Clive J Finch — known as CJ in his youth — was a human conspiracy theorist who dedicated his life to collecting information on the Doctor and ran a conspiracy website, Doctor Who?. He was later killed during the Nestene's invasion of Earth in March 2005.
History[]
Childhood[]
Clive was born around either 1961 (PROSE: Rose) or 1965. He was known as CJ in his youth. (PROSE: The Persistence of Memory) In 1963, when Clive was two years old, his father, Second Lieutenant Gary Jonathan Finch, was killed by an Imperial Dalek during the Shoreditch Incident and had his death covered up by the military. (PROSE: Rose)
As a child, Clive was interested in a variety of mysteries, including Big Foot, Sasquatch, the Mary Celeste, yeti, the Bermuda Triangle, the Loch Ness Monster, the Roswell crash and the panthers of Dartmoor. (PROSE: The Persistence of Memory)
Meeting the Doctor[]
Clive and the Twelfth Doctor at Loch Ness. (PROSE: The Persistence of Memory)
On 24 December 1975, when Clive was fourteen, he encountered the Twelfth Doctor at a newsagent's and followed him into his TARDIS after noticing that he was using coins from 1987. As it was Christmas Eve, the Doctor decided to give him a quick trip.
At Clive's request, they travelled to Loch Ness in the summer of 1979 to find the Loch Ness Monster and, after an adventure involving a plot by the Monk to depopulate and sell the Earth, the Doctor returned Clive home and blurred his memories of the incident. (PROSE: The Persistence of Memory)
Clive went on to investigate his father's death and learn of the Daleks and the Doctor, the latter of whom he made his lifelong mission to fully understand and to solve the mystery of their numerous incarnations across time. (PROSE: Rose)
Adult life[]
Clive studied at Durham University where he was a part of a UFO society. After the society booked the same venue as a Reclaim the Night Enclave, he and his friends left, but Caroline tracked him down to a bar and apologised. They talked through the night and entered into a relationship, getting married and having two sons, Ben and Michael, (PROSE: Rose) although according to another account they only had one son together. (TV: Rose) By 2005, the family were living on Juke Street (TV: Rose, GAME: Security Bot) and Clive was working as an estate agent. (PROSE: Rose) Sometime during February, Clive and his family visited Thorpe Park. (PROSE: Rose)
By 2005, Clive was maintaining a website, Doctor Who?, focused on the mysterious Doctor who kept appearing throughout recorded history. Some of the hundreds of readers of his website who sent in their experiences about the Doctor addressed Clive directly; Josiah Rowe offered to find a scanner so he could send Clive a photograph and a letter from his grandfather from the First World War, A. Fergus asked if the Doctor was some sort of vigilante, and rewboss wrote that he wasn't sure if Clive was a conspiracy theorist while dismissing any notion of the Doctor being part of a conspiracy. (PROSE: Have You Seen This Man?)
His family seemed to tolerate Clive's obsession with the Doctor, though both of his sons referred to people who came to him about the Doctor as "nutters". (TV: Rose, PROSE: Grounded) Despite this, Ben was willing, albeit reluctant, to accompany Clive on an investigation to Terry Palmer's house without Caroline's knowledge after being grounded, and the three subsequently encountered an unidentified creature together. (PROSE: Grounded)
After Rose Tyler met the Ninth Doctor, she contacted Clive and went to visit him for more information. Clive told her that "the Doctor" was held to be a title handed down from father to son, but he believed that the Doctor was an immortal alien. He showed Rose photographs and drawings of the incarnation she had met, taken at several different points in history. (TV: Rose) According to another account, he also showed her photographs of other figures also known as "the Doctor" before asking her to take him with her to meet hers, causing Rose to make her excuses and leave. (PROSE: Rose)
Death[]
Shortly after his meeting with Rose, Clive and his family went on a shopping trip and were in Queen's Arcade when the Autons were activated. Watching an Auton approach, Clive was amazed to realise that the stories he had heard about the Doctor were true, before noticing the Auton draw its gun. (TV: Rose, PROSE: Rose)
The precise details of his death vary between accounts. According to one account, Clive stared at the Auton with a look of cold submissiveness, knowing he was about to be killed, and was shot. His family fled for their lives, screaming. (TV: Rose) In another account, Clive sacrificed himself, letting the Auton kill him to give his family time to flee. (PROSE: Rose)
Legacy[]
Following Clive's death in the invasion, (PROSE: The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre, The Secret Lives of Monsters, etc.) Mickey Smith went to visit Clive's widow, but accounts varied on the exact circumstances: (PROSE: The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre, Mickey's Blog, etc.) according to some accounts, Mickey visited Clive's wife within the week following the attack and after discussion they agreed that he could take on Clive's mantle, which Mickey found to be an honour. He sought to prove the truth about the Doctor to the world, valuing this undertaking more than his own life, not wanting to let Clive down. To reach this goal, Mickey began using the Doctor Who? website anonymously to release whatever he found about the Doctor. (PROSE: The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre, The Secret Lives of Monsters) However, according to one account, while he visited Clive's wife within three weeks following the attack, he took some of Clive's belongings from his shed with Caroline's permission but did not take on Clive's mantle nor did he use the Doctor Who? website in his search for the Doctor. (PROSE: Mickey's Blog)
Shortly after beginning to spread the truth on Doctor Who?, which was now called Who is Doctor Who?, Mickey put a tribute up for Clive, detailing his legacy, from the love of his family to his hopes and dreams of uncovering the truth (PROSE: Dummy Massacre) and then after one full week passed, revealed how he had met up with Clive's widow. (PROSE: The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre) The website would become Mickey's place to uncover the truth about the Doctor, with him tracking the Doctor's adventures. (PROSE: World Saved. Who Cares?, WC: Deffry Vale School, etc.)
After the Slitheen craft crashed into the River Thames on 6 March 2006, Mickey, (TV: Aliens of London) going by "Mx", was ecstatic that his and Clive's suspicions about the Ninth Doctor — that wherever he went, danger and death followed — was going to be finally believed. (PROSE: Alien landing confirmed)
Clive Finch was mentioned in the book The Secret Lives of Monsters. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters)
Some of Clive's possessions were taken by UNIT and later found in the Black Archive by Cleo Proctor and Shawna Thompson. (AUDIO: Recruits)
Behind the scenes[]
According to Russell T Davies in The Writer's Tale, Mackenzie Crook was nearly cast to play Clive.
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