Doctor Who actors in order - in production and chronological order

Incredibly, William Hartnell, who played the first Doctor, once predicted the impact this would have on the show, according to Carole Ann Ford, who played the first companion, Susan Foreman.

She told RadioTimes.com: "Bill used to say in the very beginning that it could go on forever. Because there's no reason for it not to, because the Doctors can regenerate again and again and again, and they can go anywhere and do anything so it wouldn't get stale."

He certainly wasn't wrong! Here, we look back at every actor to have played the Doctor.

It should be noted that we are only including the iterations where actors who play The Doctor are in the canon of the BBC series in this list.

This means that we are not including actors such as Peter Cushing, who portrayed the character Dr Who in the non-canon films Dr Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966).

So, where do they all fall in the timeline of the series – in real life and in the story?

Doctor Who actors in production order

The following actors have portrayed incarnations of The Doctor across the entire life of Doctor Who, here presented in the order in which they played the character in the real-life production.

• William Hartnell as The First Doctor
• Patrick Troughton as The Second Doctor
• Jon Pertwee as The Third Doctor
• Tom Baker as The Fourth Doctor
• Various as The Morbius Doctors
• Adrian Gibbs as The Watcher
• Peter Davison as The Fifth Doctor
• Richard Hurndall as The First Doctor
• Colin Baker as The Sixth Doctor
• Michael Jayston as The Valeyard
• Sylvester McCoy as The Seventh Doctor
• Paul McGann as The Eighth Doctor
• Christopher Eccleston as The Ninth Doctor
• David Tennant as The Tenth Doctor
• David Tennant as The Meta-Crisis Doctor
• Matt Smith as The Eleventh Doctor
• Toby Jones as The Dream Lord
• John Hurt as The War Doctor
• Tom Baker as The Curator
• Peter Capaldi as The Twelfth Doctor
• Michael Jones as child First Doctor
• David Bradley as The First Doctor
• Jodie Whittaker as The Thirteenth Doctor
• Jo Martin as The Fugitive Doctor
• Evan McCabe as Brendan
• Various as The Timeless Children
• Sacha Dhawan as The Master Doctor
• David Tennant as The Fourteenth Doctor
• Ncuti Gatwa as The Fifteenth Doctor

We're sure there will be many more twists and turns in the series in future that mean more actors shall be added in due course.

Doctor Who actors in chronological order by story

The following actors have portrayed The Doctor in the canon of the BBC series and these are in chronological order by the show's own timeline.

• Various as The Timeless Children
• Evan McCabe as Brendan
• Jo Martin as The Fugitive Doctor
• Various as The Morbius Doctors
• Michael Jones as child First Doctor
• William Hartnell, Richard Hurndall, and David Bradley as The First Doctor
• Patrick Troughton as The Second Doctor
• Jon Pertwee as The Third Doctor
• Tom Baker as The Fourth Doctor
• Adrian Gibbs as The Watcher
• Peter Davison as The Fifth Doctor
• Colin Baker as The Sixth Doctor
• Sylvester McCoy as The Seventh Doctor
• Paul McGann as The Eighth Doctor
• John Hurt as The War Doctor
• Christopher Eccleston as The Ninth Doctor
• David Tennant as The Tenth Doctor
• David Tennant as The Meta-Crisis Doctor
• Matt Smith as The Eleventh Doctor
• Toby Jones as The Dream Lord
• Peter Capaldi as The Twelfth Doctor
• Michael Jayston as The Valeyard
• Jodie Whittaker as The Thirteenth Doctor
• Sacha Dhawan as The Master Doctor
• David Tennant as The Fourteenth Doctor
• Ncuti Gatwa as The Fifteenth Doctor
• Tom Baker as The Curator

However, the timeline has all the more complicated after the bigeneration in 60th anniversary special The Giggle, which saw the Doctor split into two, rather than the new Doctor replacing the old Doctor.

The impact of this on the Whoniverse could be huge – it effectively means that each previous regeneration was impacted by the bigeneration, with every 'old' Doctor now surviving his demise in a splinter timeline.

Showrunner Russell T Davies explained: "I think all of the Doctors came back to life with their individual TARDISes, the gift of the Toymaker, and they're all out there travelling round in what I'm calling a Doctor-verse.

"Sylvester McCoy woke up in a drawer, in a morgue, in San Francisco… and Jon Pertwee woke up on the floor of the laboratory," he says.

These revelations follow a reference in spin-off series Tales of the TARDIS, which saw Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor provide an explanation to Sophie Aldred's Ace as to his appearance, saying: "Time streams are funny things. In some, I regenerate. In others, I don't. It's all a matter of perspective."
So, it seems as if all the old Doctors are out there in the universe and could potentially run into each other. Who knows which Doctors past, present and future will appear in upcoming episodes?

Doctor Who is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

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