New Occupations:
NoneThe 42nd Doctor
New Occupations:
None
New Affiliations: President Blake of the Earth Empire, the Children of Kasterborous, an unidentified black-toothed and gloved reluctant ally
New Enemies: Dalek Nation, Dalek Emperor (Valeyard), the Lords of the Matrix
New Relatives: Iphegenia "Iffy" (wife), Ipswich
(brother-in-law), unidentified mother and father-in-law, six other in-laws
(Iffy's older siblings)
New Aliases: None
First Appearance: Doctor Who: Odyssey novella
(exact one and publication date as yet unknown to me)
Height: 5'9"
Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: "Pale" (Ian Richardson's were blue)
Hair: White
History: (Integration) - The "impulsive" 41st incarnation of the Doctor met and married a human teenager named Iphegenia.
(The Dying Days epilogue (see comments)) - Now in his 42nd incarnation, two thousand and two hundred years after his eighth incarnation had repelled an Ice Warrior invasion of Earth, the Doctor was "in human terms...appeared to be a man in his sixties, with thinning hair and pale, odd eyes." Lean, he "moved with the unselfconscious ease of a man two or three decades younger," and had the right profile and bearing to be a Roman senator. He wore "a dark-blue suit and a pressed silk shirt that looked expensive, but weren’t exactly the height of fashion."
(Beige Planet Mars (fb)) - He had a thin, aquiline face.
(Valeyard of the Daleks) - The Doctor and Iphegenia met the Doctor's old friend Jason Kane at the Internationale casino in Italy, where Iffy and Kane were both playing poker. Learning Jason was trying to construct a time machine to reunite with his estranged wife Benny Summerfield, the Doctor offered to save Jason the effort by giving him a lift in the TARDIS. They were attacked by Daleks as they left Earth, but the Doctor evaded them and safely delivered Jason to the planet Dellah in 2593.
or
(Eulogy of the Daleks (fb)) - In 4723 the Doctor witnessed Davros' execution, but a new Emperor...
(Valeyard of the Daleks) - unknown to the Daleks, the Doctor's own rogue incarnation the Valeyard...
(Eulogy of the Daleks) - rose to command the Dalek empire, uniting the fragmented factions into the Dalek Nation, the largest empire the universe would ever know. Knowing that the Daleks had to be destroyed, the Doctor arranged an alliance between humanity, who had already driven off the Daleks thanks to the leadership of President Blake, and the Children of Kasterborous, and they launched a combined armada into the heart of Dalek territory, initiating the Final Dalek War. Over the years it raged countless more races joined the cause, until the Daleks were destroyed. Only one survived. Leaving Iffy on Earth in the care of the sentient church Saul in the village of Cheldon Bonniface, the Doctor tracked it down and found it dying on a mountainside on Calliopticon. He stood vigil over it for three days as it died, listening to it make empty threats, then plead for its life. He interred its remains in a golden flask the shape of a rugby ball, hoping it had finally found peace.
(Eulogy of the Daleks) - Returning to Iffy, the Doctor found that she had run into his old friend Jason Kane, who had also chosen to visit Saul. Desperate to reunite with his estranged wife Benny Summerfield, Jason asked the Doctor if he might get a lift to the planet Dellah in the year 2593; initially reluctant as he wondered if this was what Benny would want, the Doctor agreed after some gentle chiding from Iffy, and safely delivered Jason to the planet Dellah in 2593.
(Beige Planet Mars (fb)) - The 42nd Doctor and Iffy helped repel the Dalek invasion of Mars. "They downed a saucer at the Argyre Dam and helped coordinate the final attack."
(Tales of the Solar System: Saturnalia) - No details available.
(Myth
Makers Essentials: Wheels) - Allied with an unidentified and untrustworthy
ally of convenience, the Doctor opposed the Lord of the Matrix and a new
incarnation of the Master in an attempt to set time free.
Comments: Created by Lance Parkin and Mark Clapham.
This incarnation of the Doctor, the 42nd incarnation, was originally created for fan-publisher Seventh Door Fanzines' Doctor Who: Odyssey series of fanfic novellas. Both Parkin and Clapham went on to work on the officially licensed Doctor Who novels, and Parkin in particular slipped the character into cameos in a few stories. He was based in appearance on actor Ian Richardson, perhaps somewhat appropriate as Richardson's son Miles would later play the Doctor's brother Irving Braxiatel in Big Finish's audio plays - a clear case of the Doctor and his brother sharing a family resemblance! Per Parkin the concept behind this incarnation was "to imagine what Doctor Who would be like decades on (we were writing in the mid-nineties) and to just shift the Doctor Who universe along, TNG-style. The Daleks had been wiped out in a time war, Gallifrey was gone, the Doctor had a tomboyish wife, a bunch of mates throughout the universe and they spent their time going to fun places and fighting evil almost as a sideline." Obviously the first couple of these ideas also occurred to Russel T. Davies when he revived Doctor Who in the 2000s. The Doctor's wife, Iphegenia, was visually based on Caitlin Moran, and first appeared in the Seventh Door novella Integration, which was solely written by Clapham. She apparently married the Doctor in his 41st incarnation, shortly before he regenerated.
Sadly the Odyssey fanzines seem to be ridiculously hard to find, so I lack
any details of his appearances there. His first foray into official Doctor
Who was originally going to be in the epilogue of The Dying Days, Virgin
Book's last Doctor Who novel, but Parkin decided his first draft of this
epilogue (retroactively dubbed by him "Valeyard of the Daleks") wasn't up
to scratch and rewrote it (with the new version being retroactively dubbed
"Eulogy of the Daleks"); this second draft was initially approved of by
editor Rachel Levine, but then had to be cut for a number of reasons, most
notably to reduce the already excessive word count of the novel. Two
subsequent epilogues followed, neither featuring this Doctor, and both
being ultimately cut. Parkin subsequently published Valeyard
of the Daleks online and later provided Eulogy
of the Daleks to fanzine Matrix 54 for publication (but has since
also released it on his blog).
Though Virgin had lost the Doctor Who license, they kept their novel line going, shifting the starring role from the Doctor to original novel companion Bernice "Benny" Summerfield, and in the 1998 novel Beige Planet Mars by Parkin and Clapham we got the first published cameo by the 42nd Doctor in a Doctor Who-adjacent series, when a photo of him and Iffy turns up and their actions in helping repel a Dalek invasion are remembered by a veteran of that conflict.
In 2000 the 42nd Doctor then turned up again in the Doctor Who fan-published charity anthology Tales of the Solar System, finally getting the lead role instead of just a cameo in the story Saturnalia by Lance Parkin. Sadly the charity anthologies are next to impossible to find if you don't buy them at the time they come out, and I only learned of this collection after the fact, so I have no further details beyond that. If anyone reading this has it and can either provide details, or better yet scans (or even is willing to sell it, though I doubt I'll be that lucky), please do get in touch!
Then in 2003 the 42nd Doctor also turned up in a short story, Wheels, written by Clapham and published in the fanzine Myth Makers Essentials. You can read that online here.
Given the non-canonical nature of this Doctor, finding images of him was understandably tricky, yet surprisingly not impossible. The main image is by Mark Jones and comes from the fanzine Matrix 54, which included one version of the epilogue written by Lance Parkin for The Dying Days novel that was then cut. Since it accompanied Parkin's text and thus has his seal of approval, it's the closest we have to an official image of the character. The headshot is clipped from artist Paul Hanley's Infinite Doctors artwork, which depicted all (or perhaps only nearly all - it's hard to ever be sure) of the Doctor's many incarnations up to the time the illustration was drawn. The two photos are of actor Ian Richardson in suits at least somewhat similar to the one described by Parkin as this Doctor's outfit. They are obviously of Richardson in other roles, but at least give an idea what he would have looked like as Parkin's Doctor.
Appearance checklist (not including reprints):
First Posted: 14/11/2003
Last updated: 14/11/2022
Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.
All images and characters depicted on this site are copyright their respective holders, and are used for informational purposes only. No infringement is intended and copyrights remain at source.