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Doctor Who is a science-fiction television programme that originally ran on the BBC from 1963 to 1989. A television movie was co-produced with Universal Pictures in 1996, after which the series itself was revived in 2005. It is still in production as of February 2012[update].
- This is an overview article on the TV series and franchise. For other uses of the title "Doctor Who", see Doctor Who (disambiguation).
Doctor Who is about the adventures of a mysterious time-traveller known only as the Doctor. The Doctor travels through space and time in a craft known as the TARDIS, an acronym for "Time and Relative Dimension in Space". He is usually accompanied by one or more companions, who are often females. The tone of the programme varies from serious to comic, from Gothic horror to pantomime camp. The original Doctor Who series is fondly remembered among the general public for frightening monsters (such as the Daleks and Cybermen), pioneering use of electronic music and low-budget special effects.
History of Doctor Who
Origin
Several individuals share credit for establishing Doctor Who in 1963, but it is generally accepted that the original impetus for the series, as well as the establishment of certain aspects, such as the concept of the TARDIS, the basic character of The Doctor and the title Doctor Who itself belong to Canadian-born Sydney Newman, who is also credited with creating another iconic series, The Avengers. Others involved in piecing together the puzzle that became the series include Donald Wilson, writer C. E. Webber, script editor David Whitaker and the show's first producer, Verity Lambert, the first woman to hold such a position at the BBC. (Decades later, a line of dialogue paid tribute to Newman and Lambert's role in creating Doctor Who, when the Tenth Doctor, in disguise as human John Smith, named his parents as Sydney and Verity in the 2007 episode, Human Nature.)
Two other notable participants in the birth of the series were Anthony Coburn and Waris Hussein, the writer and director, respectively, of the first four-part serial, An Unearthly Child, the first episode of which aired on 23 November 1963. The version of the first episode that was broadcast was in fact the second mounting of that episode; an earlier version (called The Pilot Episode by fans), was taped some weeks before, but rejected due to a number of issues. The BBC allowed a second mounting of the pilot to proceed. The first episode aired the day after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and had to be rebroadcast a week later due to power failures disrupting the first broadcast.
Also important to creating the atmosphere of the early series was composers Ron Grainer and Delia Derbyshire. Grainer wrote the basic melody of the "Doctor Who theme", and Derbyshire, with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, transformed it into a pioneering piece of electronica music. There have been several arrangements used of the "Doctor Who theme", but the basic melody has remained unchanged. No new piece of music has ever been commissioned as a theme, making it one of the longest-serving theme songs in television history.
The first episode broadcast, An Unearthly Child, introduced the first incarnation of the Doctor, played by character actor William Hartnell. Supporting him were William Russell (known worldwide at the time for starring in the 1950s action-adventure series The Adventures of Sir Lancelot) and Jacqueline Hill as Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, respectively, and Carole Ann Ford as the Doctor's granddaughter, Susan Foreman. These four would form the core cast of the series throughout its first season and into the second.
The Daleks
After the first episode introduced the characters and concept, the remaining three episodes of An Unearthly Child encompassed a modest storyline involving a group of cavemen in prehistoric times. The series began to find its voice as a science fiction series with the second serial, The Daleks by Terry Nation. It introduced the Daleks, the single most iconic recurring enemy of the franchise. The series began to really take off in popularity with this serial, which helped launch "Dalekmania" in the UK, leading to toys, the first novelisation Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, the movie adaptation Dr. Who and the Daleks, and many televised sequels, beginning with The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
Early cast changes
The Dalek Invasion of Earth was also notable for featuring the series' first cast change. Carole Ann Ford left the series. She was replaced the following week by Maureen O'Brien as Vicki, establishing the pattern of the Doctor's companions changing. The other original companions, William Russell and Jacqueline Hill, left the series a few months later at the conclusion of The Chase, making way for another new companion, Steven Taylor, played by Peter Purves. Over the decades, the length of service of different companions has ranged from as little as a few weeks (with some being considered companions after appearing in only a single episode), up to several years. Some actors have returned to reprise their roles years and even decades later (most notably Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith).
A change of identity
The next major turning point in the series occurred in 1966 when the actor playing The Doctor, William Hartnell, chose to leave the series. Rather than introduce a new leading character, replacing Hartnell with no explanation (a situation that would be faced a few years later by the American situation comedy Bewitched when it had to recast its male lead) or simply cancelling the series, the producers, with input from Sydney Newman, chose to establish the Doctor's ability to regenerate into a new person when injured or near death (although it would take years to finalise elements of this process). This led to the dramatic - and successful, for the series - transition to Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor at the conclusion of The Tenth Planet (a serial that was in itself notable for introducing the franchise's second most popular recurring villains, the Cybermen).
The experiment of regenerating the Doctor occurred again in 1970 with the introduction of onetime comic actor Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor, a move that also coincided with the series changing to colour production. Once again, this was successful and Doctor Who continued to establish itself as a British TV institution, although it remained virtually unknown in American markets.
Target Books
In 1973, Target Books reissued a trilogy of novelisations from the mid-1960s, and in 1974 began pto issue its own adaptations of televised episodes. Before home video recorders and commercial release of TV series on tape and DVD and when rebroadcasts were rare and many old episodes were thought lost, the Target line became a popular and valued aspect of the growing Doctor Who franchise; the books would be published into the mid-1990s. A unique feature of the Target line (in fact dating back to the first novelisations published by Frederick Muller) is that many of the books were written by either the original scriptwriters or by individuals with strong behind-the-scenes connections to the series, such as Barry Letts, Terrance Dicks, David Whitaker, etc., all of whom worked in script editing or producing capacities on the series. In the late 70s, about a dozen of the Target novels were reprinted in American editions by Pinnacle Books, with introductions by noted SF author Harlan Ellison, who added to the franchise's prestige by placing it higher in his estimation than Star Trek.
The Tom Baker years
The series continued through the 1970s, with Tom Baker taking on the role of the Fourth Doctor in 1974. Baker became the most iconic, and arguably most popular actor of the classic series. This was due in part to the frequent rebroadcasts of his episodes in the United Kingdom, which began during his tenure. He was the first "young" Doctor and played the role for more seasons (seven) than any actor to date. Other actors have been considered the "current" Doctor for longer, but without regular television appearances. Near the end of the Tom Baker era, the BBC attempted a spin-off series, K9 and Company, but it never went beyond a pilot episode, A Girl's Best Friend.
The US broadcasts of Doctor Who were initially poorly done, with some broadcasters airing a version with narration explaining the plot. By the late 1970s, however, the series was firmly entrenched in the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which would air the show repeatedly over the next three decades and air the revived series after 2004.
The John Nathan-Turner era
Peter Davison succeeded Baker in 1981 as the Fifth Doctor with new Producer (who had joined in the previous season), John Nathan-Turner. Only twenty-nine when he was cast, Davison was, until the appointment of Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor in 2009, the youngest actor ever to play the Doctor officially. The TARDIS crew of the Fifth Doctor skewed younger and featured the first long-term companion's death when Adric died at the end of Earthshock. Several companions had died earlier, but none had been on the show more than a few weeks; Adric was on the series for about a year).
Davison's era was marked by experimentation by the BBC in terms of broadcast scheduling. The series moved to airing twice a week on weeknights, away from its traditional Saturday slot. Initially, this appeared to be a successful gambit. The ratings for Davison's early stories were on par if not higher than Tom Baker's later stories. It was during Davison's era that the series marked its 20th anniversary with the feature-length episode The Five Doctors.This featured, in some fashion, all the actors who had played the Doctor to that time (although Hartnell and Tom Baker were shown in stock footage).
Colin Baker followed Davison as the Sixth Doctor in 1984. The BBC further experimented with the format, changing it from twenty-minute to forty-five-minute episodes. Nathan-Turner also experimented with the characterisation of the Doctor, intentionally making the Sixth Doctor initially unlikeable to create a new dynamic. Neither experiment was successful. Colin Baker's tenure was marked by a serious threat to the show's survival when the BBC, citing low ratings, announced it was ending the series after the 1985 season, its 22nd. Following immediate outcry, this decision was modified to become an eighteen-month hiatus. During the hiatus, fan efforts were launchedto get the show back sooner. These included the recording of a charity record called "Doctor in Distress" by cast members. BBC Radio tried to fill the void by producing the first made-for-radio Doctor Who serial, Slipback, starring Colin Baker.
The series returned in 1986 with a season-long story arc, The Trial of a Time Lord, but with greatly reduced screen time. Fourteen episodes were allotted for the season, up from thirteen the previous season, but with episode lengths returned to twenty-five minutes. This was roughly half the storytelling time of recent seasons.
End of an era
Although the show's return garnered sufficient ratings for the BBC to grant a stay of execution and renew it for a twenty-fourth season, Colin Baker's contract as the Doctor was not renewed and he ceded the role to Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor in 1987.
The series survived the hiatus, but never regained ratings needed for ongoing survival, constantly being beaten in the ratings by Coronation Street. Towards the end, it garnered ratings barely in the three million range, compared to eleven million at the peak of the Tom Baker era.
Attempts were made to refresh the ageing series by darkening the character of the Doctor through what was later called the Cartmel Masterplan (named for then-script editor Andrew Cartmel), and by introducing Ace, a companion with an edginess never before seen in an assistant.
The same year that McCoy took over, a fan-produced independent film, Wartime, was released. Taking advantage of a loophole in licensing that allows characters other than the Doctor to be licensed direct from their creators, this film featuring John Benton was the first of what would be a series of fan-made productions that would help keep the Doctor Who universe alive after 1989.
During McCoy's era the series celebrated its 25th anniversary on TV. One of the year's serials, Remembrance of the Daleks, returned the Doctor to 76 Totter's Lane, where it all began in 1963.
Following production of the Twenty-sixth season, Nathan-Turner learned that the show would not be renewed immediately for a twenty-seventh season. After having McCoy record a series-ending monologue, the final episode -- part 3 of the ironically titled Survival -- aired on 6 December 1989, bringing Doctor Who's marathon 26-year run to a close. The Doctor Who Production Office closed down the following summer.
It has never been made clear whether the BBC ever actually "cancelled" Doctor Who in 1989, or simply put the series on hold. One of the first to outright state that it was cancelled was co-star Sophie Aldred who used the term in the documentary More than Thirty Years in the TARDIS.
"The Wilderness Years"
The end of active production was made official in 1990. The Doctor Who Production office was closed. The BBC never officially cancelled the series. It simply didn't commission any new episodes. This led to the launch of a cottage industry of spin-off work. These included the first long-term range of original fiction (the Virgin New Adventures series). Target Books exhausted all available remaining serials to novelise and the brand was retired in 1994. There were numerous independent video productions with characters and creatures from the series, but never the Doctor himself. Many of their new actors, writers and directors would become involved in the main Doctor Who series, including Nicholas Briggs and Mark Gatiss. In 1993, the BBC made a half-hearted attempt at marking the thirtieth anniversary, first commissioning, then cancelling, a multi-Doctor special called The Dark Dimension. Instead they greenlit a brief, poorly received pastiche, Dimensions in Time which aired as part of a Children in Need fund-raiser and as a dubious crossover with the soap opera EastEnders.
For original fiction, Virgin's New Adventures picked up where Survival had left off. Over the next five years it greatly expanded the world of the Seventh Doctor, and Doctor Who, by featuring stories with more adult storylines than was possible on TV. The books also introduced the character of Bernice Summerfield, who was initially a companion of the Seventh Doctor's. Over time she developed her own mini-franchise, which continues to this day. Virgin also launched a similar series of books called the Missing Adventures, featuring past Doctors. One New Adventures novel, Damaged Goods, was written by a young writer who would later play a major role in the history of Doctor Who - Russell T Davies. Another future producer of the series, Steven Moffat, contributed short stories to Virgin's third line of Doctor Who fiction, the Virgin Decalogs. Around this time, Moffatt also made his Doctor Who TV writing debut by penning the parody serial The Curse of Fatal Death. It aired as a fund-raiser for Comic Relief and starred Rowan Atkinson (among others) as the Doctor.
A false restart
The franchise's so-called "first interregnum" on television ended in 1996 with an attempt at launching an American-UK co-produced Doctor Who series. A telemovie was produced for the American Fox Network, Doctor Who, in which McCoy handed off to Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor. Neither a reboot or reimaginging, the film was a continuation of the original series. While moderately successful on the BBC, it failed to garner sufficient ratings in the US to warrant a new series. McCoy, in a later interview with Doctor Who Confidential, postulated that the film failed in the US in part because viewers unfamiliar with the history of Doctor Who were confused by the first part of the film, which dealt with regeneration.
Back to the wilderness
The "second interregnum" that followed saw more novels (now published by the BBC under its BBC Books logo, featuring the Eighth Doctor), more independent productions, a separate series of Bernice Summerfield novels and, in 1998, the start of a prolific series of officially licenced audio stories by Big Finish Productions. Unlike the independent made-for-video productions, Big Finish could use Doctors and companions from the series. With the exception of Tom Baker and earlier Doctors now deceased, the audios featured many of the original actors. In particular Big Finish produced a long-running series of programs continuing the adventures of McGann's Eighth Doctor. Big Finish also produced a prolific series of audio dramas featuring Bernice Summerfield (and began publishing novels featuring her once Virgin ended its series of books) as well as other spin-off series featuring the Daleks, Davros, Sarah Jane Smith and Gallifrey. Many of the writers, directors, and voice actors involved in this project also went on to work on the TV series proper.
The BBC also created new Doctor Who-related media projects during this time, creating several original webcast productions in conjunction with Big Finish (including one, Scream of the Shalka, in which Richard E. Grant was introduced as the Ninth Doctor, though his version of the character was quickly relegated to non-canon status), and making several Virgin-era Doctor Who novels available as e-books on its website.
The triumphant return
Scream of the Shalka was webcast in late 2003. The BBC stunned fans by announcing that its Welsh production office, BBC Wales, had been given the go-ahead to produce a brand-new series of Doctor Who. The series would be produced by Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner. Davies, since his days writing Doctor Who fiction for Virgin, had gone on to create the critically acclaimed series, Queer as Folk.
In the following months, details of the new series emerged. Fans still questioned if the new series would be a continuation of the original series (a twenty-seventh season), or a reimagining (as had recently occurred to great effect with Battlestar Galactica). Would the Paul McGann movie or Scream of the Shalka count? There was initial controversy when pop singer Billie Piper was cast as the new companion. The new series logo riled some fans; BBC News reported that some on the production team had received death threats over it.
The BBC's decision to restart the numbering of the series with Series 1 in 2005 fueled the debate over whether the new show would be a continuation. The BBC indicated it was strictly a commercial decision, and part of an overall strategy not to alienate new viewers by suggesting they needed to know twenty-six years of backstory.
Doctor Who returned to television in the spring of 2005. Christopher Eccleston took over from McGann as the Ninth Doctor. After initial uncertainty, it was soon established the new series was a continuation of the old. The new episodes returned Doctor Who to levels of popularity not seen since the 1970s, and garnered awards the original series never saw. Eccleston's brief era marked the return of the Autons, the Nestene Consciousness and Daleks to television, as well as the introduction of Jack Harkness. In March 2006, the new series was first broadcast in the United States on the Sci Fi Channel. Audiences embraced the new series, with Billie Piper's Rose Tyler, in particular, becoming one of the most popular companions in years.
The show stumbled slightly with the announcement days after its premiere that Eccleston was leaving after a single season. The tenure of his replacement, David Tennant's Tenth Doctor, was dominated by the relationship between the Doctor and Rose Tyler, something never before attempted. Tennant's era also saw the return of Sarah Jane Smith in School Reunion, the episode most cited as the one that established once and for all that "nuWho" was a direct continuation of the 1963-89 series. This was followed by the Children in Need mini-episode Time Crash in which Peter Davison reprised his role as the Fifth Doctor.
Tennant's era also saw the reintroduction of the Cybermen, albeit a parallel version. Related to this, the series began delving into the multiverse concept with Rise of the Cybermen, a topic that would dominate the final episodes of the fourth season in 2008.
Since the show's return to TV, Doctor Who has become a major franchise. It spawned two successful spin-off series in short succession: Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures; both centred around the adventures of former companions. There is a third, non-BBC spin-off, K9. Two documentary series were launched with the return of Doctor Who: Doctor Who Confidential, in production since 2005 and Totally Doctor Who (2006-2007). The last series also produced the first animated-for-television Doctor Who serial, The Infinite Quest, which aired in 2007 and featured Tennant. A second animated serial, Dreamland, aired in 2009. BBC Radio 7 began airing a specially commissioned series of radio serials featuring the return of Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor.
The Tennant era also saw the start of a new tradition in late 2005: the Doctor Who Christmas Special, holiday-themed episodes aired separately from the regular seasons. As of 2008, four such specials have been aired. The series has also contributed several mini-episodes, such as the aforementioned Time Crash, to the Children in Need Appeal and the BBC Proms concert series (Music of the Spheres).
The conclusion of the fourth revived season in 2008, which linked all four series together and featured the return of Rose and other companions, saw Doctor Who garner its highest ratings in nearly thirty years. It was followed by the 2008 Christmas special, The Next Doctor, which included a scene -- the first of its kind -- in which all ten Doctors, including the debated Paul McGann Eighth Doctor, were shown, firmly establishing the Eighth Doctor's place in his personal history.
The transition
The year 2009 was a transition year for Doctor Who. The series had only four episodes, aired as specials in April, November and on Christmas Day and New Year's Day 2010. These specials and an animated serial, Dreamland, marked David Tennant's final appearances as The Doctor. The decision for the series to take a break following Series 4 was, according to Davies' book The Writer's Tale, planned as far back as Tennant's first year. Davies devised the break to smooth the transition between his term as show-runner and that of Steven Moffat, whom he invited to take over his post as executive producer and lead writer when the series returned as a weekly progamme in 2010. Tennant took advantage of this break to appear in a high-profile stage production of Hamlet co-starring Star Trek icon Patrick Stewart, which some media erroneously indicated was the reason for the break.
The announcement of the gap year was followed by the announcement that Davies and Julie Gardner would be stepping aside as executive producers of Doctor Who following the specials. Moffat, who won the Hugo Award three years running for his Doctor Who scripts, was appointed new head writer and executive producer. Also appointed executive producers were Piers Wenger and Beth Willis.
The question of whether Tennant would stay on was a hot topic in the UK media for much of 2008. In October 2008 Tennant, while accepting his National Television Award for Favourite Actor, announced he would leave the role after the specials. After months of speculation, it was announced on 3 January 2009 that twenty-six-year-old Matt Smith would join the series in 2010 as the Eleventh Doctor, smashing Peter Davison's record as the youngest Doctor ever.
The end of Series 4 and the start of the specials marked a "changing of the guard" for international broadcasts of the series in the US and Canada. In the US, the Sci Fi Channel relinquished first-broadcast rights to BBC America. In Canada the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation'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 at 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 season in July 2009, now on BBC One, but in a different format: a single, critically acclaimed, five-episode story entitled Children of Earth. It also aired to acclaim and high ratings on BBC America and Space. The Sarah Jane Adventures began its third season in October 2009, with David Tennant playing the Doctor in two episodes. Work on a non-BBC spin-off series, K9, also progressed through the year.
The second special of the "gap year", The Waters of Mars aired in November 2009, and an animated adventure, Dreamland, was broadcast serialised on the BBC's Red Button service before being aired as one programme by the BBC proper.
During the Christmas season, Tennant appeared as the Doctor in a series of Christmas idents for the BBC. Finally, the era of the Tenth Doctor ended with the two-part special The End of Time. Part 1 aired on 25 December 2009 and the conclusion, with David Tennant handing over the role to Matt Smith, aired on 1 January 2010.
The new man
Within days of the broadcast of The End of Time, the BBC began the transition to the Eleventh Doctor era. There was a new series logo, publicity images and a trailer for the fifth series. Much of the publicity focused on Scottish actress Karen Gillan, who had been cast as the Doctor's new companion.
Production of the first Matt Smith episodes commenced in July 2009. Writers recruited for the new season included Richard Curtis (co-creator of Blackadder and writer of Four Weddings and a Funeral) and Toby Whithouse (creator of Being Human). Noted fantasy writer Neil Gaiman was rumoured to be involved in the new season. These rumours, as it turned out, proved to be correct. Michael Moorcock, another noted fantasy novelist, also announced he was writing a Doctor Who novel for publication in 2010.
Minor competition for Smith arrived in January 2010 when broadcasts of the non-BBC series K9 began in parts of Europe. The UK, which had seen a preview of the first episode on Halloween 2009, saw the series debut on Disney XD on 3rd April 2010, a few hours before the start of the fifth series.
After months of intense publicity, the Matt Smith/Eleventh Doctor era officially began on 3rd April 2010 with the broadcast of The Eleventh Hour on BBC One. In a show of international support for the series, broadcasts in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were scheduled within a few weeks, the first time the programme's biggest international markets had coincided their broadcasts in this way.
The fifth series ran for thirteen weeks, concluding with The Big Bang on 26 June 2010. Before the first episode of Series 5 was broadcast, the BBC announced a Christmas special been commissioned for 2010, and a sixth series of the revived series was scheduled to enter production that summer for broadcast in 2011.
Series 6 aired in two parts, a first in the show's history. The first half aired in the spring with the remaining episodes airing in the autumn. The BBC have claimed it is to accommodate a so-called "game-changing" story arc leading to a mid-season cliffhanger. Moffat is said to have requested the split.
The future
There are strong indications that the BBC intends to continue Doctor Who well in to the future. On 24 June 2010, BBC News, reporting on the start of construction of BBC Wales' new "drama village" studio in Cardiff, stated that production of Doctor Who is expect to relocated to the studios in 2012. The BBC announced on June 7th, 2011 that 14 new episodes have been commissioned following the 2011 Christmas special, all starring Matt Smith. Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill will also appear. On 15 June 2011, BBC One controller Danny Cohen stated that some of the episodes will air in 2013, though a reduction in the length of series 7 has been denied by Moffat.
Doctor Who's spin-offs however are somewhat laden with doubts about their futures. With the death of Elisabeth Sladen, it would appear that The Sarah Jane Adventures is to be cancelled following the broadcast of the episodes already filmed for series five. Torchwood relies upon a deal between BBC Wales, BBC Worldwide and Starz Entertainment. If it receives satisfactory ratings, it will be renewed. Davies hopes to see future crossovers between it and Doctor Who. A second series of K9 is planned, and is scheduled to air in 2012 whilst the first series is syndicated around the globe.
In other media, Big Finish Productions has announced its audio publishing schedules well into 2011. Although it closed down its Short Trips printed short story collections in 2009, it replaced them with a new audio line in 2010. An American comic book publisher, IDW Publishing is currently printing a mix of new and reprinted Doctor Who comic strips with plans to begin featuring the Eleventh Doctor at the end of 2010. Doctor Who Magazine, the longest-running publication based upon an English-language TV series, celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in October 2009 with no sign of slowing down. In January 2010 it launched a new format tying into the new franchise branding related to the new Doctor.
BBC Books and BBC Audio have also reconfigured their lines of original fiction to feature the Eleventh Doctor and Amy. The occasional new releases based upon Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures continue.
Doctor Who's history is not being forgotten. BBC Video indicated in 2009 that it intends to continue releasing classic-series episodes on DVD format (release to high-definition Blu-Ray is not considered feasible due to image resolution issues) until at least the fiftieth anniversary of the series at the end of 2013.
Television stories
Logos
- See Doctor Who logo
What makes Doctor Who unique
Fans often speak of the "undefinable magic" present in Doctor Who. This can be explained as a combination of several factors:
- The Doctor can change from serious to satirical, young to old, and change back again. He can go from self-doubting anti-hero to exuberant lover of life, all within the same continuity and even the same episode, then change back again, remaking himself every couple of years.
- The series can range in tone, style and genre, as well as almost any place and time. The travellers may meet storybook characters in a land of fantasy and the next week land in a credible day-after-tomorrow London.
- No other telefantasy series has, as often said, stayed on air for so long. Its longevity enabled it to enthral (and frighten) new generations of children and teenagers for three decades. Everyone can have "their" own favourite Doctor or period of the series, including those who prefer the novels to the television series. It's important to make the distinction that Doctor Who, whether in 1963 or in 2010, is the same series. This differs from The Twilight Zone, which has been produced off and on since 1959, but is an anthology which has no ongoing continuity or characters, or the Star Trek franchise, which has consisted of numerous series but with an ever-changing ensemble of characters rather than the constant presence of a single character.
- The evolution of viewer from fan to maker of the series. Youtube As early as 1980, "Full Circle", a script authored by a teenaged fan, Andrew Smith, appeared on the screen. Smith also wrote the novelisation. In the same story, another young fan, Matthew Waterhouse, facebook made his debut in the series as series regular. A few months later, Peter Davison, who professed to being a fan of the series in his youth, became the Fifth Doctor. Colin Baker had been a fan of the series since the first episode, which he had seen when he was twenty. Though not crossing over in large numbers, members of fandom made the odd venture into the production side of the series up until the end of the original series. In 2005, the elders of Doctor Who fandom have grown into the creators of the new series. Two of the franchise's recent leading men, David Tennant and John Barrowman, are lifelong Who fans, able to cite chapter and verse in their DVD commentaries and interviews, a feat rarely demonstrated by participants in other franchises, including Star Trek. Matt Smith says he grew up during the period when Doctor Who was not on the air, but since getting the role has immersed himself in the franchise's history.
- The flexibility of being able to change the lead actor via regeneration has allowed the series to continually reinvent itself, while maintaining continuity and offering audiences an easy-to-grasp rationale for the change of actor. Similarly, the continually changing supporting cast of companions and recurring characters allows new perspectives and new chemistry to be brought into the series frequently. These factors were also cited in contributing to Law & Order's twenty-year run on American TV; that series was also known for making frequent changes to its lead cast.
- Both of the above have also offered the series, at least in its original run, the flexibility to make changes in the event of perceived audience dissatisfaction, such as the decision to replace Colin Baker with Sylvester McCoy (although the rationale in that case remains hotly debated two decades later).
TV online The series is also unique for its longevity. Its original twenty-six-season run places it far beyond the longevity of any other single, uninterrupted English-language science fiction series. This is record Doctor Who retains even if the 1985-86 hiatus is taken into account. Its nearest rival, America's Stargate SG-1, ran for ten seasons. Star Trek and its spinoffs amassed more individual seasons, but these were separate series, not one ongoing production. Doctor Who surpasses the Trek franchise in terms of individual seasons when the revived series, plus its spinoffs, are added together (thirty-eight seasons as of December 2010). The Guinness Book of Records has officially recognised Doctor Who as the world's longest-running science fiction television series; in July 2009 Guinness also proclaimed Doctor Who the single most successful science-fiction series.
Continuity
- See also: canon
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 more than just a 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, and do not accept the revelations made in that particular story.
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. However it is possible, albeit unlikely, that the Doctor is part human because River Song, who was the daughter of two human parents, was capable of regeneration due to the fact that she was concieved in the TARDIS while it was travelling through the Time Vortex. Therefore the circumstances of the Doctor's birth could have been similar to River's.
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 events in time, most anything can be changed (DW: The Fires of Pompeii, The Unicorn and the Wasp, etc.). It's possible to rationalise that some events seen -- for example the events of the 2005 episode Dalek sparks some minor continuity issues with later events such as The Stolen Earth; still, it's possible to rationalise that the events of Dalek may now occur differently or not at all, due to the Doctor's actions in later episodes (and later in his lifetime). Most recently, some fan interpretations of the Series 5 finale, DW: The Big Bang have suggested a potential reboot of Doctor Who continuity in toto, but there is also evidence in opposition to this view and it remains to be seen what, if any, ramifications may occur following that episode.
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 a novel, a short story, and a Big Finish audio have all, to date, been adapted for the TV series (Human Nature, Blink and Dalek, respectively), and the events of at least one novel have been referenced on screen (NSA: The Monsters Inside in DW: Boom Town). For their part, the BBC has never issued a firm edict as to what counts as canon, unlike Star Trek which, per Paramount Pictures, only counted live-action televised or film productions as canon, until recently when The Animated Series was reintroduced into canon, or Star Wars which counts everything licenced by Lucasfilm since the mid-1990s as canon.
"Doctor Who?"
When the series begins, nothing is 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 "Theet", 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, this is unlikely. 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.
During Matt Smith's reign as the Doctor, it was revealled that the oldest question in the universe was "Doctor Who?" and considering how desperate the Silence, a religious order devoted to destroying the Doctor, are to keep him from revealling it, the consequences of him telling anyone his real name must be catastrophic. 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.
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 [1].
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.[2]
Parodies and pastiches
Parodies
Pastiches
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 site for the Australian broadcaster, ABC
- Official site for the BBC
- Official site for US broadcaster, BBCA
- Official site for French broadcaster, France 4
- Official site for New Zealand broadcaster, Prime
- Official site for English-language Canadian broadcaster, Space