When actor Peter Moffett signed up to play the role of the fifth Doctor Who, following in the galaxy-striding footsteps of William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, doctors one, two, three, and four respectively, this was the kind of imaginary world he entered:
Illegally using the Arc of Infinity, a species of antimatter has invaded normal space. Its dangerous and radical instability must be countered by a physical bonding with a Time Lord. President Borusa, at a meeting of the High Council, considers the deadly threat and decides whose life must be sacrificed to avert catastrophe.
Meanwhile, Omega, long imprisoned in the universe of antimatter, has established control of the Matrix. The bonding procedure has failed and Omega's imminent reversion to antimatter will cause a cataclysmic explosion. The Master desperately needs a dynamorphic generator but Omega resolves to bring about his own destruction only to dissolve into nothingness when targeted by the Ergon's matter converter.
As the fifth Doctor Who, Moffett inherited a well-established science-fictional world that had a massive and dedicated following and has spawned a labyrinthine complexity of universes, enmities, alliances and exotic characters. Intricate manoeuverings, death-defying clashes, ploys and counter-ploys emerged from a time-bending, space-invading technological maelstrom.
The fifth Doctor Who had to deal with threats familiar to his predecessors — the Daleks, the Cybermen and the Tardis's inconveniently timed electronic eccentricities — as well as innumerable new challenges, life forms and, of course, bobbing up in various disguises, his indefatigable bête noir and renegade Time Lord, the Master.
As it happened, it was not 'Peter Moffett' who became the fifth Doctor. At the start of his theatrical career, Moffett had changed his name to Davison, to avoid confusion with a namesake in the film world. Thus it was Peter Davison, not Moffett, who, following his success playing the slightly effete Tristan Farnon in the TV hit All Creatures Great and Small, became the fifth Doctor.
This was bad luck for Professor Peter Davison, whose career was as star-crossed, as important to the world of the imagination and as much a hostage to fortune as that of the fifth Doctor, but whose name is swamped in search engines by references to the actor and his famous role.
In September 1981 — a few months before Peter Davison became the fifth Doctor Who — Peter Davison, the literary scholar, accepted a commission from Tom Rosenthal, the publisher at Secker