Peter Davison 1982 to 1984

In 1981, Davison signed a contract to play the Doctor for three years, succeeding Tom Baker (the Fourth Doctor) and, at age 29, was at the time the youngest actor to have played the lead role, a record he retained for nearly thirty years until Matt Smith (the Eleventh Doctor) took the role in 2009 at age 26. Attracting such a high-profile actor as Davison was as much of a coup for the programme's producers as getting the role was for him, but he did not renew his contract because he feared being typecast. Patrick Troughton (who had played the Second Doctor and whom Davison had watched on the programme as a teenager) had recommended to Davison that he leave the role after three years, and Davison followed his advice. The Fifth Doctor encountered many of the Doctor's best-known adversaries, including the Daleks (in Resurrection of the Daleks) and the Cybermen (in Earthshock). However, Peter Davison has since stated that he also felt too young for the role (all the previous actors had been over 40), and if given the chance at the role now he would have made a better Doctor. In 1982, Davison had lent his name to two series of short stories published by Arrow. The two were Peter Davison's Book of Alien Monsters and Peter Davison's Book of Aliens which both featured a photograph of him on the cover.

Davison did, in fact, return to play the Fifth Doctor in the 1993 multi-doctor charity special Dimensions in Time and in the 1997 video game Destiny of the Doctors (audio only). He continues to reprise the role in a series of audio plays by Big Finish Productions. He returned once again in "Time Crash", a special episode written by Steven Moffat for Children in Need; in the episode, which aired on 16 November 2007, the Fifth Doctor met the Tenth Doctor, played by future son-in-law David Tennant.

The Doctor is a title character and the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science fiction series Doctor Who, and has also featured in two cinema feature films and one made-for-television movie, as well as a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series.
To date, eleven actors have played the role in the television series, with continuity being maintained by the ability of the character's species to regenerate. Several other actors have played the character on stage and film, in audio dramas, and in occasional special episodes of the series. The character's enduring popularity led the Daily Telegraph to dub him "Britain's favourite alien".