The Ninth Doctor is the battle-scarred incarnation of the Doctor portrayed by Christopher Eccleston, the Time Lord who emerges from the Last Great Time War carrying enormous grief beneath an explosive sense of wonder.

When Rose Tyler meets him, this Doctor is intense, unpredictable, funny, and visibly uncomfortable with the person the war forced him to become. He races through danger with a grin, but underneath the leather jacket and rapid-fire jokes is someone confronting the consequences of believing he destroyed both the Daleks and his own people.

Rose gives him another way forward.

Together they travel from Victorian Cardiff to the end of the Earth, encountering Slitheen, Daleks, gas-mask zombies, and Captain Jack Harkness while the Doctor gradually rediscovers his instinct to save rather than destroy.

That change matters most when he is given another chance to commit genocide and refuses.

The Ninth Doctor’s era is brief, but that brevity is part of his power. He begins as a survivor who thinks the war has defined him and ends by sacrificing himself to save Rose.

One season.

Massive regeneration energy.

Fantastic.