| “ | Good grief! | „ |
| ~ The Third Doctor's most common quote. |
The Third Doctor is the main protagonist of Doctor Who from Season 7 to Season 11. He returns as a major character in the 20th Anniversary Special, The Five Doctors.
He regenerated from the Second Doctor, who had been sentenced by the Time Lords and exiled to Earth. During his time on Earth, the Third Doctor acted as the scientific advisor to UNIT and continued to work with them even after his exile was lifted. He was portrayed and later voiced by the late Jon Pertwee. In Big Finish's Third Doctor Adventures, he is voiced by Tim Treolar.
Biography
The Third Doctor emerged after the Second Doctor was convicted by the Time Lords of violating their non-interference policy and forced to regenerate as part of his punishment, which also entailed exile to Earth, and lacking the knowledge on how to repair the TARDIS.
Spearhead from Space
After arriving in Oxley Woods in England, the Doctor fell out of the TARDIS, and was taken to a nearby hospital, where his alien biology briefly caused a media stir, which attracted the attention of UNIT and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. While he did not recognise the Doctor due to his regeneration, the Doctor managed to meet him, discovering his new face for the first time. The Doctor was nearly abducted by Channing's men, but managed to escape, taking a grazing shot from a sentry. He managed to escape the hospital by donning a new set of clothes and borrowing a sporty antique roadster and headed to UNIT HQ. There, he formally re-encountered the Brig, and met UNIT's scientific adviser, Liz Shaw, and joined them in investigating mysterious meteorites.
Doctor Who and the Silurians
On Earth, the Third Doctor joined UNIT as their scientific advisor, having already had a history with UNIT's commander Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in his second incarnation. During his time on Earth and with UNIT, the Third Doctor repeatedly defended the Earth and humanity from threats with Liz Shaw acting as an assistant. When the Doctor had his first encounter with the Silurians, he attempted to form an truce between them and humanity, which was thwarted by opposition from both Silurian and human sides.
Season 8
Liz eventually grew tired of "handing him test tubes" and quit. However, the Third Doctor would gain a new companion in the form of Jo Grant, who was assigned to replace Liz. However, during his second encounter with the Autons on Earth, the Doctor also found himself menaced by his former university colleague, who had taken up the name "the Master" and was working with the Autons. The Doctor managed to also stand him on Earth by stealing his dematerialisation circuit in an attempt to his his TARDIS.
The Doctor and the Master would go on to have numerous encounters, with the Master enacting various schemes to take over Earth, the planet the Doctor cherished, attain more power for himself, or simply to get on his old friend's nerves. The first of these was The Mind of Evil, where the Doctor and Jo discovered that he was behind the Keller Machine at Stangmoor Prison, and plotted to cause World War III with a mind parasite and a stolen Thunderbolt missile. The Doctor managed to thwart him, but was forced to hand over his dematerialisation circuit.
However, the Master's attempt to ally with Axos forced him to ally with the Doctor, allowing him to trick his two foes into partially repairing his TARDIS, though with him stuck as a "galactic yo-yo" that would always have to return to his exile. After facing the Master's attempt to revive the Daemon Azal, the Doctor managed to finally capture him.
Season 9
to be added
The Three Doctors
Eventually, the Third Doctor was sought out by the Time Lords to help them against the renegade Time Lord founder Omega, who threatened to destroy the universe. The Third Doctor found himself working with his previous incarnation to stop Omega, though the two frequently bickered, and even briefly received help from his first incarnation. As reward for saving the universe from Omega, the Third Doctor's banishment was lifted and he was free to explore outer space again.
Dalek War
In his adventures across time and space, the Doctor would run into the Master again, who was now being employed by the Daleks to start an interstellar war between the humans and the Draconians, in order to weaken both sides so the Daleks could conquer the galaxy in the aftermath with an invasion force of Daleks kept in stasis on Spiridon. As a result, the Doctor found himself once again working with the Thals to stop the Daleks, and urged them to not glorify their war with the Daleks.
Season 11
Following Jo Grant's departure, the Doctor met Sarah Jane Smith while tracking down scientists who were abducted through time by the Sontaran officer Linx. Winning her trust, the Doctor and Liz managed to rescue the scientists and prevent Linx from damaging Earth's technological development.
In Planet of the Spiders, after having his Metebelis Crystal sent back to him by Jo, the Doctor and Sarah found themselves facing an invasion by the Metebelis Spiders, who sought it out to ensure their domination of the Universe. While on Metebelis III, meeting human settlers whom had been enslaved by the "Eight Legs", the Doctor became terrified of their progenitor, the Great One's vast powers. Along with Mike and Sarah, the Doctor re-encountered his childhood mentor on Earth, who encouraged him to face his fears and undo his mistake. Thus, the Doctor returned the the caves of Metebelis III, and tricked the Great One into absorbing too much power from the Blue Crystals, being left fatally irradiated. The Doctor would be stuck wandering around the Time Vortex until the TARDIS "brought [him] home" to UNIT, where he managed to regenerate into the Fourth Doctor.
Personality
The Third Doctor projected the image of a sophisticated gentleman and inventor, with him often tinkering with his TARDIS in order to construct new machines from its technology. In addition to his prowess with gadgetry, the Third Doctor was also much more prone to get physical than his previous incarnations, often showing off his hand-to-hand combat prowess against opponents, though he usually tried not to seriously harm them.
Frustrated with his exile to Earth, the Third Doctor was often gruff and aloof, somewhat resenting the fact that he was stuck on Earth, though he usually showed a warm personality to his companions. Indeed, he especially rubbed up against ignorant authority figures. Despite his high class demeanor, the Third Doctor often enjoyed imparting bits of alien wisdom and knowledge onto unsuspecting humans for his own amusement. He at heart grew to love his time on Earth, in spite of his exile, eventually seeing it as his home.
Quotes
| “ | My dear Mr Chinn, if I could leave I would, if only to get away from people like you! And your petty obsessions! England for the English, good heavens man! | „ |
| ~ The Doctor calls out Chinn's nationalism, The Claws of Axos. |
| “ | Courage isn't a matter of being frightened, you know. It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway. | „ |
| “ | It's not the oil and the filth and the poisonous chemicals that are the real cause of pollution, Brigadier, it's simply greed. | „ |
| ~ Invasion of the Dinosaurs. |
Gallery
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Videos
Trivia
- The Third Doctor's era drew a lot of inspiration from the James Bond films. This was due to the fact that the films were popular at the time, as well as part of an effort to retool the show slightly in order to recoup the ratings decline that had occurred under the Second Doctor's era, and because of the personal taste of Jon Pertwee, who had served in naval intelligence during World War II and even been an acquaintance of Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond. Therefore, he was the first Doctor to engage in hand-to-hand combat.
- He is the first Doctor to be on colour TV.
- The Third Doctor didn't like his looks in the beginning, bemoaning he became old.
- The Eleventh Doctor was aghast the Twelfth would be old, right after his new regeneration cycle reset his youth.
- The Third Doctor is the first version of the Doctor to directly be acknowledged to be an alien. While his predecessor's final story, The War Games heavily implied this by depicting the Time Lords, the Doctor is depicted with an alien biology in Spearhead From Space, most notably his two hearts, and directly states that he is non human.
- He would occasionally cross-dress as to better undertake infiltration missions.
- Jon Pertwee was good friends with Roger Delgado, who played his arch-enemy the Master. Delgado's unexpected death in Turkey while filming a movie was part of Jon Pertwee's decision to leave the series in Season 11.
- According to River Song's diary, this Doctor was one of her favourites and they enjoyed each other's company; though she did wipe his memory to preserve the timeline.
- He was the first Doctor to hold a steady job, being the first UNIT scientific advisor. Even though his successors abandoned the post, the Doctor never resigned and was still counted as an employee for decades.
- He was also being paid the entire time, but never touched his bank account. The Fourteenth Doctor later discovered that 53 years of accumulating funds gave him a fortune that could easily fully pay off his new home.
- While in Planet of the Spiders, the Doctor simply says that he "got lost in the Time Vortex" after defeating the Spiders, the later novel Love and War indicates that this took a decade from his perspective, with the radiation eating away at his body until he just had to wait until the TARDIS brought him home of it's own accord. A couple of short stories have set during this time period.
 Heroes
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