Doctor Who
had only four episodes, aired as specials in April, November and on Christmas Day and New Year's Day 2010. ofthe specials marked a "changing of the guard" for international broadcasts of the series in the US and Canada. In the US, the SciFi Channel relinquished first-broadcast rights to BBC America. In Canada, the CBC's controversial handling of the series (which had seen a marked decrease in network interest and destructive editing of the Series 4 finale for commercials) came to an abrupt end when the cable network Space adopted the series. Both began airing the series with The Next Doctor in the spring of 2009 and announced they would air the weekly series in 2010.
The first gap-year special, Planet of the Dead aired during Easter 2009. Planet of the Dead was the first Doctor Who episode to be filmed in high definition and, subsequently, the first to be issued to Blu-ray.
Meanwhile, Torchwood aired its third serr" to be from the Doctor's past before William Hartnell's incarnation while also giving the character a new background as a being from another dimension known as "the Timeless Child" capable of infinite regeneration who was brought to Gallifrey by the Shobogan Tecteun, who went on to transfer the regenerative ability to the people of the planet and thus creating the Time Lords. This release created a gap between stories with a little over half a year until the following story.
Series 12 also saw the "cold opening" return for the first time since 2017's Twice Upon a Time, though it was not used consistently across all episodes.
2020 saw the release of the Doctor Who franchise's second escape room A Dalek Awakens, launching on 9 March 2020.
Six months later, the first print-and-play escape room was released on 8 August, called The Hollow Planet and intended as a prequel to the previous escape room.
A little over half a year later after The Timeless Children, the New Year Special aired on 1 January 2021, named Revolution of the Daleks and continuing the Dalek-storyline begun in Resolution with a a new mutated faction of Daleks introduced leading to civil war between them and a squad of pure Daleks similar to the war fought between Imperial Daleks and Renegade Daleks in Remembrance of the Daleks. The story also saw the return of Jack Robertson from Arachnids in the UK as well as the second return of Jack Harkness, also bringing in multiple numbers of creatures from the Doctor’s past adventures.
COVID-19
On 25 March 2020, Chris Chibnall published a short story to the Doctor Who website titled Things She Thought While Falling, set between Twice Upon a Time and The Woman Who Fell to Earth. It was written as a treat to take fans' minds off of the COVID-19 outbreak worldwide.
On 26 March 2020, Russell T Davies returned to publish a previously withheld short story titled Doctor Who and the Time War, which offered an alternate account on what happened during the Last Great Time War, namely having the Eighth Doctor destroy Gallifrey and subsequently regenerating into the Ninth Doctor completely omitting the existence of a War Doctor. Later, Davies also released a new audio short story titled Revenge of the Nestene set directly after Rose. Both were part of a Doctor Who: Lockdown! event due to COVID-19.
This started an era of multiple releases of short stories, webcasts and alternate script-reveals which featured alongside watchalongs of various episodes of Doctor Who throughout the entire year 2020 as a way for fans to cope with the virus spreading across the world and forcing new restrictions on people constantly, extending its way into February 2021.
The biggest of these stories was the massive multi-media expanding series known as Time Lord Victorious, released on 17 August, and played off of the Tenth Doctor's self-proclaimed title in 2009 story The Waters of Mars, which sent the Doctor down a long path of saving the universe from Time Fractures caused by him meddling with time, all while avoiding his own death. While the plot of time fracturing continued later down the line, this series ran until to 16 April 2021.
On 19 March 2021, an iOS and Android game was released by Maze Theory, called The Lonely Assassins, set around the Wester Drumlins disappearances and featuring Weeping Angels as well as the Player as the hero.
Post-Lockdown
On 26 May a new massive ground-breaking Immersive Theatrical Adventure, known as Doctor Who: Time Fracture, opened its doors in Davies Mews in London to the public, promising an exciting adventure where the visitor got to be the hero of the day.
This immersive theater had the entire plethora of known Doctors as well as some friends and companions returning via pre-recordings to guide the hero through it all while helping to avoid foes along the way such as Daleks, Cybermen and Weeping Angels.
The experience would be running throughout all of 2021 as well as going well into 2022.
On 25 July was released a trailer for the upcoming series, which included a link to a "/mystery" page on the Doctor Who website which began a quest on 13 August of clue-finding in an ARG known as #FindTheDoctor meant to engage fans until the series. The ARG dropped clues on a weekly basis up until 16 September, as a reward releasing a promo pic of Thirteen and a video revealing a new monster.
On 14 October, a follow-up to The Edge of Time was released, called The Edge of Reality, which functioned much in the same way that the preceding game did, but offered a much more expanded gameplay and saw the return of David Tennant voicing the Tenth Doctor, alongside Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor.
Series 13, subtitled Doctor Who: Flux, was reduced to 6 episodes as a result of COVID-19[1] and was released on 31 October with its first episode The Halloween Apocalypse. On 5 December the sixth and final episode of this series, The Vanquishers aired, forming a serial for the first time since Season 26 in 1989 and the first time the entire season is a single story since The Trial of a Time Lord (season 23) in 1986. It saw the continuation of the Timeless Child storyline, uncovered in the previous year's The Timeless Children, revealing the Fugitive Doctor's involvement with the Division in their quest to stop the Dark Times at the hands of Ravagers Swarm and Azure along with her then-companion Karvanista and other operatives, hiding time-creatures, the Mouri inside living prisons designated Passenger forms. It introduced Dan Lewis as a new companion, after being unwillingly swept away from his love Diane, and saw the return of Tecteun in a new incarnation as well as the Sontarans, Daleks, Weeping Angels, Cybermen and an Ood and introduced a universe-breaking force known as the Flux, meanwhile a girl named Claire Brown dealt with a Squad of Weeping Angels and an ordinary man, Professor Jericho joined in on a trip of a lifetime. It also saw the return of Kate Stewart and gave Joseph Williamson's mysterious tunnels a purpose and saw a lover's story between characters Bel and Vinder while an evil mastermind the Grand Serpent secretly infiltrated and climbed the ranks of UNIT, ultimately shutting it down in 2017. It also brought an element from the Virgin New Adventures novels to the screen in the form of the Eternal Time.
A few weeks after, the New Year Special aired on 1 January 2022, titled Eve of the Daleks. It saw the introduction of the Dalek Execution Squad to the screen, fighting a time loop to kill the Doctor in revenge for destroying their War Fleet in the Flux.
Continuity
A common contention among fans and producers of the series is that a large part of the Doctor's appeal comes from his mysterious and alien origins. While over the decades several revelations have been made about his background — that he is a Time Lord, that he is from Gallifrey, among others — the writers have striven to retain some sense of mystery and to preserve the eternal question, "Doctor who?" This backstory was not rigidly planned from the beginning, but developed gradually and haphazardly over the years, the result of the work of many writers and producers.
Understandably, this has led to continuity problems. Characters such as the Monk were retroactively classified as Time Lords, early histories of races such as the Daleks were rewritten, and so on. The creation of a detailed backstory has also led to the criticism that too much being known about the Doctor limits both creative possibilities and the sense of mystery. Some of the stories during the Seventh Doctor's tenure, part of the so-called "Cartmel Masterplan", were intended to deal with this issue by suggesting that much of what was believed about the Doctor was wrong and that he is a far more powerful and mysterious figure than previously thought. In both an untelevised scene in Remembrance of the Daleks and the subsequent Silver Nemesis it is implied (to quote an excised line from "Remembrance") that the Doctor is "far more than just another Time Lord." The suspension of the series in 1989, however, meant that none of these hints were ever resolved, at least on television. The Virgin New Adventure novel, Lungbarrow, did resolve these hints and explain the Doctor's origins. However, not all fans regard the spin-off novels as canon or accept the revelations made in that particular story, partly because other parts of the franchise seem to contradict parts of it.
The 1996 television movie created even more uncertainty about the character, revealing that the Doctor had a human mother and he remembered his father. Fans, however, seemed to be more upset about the fact that the Eighth Doctor kissed Dr Grace Holloway, breaking the series' longstanding taboo against the Doctor having any romantic involvement with his companions.
The revelation in the 1996 television movie that the Doctor was half-human is often considered to be a continuity error as the Doctor is considered by most to be a full Time Lord, causing fans to attempt to find alternative explanations about why the Doctor claimed to be part human.
While some fans regard discontinuities as a problem, others regard it as a source of interest or humour — an attitude taken in the book The Discontinuity Guide. A common fan explanation is that a universe with time travellers is likely to have many historical inconsistencies.
The revived series has tackled this issue head on by suggesting that "time is in flux" and with the exception of certain fixed points in time, almost anything can be changed. Recently, some fan interpretations of the series 5 finale, The Big Bang, have suggested a potential reboot of Doctor Who continuity in toto, but there is also evidence in opposition to this view.
There has been much fan speculation on exactly which aspects of the television series, books, radio dramatisations, and other sources are considered canon. This has been made more complex by the fact that at least one novel, short story, comic, and audio have all been adapted for the TV series. Additionally, the events of at least one novel have been referenced on screen. For their part, the BBC have never issued a firm edict as to what counts as "canon". Thus, Doctor Who stands in stark contrast to the more formalised canons of Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings — and, indeed, almost every other fictional universe.
"Doctor Who?"
When the series began, nothing was known of the Doctor at all, not even his name. In the very first serial, An Unearthly Child, two teachers from the Coal Hill School in London, Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton, become intrigued by one of their students, Susan Foreman, who exhibits high intelligence and patchy, unusually advanced knowledge. Trailing her to a junkyard at 76 Totter's Lane, they encounter a strange old man and hear Susan's voice coming from inside what appears to be a police box. Pushing their way inside, the two find that the exterior is actually camouflage for the dimensionally transcendental interior of the TARDIS.
Susan calls the old man "Grandfather", but he simply calls himself the Doctor. When he fears Ian and Barbara may alert the local authorities to what they've seen, he whisks them all away to another place in time and space.
In the first episode, Ian addresses the Doctor as "Doctor Foreman," as the junkyard in which they find him bears the sign "I.M. Foreman". When addressed by Ian with this name in the next episode, the Time Lord responds, "Eh? Doctor who? What's he talking about?" Later, when Ian realises that "Foreman" is not his name, he asks Barbara, "Who is he? Doctor who?" Although listed in the on-screen credits for nearly twenty years as "Doctor Who", the Doctor is never really called by that name in the series, except in that same tongue-in-cheek manner. For example, in The Five Doctors when one character refers to him as "the Doctor", another character asks, "Who?" The only real exception has been the computer WOTAN, in the serial, The War Machines, which commanded that "Doctor Who is required."
In The Gunfighters, the First Doctor uses the alias Dr Caligari. In The Highlanders the Second Doctor assumes the name of "Doctor von Wer" (a German translation of "Doctor of Who"), and signs himself as "Dr. W" in The Underwater Menace. In The Wheel in Space, his companion Jamie, reads the name off some medical equipment, and tells the crew of the Wheel that the Doctor's name is "John Smith". The Doctor adopts this alias several times over the course of the series, often prefixing the title "Doctor" to it. This has continued to the Tenth Doctor, and was famously referenced to in the 1996 television movie, where even though the Doctor is unconscious, a complete stranger, seemingly at random, writes the name John Smith on the Doctor's hospital admission papers.
In The Armageddon Factor, the Time Lord Drax addresses the Fourth Doctor as "Thete", short for "Theta Sigma", apparently a University nickname. In the 1988 serial Remembrance of the Daleks, the Seventh Doctor is asked to sign a document, which he does by using a question mark, and produces a calling card with a series of Greek letters (or Old High Gallifreyan script) and a question mark inscribed on it. The Eighth Doctor briefly used the alias "Dr Bowman" in the 1996 television movie. He has also been mocked by his fellow Time Lords for adhering to such a "lowly" title as "Doctor".
In many spin-off comic strips, books, films and other media, the character is often called "Doctor Who" (or just "Dr. Who") as a matter of course, though this has declined in recent years. From the first story through to Logopolis (the last story of Season 18 and also of the Tom Baker era), the lead character was listed as "Doctor Who". Starting with Peter Davison's first story, Castrovalva (also the first story of Season 19), the lead character is credited simply as "The Doctor".
Doctor Who writer Terrance Dicks offered the theory that Time Lord names were "jawbreakers," long and extremely difficult to pronounce, and this was why the Doctor never revealed his true name. However, River Song, one of the few people ever to know his name, was able to whisper it in his ear in a very short time. Some fans have speculated, taking off from the fact that the full name of the Time Lady Romana is Romanadvoratrelundar, that the first syllable of the Doctor's true name is "Who". It should be noted that, although it is often asserted that "Doctor Who" is not the character's name, there is nothing in the series itself that actually confirms this. On at least one occasion the Doctor is about to give a name after the title "Doctor..." but is interrupted. Interestingly, the BBC novel, The Infinity Doctors mentions an ancient Gallifreyan god named "OHM". When this name is turned upside down, the result is "WHO." This idea originated in early drafts of The Three Doctors by Bob Baker and Dave Martin. The character of "Ohm" eventually became Omega.
It is interesting to note that, while spin-off media is known to "fill in the blanks" regarding aspects of Doctor Who lore — for example, several novels "revealed" The Master's real name — no officially licensed media has ever seriously attempted to solve the riddle of the Doctor's real name. Notwithstanding early spin-off media that treated "Doctor Who" as his name, of course.
The Tenth Doctor, played by David Tennant, has stated that there was only one reason and one time that he would or could reveal his true name. During Matt Smith's reign as the Eleventh Doctor, it was revealed that the oldest question in the universe was "Doctor Who?" and considering how desperate the Silence, a religious order devoted to destroying the Doctor, were to keep him from revealing it, the consequences of him telling anyone his real name must be catastrophic.
In The Bells of Saint John, the Eleventh Doctor asked Clara to repeat the question, and stated that he didn't realise how much he enjoyed being people asking him "Doctor Who?"
Accolades
In 2000, in a poll of industry professionals, the British Film Institute voted Doctor Who #3 in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. Since its return in 2005, the series has received many nominations and awards both nationally (UK) and internationally. This includes BAFTAs, the National Television Awards and the Hugo Awards. American accolades have been fewer and farther between, although in 2007 it broke a barrier by receiving a nomination for the 2008 People's Choice Awards, although it did not win. The series' revival found its highest ratings not in the UK but in South Korea.[2] The Guinness World Records have recognised that Doctor Who has broke, accomplished and set many different records. To see a full list, visit the Guinness World Records article on this Wikia.
Even the "gap year" season of 2009-2010, which consisted of only four specials (five if the 2008 Christmas special, The Next Doctor is included), wasn't enough to slow down the train of awards given to Doctor Who. On 20 January 2010 the series won Best Drama and David Tennant won Best Drama Performance at the 2010 National Television Awards.[3]
Feature films
To build upon the success of Dalekmania the series had created in Britain in the 1960s, two feature films were produced (Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.) and released worldwide. Although both were adapted from the William Hartnell television stories The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth respectively, they feature Peter Cushing as a Human scientist named Dr. Who who invents a TARDIS, and as such are not considered to be canonical.
In 2011 it was announced that a new feature film would be released, to be directed by Harry Potter director David Yates.[4] Although initial news reports suggested that the film would "start from scratch" in terms of continuity, Steven Moffat subsequently clarified that "any Doctor Who movie would be made by the BBC team, star the current TV Doctor and would certainly not be a Hollywood reboot".[5] He later reiterated, "There will not come a time when there's a separate kind of Doctor Who. What was talked about there was that there would be a separate Doctor and a different continuity. Of course it won't. That would be silly. Everyone knows that's silly. The BBC knows that's silly, and is not going to do that."[6]
Other media
Although Doctor Who originated as a television programme, it has become much more than that. Starting with "Dalekmania" in the 1960s, a great deal of merchandise has sprung out of Doctor Who. Some of that merchandise has continued the story of the Doctor's adventures. Over the decades, Doctor Who has appeared on stage, screen, and radio, and in a variety of novels, comics, full-cast audio adventures and webcasts. Beginning in the late 1980s, independent production companies such as BBV Productions and Reeltime Pictures took advantage of a loophole in the BBC's ownership of Doctor Who to licence individual characters and monsters from the series directly from their creators and build original film and audio dramas around them; this reached its height after the original series ended in 1989. Many of these productions involved original cast members from the series. Meanwhile, since 1991, a prolific series of original novels rivalled only by the Star Trek franchise (in terms of quantity) have been published. Many of these productions and novels are highly regarded by some Doctor Who fans. Several of the writers of the 2005 series previously wrote or scripted adventures for the Doctor in other media.
In terms of non-fiction works, Doctor Who ranks among the most intensely chronicled entertainment franchises in history. Since the publication of The Making of Doctor Who in the early 1970s, the number of books detailing the production, personnel, and even philosophy behind Doctor Who has numbered well into three figures. In addition, a growing number of actors connected to the series have published autobiographies (in several cases more than one volume of memoirs), ranging from 1960s-era co-stars such as Anneke Wills and Deborah Watling through to more recent actors such as Billie Piper and John Barrowman.
External links
Official websites
- Official website for the Australian broadcaster, ABC
- Official website for the Australian broadcaster, ABC
- Official website for the Brazilian broadcaster, TV Cultura
- Official website for the BBC
- Official website for English language Canadian broadcaster, Space
- Official website for the Croatian broadcaster, HRT
- Official website for French broadcaster, France 4
- Official website for Italian broadcaster, Rai 4
- Official website for New Zealand broadcaster, Prime
- Official website for Central and Eastern Europe broadcaster, AXN
- Official website for Bulgarian broadcaster, Diema
- Official website for US broadcaster, BBCA
- Official website for digital television channel Drama
Social media
- Official YouTube channel
- Official Facebook page
- Official Twitter account
- Official Twitter account for BBCA
- Official Instagram account
- Official Instagram account for BBCA
Footnotes
- ↑ https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/doctor-who-chris-chibnall-cuts-news/
- ↑ John Weisman (7 June 2010). 'Torchwood' on Starz: Just as before, Capt. Jack will get you bi tonight. Variety. Archived from the original on 28 April 2013. Retrieved on 16 April 2012.
- ↑ Anthony Weight (20 January 2010). National Television Awards - series and Tennant triumph. Doctor Who News. Retrieved on 16 April 2012.
- ↑ Adam Dawtrey (14 November 2011). Yates to direct bigscreen 'Doctor Who'. Variety. Retrieved on 23 July 2012.
- ↑ Steven Moffat denies Doctor Who 'reboot' film plan. BBC Newsbeat (5 December 2011). Retrieved on 23 July 2012.
- ↑ Chuck Foster (22 July 2012). Movie update. Doctor Who News. Retrieved on 23 July 2012.
