Alan Kistler's History of the Eighth Doctor
Thursday, June 12, 2008 at 03:40PM This is part of my series of essays covering the In-Depth History of Doctor Who. You may also want to check out my list of the Eighth Doctor's adventures in chronological order.
It had been years since we'd seen the Doctors on the screen. And then the commercials began airing. Viewers heard Dalek voices in the background screaming "Exterminate!" They saw the TARDIS flying through the space-time vortex. And then came the image of Paul McGann rising from a table, newly regenerated, as a narrator declared: "He's back! And it's about time!"
So let's journey into the career of the Eighth Doctor, a career unique among those who have played the Doctor.
REGENERATING THE SERIES
When it didn't look like the BBC was interested in reviving the program, Fox TV got the rights and a new pilot for a continuation of Doctor Who was ready to start in the U.S. To ignite the new series, actor Paul McGann (who was also a friend to Seventh Doctor actor Sylvester McCoy) was cast as the new Eighth Doctor and was signed for six years if the pilot won the approval to go ahead with a brand new series.
In order to give the pilot a title other than just Doctor Who - The Movie, producer Phil Segal gave it the unofficial subtitle of The Enemy Within. Many fans since have referred to the story by that name.
The pilot/TV-movie began with a narration by McGann that explained that the Master, his arch-enemy, had been executed by the Daleks on their homeworld of Skaro. The Master's last request was that the Doctor, a "rival Time Lord" be allowed to transport his remains back to their home planet of Gallifrey.
This opening led a few people to be confused for different reasons. New fans who didn't really know the show were not sure what a "rival" Time Lord was or why the Doctor and the Master were at cross-purposes. And old school fans may have understood that part, but they were confused by the fact that Skaro was apparently back (following its destruction at the hands of the Seventh Doctor) and by the idea that the Daleks would just allow the Doctor to come to their planet and take the Master's remains without trying to kill him too.
The story continued on as the Seventh Doctor relaxed in his new, completely remodeled TARDIS, only to realize that the Master was still alive, having somehow transformed himself into a parasitic creature of ooze. Exactly how he was able to do this wasn't addressed in the film, but an exlpanation is available in this essay if you scroll down to the heading Continuity Concerns With the Fox Movie.
The Master forced the TARDIS to crash-land in San Francisco, 1999. Realizing the TARDIS needed repair, the Doctor stepped out to get some repair sparts (specifically, a beryllium chip). And for some reason, the Doctor apparently felt it was okay to just lock the now slime-creature Master inside the TARDIS (also very confusing when, if you know the Master's history, you realize how much this is a bad idea). As the Doctor turned, he was shot down by several gangbangers who either didn't want him as a witness to their recent crime or mistook him for an enemy.
Chang Lee, a rival gang member, took pity on the Doctor and called for an ambulance. The Doctor would've survived the bullet wounds, but then the surgeon Grace Halloway tried to examine his heart, believing he had fatal fibrillation (she didn't understand that he had two hearts and that this accounted for the strange noises and readings from his chest).
Upon hearing "Madame Butterfly" playing in the operating room, the Seventh Doctor awoke and tried to explain that he was not human and needed to leave. The surgeons placed him under further anesthesia and, after a panicked outcry that he needed to stop the Master, the Doctor finally lost consciousness.
Unable to navigate his biology, Grace accidentally disrupted the Doctor's internal organs and caused his death on the operating table. Due to the massive amount of anesthesia used (Gallifreyan physiology is very resistant to the normal dosage), the Doctor did not regenerate immediately. His body assumed a death-like state and it was an hour or so later that the process finally began to occur. There was a release of energy and, as Sylvester McCoy put it, "You saw my face and it twisted and changed into the not-as-handsome Paul 
McGann."
The Eighth Doctor was here at last. Just as had happened a few times before right after regeneration, this new Doctor had a temporary burst of enhanced strength and literally broke himself out of the morgue. But due to the drugs that had affected his system and his regeneration, he now had almost full-blown amnesia (similar to what the Fifth Doctor experienced in his first hours of life) and wandered the hallways, humming "Madame Butterfly" as he shouted "Who am I?"
Meanwhile, the Master used his new parasitic form to enter and possess the body of the paramedic who had brought the Seventh Doctor to the hospital. Just as he'd once possessed the body of a man from the planet Traken, the Master had again found a way to cheat death beyond the standard Time Lord rule of only having 13 lives. Now inhabiting a human being, the Master intended to use the Doctor's TARDIS to steal the the hero's body for himself, thus giving him a Time Lord form once again and regaining several regenerations.
The fact that the Master didn't try to possess the Doctor immediately back when they were both still aboard the TARDIS would seem to indicate that either a Time Lord body was too powerful for him to take over or that he could only possess the body of one who was unconscious and/or whose mind was vulnerable.
The Doctor wandered into the locker rooms of some of the hospital staff, looking for clothing. The next night was New Year's Eve and a masquerade party had been planned. In the first locker, the Doctor found a multi-colored scarf that greatly resembled the one he'd worn in his fourth life. He considered the scarf, but then discarded it. It just wasn't his style.
The Eighth Doctor moved on and found a Wild Bill Hickock costume. Liking the somewhat Edwardian look, he put it on and made his way into the main parts of the hospital, still trying to piece together who he was. He knew that time was very important to him for some reason.
Meanwhile, Dr. Grace Halloway was determined to know why her patient had died. After looking over his X-rays, she became convinced that the machine hadn't been malfunctioning and the man actually had two hearts. But when she went to examine the body, she learned it was gone.
Later, seeing Grace leaving the hospital, the Eighth Doctor recognized her and followed her. He remembered that they'd met before and that "Madame Butterfly" had been playing in the background. Grace said they didn't know each other, but the Doctor insisted they did. Apparently tapping into his telepathic ability, he was able to snatch a piece of knowledge about Grace and told her, "I know you! ... You're tired of life … but afraid of dying."
As Grace examined him, she realized this long-haired man had two hearts and indeed must have been the same man who'd "died" on the table. Grace hoped to find out why this man had such different biology and how he'd been able to achieve a simulated state of death, only to later change his appearance.
While all of this was happening, the Master went back to the TARDIS (he must have used the spare key revealed to be above its sign in order to get inside) and soon met Chang Lee, who had stolen the Doctor's personal items from the hospital and had come to investigate the mysterious blue box he'd appeared in. The Master took the boy on as his assistant (much as the Doctor has often done with humans) and manipulated him with lies. He said that the Doctor was an evil man who had stolen the Master's body and that he had to be stopped.
The Master noticed that the TARDIS "liked" Lee, possibly because it was used to humans running around the TARDIS. He took Lee to the Cloister Room, where a large stone iris sat in the center, surrounded by busts of the Time Lord founder Rassilon (this was never specifically stated in the show, but fans of the story "The Five Doctors" could recognize Rassilon's face).
The Master said that this stone iris was the Eye of Harmony and that its lock could be opened by a human eye-scan. The Master himself could not open it because although he wore a human body, a side-effect of his presence was that his physical form now had green cat-like eyes. Some fans hypothesized that this side-effect was because the Master still carried a genetic trait or two from the Cheetah-People (which happened in "Survival", the very last TV adventure of the previous series).
What happened next was one of the most controversial moments of the entire run of Doctor Who. Lee opened the Eye and it showed a holographic image of the Seventh Doctor, followed by an image of the new Eighth Doctor (originally, the TV-Movie was going to use this scene to show all of the previous Doctors, but that idea was dropped, sadly). Looking at the Eighth Doctor, the Master noticed the hero's iris and suddenly realized he had a human retinal structure. He cried out, "The Doctor is HALF-HUMAN! No wonder!"
In the novelization, the Master then added to that statement. He recalled that the Doctor had once referred to himself as "more than a Time Lord" (which was from a cut scene of "Remembrance of the Daleks"). The Master then remarked that what the hero should have really said was that he was "less than a Time Lord."
We will discuss this plot-twist in greater detail later in this essay.
Another moment that proved controversial was a kiss. When the Master and Lee opened the Eye, the Eighth Doctor suddenly felt a connection with his TARDIS and all his memories came flooding back. Overjoyed, he immediately kissed Grace on the lips and said, "I know who I am! I AM THE DOCTOR!" Grace then asked for another kiss and he did so, happily.
This kiss disturbed a lot of fans who felt that the Doctor would not do that, as well as fans who believed in the Doctor never needing a love interest at all. For some fans, that scene, along with a couple of continuity errors that will be discussed soon, was enough reason to ignore the movie from continuity. But the new TV series has confirmed that they consider it canon and that, yes, the Doctor is a sexual being (even if he doesn't engage in the act on any kind of regular basis) and was indeed a father and grandfather once.
In the novelization of the TV-movie, as soon as he kissed Grace, the Doctor then reeled back and laughed, apologizing as he wondered what had come over him. Ah, if only they'd put that in the film.
With his memories now returned, the Doctor was ready to fight the Master. He and Grace joined forces and were able to convince Chang Lee that the man he was helping was the true villain. The Master did his best to try and use the energies of the Eye of Harmony to possess the body of the Doctor (not caring that it's being open for too long would destroy the Earth in the process) and even killed both Grace and Lee when they got in his way.
In a scene akin to their battle in the Fourth Doctor TV adventure "The Deadly Assassin", the Eighth Doctor and the Master fought tooth-and-nail mere feet away from the Eye of Harmony as it released energies from the space-time vortex.
THE DOCTOR: "You say you want dominion over the living. Yet all you do is KILL!"
THE MASTER: "Life is WASTED on the living!"
During the battle, the Master fell towards the open Eye. The Doctor offered his hand to pull his enemy back to safety. But the Master refused to be saved by his foe and he fell into the Eye, seemingly consumed by the
vortex.
To the Doctor's surprise, the Eye then released a wave of golden energy that washed over Grace and Lee and restored them to life. As the Eye closed, the Doctor then beamed that his TARDIS was "sentimental" and happily dropped Grace and Lee back home. He asked Grace to come with him, but she politely declined and so he took his leave, once again ready to journey through time and space as the credits began to roll.
But let's take a step back from the pilot. Let's talk about the Doctor it introduced.
EIGHT: THE EDWARDIAN
The Seventh Doctor had been known to many as the "dark one." He was scheming manipulator who never let you forget he was an alien, whereas the Eighth Doctor immediately brought with him an atmosphere of adventure rather than angst.
Here was a man who's natural inclination was to smile and appreciate all the tiny joys that occupied the world around him. While the Seventh Doctor had been rather somber and was noticeably weary of his life sometimes, the Eighth would stop himself in the middle of a sentence to remark how wonderful it was that his shoes fit him comfortably. He openly loved humans and the Earth, believing that homo sapiens were quite adorable in their ability to deny and rationalize events beyond their scientific understanding. He also had a great sense of whimsy and jovial sarcasm.
Yet true to form, this Doctor, like so many others, would occasionally remind you through his words and actions that he was not a normal man nor was he from around here. When he attempted to explain regeneration to Grace, he made a couple of interesting remarks.
GRACE: "You're telling me you've come back from the DEAD."
EIGHTH DOCTOR: "Yes."
GRACE (shaking head): "Sorry. The dead stay dead. You can't turn back time."
EIGHTH DOCTOR: "Yes, you can."
GRACE: "Don't talk to me like I'm a child. I'm not a child. I am a doctor."
EIGHTH DOCTOR: "But it was a childish dream that made you a doctor. You dreamt you could hold back death ... isn't that true? ... Don't be sad, Grace. You'll do great things."
How the Eighth Doctor knew this about Grace's desire to become a doctor was not clear. Perhaps he tapped into his telepathic gifts and snatched something from the surface of her thoughts. And did he know for sure that she was meant to do great things? Perhaps he was beginning to recall that he had met Grace before at a different point in her life during one of his time trips. Or perhaps he was simply quite intuitive in this incarnation.
This Doctor was a bit more action-oriented, which harkened back to the Third and Fourth incarnations who were not above hand-to-hand combat and were seen to engage enemies in sword fights. But he still defied the typical behavior of a sci-fi action hero. When the Eighth Doctor found his path blocked by a police officer, his solution was rather unique and definitely betrayed the mentality of a man not raised on Earth. While distracting the officer with a jelly baby, the Eighth Doctor used his sleight-of-hand techniques to grab the cop's gun. But instead of threatening the officer with the weapon, he pointed the gun at himself and asked, "Now, would you stand aside before I shoot myself?"
And similar to several Doctors before him, McGann's incarnation had a sense of magic to him, like a modern-
day Merlin. When Grace said his plan was crazy and that they shouldn't take the risk of fighting the Master, he pulled her aside and passionately told her, "Grace, I came back to life before your eyes. I held back death! Look, I can't make your dream come true forever, but I can make it come true TODAY."
He was, in my mind, a bit like Willy Wonka in space. More whimsical than the Third and Fifth, more laid back than the First, Seventh and Sixth, more serious and human than the Fourth and Second, McGann's Doctor was a mixture of being emotionally human and yet obviously otherworldly. He gave you a sense that he wanted to be your friend and take you away on a wild adventure, that he was the oldest kid on the block ready to show you where all the really fun places were hidden.
And what of the actor Paul McGann? He enjoyed the role and was grateful for the blessing of Sylvester McCoy. While not a die hard Whovian, he had enjoyed the premise of the show and that it had a character who could almost literally go on forever and always stay fresh and new. He also stated in an interview that he had been a particular fan of William Hartnell as the First Doctor, enjoying his mysterious and crafy manner.
McGann liked to show different sides to the Doctor. Although he had no 
problem being a fun-loving, swashbuckler for much of the time, he particularly enjoyed occasionally delving into the renegade Time Lord's darker side (as he did in many of the audio plays). In the most recent audio dramas starring the Eighth Doctor, McGann has given the time-traveling adventurer a shorter temper and more of a sarcastic, cynical streak (which is in keeping with what the character has experienced by that point in his life).
McGann did have an issue with the fact that he was told to wear a wig in the role (although he'd had longer, curly hair before, he had cut if short before being cast). He found the wig to be ridiculous and complained about it itching. He also wasn't too sure about the Doctor's wardrobe, stating once during an interview that he would have been curious to see a more modern looking Doctor, perhaps wearing a leather jacket and sporting his own shorter hair.
McGann vs. Eccleston
Years later (and maybe not by coincidence), the Doctor as played by Christopher Eccleston did indeed wear a leather jacket and sport a much shorter haircut in his ninth incarnation.
Although there have been numerous rumors of McGann returning to the new series as either part of a multi-Doctor team-up or in a flashback story, the actor himself has denied these claims, saying no one at the BBC has asked him to return. However, he has said he would be happy to return, provided he doesn't have to wear a wig again.
REACTIONS TO THE PILOT
The Fox TV-movie "The Enemy Within" did not get a lot of success over in the U.S. It was not well-advertised and it was written with the assumption that the audience had a smidgeon of knowledge about the Doctor beforehand. Also, the pacing was a bit slow at times. It did okay, but not great. In the U.K., it did remarkably better, getting 9 million viewers.
Several Whovians criticized the plot, as well as Eric Roberts' portrayal of the Master (many said that the first mistake had been in casting an American to play the villain's part). Likewise, many brought up a few continuity errors and the romance angle as problems. But one thing people seemed to agree on was that, even if they didn't like the movie, they did like this new Doctor. In less than 90 minutes, Paul McGann stuck out in people's minds as a wonderful Doctor, whimsical, driven and passionate. I've known some Whovians who said he seemed to have the potential to be the best Doctor based on his performance in the pilot alone.
Sadly, Fox did not pick up the series after this. The TV-Movie was left as a blip on the radar and time moved on once more. This saddened many fans, particularly in the U.K. Whether they liked the story or whether they thought it was weird for the Whoniverse to actually have fairly good special effects, many had liked this new Doctor and wanted to see him continue. They just had to wait a little while, it turned out.
Interesting thing. Some die hard Whovians blamed the story being not up to par (in their opinion) on the fact that it was "done by Americans." Well, Fox is American, yes. But director Geoffrey Sax, screenwriter Matthew Jacobs and producer Phil Segal were all English. (It was also filmed in Canada, but so are many American shows so I can't really count that in this regards).
Furthermore, you can tell in interviews that they all had a long love of Doctor Who and it's obvious in just watching the little touches they put into the film. After all, Rassilon's face (as depicted in "The Five Doctors") is carved into the posts surrounding the Eye and his seal is everywhere on board the new version of the TARDIS. Plus, in the Control Room, there's a "900 Year Diary" lying on the table, reminding us of the Second Doctor's "500 Year Diary" from decades back. And in examining the Doctor's personal items, Chang Lee found not only the famous sonic screwdriver (which looked exactly the same as the previous version) but also a yo-yo, referencing how the Fourth Doctor would sometimes use a yo-yo to test a planet's gravity. Heck, when McGann is searching for clothes in the locker room, he even comes across a long and very familiar looking striped scarf which he then discards.
So if you didn't like the story, fine, but let's not make it a national thing.
I thought the story was all right (but not great) for an introduction. There were parts that dragged and I wish the Master had more to his plan other than just "I'm stealing the Doctor's lives." But still, I loved the swashbuckling, effervescent Eighth Doctor, who thankfully I got to enjoy even more thanks to the people at Big Finish Productions. But we'll get to that soon enough.
CONTINUITY CONCERNS WITH THE FOX MOVIE
As stated before, there were a few continuity/story errors in the show. Let's go over them, as well as the problems that fans had with the show. And with each problem, we can look at the reasoning around it and/or the continuity retcon that was done later to explain it away.
Problem 1.Since when is the Master able to turn into a slug made of ooze?
Solution 1. This was touched on a little bit in the Eighth Doctor BBC novel "The Eight Doctors", where the Master was seen to take possession of a "deathworm" before his execution. The Doctor Who Magazine comic strips provide a more thought-out explanation.
It turns out, there are creatures native to Skaro called morphants. These creature can control their molecular structure and feed on other life forms by absorbing their physical forms entirely. Likewise, a telepathic link is used to feed off of mental energies and memories. Knowing he was about to be executed, the Master took a morphant creature and used his own telepathic abilities to turn its usual method of killing in on itself, thus he took over the creature's body instead of the reverse, using it as a host as he had Tremas of Traken many years before. He had then simply played possum.
Problem 2. The Eye of Harmony is seen to be aboard the Doctor's TARDIS. Previously, the Eye of Harmony was said to be on Gallifrey, as it was the source of power for all TARDISes. Also, it looked like a dark obelisk and not a big iris. What happened?
Solution 2. In his book The Eight Doctors, former Doctor Who series writer Terrance Dicks explained that each TARDIS was equipped with a satellite version of the Eye of Harmony, connecting it to the energies of the true Eye which was back on Gallifrey. Although the book was not great and doesn't seem very good with continuity itself, many fans latched onto this idea and the offiicial BBC Doctor Who web-site later confirmed that this was indeed the case and that that's exactly what the big stone iris in the Doctor's ship was. The web-site also added that "without the Eye of Harmony, TARDISes would have to power themselves, probably feedingoff pockets of temporal instability or rifts."
Some fans came to believe that this sattelite Eye fed energy to or at least was connected to the "Heart of the TARDIS", which the First Doctor mentioned in "The Edge of Destruction" (the third ever TV adventure) and which he said was the ship's power source. This idea was cemented when, in the new TV series, the Ninth Doctor also referenced the ship's power source, calling it the "Heart of the TARDIS." In the episode "Boom Town", the a portion of the console was opened and the Heart emitted a wave of golden energy that looked similar to what was seen in the TV-movie pilot. Due to the telepathic field of the TARDIS, this energy used the power of the space-time vortex to grant the subconscious wish of the person it targeted. With that in mind, this ability to use the energies of the space-time vortex to grant a target's wish could explain how the ship was able to resurrect Grace and Lee (because that definitely would have been something that the Doctor desired).
Problem 3. The interior of the new TARDIS was too large and different on the inside for some fans, as they believed this didn't make sense when it had never looked like this before.
Solution 3. The interior of the TARDIS had been subject to change before and the control console usually underwent redecorating. What's more, the Fourth Doctor specifically stated in "The Invisible Enemy" that he would sometimes program the computer systems to "redecorate" the interior of the TARDIS. It's not difficult then to believe that the Doctor could have done this on a greater scale some time before his seventh life ended.
Years later, the Big Finish audio adventure Excelis Decays revealed this was indeed the case, as the Seventh Doctor proudly looked over the new interior he had finished putting together. In the mini-episode, "Time Crash", produced in 2006, the Fifth Doctor saw how the TARDIS would look after one of his future incarnations took over and immediately remarked "You've changed the desktop theme!"
Problem 4. The sonic screwdriver had been destroyed during the Fifth Doctor's career, so how could the Seventh Doctor have it again in the movie?
Solution 4. The Doctor has constantly built and jury-rigged complex machinery within minutes whenever he's needed it. Why could the Doctor not have built himself a new sonic screwdriver sometime before he regnerated into his Eighth form? In fact, in the new series episode "Smith and Jones", the Doctor accidentally destroys his sonic screw-driver and then builds himself a brand new one before the episode is even over. And that model was far more complex than the classic series model.
Problem 5. The Doctor mentioned to Grace that Time Lords were able to alter their species during regenerations, something some fans said they didn't remember ever hearing about before.
Solution 5. Regenerations were never shown to always occur in exactly the same fashion and there was much about their science we didn't know. What's more, when Romana regenerated she wound up trying on several bodies, one of which was blue skinned and dressed in alien clothes, indicating it may have belonged to a different species rather than one that looked exactly human. So this seemed to back up the Eighth Doctor's claim that they could alter the species their body emulated (though presumably they would still maintain their unique inner characteristics, such as two hearts and the like).
In the audio play Circular Time, the Fifth Doctor encountered a Time Lord who regenerated into resembling the physical form of an avian alien life form, complete with wings and a beak.
Problem 6. "The Doctor isn't half-human!" The Master's claim that the Doctor was half-human had never before been stated in the show and some fans found it a silly way to make him more "relatable" to American audiences. Some pointed out it was unlikely that the Master never realized this before given all their time together and even more unlikely that the Time Lords, who looked down on other races, would allow a half-breed to be their President (the Fourth Doctor acted as President of the High Council for a short time). And many fans didn't like the Eighth Doctor's later joke at one point that he was "half-human, on my mother's side," saying that this was proof the pilot's creators were simply trying to make the Doctor more akin to Spock from Star Trek, another alien with a human mother (some called it "Spocking him up").
Solution 6. Yeah, this is a tricky one. We'll discuss it later in this essay. under the sub-heading "The Doctor Is Half-Human."
Problem 7. The Doctor claimed the Eye of Harmony had not been opened in 900 years, but Rassilon had created it over a million years ago. Had it been opened since its creation or was the Doctor fudging his dates?
Solution 7. If this is a satellite Eye of Harmony and not the true Eye, maybe the Doctor only meant that the Heart of his own personal TARDIS had never been opened in the 900 years since he had stolen it or since this particular TARDIS had been built/grown.
Problem 8. It's natural to assume the TARDIS enjoyed the presence of humans, but why would the locks to the
Eye of Harmony react to a human iris instead of only a Time Lord's?
Solution 8. Good question. A couple of years later, the audio adventure The Apocalypse Element provided an explanation. During that story, Daleks were invading Gallifrey and removed the eyes of several victims in order to bypass several locks that required Time Lord retinal scans. To prevent the Daleks from getting any further, the Sixth Doctor re-programmed all the remaining security locks on Gallifrey to only respond to the eyes of his companion Evelyn (who was a human being), including the lock to the true Eye of Harmony. When the adventure concluded, the locks were set back to normal, but the Sixth Doctor wondered if certain aspects of Gallifrey, including his TARDIS, would now be more prone to react to humans and human eyes.
Problem 9. The TARDIS's ability to disguise itself is due to a "Chameleon Circuit", but the Eighth Doctor referred to it as a "cloaking device." Incorrect! The writers obviously didn't know what they were talking about.
Solution 9. Oh, please. For one thing, it was originally called referred to as a "Camouflage Unit" in the First Doctor's TV adventure "The Time Meddler", so it's not like it had a name set in stone. The phrase "Chameleon Circuit" came later in the Target novelizations and was only introduced into the TV series during "Logopolis", the Fourth Doctor's final story, almost twenty years after the show had first aired. Its technical name is accepted as "Chameleon Circuit", sure, but that doesn't mean it's impossible for the Doctor to refer to it as a "cloaking device" since that is what it does. This is a trivial complaint.
Problem 10. Grace and Lee were resurrected. If the TARDIS can revive the dead, why couldn't it do the same for the other friends of the Doctor's who've died, such as Adric, Katarina and Sara Kingdom?
Solution 10. Another fair point. Perhaps because since the Doctor had never opened the Heart of the TARDIS or his remote link to the Eye of Harmony before, he simply didn't know it was capable of such a feat. But it's also interesting to note that, unlike Sara Kingdom, Adric and Katarina, the deaths of Grace and Lee actually occurred within the walls of the TARDIS while it was outside of time ("in temporal orbit") and while they were in the presence of unleashed energies from the space-time vortex. So maybe those circumstances made them more susceptible to the process and the same trick couldn't be done with just any old corpse that was brought in. Something to ponder.
So you see, everything's been explained. It just took them a while.
"THE DOCTOR IS HALF-HUMAN!"
So was the Master right? Was the Doctor half-human and it was just a secret he somehow kept? Or was there something that MADE him half-human in his eighth life?
In the new TV series, the Doctor has made it a point to mention a few times that he is definitely alien, not mentioning any shared link with humanity. In one of the Ninth Doctor novels, he conceded that his DNA was similar to human but that was all. In the new series episode "The End of the World", the Doctor was scanned by another alien who was surprised that he was a Time Lord. The alien made no mention of the scan showing human DNA traces as well. Likewise, when the Doctor was scanned another time in the new series episode "Smith and Jones", he again was referred to as an alien and not as an alien-human hybrid. If it was as simple as being able to tell that he had human retina, then clearly these advanced alien scans should have picked up on human traces.
Unless, of course, only the Eighth incarnation was half-human and none of the others. The Doctor mentioned in the pilot that Time Lord have the ability to "alter species" to some extent during regeneration. Perhaps something about the difficulty of this regeneration caused him to accidentally do that to himself, insuring that the Eighth incarnation would have human genetic traits. And then perhaps when he regenerated again, he merely relaxed into his default DNA/biological make-up, discarding the human traits.
I've always speculated that a Time Lord's dying thoughts can influence the personality and nature of the next incarnation and I know there are some out there who agree with me. The Third Doctor spent ten years dying of radiation sickness, alone in the TARDIS, trapped, unable to really move until he landed back on Earth. As he died, his thoughts were no doubt about what a horrible fate this had been and how he had spent so long exiled to one world and time zone. And then the Fourth Doctor was born and we got a being of wanderlust. The Fifth Doctor died while experiencing terrible hallucinations and so the Sixth Doctor was born somewhat insane at first and, even after that, a larger than life character who was quite intimidating and would bark quite often.
With that in mind, let us look at something the Eighth Doctor said about his Seventh incarnation. This quote 
is taken from the radio play Time Works when the Eighth was being told about the Clockwork Men, a group of beings obsessed with maintaining order and allowing no variables in reality.
EIGHTH DOCTOR: "I knew a man who thought like that once. A man who became obsessed with the future, with predicting and planning for every variable, who lost himself in the big picture. But the more he planned, the more he gained, the more he realized that he was losing the one thing most precious to him ... He only wanted to be more human."
With that in mind, perhaps the Seventh Doctor spent his last moments thinking about how he wished he had been more human. Perhaps he came to the conclusion that the best way to be human emotionally was to be human physically and thus he willed his next body to become a hybrid of human and Time Lord. I personally like this hypothesis, so until I see other evidence, I'm sticking with it.
NOTE: The rest of this essay covers the Eighth Doctor's adventures in the BBC tie-in novels, which I don't really consider canon or particularly good for the most part. Part Two of this essay discusses his adventures in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strips and the Big Finish audio plays, but be warned: Spoliers abound. If you don't wish to be spoiled at all and want to discover these adventures for yourself (which would be my strong suggestion), then just check out my list of the Eighth Doctor's adventures in chronological order and go track them down so you can enjoy them for yourself.
THE BOOKS
The BBC began a line of new novel adventures, picking up where the TV-movie "The Enemy Within" left off. It began with "The Eight Doctors", which took place about a half-hour or so after the ending of the movie. The story was not great. The Eighth Doctor got amnesia (again!) due to one last trap left for him by the Master. To help jumpstart his memories, he went back and visited each of his past incarnations.
Sadly, while this could have been used to introduce new audiences to the whole history of the Doctor, it became a story completely buried in continuity references and the occasional time paradox. Some scenes and interactions were nice and there was a particularly fun "untold adventure" of the Fourth Doctor and Romana fighting off some vampires. During this, the Fourth Doctor remarked that the vampires' need for protein could be satisfied with a nice hunk of cheese rather than blood, but mentioned that he understood that this just didn't hold the same mystique after all. I only mention that scene because it made me laugh out loud, as did another scene where we found out that the Sontarans had a guidebook totally dedicated only to the Doctor.
In the end, the book added very little to the Doctor, except to give him a companion, the young girl Sam Jones. Sam was a free-spirited companion, having spent a lot of time living on the streets. She developed strong feelings for the Doctor, even aggressively kissing him once, but knew that he couldn't return her feelings. In one of the books, it was also implied that she was bisexual, but this was never alluded to again.
The next several adventures were a mix of a few fun stories, some dull ones, and some just plain confusing ones. Vampire Science was enjoyed by many fans, whereas War of the Daleks was so hated that most people chose to ignore it even from the book series continuity. It was a story that, when you broke it down, was basically trying to show that the Daleks had been manipulating Davros and the Doctor many times in order to prevent the destruction of Skaro (the Seventh Doctor blew it up, remember?) and that they even created their enemies the Movellans just to mislead others. The story was overly-complicated, at times paradoxical, and, unless you were a long-time fan who had a very good memory and understood all of the continuity references that flooded it, quite confusing at times. I've yet to meet anyone who liked it.
In Alien Bodies, the Doctor encountered Faction Paradox, a cult of anarchists and ritualists who enjoyed throwing chaos into history. To become a member of the Faction, one of the things you had to do was kill several ancestors, but carefully so you didn't erase yourself from existence. The Faction was founded by a man who was called the Grandfather (get it? "Grandfather paradox"?)
Faction Paradox appeared in a few novels, becoming regular enemies. Around this time, the Doctor was traveling with a man named Fitz (introduced during one of Sam's earlier adventures as a hard-drinking, would-be ladies man), who would appear in over 50 of the novels. The Doctor was also accompanied by a woman named Compassion, who later was mutated into a sentient TARDIS and the Doctor travelled inside her for a while (yeah, I know how bizarre that sounds).
Sam later found out she was a creation of the Faction Paradox. In the original history of the universe, Sam never met the Doctor and died of a drug overdose eventually. But, with some helpful interference from Faction Paradox, this original "Dark Sam" encountered a rift in space-time and a new version of herself was created, splitting off and eventually encountering the Doctor. Soon after discovering this (and after several adventures where the TARDIS crew had to deal with Dark Sam trying to mess with them), Sam left the TARDIS and went off on her own.
Finally, the Doctor learned that the Grandfather Paradox was actually an 
older version of the Eighth Doctor who'd become corrupted thanks to the Faction's interference. The two fought and things ended when Gallifrey was destroyed.
The Doctor wound up on Earth in the late 19th century, without his TARDIS and now an amnesiac (Again! That's three times he was an amnesiac in his eighth life alone if you follow book continuity!). He spent the next one hundred years living and walking amongst humanity. I think this was a good idea, but didn't need to occur through so many novels. After the second, I was ready to see the Doctor back in the TARDIS, but no, there were still a couple more books to go before time travel came back.
At one point during this amnesiac life, the Eighth Doctor took on an adopted daughter named Miranda, who was actually a Time Lord from the far future and may or may not have been the actual daughter of one of the Doctor's future incarnations. Miranda would later have her own comic book mini-series spin-off and it would later be revealed that she became ruler of the universe in the far future, later sacrificing herself for the good of reality, survived only by her daughter "Zezanne" (which sounds like Susan, doesn't it?).
Yeah, I think it's hokey too.
During his amnesiac exile, the Eighth Doctor of the novels became a much colder and more pragmatic man. On several occasions, he showed he was quite willing to allow people to die or even send them to certain death if it aided in his plans. He did not let these deaths deter him, preferring to look at the big picture with even more detachment than the Seventh Doctor had been capable of. Although he still occasionally showed compassion and a respect for the universe, this was definitely no longer the character McGann had portrayed on-screen.
Eventually, the Doctor was once again in modern-day England, just in time to fight off an Ice Warrior invasion along with his old friend Bernice Summerfield. That story The Dying Days does not seem to be able to fit into the continuity of the new TV series due to certain events focused around the Earth publicly knowing about an alien invasion. Also, many fans found it to be controversial, as the epilogue strongly implied that, after a few glasses of wine, the Doctor and Bernice Summerfield had sex. Even though I see the Doctor as perfectly capable of having sex and romance, the scene was rather odd for me and seemed to be put there for its own sake.
Big Finish Productions began doing original audio plays featuring the Eighth Doctor (more on that in a bit) and the continuity seemed to clash with the adventures of the book. In the audio play Zagreus, the Eighth Doctor saw visions of alternate realities, some of which seemed to echo the BBC novels, indicating the radio shows were not meant to take place in the same continuity line. For that reason, and since the audio series seems to fit in better with the continuity of both the new TV series, some choose to look on the novels as a fun parallel universe and see the radio plays as part of the mainstream, particularly as the plays actually involved the TV actors and some of their writers went on to the new series.
Other books came out featuring the Eighth Doctor with teaming up with Fitz again, as well as new companions Trix (a con artist involved in sex work) and Anji Kapoor (a stockbroker who used knowledge of the future to get her some strong finances and who often found herself challenging religion). As I said, some of these books were enjoyable but few were memorable in my opinion.
I also feel that the cold, callous man the Eighth Doctor became in the novels is too far removed from the character that McGann showed and there are several times he did things that I simply don't believe the Doctor would do.
The Eighth Doctor novels ended in The Gallifrey Chronicles, a very dark novel in which Sam showed up again only to be assassinated by enemies who were targeting the Doctor's companions. In this book, it was revealed that the Doctor's amnesia had been self-imposed as a way of freeing up enough space for his mind to contain and preserve the Matrix of Gallifrey, which possessed all the knowledge of their computers and all the memories of dead Time Lords.
Exactly how so much living information was able fit into the Doctor's head, much less being able to do so without causing his brain to immediately explode, wasn't really explained in great detail. The important thing was that the Doctor realized he still had the building blocks of the Time Lord race in his mind and thus he could now restore Gallifrey (somehow).
What exactly happened next? Nothing. The book ended, leaving things open. The Gallifrey Chronicles was meant to officially recognize that the Eighth Doctor was done now because the new TV series was beginning, showcasing the new Ninth Doctor as portrayed by Christopher Eccleston.
The new live-action TV show on the BBC was not the first attempt to begin a new series of adventures for a ninth incarnation of the Doctor. The BBC Doctor Who web-site had created a new animated web-adventure "Scream of the Shalka", feautring Richard E. Grant as the voice of the Ninth Doctor. With Eccleston now stepping into the role, this story was seen as being out of continuity. And just for fun, comedian and Doctor Who fan Rowan Atkinson portayed his own idea of what the Ninth Doctor might be like in his parody sketch (written by later Who writer Stephen Moffat) "Curse of the Fatal Death." I bring all this up because in The Gallifrey Chronicles, the Doctor learned that his life had diverged into three parallel timelines and thus he saw three different possibilities for his ninth incarnation, at which point readers recognized references and descriptions of Eccleston, Atkinson and Richard E. Grant's animated incarnation.
Although Faction Paradox was wiped from the main timeline, they proved to have a good enough cult following that they got a few novels, comic books and audio plays (presumably taking place in an alternate timeline). For info, check the Doctor Who Spin-Offs Article.
We will discuss the Eighth Doctor's comic strip adventures and audio plays in Part Two of this essay. However, I must warn you that Part Two contains many spoilers and I personally think you should enjoy the Eighth Doctor's adventures for yourself.
So instead of checking out Part Two, you should go to my List of the Eighth Doctor's Adventures in Chronological Order and start collecting the comic strip trades and audio plays like good little Whovians.
If you aren't interested in that and just want to know the info of what happened to him, then by all means, proceed to Part Two.
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