Guide:Crash Course

Interested in Doctor Who? Want to jump in completely blind with the minimum possible information? This is the place for you.

Doctor Who is a British science-fiction show spanning 60 years focusing on an alien, the Doctor, who travels through space and time in a time machine (the TARDIS) that takes the form of a police box and is bigger on the inside than the outside. The Doctor is often accompanied by companions humans in his adventures, usually people from Earth.

When the Doctor dies or is about to die, they can avert their own death by rejuvenating themselves, which alters their entire biological code somewhat, and generally changes the lead actor, allowing the show to continue onwards as actors and writers change.

Going into the 60th anniversary, the Doctor has reverted to one of their past faces for the first time ever as one of the most prominent actors in the role, David Tennant, returns for a trio of specials.

Also returning are the well-loved Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, a previous traveling companion of Tennant's Doctor who has had her memory erased in order to save her life, and Bernard Cribbins, who passed away in 2022, in a posthumous appearance as Wilfred Mott, her grandfather.

And that's it! That's all you need to know for now. Doctor Who returns at 6.30pm UTC on the 25th of November 2023 on BBC One in the UK, and is streaming on Disney+ elsewhere.