor would be used as the template for the Valeyard's final manifestation as the Seventh Doctor began to associate him with the Valeyard, prompting the memories of the first five Doctors to seal their sixth incarnation away in their mind. (PROSE: The Room With No Doors [+]Kate Orman, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1997).) The Seventh Doctor would often have nightmares about the Valeyard and would avoid regeneration when he could, lest a regeneration crisis serve to free the Valeyard from his mind. (PROSE: Head Games [+]Steve Lyons, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1995).) However, when the Seventh Doctor nearly died and woke up in his own grave, he accepted that he was the Doctor in all his bodies and nobody deserved to be locked away forever, allowing him to forgive his sixth incarnation and remove the guilt that would have led to the Sixth Doctor's memory becoming the Valeyard. (PROSE: The Room With No Doors [+]Kate Orman, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1997).)
The Tenth Doctor still considered the Valeyard to be one of his future incarnations and wondered if the Twelfth Doctor was secretly him upon meeting him as he had scanned the Eleventh Doctor and confirmed him as his final incarnation. The Twelfth Doctor rebuked by asking if he "look[ed] like [he was] out of panto". (COMIC: Four Doctors [+]Paul Cornell, Titan summer events (Titan Comics, 2015).)
On Trenzalore, the Great Intelligence claimed that "Valeyard" would be one of the names the Doctor was known as before his death in the Siege of Trenzalore. (TV: The Name of the Doctor [+]Steven Moffat, Doctor Who series 7 (BBC One, 2013).)
One of the names the Testimony Foundation had recorded on the Doctor was the "Shadow of the Valeyard". (TV: Twice Upon a Time [+]Steven Moffat, Doctor Who Christmas Special 2017 (BBC One, 2017).)
False Valeyards[]
When the Sixth Doctor found himself in an alternate version of London created by Ashley Chapel's use of the Millennium Codex, Chapel used the magical powers manifested from the unstable universe's laws of physics to transform him into a variant of the Valeyard. The Doctor's fears of becoming the Valeyard allowed his potential in the Doctor to combine with the Great Kingdom's unique physical properties and the Doctor's ability to regenerate, which temporarily made him the Valeyard. The Doctor's true self was able to re-manifest with the aid of the TARDIS as he forced down the aspect of the Valeyard within himself, the Doctor acknowledging the Valeyard's argument that the ruthless course of action was sometimes necessary but rejecting the idea that he had to enjoy such actions to do it. (PROSE: Millennial Rites [+]Craig Hinton, Virgin Missing Adventures (Virgin Books, 1995).)
The two Valeyards. (AUDIO: The War Valeyard [+]John Dorney, The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume Three (The Eighth Doctor: Time War, Big Finish Productions, 2019).)
When the Eighth Doctor and Bliss initially arrived on Grahv, they were confronted by a replication of the Valeyard, based on the Doctor's memories of the Valeyard he had confronted in his sixth incarnation, due to a side-effect of the memory weapon used to destroy the Daleks. The replication Valeyard was swiftly killed by the real Valeyard before he could do more than issue threats of killing the Doctor and Bliss. (AUDIO: The War Valeyard [+]John Dorney, The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume Three (The Eighth Doctor: Time War, Big Finish Productions, 2019).)
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The Tenth Doctor faces "the Valeyard". (COMIC: The Forgotten [+]Tony Lee, IDW mini-series and one-shots (IDW Publishing, 2008-2009).)
Es'Cartrss of the Tactire, while assuming the form of the Meta-Crisis Doctor to steal the Tenth Doctor's memories from within the Matrix of the Doctor's TARDIS, suggested to the Doctor that he was, in fact, the Valeyard, but the Doctor dismissed the suggestion, leading to the revelation of Es'Cartrss's identity. The Tenth Doctor eventually used Es'Cartrss's decision to impersonate the Valeyard against him by reminded the Matrix that Es'Cartrss had assumed a Time Lord body which no longer existed beyond the Doctor himself and purged the system of the erroneous data creating an additional Time Lord. (COMIC: The Forgotten [+]Tony Lee, IDW mini-series and one-shots (IDW Publishing, 2008-2009).)
Psychological profile[]
The Valeyard charges the Sixth Doctor with genocide. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).)
The Valeyard was cunning and verbal, with a knack for manipulation. He had a bit of a temper, and was prone to outbursts, (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Robert Holmes and Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).) but was generally calm and collected. (TV: The Mysterious Planet [+]Robert Holmes, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).) However, his actions were constantly defined by his egotism. The Valeyard would risk or sacrifice anything to ensure his own existence, even break the Laws of Time and kill his own past self (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Robert Holmes and Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).) and try to control the Dark Matrix despite the dangers its presence would pose to established history. (PROSE: Matrix [+]Robert Perry and Mike Tucker, BBC Past Doctor Adventures (BBC Books, 1998).)
The Valeyard indulges in a maniacal laugh. (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Robert Holmes and Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).
He described himself as "the summation of the Doctor's daring without his hesitation", and as "ambition without regret", overall thinking he could "do it all so much better than [the Doctor]". (PROSE: The Dark Scrolls of the Valeyard [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.)
He looked down on the Seventh Doctor for being filled with "plots and schemes" to "win a game that was never his to win", but seemed to pity the Eighth Doctor for his inability to "shake the shadow of death". (AUDIO: Trial of the Valeyard [+]Alan Barnes and Mike Maddox, The Sixth Doctor Adventures (Big Finish Productions, 2013).)
When he was initially recruited to fight in the Last Great Time War, the Valeyard was described by the Sixth Tamasan as the "ideal soldier" for the Time Lords, possessing all of the Doctor's skill and experience without his morality, being willing to do whatever it took to stop the Daleks. After he lost his memory due to his actions on Grahv, the Valeyard assumed a more Doctor-esque attitude, attempting to protect the innocents caught up in the conflict. However, he was still willing to resort to more extreme measures than the Doctor might contemplate, such as planting land mines specifically configured to go off if a Dalek passed over them. (AUDIO: The War Valeyard [+]John Dorney, The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume Three (The Eighth Doctor: Time War, Big Finish Productions, 2019).)
Appearance[]
The Valeyard on Space Station Zenobia. (TV: The Mysterious Planet [+]Robert Holmes, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).)
The Valeyard appeared as a middle-aged man, with light grey eyes and short black hair. In full courtly dress, the Valeyard wore long black robes with a stiff black collar edged in white and a black skullcap, (TV: The Mysterious Planet [+]Robert Holmes, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).) which he abandoned after he fled into the Matrix. (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Robert Holmes and Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).)
The Valeyard in the Matrix. (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Robert Holmes and Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).)
Inside the Matrix, the Valeyard disguised himself as Mr Popplewick, a slightly overweight man with curly blond hair. In this capacity, he wore human clothes typical of the 19th century, which included a white shirt and a vest under a large blue jacket. He also wore a bow tie and a pair of glasses. (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Robert Holmes and Pip & Jane Baker, Doctor Who season 23 (BBC1, 1986).) While acting as Jack the Ripper in 1888 London, the Valeyard was typically shown wearing a long dark robe that concealed most of his features. (PROSE: Matrix [+]Robert Perry and Mike Tucker, BBC Past Doctor Adventures (BBC Books, 1998).)
The Valeyard during the Last Great Time War. (AUDIO: The War Valeyard [+]John Dorney, The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume Three (The Eighth Doctor: Time War, Big Finish Productions, 2019).)
After he was "reconstructed" by a genetic resequencing device, the Valeyard appeared as a physically older version of himself, which was explained away by the Sixth Tamasan as being because of the difficult circumstances of his recreation, noting that it had taken some work for the Time Lords to stabilise him after they found him. He alas wore the Eighth Doctor's ragged clothing, as clothing was "simple". (AUDIO: The War Valeyard [+]John Dorney, The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume Three (The Eighth Doctor: Time War, Big Finish Productions, 2019).)
Behind the scenes[]
Possible origins[]
- Some of the background for the Valeyard was lost due to creative differences between John Nathan-Turner, Doctor Who's producer, and script editor Eric Saward. An earlier draft of The Ultimate Foe made it clear that the Doctor would definitely, at some stage, turn into the Valeyard, desperate to extend his life after his remaining regenerations had run out — a situation not dissimilar to the one earlier faced by the Decayed Master. Nathan-Turner did not favour the dark nature of these and other developments in the script and felt this plot point would allow cancellation of the series for bookending the Doctor's future destiny. This fear was justified by the then-recent hiatus placed on the show by BBC One controller Michael Grade. Pip and Jane Baker ended up patching up the continuity — without reference to the scripts, for legal reasons.
- In the novelisation of The Ultimate Foe, the Master states, "The Valeyard, Doctor, is your penultimate reincarnation... Somewhere between your twelfth and thirteenth regeneration."
- The Time Traveller's Companion, a supplement for the Doctor Who – Adventures in Time and Space: The Roleplaying Game, implied that the Valeyard was a rogue Watcher, similar to the one produced in Logopolis [+]Christopher H. Bidmead, Doctor Who season 18 (BBC1, 1981)., generated during the regeneration of the twelfth into the thirteenth incarnation. This Watcher, presumed to possess all the most negative traits of the Doctor's darker nature, refused to re-join with the Time Lord and escaped into the wider universe to eventually put the Doctor on trial. When this theory was put forth in AUDIO: Trial of the Valeyard [+]Alan Barnes and Mike Maddox, The Sixth Doctor Adventures (Big Finish Productions, 2013)., however, the the Valeyard rhetorically asked if he looked like a Watcher, supposedly disproving the notion.
Other matters[]
- Contrary to the in-universe definition, "Valeyard" is not a genuine legal title meaning "learned court prosecutor". The word was entirely made-up by writer Robert Holmes. The title does bear some similarity to the French word "vieillard", meaning "old man".
- The Valeyard appeared in the unauthorised fan novel charity publication Time's Champion begun by Craig Hinton and completed by Chris McKeon.
- The Doctor Who Unbound audio story He Jests at Scars... [+]Gary Russell, Doctor Who Unbound (Big Finish Productions, 2003). portrayed a version of the Valeyard from an alternate timeline in which he succeeded in killing the Doctor in the Matrix and pursued his schemes to alter history to his own designs, ultimately damaging the timeline beyond repair.
- The character of the Dream Lord shared aspects of the Valeyard, as he also was created from the dark side of the Doctor, in a dream induced by psychic pollen, as shown in TV: Amy's Choice [+]Simon Nye, Doctor Who series 5 (BBC One, 2010).
- The Valeyard reappeared, once more as the prosecutor to Darkel's inquisitor, in the parodical short story Not Guilty, printed in DWM 542 in 2019. Due to the satirical nature of this story, it is not considered by this Wiki to be a valid source.
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