Captain Jack's Guide to the Doctor

Written by Captain Jack Harkness, author of, "Your Smile is Currency in three Galaxies" Index of Self-Esteem.

(Author's Note: I'm not making this stuff up, people. I pulled all of these crazy fights involving the Doctor straight from Canon.)

Part 8: Romancing the Doctor (or at least a drink)

Page 220: Doctor Two (Alias; Cosmic Hobo, "scruffy little tramp", "clown," "nutjob," "Funny little man," "that odd little fellow" and Torchwood's favorite, UNIT's very own Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's personal moniker as "Clown Prince of Time."

Description: Charlie Chaplain in Space covers it pretty well, but we have heard "starved gypsy". If you'll look closely at our image of the Original Doctor and this charming little balatron, you'll be struck by how very much it looks like the Second Doctor regenerated from his considerably larger body and just wandered absent-mindedly away without changing his clothes to fit. That's exactly what happened. From Sartorial to Satirical in one fell swoop—his other incarnations blame it all on the TARDIS. Sad but at least it isn't the usual tired case of blaming your parents. We suspect it was her first time too, because she clearly gets better at it with practice. The 11th Doctor is obviously a more smoothed-out and refined model, but they're still Kitchen Gunpowder.

Hair is coal black to silver and always a mess, unless he's in disguise. Save the trousers, his clothes are always oversized, unless he's in disguise. Frock Coat looks suspiciously like something from Gilbert and Sullivan. Trousers are a Tartan or plaid or check or Scottish weave. Always wears a pinned-on bow tie, unless in disguise. Shoes change as much as his mind. In the early years he wore half-boots with three times the necessary laces wrapped around his ankles. We think he was hoping to eventually trip up Daleks or Cybermen with them. An oversized silk handkerchief invariably strangles out of his front pocket, gasping for air. Braces: usually bright enough to scald a Graske's fragile retina. Eyes: Cameras register them as blue; verbal descriptions from outsiders call them every shade from brown, to blue, but according to his Companions, they're really green. In other words, his eye color is a non-factor in ID. Voice: RP. Unless he's in disguise.

Most likely to be found: On a beach, near a mountain, in the bottom of a Welsh Quarry, or in the middle of a chain of reactive explosions. Usually all at the same time.

So. You want to invite this Doctor out for a drink.

Are you serious? Are you out of your tree?

Have you thought this through?

Wouldn't you prefer a more...achievable goal? The 7th Doctor is quite personable, and all you'd have to do is get past Ace and her backpack full of explosives. Her personal body count was only in the 600's the last we checked.

Or #4? Leela was never without her poisonous Janus thorns, yes, but she wasn't with him all the time. Likewise for K-9 and his Nose of Deadly Death Ray. Once Romana showed up-forget it. He spent his entire tenure with her trying to prove he was smarter. Time Lords do not play well with each other.

The 8th is called The Oncoming Pretty for a reason, and we're told he kisses quite well. The bad news is his recurring amnesia. The good news is you can keep catching him under the mistletoe and he probably won't ever know.

9th and 10th Doctor? You'd have to get past Rose, and who would want to do that anyway?

5th Doctor—or 6th? You could take either of them home with you. Assuming Mel wouldn't scream at you. And Peri. Oh, goodness. Peri. So long as Peri wasn't around to protect him from your wicked ways. Least you think we're being facetious again, let us point out the tiny little fact that Peri Brown is the only mortal in the Universe who broke the Master's arm in hand-to-hand combat, not to mention the time she shrank him down with his own TCE and tried to finish the job with the flat of her shoe. Britain dodged a bullet there, ladies and gentlemen. Letting the Americans achieve their own independence was the smartest thing Britain ever did for its own sanity.

11th Doctor. No touchy. Married in an unplanned but agreeable threeway involving a time traveling archaeologist and his own TARDIS. Don't even try to figure that one out-just be like the 11 and just accept it for what it is. Whatever it is.

12th Doctor. Take a good, long look at that and ask yourself if you can compete with all that style. We didn't think so.

3rd Doctor—hah. As if Liz Shaw and Jo Grant wouldn't see you coming a mile off. Besides, he was clearly in a committed frenemonious relationship with the Master.

At least you're not going after the First Doctor. We're pretty sure he's still married to an Aztec Princess, and we don't condone homewrecking through time and space. Does anyone know how to take back a cup of cocoa?

Right. Don't get all huffy on us. We're not trying to be mean, just realistic. Yes, we KNOW why you'd like to take the little guy home. Who wouldn't? He's personable, charming, is the ultimate fix-it-man, couldn't care less if you got an unsightly tear in your sleeve, is loyal, generous to a fault, self-sacrificing, protective, and all around adorable. The Universe had a tough job the day he showed up; it was trying to prove there are cuter things than baby fur seals, but we think it did a great job with what it had.

By now you're thinking, 'Good Lord, Jack, what's wrong with you?' It's very simple. Captain Jack is immortal and can't die. This does not mean he likes to juggle chainsaws. He will catch them if someone throws them at his head, but he does not wake up and think, "gee, I think I'll juggle chainsaws today."

This Doctor, cute and cuddlesome as he is, is a Temporal Rift disaster waiting to happen—a crisis of Apocalyptic Tenses.

Besides, you'll have to get through all the competition to buy the Cosmic Hobo that drink, and believe me, that's a lot of competition.

First of all, no other Doctor has as much reason to rabbit off into the Universe, bouncing off the portals of time and space like so many ping-pong balls. In his comparatively short tenure, the Second Doctor has been pursued by more villainous villains and monstrous monsters than any of his other Incarnations. Put together. We are not kidding. Check the back of the index if you don't believe us. Ianto made one hell of a graph. Despite the perfect cover of being a harmless, daft little tramp, he remains on the top list of Doctors for Devious Purposes.

The Great Intelligence tried to steal his intellect not once, but twice before he finally chased it off until it returned to be 11's problem. Think about it. A vaporous clot of brain-cloud was chasing him with not only itself, but resurrected corpses, not-very-cuddly robot Yetis, and that most unique weapon, the Yeti Fungus Web Gun (not sold in any stores, even in the Grand Martian Canal Shopping Mall). The Daleks tried to turn his brains into Marmite (silly Daleks), and all they got out of that was a small army of rebellious laughing Dizzy Daleks who wanted nothing more than to spin in circles and play choo-choo. No, we are not kidding about that, either. We have pictures. Check Page 47. There were jokes, too, but in the interest of a sane Universe, we chose not to include them.

The Ice Warriors poisoned him with spores, tried to transmat him into vacuum (as opposed to the time they were going to drop the atmospheric pressure in an airlock down to zero), and finally just unimaginatively tried to shoot him. The Chameleons, proving they were such a dashed superior race, tried freezing him to death, and paralyzing him with one of those fashionably iffy stun buttons before stretching him out on his back under a giant laser beam (which just goes to show aliens should never be allowed to watch James Bond films without Cliff Notes). All of this was before, we might add, they gave up on their attempts to kill him (and even we lost track of all the attempts), before deciding they were better off if they donated his body to science (theirs) and his brain to science (still theirs) while they were at it. Proving they really did need somebody's brains, they let his get too close to their brain-sucking capacitor with a non-sonic screwdriver. Shame, shame. We weep for the quality of Earth Invaders. Some are better than others, and the Chameleons, shall we be so indelicate as to say, were "off their face" on that one.

But, let's be fair. The Chameleons said what every other dastardly creep has thought when doing the rounds against the Doctor. "I want your brain." Give them a hand, ladies and gentlemen, for coming out with it. They thought it, they felt it, they said it, they meant it—and it didn't sound at all suggestive, did it? No, not at all.

If you suspect you see a pattern, you are not wrong. This Doctor, despite a disguise that would fool the Great Houdini on daffyness, is on the A-list for Alien Abductions. In other words, a shocking number of predators want to take unspeakable advantage of a scruffy little hobo who can barely remember to wear matching socks and thinks his bow tie is a collar button. He can't believe it—and neither can we. All we can conclude with the information at hand is the clear fact that all abducting aliens in question are desperate beyond an Ogron in an East End bar, or maybe their personal tastes run to the unspeakably questionable. I mean, come on. Who wants to cop up something that cute when you can just invite it over for tea and sandwiches? While that makes us all feel a little better in that the Doctor's Disguises are good enough to keep the bulk of pesty, annoying evilness at bay, he's still busier than his other incarnations. You'll never see another Doctor that has so much fun being himself...but nor will you see anyone work harder at it.

Seaweed tried to steal his brains, people. SEAWEED! Yes, he survived—Britain nearly lost a tanking platform out of the mess, plus an expensive helicopter, several World War II generators, buildings and some slightly off-brand sonic receivers, and he had to learn how to pilot that helicopter on the fly (literally), but yet again he staggered out of the smoking ruins scot-free. Well, not exactly scot-free. He's Scotch-guarded by the prettiest legs that ever wore a kilt. Oh. The Seaweed. Yes. Intelligent seaweed tried to nab him. When he was finished with it...it was a vegetable. No, we're not sorry we said that, because we're pretty sure you already thought it.

Moving right along, this Doctor also dealt with a mental vampiric washout called the Master of the Land of Fiction. Ever get the guilty urge to write some fan fiction about your favorite doctor? It's already been done, toots. Luckily for the Universe, the Master's Computer was no less idiotic than any other mastermind...they plugged him up to the giant brain and THEN told him he was in control. Obviously, these guys need a crash course in Domination for Dummies. And speaking of, the Dominators fared no better. Even when they suspected he really was intelligent, they still let him go and surprise, surprise when their ship suffered a mysterious case of Bomb in atmosphere. We're still not sure if this Doctor failed the intelligence test or passed it. Jury's out, people. Check for the Updated Edition, due in the fall.

This sweet-faced little fellow with the cutest little grin instigated the first genocide of the Daleks, wiped out their Vulcan Invasion, and made confetti out of four Cyberman attacks (five if you count they're the reason why he had to regenerate in the first place, and may explain why he has something of a grudge against the silver monochromes).

He sank Atlantis into the sea. And its survivors thanked him. Chew on that bit of diplomatic marvel, United Nations.

The Krotons tried to suck his intellect out with a light-straw, the War Chief tired to destroy his mind simply because he was being annoying (haven't we all had days like that), and we could go on forever but we hope by now you've got the point: Anyone trying to romance this cutie is going to have to compete with not only the Monster of the Week threat that is part and parcel of this Doctor's existence...but you also have to compete with the the nonstop Adrenaline rush he's living in.

You want romance? He just wants a day on the beach, a sand castle, and people not shooting at him. Or drugging him. Or stuffing him in a lucite window display computer. Or locking him in a shrinking SIDRAT. Or putting him before a firing squad. Or, worst of all, monologing your dastardly plans in his tired little ears. That really makes him beg for death. Simple things, people. It's the simple things in life that count and the contents of his pockets prove it: jelly babies, pencils, chalk...markers...cork pins, playing cards...marbles...Geiger counters...voltage meters...slingshots...firecrackers...homemade pipe bombs...ginormous honking blowtorches that can swiftly slap cyberships silly, straight out of space...you get the idea.

We'll repeat ourselves. YOU want romance. HE wants a beach, kites, sand castles and iced lollies. Neither of you will get your heart's desire. It's a cold Universe.

Assuming you can get past the whopping gauntlet of evilness, you still have to bring him down from the Adrenaline Rush. Good luck, ladies and germs. We haven't seen such a fantastic wiring for PTSD panic since DANGERMOUSE went off the air. Failing that, you still have to get through his Companions.

Unlike many of his other incarnations, the Second Doctor is surrounded by a loving, supportive, emotionally well balanced and smart little group of humans. They're cute as the cast from Barnaby the Bear, all of them. No psychos, creeps, weirdos, whiny schoolboys, possessed robots or crazy people need apply. They're more than his friends; they're his KIDS. His KIDS. And he's their Dad. There is a reason why UNIT's code name for the Second Doctor is "Papa Wolf." Hurt them and you can write your will out tonight. Better yet, have it written out first, and hope you live long enough to mail it to the legal office. He likes humans as much as they like him. He stands up for them, defends them, and gallivants all over Creation with them. In return, they watch out for him with all the loving suspicion you might expect. They protect him with the fire of a thousand burning suns. They watch out for him as much as he watches out for them. Neither side really trusts the other to stay out of trouble, and for good reason. They're adrenaline junkies too. Oh, sure, they call themselves curious explorers and adventurers...but in truth...nothing gives them a rush like being on a new planet and not knowing what will happen next: Yeti? Ice Warriors? Crazed computers? Oncoming flow of lava? Deadly robots? Church suppers? Mimes? Bring it on. Tiny Team Tardis is ready with Vegemite sandwiches and tea.

UNIT has also, in its dry wisdom, donned several other nicknames for the Second Doctor's group. Due to the fact that the Second Doctor never seems to attract a Companion taller then himself, we've heard Time Tots, Tiny Terrors, Mighty Mites, Lilliputian Luddites and the Deadly Diminutives. Be advised before you use them casually.

The shortest Companion was Ben Jackson, a feisty Cockney who rose to Fleet Admiral and just happens to be skilled at everything from card-sharking, underwater escapes, barroom brawling, and espionage. Ben Jackson is the only human who could give Colin Jeavons a run for his shilling in wide-eyed British cuteness, plus he is smart as the proverbial whip and capable of thinking outside the box to the point that we're pretty sure people have to regularly explain what the cardboard cube was in the first place.

The tallest member is Polly Wright, who married Ben after they parted ways with the TARDIS. Her skills? She is the only mind in the Universe who can riddle out the fractured fault lines of the Doctor's mental processes, and not only does she make sense of them, she figures out what he's planning. Is she mad? Not at all. That's what makes her so amazing. She also kills Cybermen with nail polish. She has killed a lot of Cybermen with nail polish. If you ever get your hands on her recipe, please let Torchwood know. After they married, Polly went on to a much more sedentary life by taking care of Ben. This does not mean birthing babies and washing dishes. Oh, no. This means masquerading as he rose through the ranks as Admiral, and keeping a slew of political enemies and friends in line so Ben could concentrate on becoming the greatest Admiral British History has seen since Nelson. Why haven't we heard of him, then, you cry? Because he was that good, and he and Polly were exactly that good at hiding what he did from the world.

The next is Victoria Waterfield, a, yes, Victorian era girl that everyone seems to think was a frail, fainting flower capable of nothing more than seaweed-slicing-sonic screams. Ask her and she will tell you she was just a damsel too, but our records show she was a clever girl indeed in getting people to do what she wanted. She was personally confident but too mannerly to show it, and possessed a capacity for calculation in manipulating enemies that leaves us staggered to this very day. She's also improvisational enough to go into combat against Cybermen with nothing more than a thermos and a knowledge of bipedal joint manipulation (Re: bash them in the elbow until they let the Doctor go). Don't even bother figuring her out. She swims in a sparkling gene pool—her father's freakish brilliance managed primitive time travel experiments in Victorian London (before Steampunk was invented, geeks!) and her mother had uber-awesome powers of charm. She's the best of both worlds. Handle with caution. On that note, don't handle at all. You might get the Doctor's attention, and then Papa Wolf will come out. When it comes to Papa Wolf, the moon is ALWAYS full.

The next Companion is Zoe, a teenage elf brainiac with a bad habit of killing baddie computers (plus defenseless if annoying ones) with ALGOL. No, we are not letting her anywhere NEAR Torchwood and Sarah Jane Smith is under Standing Warning to keep Mr. Smith out of her sight. She also plots missiles against Cybermen, takes rockets from Earth to the Moon on dry runs, nips through active meteoroid fields, and always manages to make a lot of friends in the process even though for years she had the personality of a Rubik's Cube. Not only is her memory infallible, it's infallible. Scary, scary. Leave her alone. Not scared yet? She's exactly like the Doctor, only sixteen. Now you're scared. Good.

That leaves Jamie, the Highlander with the pretty legs. And a dirk. A very nice dirk. His dirk has seen a lot of action. Particularly inside Ice Warriors, Androgums, Sontarans, Englishmen and other monsters. Rumor has it, the dirk's handle says, "Twist to Remove" but we aren't going to investigate that for ourselves. The mortality rate at Torchwood is high enough. Of them all, he's stayed with this Doctor through thick and thin, and stands as best friend/son for Papa Wolf. Just imagine getting past Jamie. Go ahead. We dare you. The lad survived a Sontaran massacre when everyone else with 20 times the IQ couldn't find an air vent to cower in. He's beat up Quarks, Krotons, Gonds, giant invisible crabs, technologically advanced aliens, and Yeti. Some people sneer at him for being a stone age primate, but he actually does quite well with rocks. He's used them to pick Kroton locks, and render Quarks from a 3-D to a 2-D form. He's the salt to the Doctor's pepper. They're a matched set for adventures, disasters, and problem-solving, but not in that order.

Just try getting to the Doctor through any of these Companions. They love him madly. They love him dearly. He loves them right back. But wiggle through the combined defenses? My, you are cracked.

What, may you ask, are your odds at all? Since you asked, we'll tell you. Go ahead and invite him out for that drink, but don't expect anything else. The Second Doctor is as ambivalent about gender as any other Time Lord; he's as likely to dress as a washerwoman as he is a despotic dictator. The one and only time we tracked him down to a period of actual interest was with a mature lady on a space station. She had brains on par with Zoe. Ergo, your best bet would be as an uber-brainy scientist past the pubescent period of pointless pontification. There was that augmented Androgum, but we aren't going to go there. The attraction went in one direction, and never in his favor. Think Praying Mantis. Besides, she just wanted him for his TARDIS, which puts her on level with the Daleks.

No, folks, what interests the Cosmic Hobo is being the full time single Dad for his slapped-together and slightly manic family of strays. He cares about them, and if you have a cricket ball's chance in Singularity, you'd better keep that in mind. Oh. And before you even order those drinks, map out all the available exits first and bear in mind the ol' Brig's advice: "Invading aliens have no respect for bullets or Christmas."

Nice knowing you.