10 Best Doctor Who Characters Only In One Episode

While The Next Doctor is one of the lesser Doctor Who festive specials, Jackson Lake is up there with the best one-and-done characters the show has ever seen.

That's mainly due to the fact that actor David Morrissey is terrific in the role, creating a character who's just so damn earnest and brave - not unlike the Time Lord he believes he is - that he's tough to dislike. In fact, Morrissey was so good that he was even tipped to succeed Tennant in the main role just before Matt Smith was cast, the actor becoming an instant favourite with pundits and fans.

Jackson's backstory is also pretty tragic by Who standards, with the character losing his wife to the Cybermen and subsequently starting to suffer from memory loss, which makes him believe he is the real Doctor. The scene in which Lake learns the truth is heartbreaking stuff, brilliantly acted by Tennant and Morrissey, and one of the purest emotional displays of the Tenth Doctor's era.

It's a testament to how cool a character Jackson is that you'll be craving more adventures with him once the episode ends, but alas, the character got a much-deserved happy ending here, even though he'd make a really kick-ass full-time Doctor.