Unseen Stories (5)

The Fourth Doctor - Part 2.
On visiting the lighthouse on Fang Rock, the Doctor speaks of the Pharos Lighthouse in Alexandria as though he had seen it. This might have been when he became acquainted with the captain of Cleopatra's bodyguard, although it actually stood for several hundred years before being destroyed by a string of earthquakes.
On Pluto the Doctor claims to have a bounty on his head, of an entire star system, from the Droge of the Gabrielides, whilst discussing the topic of rock types with Leela later he suggests that he has visited both Aberdeen and Blackpool.
On his return to Gallifrey in The Invasion of Time, we see that the Doctor has picked up a copy of The Daily Sketch on his travels, dated to 1912 as it covers the sinking of the Titanic, which he claims not to have had anything to do with. Before this story starts he must have encountered the Vardans, in order for them to have co-opted him into their invasion plans.
As well as learning tricks from Harry Houdini, the Doctor also claims to have been taught some sleight-of-hand tricks by Maskalyne. he doesn't say which, and there were three generations of Maskelyne who performed magic tricks. The earliest was John Nevil Maskelyne (1839 - 1917). If it was he whom the Doctor met, then this might tie in with Houdini, as both men sought to unmask fraudulent mediums. His son Nevil (1863 - 1924) also became a magician as well as an inventor, and he was succeeded by his son, Jasper (1902 - 1979). Jasper is best known for his work during World War II, when he was employed to build large scale illusions to fool German aerial reconnaissance - creating fake tanks and aircraft and camouflaging real military equipment and installations. As we already know that the Doctor has some familiarity with Victorian Music Hall, we can assume that it was the senior Maskelyne, John Nevil, who taught the Doctor his tricks. He published a book on card tricks, so was not averse to sharing magical secrets.
In The Pirate Planet, Romana claims that the Doctor has piloted the TARDIS for 523 years, which leaves scope for a great many of these unseen adventures. The Doctor is said to be 759 here, meaning he was nearly 240 when he left Gallifrey. He was nearly 750 in The Pyramids of Mars, and only 450 in Tomb of the Cybermen (but on that occasion he had to think about it for a moment, and may have been translating it from Gallifreyan years into Earth ones for the benefit of Jamie and Victoria).
He claims to have given Newton his ideas about gravity, by dropping an apple on his head, but this sounds too much like a tall story, as he says he explained the theory to Newton later over dinner. This would have meant he was seriously tampering with human scientific development, so highly unlikely.
The Doctor finally gets round to mentioning having met Einstein in The Stones of Blood. Again, he claims to have helped him with his work, so another tall tale probably. He speaks of both John Aubrey, the antiquarian, and Heinrich Schliemann, the discoverer of Troy, as though he knew them personally.
Oddly, the unfilmed birthday scene for this 100th story would have seen the Doctor celebrating his 751st birthday - despite being 759 only two stories earlier.
On the planet Tara, the Doctor claims to have seen Capablanca play Alekhine at chess in 1927, and claims to have fished with Izaak Walton (1593 - 1683), author of The Compleat Angler. The latter sounds like more name-dropping. Talking of fishing, I neglected to mention last time the Doctor's claim to have caught a massive salmon in the River Fleet, which he shared with the Venerable Bede (672 - 735). As Bede never left the North East of England, the Doctor couldn't have had Bede with him at the time he caught the fish, but must have travelled to Tyneside with it in the TARDIS soon after.
The Doctor escapes execution on the Third Moon of Delta Magna by singing in so high a pitch that it shatters glass, which suggests he might have met Dame Nellie Melba (1861 - 1931). On Atrios he saves K9 from a furnace using skills he learned from Balinese Fire Walkers.
Destiny of the Daleks sees the Doctor return to Skaro. He seems very familiar with the layout of the Kaled city, even though it bears no resemblance to what we saw in Genesis of the Daleks. He seemed to know more about the city in Evil of the Daleks than he saw in The Daleks, so there may have been other visits to the planet (perhaps when he got the Freedom of the City scroll seen in Robot). He also talks of the Daleks being purely robotic, and only once having organic components - so may have met some future version of the creatures when they were purely robotic. Reading Oolon Coluphid's book on the origins of the universe, he seems to hint that he witnessed the event.
We've already covered The City of Death, with its unseen meetings with Leonardo and Shakespeare. The story actually suggests at least two meetings with the Bard, as he describes him as a "taciturn boy" as well as when he helped him out when he strained his wrist at the time of the writing of Hamlet.
Certain skills must obviously need to be reacquired when the Doctor regenerates. Prior to his Fourth incarnation, the Doctor is familiar with Tibetan, yet in The Creature from the Pit he needs to refer to a "Teach Yourself Tibetan" book to translate another volume about Mountain Climbing. Douglas Adams is script editing, so we won't ask why the mountaineering book has an English title if it's written in Tibetan, or why the TARDIS isn't doing its usual translation.
The Doctor claims in this story to have helped Theseus in his battle with the Minotaur, having been given a large ball of string as a gift from the Corinthian hero and Ariadne. Odd to have gotten a gift from Theseus, when the Doctor forgot to remind him to change his sails on reaching home (leading to his father committing suicide, thinking him dead). He also has the jawbone of an ass in the TARDIS, and sort of implies it is the one Samson used to slay the Philistines.
In Nightmare of Eden, the Doctor claims to have met Professor Stein, Tryst's old mentor, and to have attended one of his lectures. He speaks of the damage the drug Vraxoin does to whole planets as if from personal experience.
The Doctor claims to have been to the planet Aneth - "but not yet".
The unbroadcast story Shada tells of multiple visits by the Doctor to St Cedd's College, Cambridge, to see Professor Chronotis - in 1955, 1958, 1960 and 1964. He was in a different incarnation for the 1958 visit. These are just the visits remembered by porter Wilkins, so he may have been there other times prior to 1955. The Doctor claims to have learned "vortex-walking" from a space/time mystic in the Quantocks. Possibly another reference to K'anpo, although his meditation centre wasn't in Somerset. (In Planet of the Spiders, Sarah is picked up from Mortimer railway station, which is in Berkshire).
When JNT took over the programme he was determined to stamp out a lot of the jokiness which had crept in - something which script editor Chris Bidmead and executive producer Barry Letts agreed with. It's noticeable that the Fourth Doctor does a lot less name-dropping from this point on. In fact there are very few references to unseen stories in Tom Baker's final season.
The Doctor has been to the planet Tigella before - not that long ago in its history as he knows the current leader Zastor, and it was in this incarnation. Meglos ends with an unseen trip to Earth to drop off the abducted human. The Doctor isn't sure if he's been to Traken, but thinks not, though he does seem to know quite a bit about it and recognises the planetary system from space by sight. The Keeper of Traken tells us that the Doctor did used to keep "Time Logs" - diaries of sorts - but they seem to be very unreliable and confusing.
Finally, the Doctor has been to Logopolis before - within the Monitor's lifetime. He also claims biologist and anthropologist Thomas Huxley (1825 - 1895) as an old friend. And just to go full circle, we return to the Pharos lighthouse, as the Doctor recognises the Pharos Project replica created by the Logopolitans.