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The Fourth Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. He is portrayed by Tom Baker. Within the series' narrative, the Doctor is a centuries-old alien Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey who travels in time and space in the TARDIS, frequently with companions. At the end of life, the Doctor regenerates; as a result, the physical appearance and personality of the Doctor changes. Preceded in regeneration by the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee), he is followed by the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison). Baker portrays the Fourth Doctor as a whimsical and sometimes brooding individual whose enormous personal warmth is at times tempered by his capacity for righteous anger. His initial companions were the journalist Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen), who had travelled with his previous incarnation, and Surgeon-Lieutenant Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter) of UNIT. His later companions were the warrior Leela (Louise Jameson), robotic dog K9 (John Leeson and David Brierly), female Time Lord Romana (Mary Tamm and Lalla Ward), teen mathematical genius Adric (Matthew Waterhouse), teen alien aristocrat Nyssa (Sarah Sutton), and Australian flight attendant Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding). Baker portrayed the character for seven consecutive seasons, which remains the longest tenure of any actor to portray the lead, counting both the classic and new series. Baker's tenure as the Doctor is highly regarded among fans of the show and he is considered as one of the most iconic incarnations of the character. Overview The Fourth Doctor appeared in 172 episodes (179, counting the regeneration in Part 6 of Planet of the Spiders and his untelevised appearances in the six-part aborted serial Shada) over a seven-year period, from 1974 to 1981. This makes him the longest-running on-screen Doctor of the series. He also appeared in the specials The Five Doctors (via footage from the incomplete Shada), and made his final appearance as the Doctor in the charity special Dimensions in Time (aside from a series of television advertisements in New Zealand in 1997). This incarnation is generally regarded as one of the most recognisable of the Doctors and one of the most popular, especially in the United States. In polls conducted by Doctor Who Magazine, Tom Baker has lost the "Best Doctor" category only three times: once to Sylvester McCoy (the Seventh Doctor) in 1990, and twice to David Tennant (the Tenth Doctor) in 2006 and 2009. The Fourth Doctor's eccentric style of dress and speech – particularly his trademark look of wearing a long scarf and having a fondness for Jelly Babies – made him an immediately recognisable figure and he quickly captivated the viewing public's imagination. The producer of Baker's early seasons, Philip Hinchcliffe, stated that the Fourth Doctor's bohemian appearance and anti-establishment style appealed to older, college-age students. The Fourth Doctor's time enjoyed a significant boost in viewing figures, averaging between 8 and 10 million viewers in just his first year (20–25 percent of the entire viewing audience of Britain). By 1979, the figures averaged between 9 and 11 million, going as high as 16.1 million for the final episode of City of Death (though this was during the ITV technicians strike of 1979 which meant the BBC was the sole broadcaster on the air for several weeks). After succeeding Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor, Baker's portrayal of the Fourth was not initially received enthusiastically by all of the critics. One writer in the Daily Mail complained in early 1975 that, "Mr. Baker makes Doctor Who look like Harpo Marx let loose from Horse Feathers." Baker himself responded by saying, "We are not playing Doctor Who for laughs. I am trying to stress his strangeness, that he is not of this world, not human, therefore his reactions will be different from ours. I take it all very seriously. He has to be genuinely lovable, not pleased by violence, and he must be honest. Humorous, but never comical." There are also novels and audio plays featuring the Fourth Doctor. Two early audio plays featuring Tom Baker voicing the Fourth Doctor date from Baker's television tenure as he had mainly declined to appear in any further audio plays since leaving the series. In 2009, however, it was announced that a new five-part series would be produced by BBC Audio (see below). Biography After contracting radiation poisoning from the crystals of the planet Metebelis 3, the Third Doctor makes his way back to UNIT headquarters in the TARDIS, where the Time Lord K'Anpo Rimpoche aids him in regenerating (Planet of the Spiders). In his new incarnation, the Doctor is eager to leave Earth in favour of exploration, thus drawing back from continuous involvement with UNIT (with which he had worked closely as the Third Doctor). He has also grown tired of working for the Time Lords. Despite attempts to avoid them altogether, the Time Lords continue to send him on occasional missions, including an attempt to prevent the creation of the Daleks (Genesis of the Daleks), during which he also meets Davros. The Doctor travels with journalist Sarah Jane Smith, whom he had befriended prior to his regeneration, and, for a time, with UNIT Surgeon-Lieutenant Harry Sullivan. After a battle with Zygons in Scotland, Harry (having just spent an entire season with the Doctor as they tried to get back to the TARDIS) decided that taking the train was safer than the TARDIS, which the Doctor and Sarah Jane chose to try to make an appointment in London. Instead they ended up on the planet Zeta Minor (Planet of Evil), located at the far edge of the known universe. From this point on, the Doctor and Sarah Jane travelled alone. The Doctor's companionship with Sarah Jane came to an end when he received a telepathic summons to Gallifrey, as humans were not then allowed on the planet. The summons turns out to be part of a trap set by his enemy the Master. The renegade Time Lord has used up all his regenerations and has degenerated into little more than a withered skeletal husk. The Doctor is framed for the assassination of the President of the High Council of Time Lords and put on trial. To avoid execution, the Doctor invokes an obscure law and declares himself a candidate for the office, giving himself the time he needs to prove his innocence and expose the real culprit. This ultimately results in a climactic battle with the Master (The Deadly Assassin). The Doctor is seen to travel alone for the first time, returning to a planet he had visited centuries before. During his previous visit, he had accidentally imprinted his own mind on a human colony ship's powerful computer, Xoanon, leaving it with multiple personalities. On his second visit the Doctor is now remembered as an evil god by the descendants of the colonists, some of whom had become a warrior tribe called the Sevateem. After the Doctor cures the computer, one of the Sevateem, Leela, joins him on hi.... Discover the Doctor Tom Lewis popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Doctor Tom Lewis books.