Inspired by these two posts on doctorwho, as well as this gallery on CBC, I hereby present the following one-off tale of … The Nelvana Doctor, the 1980s Doctor Who cartoon that almost was!

It turned out a bit more downbeat than I expected, but it's still safe for all ages, and yes, The Nelvana Doctor is voiced by Maurice LaMarche, simply because he looks like Egon Spengler from The Real Ghostbusters.
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Krys skittered haphazardly across the jagged rubble that remained of the city’s huge domes and spires, scampering in panic away from the sound of the rolling death machines.

She was only 13, but she’d already seen both her parents die that day, and even as she instinctively scrambled up and over and around the wreckage of the once-bustling metropolis’ infrastructure, she knew it would only be a matter of time before the invading forces found her, paving a path to her on their implacable tank-treads.

She nearly ran headlong into the next alley, until she spotted a silvery glint and a flash of electric red in its darkness, and froze with fear. The outline of the thing approaching her didn’t look like one of the murdering machines, but it was unfamiliar, and after all she’d seen, that was enough for her. She spun round, and immediately collided into the chest of the man standing behind her, knocking her to the ground.

Krys’ luminous green eyes (she was only human on her mother’s side) went wide as she took in the man who towered over her. His short, white hair stood up in severe spikes, which matched his hawkish nose and the rest of his pale, lined face, with his mouth fixed in a dour frown, which barely twitched with curiosity, even as she scrambled away from him, on her palms and backside. His piercing blue eyes fixed her with a penetrating stare, over the rims of his owlishly round glasses, while his thick scarf and long overcoat, all autumn earth-tones, billowed out in the breeze, making him seem even larger than he was.

“This girl is suffering from symptoms of shock, Master,” reported the mechanical yet chipper voice of the robot behind Krys, which she now saw was shaped roughly like a dog, complete with legs. She would have screamed, except that the man’s stern and vaguely disapproving expression discouraged her from making a sound, moving, or doing anything.

“Mm,” the man turned to an electronic notepad in his palm. “No time to worry about that now, K-9,” he muttered, his voice slightly nasal but deep, and his articulation clipped.

Krys finally gave in to her impulse to scream when the walls of the alley came crashing down, revealing the monstrous forms of the tank-shaped machines, endlessly repeating their war cry of, “EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!” And yet, the man with the question marks on his coat didn’t even flinch, as he turned to face their domed heads.

“Interesting,” he remarked to himself, his tone almost entirely devoid of affect. “This planet’s unique electromagnetic frequency affects your antigravity propulsion systems the same way that it did K-9’s. But it wouldn’t occur to Daleks to build themselves legs, as I did for him. Why walk, when you can simply steamroll over everything in your path?”

Krys crouched behind a fallen girder, hiding herself from view as much as she could, but she saw that the man stood straight in front of the Daleks, even as they fixed their eye-stalks and plunger-shaped appendages at him. Even his monotone seemed to mock them.

“TIME LORD PHYSIOLOGY DETECTED!” one of the Daleks screeched. “YOUR APPEARANCE HAS CHANGED, BUT THERE CAN BE NO QUESTION AS TO YOUR IDENTITY! YOU ARE THE PRIME ENEMY OF THE DALEK RACE! WE SHALL EXTERMINATE YOU!”

“No,” he deadpanned with a sigh. “You won’t.”

“EXPLAIN YOURSELF!” the lead Dalek demanded.

In a swift, smooth motion, the man withdrew from his coat pocket an ornate, oversized, floating fob watch, which sprouted an antenna. “Targeted chronal pulse,” he explained offhandedly, his inflection as flat as ever. “This planet has an excellent natural defense against hostile incursion attempts, since off-world metals tend to degrade with extended exposure to its atmosphere. So, since Daleks don’t take possession of anything without planning on keeping it, you needed to create a native equivalent of Dalekanium, to manufacture the armor casings for your occupying forces. The problem is that the only minerals from this planet that you could use as ingredients in such an alloy are notoriously susceptible to chronal manipulation.”

Krys rose to her feet tentatively, as she began to believe that she might not die. Even though the Daleks had no means of displaying emotions, she could practically feel their terror washing over her, as the mysterious man fingered the buttons on his watch.

“YOU CANNOT DO THIS TO US!” the lead Dalek protested impotently, limbs starting to flail.

“You did it to yourselves,” the man scowled, showing his first hints of strong emotions of his own. “How many times do we have to do this?” he was practically snarling now. “Every time you attack the helpless or the innocent, whether they’re few or they’re many … every single time, what happens? I always come after you, sooner or later, and I always win. Once again, you lose, and when you lose to me, you lose everything.”

Even though Krys hated the Daleks, for killing her parents and more others than she could count, it chilled her to the core to hear them scream as the man pushed one of the studs on his watch, causing the Daleks’ armor casings to age prematurely by thousands of years within seconds, leaving behind only the helpless, quivering organic masses inside.

“You killed them,” she breathed her first words to the man.

“They were already dead,” the man didn’t even bother to turn around to face her, his delivery returning to its deliberately bland default level.

“You sound like them,” she accused, not knowing why she suddenly felt such stirrings of anger against the man who’d saved her life.

“Not the first time I’ve heard that,” he shrugged simply.

“Who are you?” she finally wondered.

“He is the Doctor,” K-9 introduced cordially, his satellite dish ears rotating happily.

“K-9,” the Doctor called out reprovingly, before turning to Krys and rubbing his eyes wearily. “I’m just passing through.”

“Where are you going?” her curiosity was piqued.

“We travel through time and space, Mistress,” K-9 wagged his tail.

“No,” the Doctor reproached. “You’re not adopting another one,” he instructed K-9, causing the robot dog’s head to droop.

“It’s not like you’d be taking me away from anything here,” Krys pointed out quietly.

The Doctor’s shoulders slumped, as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’ve lost your family,” he diagnosed clinically, “which means you’re shell-shocked, and hardly in the right state of mind to be making life-changing decisions.”

“At least it means I’m feeling something!” she shouted. “Do you feel anything?”

“Regret,” he inhaled sharply, “and responsibility. If you stay here when I leave, whatever happens to you next has nothing to do with me.”

“That’s a fine way to live your life,” she snorted.

“I tried it the other way,” he shook his head, walking away. “It didn’t work.”