Bohemian Like You

Tom Baker (1974-1981)

'I'm a Time Lord...I'm not a human being; I walk in eternity...'

-The Fourth Doctor, Pyramids of Mars 1975

After the dandy action hero got on the bad side of the spiders, a plot was set for the newest incarnation of the renegade Time Lord.

When Jon Pertwee announced he was leaving, fans became worried that nobody could replace their hero but they were wrong. Terribly so. After all, who knew that the next one would become the most popular and most loved of them all. Even though all of the Doctors' before him had a certain something, certain flair and personality, none were as charismatic and loved as the Fourth Doctor.

Tom Baker, a former monk from Liverpool was working on a building site when his agent called him to audition for the newest Doctor. Baker said on the Hand of Fear DVD documentary that he visited one of those fortune telller's before going in for the audition.

She said he would never be succesful and never ammount to anything. She was later called a sharlatan of course.

So the producer loved him as well as Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith) and Ian Marter (Lt. Surgeon Harry Sullivan), who later befriended him and formed a very close circle. You can see the real chemistry, friendship and closeness they portrayed on screen.

The Fourth Doctor, was quite different than the previous incarnation. In fact he was so different that you could really imagine him being an alien and not an Edwardian old man, a Beatles' wannabe or a dandy acton hero. He really acted as an alien and you could see it in his behaviour and the way he acted around Humans and other aliens.

He can be characterized as a more alien-like Doctor, quirky, cunning, quite funny at times (usally using humor as a device to fool his enemies) and later even brooding and dark. He dressed differently as well. Instead of frilly, dandy sixties wear he wore battered ones: a hat, an old scruffy coat and a very long multi-colored scarf which later became his trademark.

He had a lot of companions, some of which are still considered one of the best.
The first one - who even saw him regenerate into his fourth incarnation - was an investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith. She is still one of the most popular companions, though there are others who liked good-natured Doctor Harry Sullivan, or the attractive Sevateem warrior Leela, or his compatriot Time Lady Romana (Romanadvoratrelundar or Fred as the Doctor wanted to call her) and her second incarnation Romana II and let's not forget the mobile computer robotic dog K-9 who is popular even today.

Tom Baker stepped into the role of the Doctor in December 1974 and left quite dramatically in Logopolis in March 1981. He later returned for the Children in Need Special: Dimensions in Time in Novemeber 1993. He will also be remembered as the longest-running Doctor in the series with his seven-year reign.


The Fourth Doctor episodes titles are as follows:


Season 12 (1974-1975)


-Robot
-The Ark in Space
-The Sontaran Experiment
-Genesis of the Daleks
-Revenge of the Cybermen

Season 13 (1975-1976)


-Terror of the Zygons
-Planet of Evil
-Pyramids of Mars
-The Android Invasion
-The Brain of Morbius
-The Seeds od Doom

Season 14 (1976-1977)


-The Masque of Mandragora
-The Hand of Fear
-The Deadly Assassin
-The Face of Evil
-The Robots of Death
-The Talons of Weng-Chiang

Season 15 (1977-1978)


-Horror of Fang Rock
-The Invisible Enemy
-Image of the Fendahl
-The Sunmakers
-Underworld
-The Invasion of Time

Season 16 (1978-1979)


-The Ribos Operation
-The Pirate Planet
-The Stones of Blood
-The Androids of Tara
-The Power of Kroll
-The Armageddon Factor

Season 17 (1979-1980)


-Destiny of the Daleks
-City of Death
-The Creature from the Pit
-Nightmare of Eden
-The Horns of Nimon
-Shada


Season 18 (1980-1981)


-The Leasure Hive
-Meglos

The E-Space Trillogy:

-Full Circle
-State of Decay
-Warrior's Gate

-The Keeper of Traken
-Logopolis



“It's the end but the moment has been prepared for...”

-The Fourth Doctor's final words before regeneration in Logopolis