| “ | Fantastic! | „ |
| ~ The Ninth Doctor's cathphrase. |
| “ | Do you know like we were sayin'? About the Earth revolving? It's like when you're a kid. The first time they tell you that the world's turning and you just can't quite believe it 'cause everything looks like it's standin' still. I can feel it. The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinnin' at 1,000 miles an hour and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour, and I can feel it. We're fallin' through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go... That's who I am. | „ |
| ~ The Ninth Doctor to Rose Tyler in "Rose". |
The Ninth Doctor is the main protagonist of Series 1 of Doctor Who, the first series of the revival and the overarching protagonist in the 2005 Christmas Special.
He regenerated from the War Doctor after the end of the Time War. He is the incarnation of the Doctor who first met Rose Tyler and Captain Jack Harkness.
He is portrayed by Christopher Eccleston.
Biography[]
At some point following the end of the Time War, the War Doctor perished and regenerated into the Ninth Doctor. Still reeling from the trauma of the Time War and of having to sacrifice his own people to end the war by destroying the Daleks, the Ninth Doctor was much more distant than his earlier incarnations. He still made an effort to help out where he could, but made sure not to form any attachments and did not take on any companions for a time. That was until he met Rose Tyler while stopping an Auton infestation and, after she helped him defeat the Nestene Consciousness, accepted her as a companion and began adventuring with her.
The Doctor's adventures with Rose led them to witness the end of Earth billions of years in the future, to stopping the Slitheen Family from destroying Earth, and to encountering a Dalek which survived the Time War, which caused the Doctor's trauma from it to resurface. Immediately afterwards he briefly took on Adam Mitchell as a companion at Rose's insistence. However, after he used the opportunity of time travel for profit, the Doctor returned him home. The two also met Captain Jack Harkness during a trip to World War-II era England, who also joined the TARDIS as a second companion. In the Titan Comics series, they began a quest to recover Jack's memories that were wiped by the Time Agency, running into a future Mickey Smith, sharing an adventure with the Brigadier, and ending up with a stowaway companion in Tara Mishra.
Later on, the Doctor and his two companions were pulled forward to the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire, where they were made to compete in various twisted versions of reality shows where the losers were punished by death. The shows were coordinated from Satellite 5 and it eventually became apparent that the Controller of the station was just a puppet, who in a brief moment of freedom had intentionally brought the Doctor to the station in order to stop her masters. The Doctor then discovered that the true controllers of Satellite 5 and the Human Empire were the Daleks, and that the Dalek Emperor had survived the war and recreated the race by harvesting cells from the victims of Satellite 5's games.
With the veil now lifted, the Dalek Emperor had his fleet bombard Earth and sent waves of Daleks into Satellite 5 to kill the Doctor and everyone else on board. The Doctor soon figured out a way to destroy the Daleks by using the station's circuitry to create a "Delta Wave" capable of killing all the Daleks within range, but as he did not have time to refine it the wave would kill all of humanity on Earth as well. As such, the Doctor tricked Rose into entering the TARDIS and sent her back to her own time so she would not be caught in the delta wave.
However, Rose was able to return to the future by opening up the TARDIS and gazing into the Time Vortex, causing her to become the "Bad Wolf" entity and enabling her to disintegrate the Daleks. As the power of the Time Vortex would kill her if left too long in her body however, the Doctor absorbed the energy into himself instead, channeling it back into the TARDIS, however it caused him fatal damage, thereby sacrificing his own life and causing him to regenerate once more, into the Tenth Doctor.
Personality[]
Having regenerated from the War Doctor, the Ninth Doctor was psychologically scarred by his previous incarnation's experiences of the Time War, coupled with the belief that he had destroyed his own race. More pragmatic and less eccentric than the Doctors before him, he often masked his trauma with a combination of humour, energy and confidence, but would frequently break down and explode in fury when faced by the consequences of the war; however, if truly outraged by someone, the Ninth Doctor would instead calmly stare them down and bluntly explain what they had done to upset him, and either leaving or forcing them to suffer the consequences of their misdeed. This Doctor was also a humble and noble soul, cheerily dismissing the idea of himself as a god, and considered himself a traveller in search of a quiet life. He retained the selfless and caring attitude that he carried throughout his previous lives, never once hesitating to put himself in harm's way to save those around him.
Despite his humility, he did have some pride; whenever his TARDIS was disparaged, he felt annoyed, and if one of his physical traits were mocked, he felt somewhat insecure. Even upon first seeing his new face, he made negative remarks to himself, although tried to balance it with noting them being less prominent "abnormalities" than he already had in previous regeneration cycles. He didn't hold romantic feelings for his first companion, Rose Tyler, however, he would become jealous when she indicated greater interest in another person, which is more indicative of the Doctor's ego and perhaps need for attention out of loneliness, rather than intimate insecurity.
While he would approach most adversaries with compassion, the exception were the Daleks; not only did he carry disdain for his numerous encounters with the murderous race, he felt resentful when finding any alive, whereas his own people were (to his knowledge) extinct, barring him. Thus, he became enraged upon facing the Lone Dalek, attempting to kill it when it was helpless and mindlessly trying to ensure its death, until Rose made him realise it had absorbed human DNA from her, therefore developed a conscience.
Upon learning Satellite 5 and the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire were puppeteered by the Dalek Emperor and his Daleks made from discarded humans, he was so shocked that he mainly interacted with them with his usual sardonic wit, although did have a few bursts of rage that frightened the Daleks. His desire to destroy them drove him to construct a delta wave generator that would kill the evil creatures, but would also erase humanity from Earth; despite his conviction to end the Daleks, he found his conscience wouldn't allow it - even knowing his failure would doom the universe to the deranged Daleks, he couldn't shoulder the guilt of committing further genocide, especially against the innocent humanity, who are his favourites. Although prior this choice, despite his contempt for the Dalek Emperor for his role in the multiple Great Time Wars and particularly the final one, and his exploitation of humanity, the Doctor felt sincere pity for the Emperor and his Daleks made from scavenging, as they had been driven insane from isolation and self-loathing, thus showing the Doctor carried the capacity for compassion for even his most hated enemies.
Quotes[]
| “ | Because this is my life, Jackie. It's not fun, it's not smart, it's just standing up and making a decision because nobody else will. | „ |
| ~ The Doctor, World War Three. |
| “ | Everybody lives, Rose. Just this once, EVERYBODY LIVES! | „ |
| ~ The Doctor Dances |
| “ | Rose, before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And do you know what? So was I. | „ |
| ~ The Ninth Doctor's last words before his regeneration in "The Parting of the Ways". |
Trivia[]
- The Ninth Doctor has no memory of what happened between examining the Moment to when his regeneration completed; so he was left to guess based on physical evidence that he blew up Gallifrey. Thus giving himself and his successors over 300 years of grief over a misunderstanding. Although, the grief was the price that the Moment needed for it to be used, which was also to punish the Doctor as he had planned on using the device to cause a mutual genocide of Time Lords and Daleks.
- He was the first Doctor that began to feel prominent self-doubt from his hatred of Daleks, as he struggled to accept that his strongest feeling could have become hatred. This was repeated when Davros cursed the Tenth as the "destroyer of worlds," then the Eleventh being considered the "Apex Predator" to the Daleks, and then the Twelfth being labelled a "good Dalek," like the Ninth, as well as rogue Dalek Rusty being *inspired* by his hatred of Daleks, rather than love of the universe.
- While he didn't have an introspective sorrow, the Fourth Doctor did ponder the morality of preventing the rise of a species in Genesis of the Daleks, as regardless of how evil the creatures may become, he questioned if he had the right to punish them before they had even existed.
- Eccleston has stated he will never return to Doctor Who so long as Russel T Davies and the showrunners from 2005 are still working on the show.
- Which is why the War Doctor had to be created for the 50th anniversary special; he declined to return to be the Doctor who ended the Time War.
- A bright side of his short tenure as the Doctor, is that regeneration was brought in at the end of the first season; thus not leaving it a surprise in the long run.
- Not counting comic books and audio dramas, but just the show itself, the Ninth Doctor had the shortest tenure of the revival series; he was followed by the Tenth, who had the thus far longest.
- This version of the Doctor would eventually characterised as both asexual and aromantic in the audio drama Swipe Right.
- In Parting of the Ways, while Jack Harkness kissed him, he merely accepted it out of respect, rather than reciprocating his feelings. To purge the time vortex from Rose Tyler/Bad Wolf, the Doctor had to kiss her, but this was a literal kiss of life, rather than romance.
- When Jack Harkness reunited with the subsequent Tenth Doctor, he quoted the Ninth's "fantastic" catchphrase to him.
[]
 Heroes
| ||
|
The Doctor The Doctor's companions UNIT Torchwood Institute Bannerman Road Gang Investigators of Infernal Incidents Paternoster Gang Coal Hill defenders Other Allies | ||
