Doctor Who Series

The Awards of Doctor Who

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Although Doctor Who was fondly regarded during its original 1963–1989 run, it received little critical recognition at the time. In 1975, Season 11 of the series won a Writers' Guild of Great Britain award for Best Writing in a Children's Serial. In 1996, BBC television held the "Auntie Awards" as the culmination of their "TV60" season, celebrating sixty years of BBC television broadcasting, where Doctor Who was voted as the "Best Popular Drama" the corporation had ever produced, ahead of such ratings heavyweights as EastEnders and Casualty.[96] In 2000, Doctor Who was ranked third in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the twentieth century, produced by the British Film Institute and voted on by industry professionals.[97] In 2005, the series came first in a survey by SFX magazine of "The Greatest UK Science Fiction and Fantasy Television Series Ever". Also, in the 100 Greatest Kids' TV shows (a Channel 4 countdown in 2001), the 1963–1989 run was placed at number eight.

The revived series has received particular recognition from critics and the public, across various different awards ceremonies. These include:

BAFTAs

The British Academy Television Awards (BAFTA) nominations, released on 27 March 2006, revealed that Doctor Who had been short-listed in the "Drama Series" category. This is the highest-profile and most prestigious British television award for which the series has ever been nominated. Doctor Who was also nominated in several other categories in the BAFTA Craft Awards, including Writer (Russell T Davies), Director (Joe Ahearne), and Break-through Talent (production designer Edward Thomas). However, it did not eventually win any of its categories at the Craft Awards.

On 22 April 2006, the programme won five categories (out of fourteen nominations) at the lower-profile BAFTA Cymru awards, given to programmes made in Wales. It won Best Drama Series, Drama Director (James Hawes), Costume, Make-up and Photography Direction. Russell T Davies also won the Siân Phillips Award for Outstanding Contribution to Network Television.[98] The programme enjoyed further success at the BAFTA Cymru awards the following year, winning eight of the thirteen categories in which it was nominated, including Best Actor for David Tennant and Best Drama Director for Graeme Harper.[99]

On 7 May 2006, the winners of the British Academy Television Awards were announced, and Doctor Who won both of the categories it was nominated for, the Best Drama Series and audience-voted Pioneer Award. Russell T Davies also won the Dennis Potter Award for Outstanding Writing for Television.[100] Writer Steven Moffat won the Writer category at the 2008 BAFTA Craft Awards for his 2007 Doctor Who episode "Blink".[101]

The series also won awards at the BAFTA Cymru ceremony on 27 April 2008, including "Best Screenwriter" for Steven Moffat, "Best Director: Drama" for James Strong, "Best Director Of Photography: Drama" for Ernie Vincze, "Best Sound" for the BBC Wales Sound Team and "Best Make-Up" for Barbara Southcott and Neill Gorton (of Millennium FX).[102]

In March 2009, it was announced that Doctor Who had again been nominated in the "Drama Series" category for the British Academy Television Awards; however, it lost out to the BBC series Wallander at the Awards on Sunday 26 April.[103] The series picked up two BAFTAs at the British Academy Television Craft Awards on Sunday 17 May. Visual Effects company The Mill won the "Visual Effects" award for the episode "The Fires of Pompeii" and Philip Kloss won in the "Editing Fiction/Entertainment" category.[104]

Other British awards

In 2005, at the National Television Awards (voted on by members of the British public), Doctor Who won "Most Popular Drama", Christopher Eccleston won "Most Popular Actor" and Billie Piper won "Most Popular Actress". The series and Piper repeated their wins at the 2006 National Television Awards, and David Tennant won "Most Popular Actor" in 2006 and 2007, with the series again taking the Most Popular Drama award in 2007.[105] A scene from "The Doctor Dances" won "Golden Moment" in the BBC's "2005 TV Moments" awards,[106] and Doctor Who swept all the categories in BBC.co.uk's online "Best of Drama" poll in both 2005[107] and 2006.[108] The programme also won the Broadcast Magazine Award for Best Drama.[109] Eccleston was awarded the TV Quick and TV Choice award for Best Actor in 2005; in the same awards in 2006 Tennant won Best Actor, Piper won Best Actress and Doctor Who won Best-Loved Drama.[110][111]

Doctor Who was nominated in the Best Drama Series category at the 2006 Royal Television Society awards,[112] but lost to BBC Three's medical drama Bodies.[113]

Doctor Who also received several nominations for the 2006 Broadcasting Press Guild Awards: the programme for Best Drama, Eccleston for Best Actor (David Tennant was also nominated for Secret Smile), Piper for Best Actress and Davies for Best Writer. However, it did not win any of these categories.[114]

A panel of journalists and television executives for the annual awards given out at the Edinburgh Television Festival voted Doctor Who as the best programme of the year in 2007 and in 2008.[115][116]

Science-fiction awards

Several episodes of the 2005 series of Doctor Who were nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: "Dalek", "Father's Day" and the double episode "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances". At a ceremony at the Worldcon (L.A. Con IV) in Los Angeles on 27 August 2006, the Hugo was awarded to "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances".[117] "Dalek" and "Father's Day" came in second and third places respectively.[118] The 2006 series episodes "School Reunion", "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday" and "The Girl in the Fireplace" were nominated for the same category of the 2007 Hugo Awards, with "The Girl in the Fireplace" winning.[119] The 2007 series episodes "Blink" and "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" also secured nominations in this category in the 2008 Hugo Awards,[120] with "Blink" winning the award.[121] The 2008 series episodes "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" and "Turn Left" secured nominations in this category in the 2009 Hugo awards.[122]

On 7 July 2007, the series won three Constellation Awards: David Tennant won "Best Male Performance in a 2006 Science Fiction Television Episode" for the episode "The Girl in the Fireplace", and the series itself won "Best Science Fiction Television Series of 2006" and "Outstanding Canadian Contribution to Science Fiction Film or Television in 2006". It was eligible for the latter award due to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's involvement as co-producer of the series.[123]

On 12 July 2008, the series won three Constellation Awards: David Tennant won "Best Male Performance in a 2007 Science Fiction Television Episode" for the episodes "Human Nature/The Family Of Blood", Carey Mulligan won "Best Female Performance in a 2007 Science Fiction Television Episode" for the episode "Blink" and the series itself won "Best Science Fiction Television Series of 2007".[124]

On 19 September 2009, the series was the first winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Television Programme.[125]

Overseas awards

On 8 November 2007, the series received its first mainstream American award nomination when it was nominated for the 34th Annual People's Choice Awards in the category of "Favorite Sci-Fi Show". The awards, broadcast on CBS on 8 January 2008 are voted on by the people via an Internet poll. Doctor Who faced competition from American-produced series Battlestar Galactica (itself a revival of an older series), and Stargate Atlantis.[126] It was defeated by Stargate Atlantis.[127] In June 2008, the series won the inaugural Best International Series category at the 34th Saturn Awards, defeating its spin-off, Torchwood, which was also nominated.[128] The Seoul International Drama Awards 2009 honoured it with an award as The Most Popular Foreign Drama of the Year.[129]

Adaptations and other appearances : Spoofs and cultural references

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Doctor Who has been satirised and spoofed on many occasions by comedians including Spike Milligan and Lenny Henry. Doctor Who fandom has also been lampooned on programmes such as Saturday Night Live, The Chaser's War on Everything, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Family Guy, American Dad and The Simpsons.

The Doctor in his fourth incarnation has been represented on several episodes of The Simpsons, starting with the episode "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming".

Jon Culshaw frequently impersonates the Fourth Doctor in the BBC Dead Ringers series. Culshaw's "Doctor" has telephoned four of the "real" Doctors—Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy—in character as the Fourth Doctor. In the 2005 Dead Ringers Christmas special, broadcast shortly before "The Christmas Invasion", Culshaw impersonated both the Fourth and Tenth Doctors, while the Second, Seventh and Ninth Doctors were impersonated by Mark Perry, Kevin Connelly and Phil Cornwell, respectively.

Less a spoof and more of a pastiche is the character of Professor Justin Alphonse Gamble, a renegade from the Time Variance Authority, who appeared in Marvel Comics' Power Man and Iron Fist #79 and Avengers Annual #22. His enemies include the rogue robots known as the Dredlox.[84]

There have also been many references to Doctor Who in popular culture and other science fiction franchises, including Star Trek: The Next Generation ("The Neutral Zone", among others). In the Channel 4 series Queer As Folk (created by current Doctor Who executive producer Russell T Davies), the character of Vince was portrayed as an avid Doctor Who fan, with references appearing many times throughout in the form of clips from the programme. References to Doctor Who have also appeared in the young adult fantasy novels Brisingr [85][86] and High Wizardry,[87] the video game Rock Band,[88] the soap opera EastEnders[89], the Adult Swim comedy show Robot Chicken and the Family Guy episodes "Blue Harvest" and "420".

Doctor Who has long been a favourite referent for political cartoonists, from a 1964 cartoon in the Daily Mail depicting Charles de Gaulle as a Dalek,[90] to a 2008 edition of This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow in which the Tenth Doctor informs an incredulous character from 2003 that the Democratic Party will nominate an African-American (Barack Obama) as its presidential candidate.[91]

The word "TARDIS" is an entry in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.[92]

Adaptations and other appearances : Charity episodes

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In 1983, coinciding with the series' 20th anniversary, a charity special entitled The Five Doctors was produced in aid of Children in Need, featuring three of the first five Doctors, a new actor to replace the deceased William Hartnell, and unused footage to represent Tom Baker. This was a full-length, 90-minute film, the longest single episode of Doctor Who produced to date (discounting the 1996 made-for-TV film, which ran a few minutes longer with commercial breaks not included).

In 1993, for the franchise's 30th anniversary, another charity special entitled "Dimensions in Time" was produced for Children in Need, featuring all of the surviving actors who played the Doctor and a number of previous companions. Not taken seriously by many, the story had the Rani opening a hole in time, cycling the Doctor and his companions through his previous incarnations and menacing them with monsters from the show's past. It also featured a crossover with the soap opera EastEnders, the action taking place in the latter's Albert Square location and around Greenwich, including the Cutty Sark. The special was one of several special 3D programmes the BBC produced at the time, using a 3D system that made use of the Pulfrich effect requiring glasses with one darkened lens; the picture would look perfectly normal to those viewers who watched without the glasses.

In 1999, another special, "Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death", was made for Comic Relief and later released on VHS. An affectionate parody of the television series, it was split into four segments, mimicking the traditional serial format, complete with cliffhangers, and running down the same corridor several times when being chased. (The version released on video was split into only two episodes.) In the story, the Doctor (Rowan Atkinson) encounters both the Master (Jonathan Pryce) and the Daleks. During the special the Doctor is forced to regenerate several times, with his subsequent incarnations played by, in order, Richard E. Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant and Joanna Lumley. The script was written by Steven Moffat, later to be head writer and executive producer to the revived series.[20]

Since the return of Doctor Who in 2005, the franchise has produced two original "mini-episodes" to support Children in Need. The first was an untitled 7-minute scene (see Doctor Who: Children in Need) which served to introduce David Tennant as the new Doctor. which aired in November 2005. It was followed in November 2007 by Time Crash, a 7-minute scene which featured the Tenth Doctor meeting the Fifth Doctor (played once again by Peter Davison). In 2008 the Doctor Who production team did not produce a new Children in Need mini-episode; instead, the opening scene from the 2008 Christmas special, The Next Doctor was broadcast.

Adaptations and other appearances : Spin-offs

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Doctor Who has appeared on stage numerous times. In the early 1970s, Trevor Martin played the role in Doctor Who and the Daleks in the Seven Keys to Doomsday which also featured former companion actress Wendy Padbury (Pertwee's Doctor made a cameo appearance via film). In the late 1980s, Jon Pertwee and Colin Baker both played the Doctor at different times during the run of a play titled Doctor Who - The Ultimate Adventure. For two performances while Pertwee was ill, David Banks (best known for playing various Cybermen) played the Doctor. Other original plays have been staged as amateur productions, with other actors playing the Doctor, while Terry Nation wrote The Curse of the Daleks, a stage play mounted in the late 1960s, but without the Doctor.

A pilot episode ("A Girl's Best Friend") for a potential spin-off series, K-9 and Company, was aired in 1981 with Elisabeth Sladen reprising her role as companion Sarah Jane Smith and John Leeson as the voice of K-9, but was not picked up as a regular series.

Concept art for an animated Doctor Who series was produced by animation company Nelvana in the 1980s, but the series was not produced.[77]

The Doctor has also appeared in webcasts and in audio plays; prominent among the latter were those produced by Big Finish Productions from 1999 onwards, who were responsible for a range of audio plays released on CD, as well as 2006's eight-part BBC 7 series starring Paul McGann.

Following the success of the 2005 series produced by Russell T Davies, the BBC commissioned Davies to produce a 13-part spin-off series titled Torchwood (an anagram of "Doctor Who"), set in modern-day Cardiff and investigating alien activities and crime. The series debuted on BBC Three on 22 October 2006.[78] John Barrowman reprised his role of Jack Harkness from the 2005 series of Doctor Who.[79] Two other actresses who appeared in Doctor Who also star in the series; Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper, who also played the similarly named servant girl Gwyneth in the 2005 Doctor Who episode "The Unquiet Dead",[80] and Naoko Mori who reprised her role as Toshiko Sato first seen in "Aliens of London". A second series of Torchwood aired in 2008; for three episodes, the cast was joined by Freema Agyeman reprising her Doctor Who role of Martha Jones. A third season was broadcast from 6 to 10 July 2009, and consisted of a single five-part story called Children of Earth.

The Sarah Jane Adventures, starring Elisabeth Sladen who reprises her role as Sarah Jane Smith, has been developed by CBBC; a special aired on New Year's Day 2007 and a full series began on Monday, 24 September 2007.[81] A second season followed in 2008, notable for (as noted above) featuring the return of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. In the autumn of 2008 the BBC announced it had commissioned a third season to air in the autumn of 2009.

An animated serial, The Infinite Quest, aired alongside the 2007 series of Doctor Who as part of the children's television series Totally Doctor Who. The serial featured the voices of series regulars David Tennant and Freema Agyeman but is not considered part of the 2007 season.[82]

A new K-9 children's series, K-9, is in development, but not by the BBC. It is currently scheduled to air beginning in 2010.[83]

Adaptations and other appearances : Dr. Who movies

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There are two "Dr. Who" cinema films: Dr. Who and the Daleks, released in 1965 and Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. in 1966. Both are retellings of existing TV stories (specifically, the first two Dalek serials) on the big screen, with a larger budget and alterations to the series concept.

In these films, Peter Cushing plays a human scientist named "Dr. Who", who travels with his two granddaughters and other companions in a time machine he has invented. The Cushing version of the character reappears in both comic strip and literary form, the latter attempting to reconcile the film continuity with that of the series.

In addition, a number of planned films were proposed including a sequel, The Chase, loosely based on the original series story (the third to feature the Daleks), for the Cushing Doctor, plus many attempted television movie and big screen productions to revive the original Doctor Who, after the original series was cancelled. (See List of proposed Doctor Who films)

As of May 2009[update], BBC Films has a script for a new Doctor Who film in development.

Special sound

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Doctor Who's science-fiction themes and settings meant that many sound effects had to be specially created for the series, although some common sound effects (such as crowds, horses and jungle noises) were sourced from stock recordings. Because Doctor Who began several years before the advent of the first mass-produced synthesisers, much of the equipment used to create electronic sound effects in the early days was custom-built by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and until the early 1970s audio effects were produced using a combination of electronic and radiophonic techniques.

Almost all of the original sound effects and audio backgrounds during the 1960s were overseen by the Radiophonic Workshop's Brian Hodgson, who worked on Doctor Who from its inception until the middle of Jon Pertwee's tenure in the early 1970s, when he was succeeded by Dick Mills. Hodgson created hundreds of pieces of "special sound" ranging from ray-gun blasts to dinosaurs, but without doubt his best known sound effects are the sound of the TARDIS as it de-materialises and re-appears, and the voices of the Daleks.

The basic audio source Hodgson used for the TARDIS effect was the sound of his house keys being scraped up and down along the strings of an old gutted piano, and played backwards. The famous Dalek voice effect was obtained by passing the actors' voices through a device called a ring modulator, and it was further enhanced by exploiting the distortion inherent in the microphones and amplifiers then in use. However, the precise sonic character of the Daleks' voices varied some what over time because the original frequency settings used on the ring modulator were never noted down.

Incidental music

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Most of the innovative incidental music for Doctor Who has been specially commissioned from freelance composers, although in the early years some episodes also used stock music, as well as occasional excerpts from original recordings or cover versions of songs by popular music acts such as The Beatles and The Beach Boys. Since its 2005 return, the series has featured occasional use of excerpts of pop music from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s.

The incidental music for the first Doctor Who adventure, An Unearthly Child, was written by Norman Kay. Many of the stories of the William Hartnell period were scored by electronic music pioneer Tristram Cary, whose Doctor Who credits include The Daleks, Marco Polo, The Daleks' Master Plan, The Gunfighters and The Mutants. Other composers in this early period included Richard Rodney Bennett, Carey Blyton and Geoffrey Burgon.

The most frequent musical contributor during the first fifteen years was Dudley Simpson, who is also well known for his theme and incidental music for Blake's 7, and for his haunting theme music and score for the original 1970s version of The Tomorrow People. Simpson's first Doctor Who score was Planet of Giants (1964) and he went on to write music for many adventures of the 1960s and 1970s, including most of the stories of the Jon Pertwee / Tom Baker periods, ending with The Horns of Nimon (1979). He also made a cameo appearance in The Talons of Weng-Chiang (as a Music hall conductor).

Beginning with The Leisure Hive (1980), the task of creating incidental music was assigned to the Radiophonic Workshop. Paddy Kingsland and Peter Howell contributed many scores in this period and other contributors included Roger Limb, Malcolm Clarke and Jonathan Gibbs.

The Radiophonic Workshop was dropped after the The Trial of a Time Lord season, and Keff McCulloch took over as the series' main composer, with Dominic Glynn and Mark Ayres also contributing scores.

All the incidental music for the 2005 revived series has been composed by Murray Gold and Ben Foster and has been performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales from the 2005 Christmas episode The Christmas Invasion onwards. A concert featuring the orchestra performing music from the first two series took place on 19 November 2006 to raise money for Children in Need. David Tennant hosted the event, introducing the different sections of the concert. Murray Gold and Russell T Davies answered questions during the interval and Daleks and Cybermen menaced the audience whilst music from their stories was played. The concert aired on BBCi on Christmas Day 2006. A Doctor Who Prom was celebrated on 27 July 2008 in the Royal Albert Hall as part of the annual BBC Proms. The BBC Philharmonic and the London Philharmonic Choir performed Murray Gold's compositions for the series, conducted by Ben Foster, as well as a selection of classics based around the theme of space and time. The event was presented by Freema Agyeman and guest-presented by various other stars of the show with numerous monsters participating in the proceedings. It also featured the specially filmed mini-episode Music of the Spheres, written by Russell T Davies and starring David Tennant.[60]

Three soundtrack releases since 2005 have been released - the first featured tracks from the first two series,[61] while the second and third featured music from the third and fourth series respectively. See List of Doctor Who music releases for other soundtrack releases.

Theme music

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The original 1963 radiophonic arrangement of the Doctor Who theme is widely regarded as a significant and innovative piece of electronic music, and Doctor Who was the first television series in the world to have a theme entirely realised through electronic means.

The original theme was composed by Ron Grainer and realised by Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, with assistance from Dick Mills. The various parts were built up by creating tape loops of an individually struck piano string and individual test oscillators and filters. The Derbyshire arrangement served, with minor edits, as the theme tune up to the end of Season 17 (1979–80).

A more modern and dynamic arrangement was composed by Peter Howell for Season 18 (1980), which was in turn replaced by Dominic Glynn's arrangement for Season 23's The Trial of a Time Lord (1986). Keff McCulloch provided the new arrangement for the Seventh Doctor's era which lasted from Season 24 (1987) until the series' suspension in 1989. For the return of the series in 2005, Murray Gold provided a new arrangement which featured samples from the 1963 original with further elements added; in the 2005 Christmas episode "The Christmas Invasion", Gold introduced a modified closing credits arrangement that was used up until the conclusion of the 2007 series.

A new arrangement of the theme, once again by Gold, was introduced in the 2007 Christmas special episode, "Voyage of the Damned".

Versions of the "Doctor Who Theme" have also been released in a pop music venue over the years. In the early 1970s, Jon Pertwee, who had played the Third Doctor, recorded a version of the Doctor Who theme with spoken lyrics, titled, "Who Is the Doctor". In 1988 the band The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (later known as The KLF) released the single "Doctorin' the Tardis" under the name The Timelords, which reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 in Australia; this version incorporated several other songs, including "Rock and Roll Part 2" by Gary Glitter (who recorded vocals for some of the CD-single remix versions of "Doctorin' the Tardis").[59] Others who have covered or reinterpreted the theme include Orbital,[59] Pink Floyd,[59] the Australian string ensemble Fourplay, New Zealand punk band Blam Blam Blam, The Pogues, and the comedians Bill Bailey and Mitch Benn, and it and obsessive fans were satirised on The Chaser's War on Everything. A reggae/ska version of the Doctor Who theme tune was released on the Explosion label in 1969 by Bongo Herman and Les. The theme tune has also appeared on many compilation CDs and has made its way into mobile phone ring tones. Fans have also produced and distributed their own remixes of the theme.

Character : The Doctor

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The character of the Doctor was initially shrouded in mystery. All that was known about him in the programme's early days was that he was an eccentric alien traveller of great intelligence who battled injustice while exploring time and space in an unreliable old time machine called the TARDIS, an acronym for Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space. As it appears much larger on the inside than on the outside, the TARDIS has been described by the Third Doctor as "dimensionally transcendental"[43] and, due to a malfunction of its Chameleon Circuit, is stuck in the shape of a 1950s-style British police box.

However, not only did the initially irascible and slightly sinister Doctor quickly mellow into a more compassionate figure, it was eventually revealed that he had been on the run from his own people, the Time Lords of the planet Gallifrey.

As a Time Lord, the Doctor has the ability to regenerate his body when near death. Introduced into the storyline as a way of continuing the series when the writers were faced with the departure of lead actor William Hartnell in 1966, it has continued to be a major element of the series, allowing for the recasting of the lead actor when the need arises. The serial The Deadly Assassin established that a Time Lord can regenerate twelve times, for a total of thirteen incarnations (although at least one Time Lord, the Master, has managed to circumvent this). To date, the Doctor has gone through this process and its resulting after-effects on nine occasions, with each of his incarnations having his own quirks and abilities but otherwise sharing the memories and experience of the previous incarnations:

First Doctor <= William Hartnell : 1963–1966

Second Doctor <= Patrick Troughton : 1966–1969

Third Doctor <= Jon Pertwee : 1970–1974

Fourth Doctor <= Tom Baker : 1974–1981

Fifth Doctor <= Peter Davison : 1981–1984

Sixth Doctor <= Colin Baker : 1984–1986

Seventh Doctor <= Sylvester McCoy : 1987–1989, 1996

Eighth Doctor <= Paul McGann : 1996

Ninth Doctor <= Christopher Eccleston : 2005

Tenth Doctor <= David Tennant : 2005–2010

Eleventh Doctor <= Matt Smith : 2010–

There have been instances where actors have returned at later dates to reprise the role of their specific doctor. In 1973's The Three Doctors, William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton returned alongside Jon Pertwee. For 1983's The Five Doctors, Troughton and Pertwee returned to star with Peter Davison, while Hartnell's Doctor was played by actor Richard Hurndall and Tom Baker appeared in previously unseen footage from the uncompleted Shada episode. Patrick Troughton again returned in 1985's The Two Doctors with Colin Baker. Finally, Peter Davison returned in 2007's Children in Need short "Time Crash" alongside David Tennant.

There has also been an instance where another actor has replaced the original actor, such as when Richard Hurndall played the First Doctor in The Five Doctors following William Hartnell's death; this is the only example of a Doctor being played by two actors. For more information, see the list of actors who have played the Doctor.

Despite these shifts in personality, the Doctor remains an intensely curious and highly moral adventurer who would rather solve problems with his wits than by using violence.

Throughout the programme's long history there have been controversial revelations about the Doctor. In The Brain of Morbius (1976), it was hinted that the First Doctor may not have been the first incarnation (although the other faces depicted may have been incarnations of the Time Lord Morbius). In subsequent stories, the First Doctor has always been shown as the earliest incarnation of the Doctor.

During the Seventh Doctor's era it was hinted that the Doctor was more than just an ordinary Time Lord. In the 1996 television movie, he describes himself as being "half human".[47] The revelation has become controversial amongst series fans, given that there have been no references to the concept during the original or revived television series.[48]

The 2005 series reveals that the Ninth Doctor thought he had become the last surviving Time Lord, and that his home planet had been destroyed. The very first episode, An Unearthly Child, shows that the Doctor has a granddaughter, Susan Foreman; in "The Empty Child" (2005), in response to Constantine's statement that "before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I am neither", the Doctor remarks, "Yeah, I know the feeling"; and in both "Fear Her" (2006) and "The Doctor's Daughter" (2008), he states that he had, in the past, been a father. Also in the latter, his cells are used to produce a daughter (played by Georgia Moffett, the real-life daughter of Fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison) who is subsequently named Jenny by Donna as a result of his describing her as "a generated anomaly".

Doctor Who Season

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Season 1
Season 1, Episode 1: Rose
Original Air Date—26 March 2005
Rose Tyler is just an ordinary shop worker living an ordinary life in 21st century Britain. But that life is turned upside down when a strange man calling himself The Doctor drags her into an alien invasion attempt!
Season 1, Episode 2: The End of the World
Original Air Date—2 April 2005
The Doctor takes Rose on her first trip through time to the year five billion, where they join a group of alien delegates preparing to watch the Earth being consumed by the sun. But there's a traitor on board who's prepared to kill them all...
Season 1, Episode 3: The Unquiet Dead
Original Air Date—9 April 2005
The Doctor has great expectations for his latest adventure when he and Rose join forces with Charles Dickens to investigate a mysterious plague of zombies.
Season 1, Episode 4: Aliens of London
Original Air Date—16 April 2005
The Doctor returns Rose to her own time - well, sort of - but her family reunion is ruined when a spaceship crashes in the middle of London. What is the origin of the spaceship, and where has the Prime Minister gone in this time of crisis?
Season 1, Episode 5: World War Three
Original Air Date—23 April 2005
The fiendish Slitheen have been unmasked as the ones who crashed the spaceship into London as part of a ruse to trigger World War Three. But how can The Doctor save the planet when he's trapped inside a locked room?
Season 1, Episode 6: Dalek
Original Air Date—30 April 2005
The Doctor becomes the main exhibit at a billionaire's alien museum in Utah. But there's something else in there with them - the last member of the most vicious, evil species in the galaxy, and if The Doctor can't stop it, the whole world may be destroyed!
Season 1, Episode 7: The Long Game
Original Air Date—7 May 2005
The Doctor and Rose arrive in the year 200,000 to see The Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. But something has gone wrong - someone is holding back the development of mankind. Who could have done this? And why?
Season 1, Episode 8: Father's Day
Original Air Date—14 May 2005
The Doctor takes Rose back to the day her father died, but when she tries to save him she creates a paradox that damages time and space. As the universe starts to come apart, the monstrous Reapers - creatures that feed on time distortions - begin to consume the Earth. And this time The Doctor will not be able to save the day!
Season 1, Episode 9: The Empty Child
Original Air Date—21 May 2005
The emergency signal from an out-of-control timeship lands the Doctor and Rose in the middle of London in World War II. As Rose grows close to a mysterious American named Jack, The Doctor pursues a ghostly, deformed child through the fog...
Season 1, Episode 10: The Doctor Dances
Original Air Date—28 May 2005
Albion Hospital is overrun with the Empty Child's zombified victims. Worse, The Doctor, Rose and Jack are trapped in there with them. Their only chance of stopping the Child lies in a crater outside the hospital - but they have only minutes before German bombs destroy it!
Season 1, Episode 11: Boom Town
Original Air Date—4 June 2005
Stopping off in present-day Cardiff to recharge the TARDIS, The Doctor, Rose and Jack encounter an old foe in the midst of hatching a scheme that could destroy the entire planet.
Season 1, Episode 12: Bad Wolf
Original Air Date—11 June 2005
Jack, The Doctor and Rose have been kidnapped and forced to play terrible and deadly games. But what happens to the bodies of the murdered contestants? And what sinister plot do the games hide?
Season 1, Episode 13: The Parting of the Ways
Original Air Date—18 June 2005
The Dalek fleet is poised to destroy the Earth and only The Doctor, Rose, Jack and a band of television producers can stop them.

Season 2
Season 2, Episode 0: The Christmas Invasion
Original Air Date—25 December 2005
It's Christmas Eve, but this is to be a far from silent night - the cruel Sycorax have come to Earth to enslave mankind and, as ever, only The Doctor can stop them. Unfortunately, he's lying in a coma in Jackie's home...
Season 2, Episode 1: New Earth
Original Air Date—15 April 2006
As Rose Tyler embarks upon her first big TARDIS adventure with the newly-regenerated Doctor, they discover a sinister hospital run by strange cat people and run in to two old acquaintances, The Face of Boe and Cassandra.
Season 2, Episode 2: Tooth and Claw
Original Air Date—22 April 2006
The Doctor and Rose are transported to 19th Century Scotland, where they meet Queen Victoria, and try to protect her from a ravenous werewolf and a band of assassinating warrior-monks
Season 2, Episode 3: School Reunion
Original Air Date—29 April 2006
The Krillitanes - aliens with a mix-and-match physiology - are trying to crack the 'God-Maker', a paradigm to give them ultimate power. They are using children as a computer, and only the Doctor and Rose, re-united with Sarah Jane Smith and K9 can prevent them from becoming masters of time and space.
Season 2, Episode 4: The Girl in the Fireplace
Original Air Date—6 May 2006
The Doctor, Mickey and Rose land on a spaceship in the 51st century only to find 18th century Versailles on board, the time of Madame De Pompadour! To find out what's going on the Doctor must enter Versailles and save Madame De Popmpadour but it turns into an emotional roller coaster for the Doctor.
Season 2, Episode 5: Rise of the Cybermen
Original Air Date—13 May 2006
Upon landing on an alternate version of the Earth, The Doctor, Rose and Mickey learn that Peter Tyler is apparently alive and well. Lurking in the shadows are creatures made to destroy - one of The Doctor's greatest fears have come true...the Cybermen are reborn.
Season 2, Episode 6: The Age of Steel
Original Air Date—20 May 2006
Lumic's army of cybermen is on the rise, and with more and more people being converted by the hour, time is of the essence. The gang are reduced to fugitives as they roam the streets of parallel London trying to rid the earth of cybermen.
Season 2, Episode 7: The Idiot's Lantern
Original Air Date—27 May 2006
In 1950s London, the police are hunting down strange, mute creatures. The people of Britain gather around their new-fangled "tele-vision" sets to celebrate the new Queen's coronation - but is something affecting the signal?
Season 2, Episode 8: The Impossible Planet
Original Air Date—3 June 2006
The TARDIS lands on an alien planet shrouded in a darkness that even the Doctor can't figure out. And what is lurking at the bottom of The Satan Pit?
Season 2, Episode 9: The Satan Pit
Original Air Date—10 June 2006
As Rose battles the murderous Ood, the Doctor finds his every belief being challenged to the core, as the Pit beckons. With the planet threatening to fall into the black hole, the Doctor must make the ultimate sacrifice.
Season 2, Episode 10: Love & Monsters
Original Air Date—17 June 2006
A run in with the Doctor at a young age leads Elton to a group who's studying him, they become friends and have a laugh until Victor Kennedy arrives. Suddenly everything becomes more serious then people start disappearing from the group. Can the Doctor save Elton and explain his past before he's absorbed by the Absorbaloff
Season 2, Episode 11: Fear Her
Original Air Date—24 June 2006
The Doctor and Rose travel to London in 2012 to see the Olympics - only to find that children are mysteriously disappearing before peoples very eyes. The answer seems to lie with a young girl named Chloe and her strange drawings - but is there something more sinister behind the disappearances?
Season 2, Episode 12: Army of Ghosts
Original Air Date—1 July 2006
As the ghosts of loved ones appear, the whole world celebrates. But as the Doctor investigates he believes that there is a more sinister motive behind their appearence. And deep within the Torchwood tower, a mysterious sphere containing the greatest enemies of the Doctor is opened...
Season 2, Episode 13: Doomsday
Original Air Date—8 July 2006
Earth becomes the battlefield for the greatest and deadliest war of all time, as the Daleks and the Cybermen clash with the whole universe at stake. The Doctor and Rose, reunited with old friends and Cybermen experts Mickey and Jake, race to find a way to bring the war to an end before it brings about the destruction of the whole of space and time. But the Doctor soon faces an even bigger dilemma - could ending the war mean the death of Rose?

Season 3
Season 3, Episode 0: The Runaway Bride
Original Air Date—25 December 2006
A young Bride on the eve of her wedding finds herself mysteriously transported to the TARDIS. The Doctor must discover what her connection is with the Empress of Racnoss's plan to destroy the world.
Season 3, Episode 1: Smith and Jones
Original Air Date—31 March 2007
When the hospital where medical student Martha Jones works at is transported to the moon, only the Doctor can come to the rescue and face the might of the Judoon.
Season 3, Episode 2: The Shakespeare Code
Original Air Date—7 April 2007
The Doctor takes Martha to 1599, to meet none other than William Shakespeare in the Globe Theatre...but can he stop the curse of the three witches?
Season 3, Episode 3: Gridlock
Original Air Date—14 April 2007
The Doctor and Martha go back to New Earth were The Doctor will encounter the Face of Boe who will tell The Doctor "The Great Secret".
Season 3, Episode 4: Daleks in Manhattan
Original Air Date—21 April 2007
The Doctor and Martha confront a host of surviving Daleks from the Canary Wharf battle. What are those creatures in the sewers? Who is Solomon? And why are the Cult Of Skaro attempting to create a Dalek/Human hybrid...?
Season 3, Episode 5: Evolution of the Daleks
Original Air Date—28 April 2007
Concluding part to Daleks in Manhattan. In 1930s New York, the Daleks' plan is in full force. Faced with the cyborgs' most evil and dangerous scheme yet, will the Doctor and Martha be able to defeat their greatest opponents?
Season 3, Episode 6: The Lazarus Experiment
Original Air Date—5 May 2007
The famous Dr Lazarus has appeared to discover the secret of eternal youth - but do his experiments hide a sinister secret?
Season 3, Episode 7: 42
Original Air Date—19 May 2007
On a spaceship headed straight for the center of the sun, The Doctor only has 42 minutes to save Martha and the rest of the ship's crew from an inevitable doom...
Season 3, Episode 8: Human Nature
Original Air Date—26 May 2007
In 1913, Martha watches in jealousy from afar as The Doctor learns what it is to be human and to fall in love with the local school nurse, Joan Redfern.
Season 3, Episode 9: The Family of Blood
Original Air Date—2 June 2007
The Doctor must deal with the repercussions of his decision to become human, as The Family Of Blood unveil themselves...
Season 3, Episode 10: Blink
Original Air Date—9 June 2007
"Don't Blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back. Don't look away. And don't Blink. Good Luck." These cryptic messages left on 17 DVD's leave Sally Sparrow on a journey to assist the Doctor and Martha Jones, who are trapped in 1969. But Sally is in 2007, and they won't meet until 2008. Strange? Unusual? Not if you are the Doctor.
Season 3, Episode 11: Utopia
Original Air Date—16 June 2007
Soon after bumping into old friend Jack Harkness, Martha and The Doctor head off to Malcassairo, a distant planet where an old professor will do anything he can to keep his people alive...
Season 3, Episode 12: The Sound of Drums
Original Air Date—23 June 2007
The Doctor, Martha and Jack return to the 21st Century eighteen months after the Doctor and Martha left. They find they've missed the election, and the new Prime Minister, Harold Saxon, is someone they've met before by another name.
Season 3, Episode 13: Last of the Time Lords
Original Air Date—30 June 2007
It's been a year since The Master unleashed the mysterious Toclafane onto Earth. With the human race and The Doctor enslaved under The Master's control, Martha Jones is the only person that can help stop the evil Time Lord.

Season 4
Season 4, Episode 0: Voyage of the Damned
Original Air Date—25 December 2007
The Doctor finds his TARDIS colliding with a spaceship based on the RMS Titanic during a Christmas party. With the help of a waitress named Astrid, the Doctor must take on the race called the Hosts as the lives of the Titanic crew and those on Earth are in danger.
Season 4, Episode 1: Partners in Crime
Original Air Date—5 April 2008
With a new weight-loss pill tested in London by Adipose Industries, The Doctor goes to investigate the sinister truth behind the product, only to find out that his old friend Donna Noble is investigating as well.
Next US airings:
Fri. Nov. 20 5:00 AM SYFY
Season 4, Episode 2: The Fires of Pompeii
Original Air Date—12 April 2008
The Doctor and Donna visit Pompeii in AD 79, on the eve of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Season 4, Episode 3: Planet of the Ood
Original Air Date—19 April 2008
Finding themselves on the Ood-Sphere planet in the 42nd century, The Doctor and Donna discover the truth over the Ood's willingness to serve humankind.
Season 4, Episode 4: The Sontaran Stratagem
Original Air Date—26 April 2008
UNIT's newest recruit Martha Jones enlists The Doctor's help to investigate kid genius Luke Rattigan and his ATMOS system that is used in every car on Earth.
Season 4, Episode 5: The Poison Sky
Original Air Date—3 May 2008
With planet Earth choking under the poison sky, the Doctor must stop the Sontarans' threat to the planet.
Season 4, Episode 6: The Doctor's Daughter
Original Air Date—10 May 2008
Caught in the middle of a war between the Humans and the Hath in the planet Messaline, the Doctor finds himself once again a father.
Season 4, Episode 7: The Unicorn and the Wasp
Original Air Date—17 May 2008
With a 1920s dinner party turning into a murder mystery, The Doctor and Donna meet Agatha Christie on the eve of her publicized disappearance.
Season 4, Episode 8: Silence in the Library
Original Air Date—31 May 2008
The Doctor and Donna join a group of archaeologists at a 51st century library. What caused the library to become abandoned? What are the Nodes? And what links the library to one little girl? All they have is one warning - count the shadows.
Season 4, Episode 9: Forest of the Dead
Original Air Date—7 June 2008
With the library darkening, the Doctor takes on the Vashta Nerada while figuring out what links River Song to his future. Meanwhile, Donna finds out the mystery of Dr. Moon and the Girl.
Season 4, Episode 10: Midnight
Original Air Date—14 June 2008
As part of a well-deserved holiday, the Doctor takes a bus tour on the planet Midnight. Little does he know that something is knocking on that bus' wall...
Season 4, Episode 11: Turn Left
Original Air Date—21 June 2008
What would happen if Donna never met the Doctor? How would Earth handle the Racnoss, the falling Titanic or the Sontarans? Aided by a familiar blonde time traveler, Donna corrects the alternate time line from happening.
Season 4, Episode 12: The Stolen Earth
Original Air Date—28 June 2008
The return of an old enemy leaves Earth along with 26 other planets stolen from their places. As the Doctor and Donna look for the whereabouts of Earth, former companions of the Doctor assemble a resistance against the new Dalek Empire.
Season 4, Episode 13: Journey's End
Original Air Date—5 July 2008
In the wake of Davros' threat to destroy the existence of the Universe itself, the Doctor's companions unite to stop the Dalek empire. Which one will die by the prophecies and what will the fate be for the Doctor?

Doctor Who

2009-11-15T11:58:00.001-08:00

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a mysterious alien time-traveller known as "the Doctor" who travels in his time and spaceship, the TARDIS, which normally appears from the exterior to be a blue 1950s police box. With his companions, he explores time and space whilst facing a variety of foes and righting wrongs.

The programme is listed in Guinness World Records as the longest-running science fiction television show in the world,[1] and as the "most successful" science fiction series of all time, in terms of its overall broadcast ratings, DVD sales, book sales and iTunes traffic, as well as "illegal downloads."[2] It has been recognised for its imaginative stories, creative low-budget special effects during its original run, and pioneering use of electronic music (originally produced by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop). The show is a significant part of British popular culture;[3][4] in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, it has become a cult television favourite and has influenced generations of British television professionals, many of whom grew up watching the series. It has received recognition from critics and the public as one of the finest British television programmes, including the BAFTA Award for Best Drama Series in 2006.

The programme originally ran from 1963 to 1989. After an unsuccessful attempt to revive regular production with a backdoor pilot in the form of a 1996 television film, the programme was successfully relaunched in 2005, produced in-house by BBC Wales in Cardiff. The first was produced by the BBC and seasons two and three of the new series had some development money contributed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which was credited as a co-producer.[5] Doctor Who has also spawned spin-offs in multiple media, including the current television programmes Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, the standalone K-9 and a single 1981 pilot episode of K-9 and Company.

The show's protagonist, the Doctor, has been played by ten actors over the history of the show so far. The transition from one actor to another is written into the plot of the show as regeneration, and the different portrayals are often treated as distinct characters, to the extent that they have on occasion encountered one another and worked together. The Doctor is currently portrayed by David Tennant, who has announced that he will leave the role after appearing in four special episodes throughout 2009 and early 2010.[6][7] In the programme's most recent series, which ended on 5 July 2008,[8] Catherine Tate played the Doctor's companion, reprising her role of Donna Noble from the 2006 Christmas special.[9] Following the 2009–2010 special episodes, a fifth series will air in 2010,[10] in which the Eleventh Doctor will be portrayed by Matt Smith with Karen Gillan playing his companion, Amy Pond.[11] On 6 October 2009, a redesigned logo was unveiled.[12] The new logo accompanies a redesign of the iconic TARDIS, to be shown in 2010.[13]