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Doctor Who is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterrestrial being called the Doctor, part of a humanoid species called Time Lords.
Aug 21, 2024 · Doctor Who, British science fiction television series produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The show’s original run lasted 26 years, from 1963 to 1989. Remembered for its primitive special effects and compelling story lines, Doctor Who became a landmark of British popular culture. The series resumed to much acclaim in 2005.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Overview
- History of Doctor Who
- Continuity
- "Doctor Who?"
- Accolades
- Feature films
- Other media
- External links
is both a British television series and a global multimedia franchise created and controlled by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation).
It centres on a time traveller called "the Doctor", who is often depicted as — but certainly not always — coming from a race of beings known as Time Lords. They travel through space and time in a time machine they call the TARDIS. This ship — which looks like a small, London police box on the outside — has nearly infinite dimensions on the inside. It has become such an iconic shape in British culture that it's currently the intellectual property of the BBC rather than its actual makers, the Metropolitan Police Service.
Since Doctor Who's revival in 2005, its production has been primarily based in Wales by BBC Wales, with its soundtrack regularly performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales since 2006.
In order to accommodate cast changes, the narrative allows the Doctor to regenerate into an essentially new person on occasion. The cast is rounded out by one or more "companions", often females. On average, the main cast completely changes once every three or four years — a significant factor in the longevity of the programme.
It has had two — some argue three — major production periods. The original run of the programme was from 1963 to 1989, and is often called the "classic series" or "classic Doctor Who". A failed revival, in the form of a Universal-BBC co-production, came in 1996 — but the resulting one-off telemovie is often considered a part of the classic series. The current form of the programme — sometimes called the "new series" — has been produced by BBC Wales and aired on BBC One since 2005.
Though the classic series is fondly remembered by fans of a certain age, the new series has been far more consistently popular with the British public,[source needed] and is usually the highest-rated scripted drama — outside of perennially popular soap operas — in the weeks that it is on the air.
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 Head of Serials 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 in the drama department at the BBC. 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 broadcasted was in fact the second mounting of that episode; an earlier version (called "The Pilot Episode" by fans), was taped some weeks before, but was rejected for several 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 when power failures disrupted the first broadcast. Also important to creating the atmosphere of the early series were 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 theme, but the basic melody has remained unchanged throughout the show's history. No new piece of music has ever been commissioned as a theme, making it one of the longest-serving signature tunes in television history. introduced the first incarnation of the Doctor, played by character actor William Hartnell. Supporting him were William Russell 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. From very early on, the television show spawned a sub-genre of the franchise in the form of short stories in various shapes and forms from small one-paper issues to short novels to even telling a story on a set of cards. This genre has developed throughout the years into massive shorts and anthologies and is still holding up in the 21st century.
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 reoccurring 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
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 actors, 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 common contention among fans and producers of the series is that a large part of the Doctor's appeal comes from their mysterious and alien origins. While over the decades several revelations have been made about their background — that they are a Time Lord, that they are from Gallifrey, they can regenerate a total of 13 times, 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, unseen versions of the Doctor existed prior to William Hartnell's version 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 they are 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 Adventures 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 they remembered their 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 their 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.
When the series began, nothing was known of the Doctor at all, not even their 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".
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. 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.
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. 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". 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."
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.
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 •Another official website for the BBC •Yet another 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
- The original Daleks: The original Daleks were controlled from the inside by short operators who had to manipulate their eyestalks, domes and arms, as well as flashing the lights on their heads in sync with the actor's voices.
- Title sequences: There have been around 12 different title sequences. The theme music was originally composed by Ron Grainer and created by Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
- Home: The Doctor has visited many different planets, but his home planet is called Gallifrey.
- Medical doctor: The Doctor actually is a doctor! In a sickbay in the 1967 story The Moonbase, the Doctor was asked, "Listen, are you really a medical doctor?"
- Tyler Constable
- Evergreen Specialist
- William Hartnell (November 1963 – October 1966) BBC / Doctor Who. William Hartnell introduced the world to The Doctor with his portrayal of the Time Lord.
- Patrick Troughton (November 1966 – June 1969) BBC / Doctor Who. Patrick Troughton’s second incarnation of The Doctor introduced ‘renewal’ to the show.
- Jon Pertwee (January 1970 – June 1974) BBC / Doctor Who. Jon Pertwee played the third incarnation of The Doctor. Jon Pertwee played The Third Doctor for five series between 1970 and 1974.
- Tom Baker (December 1974 – March 1981) BBC / Doctor Who. Tom Baker portrayed the Doctor for seven series which still remains the longest tenure of all the actors to play the role.
Nov 1, 2023 · Nick Briggs, Mark Ayres and Waris Hussein discuss the creation of Doctor Who, from Who is Doctor Who? (2013)
Nov 17, 2023 · Journalist, and self-confessed Whovian, Dan John delves into the stories, the costumes, the characters and the origins of Doctor Who to unravel the very British DNA of the world's longest running...