The character of the Doctor was initially shrouded in mystery. All that was known about him in the programme's early days was that he was an eccentric alien traveller of great intelligence who battled injustice while exploring Time and Space in an unreliable old time machine called the TARDIS. The TARDIS is much larger on the inside than on the outside and, due to a chronic malfunction, stuck in the shape of a 1950s-style British police box.

However, not only did the initially irascible and slightly sinister Doctor quickly mellow into a more compassionate figure, it was eventually revealed that he had been "on the run" from his own people, the Time Lords of the planet Gallifrey.

Like all Time Lords, the Doctor has the ability to "regenerate" his body when near death, allowing for the convenient recasting of the lead actor. While a Time Lord can regenerate twelve times, the Doctor has gone through this process and its resulting after-effects on nine occasions, with each of his incarnations having his own quirks and abilities:

The Doctor Costumes

1. First Doctor, played by William Hartnell (1963–1966)
2. Second Doctor, played by Patrick Troughton (1966–1969)
3. Third Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee (1970–1974)
4. Fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker (1974–1981)
5. Fifth Doctor, played by Peter Davison (1981–1984)
6. Sixth Doctor, played by Colin Baker (1984–1986)
7. Seventh Doctor, played by Sylvester McCoy (1987–1989, 1996)
8. Eighth Doctor, played by Paul McGann (1996)
9. Ninth Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston (2005)
10. Tenth Doctor, played by David Tennant (2005–2010)
11. Eleventh Doctor, to be played by Matt Smith (2010-)
    

Other actors have also played the Doctor, though rarely more than once.

Despite these shifts in personality, the Doctor has always remained an intensely curious and highly moral adventurer, who would rather solve problems with his wits than through violence.

Throughout the programme's long history certain controversial revelations about the Doctor have been made. For example, in The Brain of Morbius (1976), it was hinted that the First Doctor may not have been the Doctor's first incarnation; throughout the Seventh Doctor's era it was hinted that the Doctor was more than just an ordinary Time Lord, and in the 1996 television movie it was revealed that the Doctor is actually half-human on his mother's side. By the time of the 2005 series, the Ninth Doctor had become the last known surviving Time Lord, and that his home planet had been destroyed. The very first episode, An Unearthly Child, shows that the Doctor has a granddaughter, Susan Foreman; in "The Empty Child" (2005), in response to Constantine's statement that "before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I am neither", the Doctor remarks, "Yeah, I know the feeling"; and in both "Fear Her" (2006) and "The Doctor's Daughter" (2008), he states that he had, in the past, been a father. Also in the latter, his cells are used to produce a daughter (played by Georgia Moffett, the real-life daughter of Fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison) who is subsequently named Jenny by Donna as a result of his describing her as "a generated anomaly".



Now if you want to see all of the ten Doctor incarnations together in the same video, then look no further than underneath this message. I found it on YouTube a while back and believe me it is a great video to watch, plus it shows you what one fan can do when they put their mind to it. If you want to comment about the video after you've watched it feel free to start a thread. (stickmeninc, Creator)