Doctor Who (television program)

Doctor Who is a long-running British science-fiction television program that follows the exploits of The Doctor, an eccentric alien who travels through time and space with an ever-changing lineup of human companions. With their help, he seeks to protect Earth and the universe at large from a diverse rogues' gallery of evildoers.

Though originally envisioned simply as an entertaining, educational program for children when it debuted in 1963, Doctor Who has evolved into a burgeoning science-fiction franchise with an extensive media presence that has gradually expanded to include everything from films to novels, radio dramas, spinoff television series, comics, and more. The franchise's enthusiastic following includes fans of all ages.

Premise

At the heart of Doctor Who is the story of The Doctor, an adventurous member of an extraterrestrial species known as the Time Lords. Though they are remarkably advanced, the Time Lords, so-named because of their mastery of time travel, have grown stagnant as a civilization, in part because of their self-imposed isolation from other cultures. As is eventually revealed, The Doctor, dissatisfied with his fellow Time Lords' reluctance to engage with the universe around them, quietly steals away from his home planet of Gallifrey in a shapeshifting time travel vessel called the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space) with his granddaughter, Susan. Eventually, The Doctor and Susan arrive at a junkyard in 1960s London, where the TARDIS, which was apparently defective when The Doctor stole it, becomes permanently stuck in the form of a blue wooden police box.

To keep up appearances and learn more about Earth culture, Susan enrolls at the nearby Coal Hill School, where her quirky behavior and unexplained intelligence capture the attention of teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. Determined to learn more about their mysterious student, Ian and Barbara follow Susan home one night and inadvertently discover The Doctor and the TARDIS, which, much to their surprise, is "bigger on the inside." Hoping to prevent Ian and Barbara from revealing his secret existence, the Doctor demonstrates the full power of the TARDIS by transporting the entire party back in time to 100,000 BCE. With this, The Doctor and his newfound companions embark on the continuing adventure that has served as the underlying basis of Doctor Who even after more than fifty years and hundreds of episodes.

Series History

Doctor Who was the brainchild of Sydney Newman, who, in the early 1960s, was appointed as the head of drama for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Handed the task of filling the early Saturday evening timeslot, which was primarily aimed at children, Newman's vision was to create an entertaining show through which young viewers could learn about history and science. After laying out the show's basic premise and hiring his former personal assistant Verity Lambert as its producer, Newman and his team worked to bring Doctor Who to life.

With a pilot episode set to be filmed in September 1963, Newman and Lambert cast William Hartnell, a veteran actor known for playing tough military types, as The Doctor. Though he exhibited the curiosity, rationalism, and pacifism that have permeated every iteration of the character, Hartnell specifically portrayed The Doctor as a crotchety old man who seems to have little regard for anything in the way of basic human kindness. Despite his gruff exterior, however, The Doctor's deep-seated sense of compassion made him endearing to viewers.

Although Newman was initially opposed to featuring "bug-eyed monsters" or robotic nemeses on Doctor Who, it was the debut of just that sort of creature that made the show a bona fide success. In the second serial in Doctor Who history, producer Lambert introduced the Daleks, an evil, xenophobic alien species forced to live inside robotic shells after being grossly mutated during a nuclear war. Created by writer Terry Nation, the bent-on-destruction Daleks were an immediate hit with audiences and permanently changed the show's direction.

Another of Doctor Who's most important innovations came as the aging Hartnell was forced to leave the show due to declining health in 1966. Rather than simply ending the show's run with Hartnell's departure, producers decided that, as a Time Lord, The Doctor had the ability to "regenerate," or change form when mortally wounded. This provided producers with the ability to replace the actor playing The Doctor while allowing the character itself to live on. As a result, when Hartnell left the show, he was replaced by actor Patrick Troughton.

From the time Troughton entered the TARDIS in 1966 until the show's original run ended in 1989, Doctor Who continued to be immensely popular. Five other actors—Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy—went on to play The Doctor alongside various companion characters. By 1989, however, declining ratings and increasing behind-the-scenes turmoil led the BBC to place -Doctor Who on indefinite hiatus, thus effectively ending the landmark series after nearly thirty consecutive seasons.

Aside from an attempt to resurrect the series on American television with a made-for-TV movie starring Paul McGann as the eighth incarnation of The Doctor, Doctor Who remained off the airwaves until the BBC finally revived the dormant series in 2005. With Christopher Eccleston taking over as the Ninth Doctor, the new series updated Doctor Who for contemporary audiences while retaining all the essential elements that have defined the show for generations.

Having helped to revitalize the once floundering franchise, Eccleston left Doctor Who after only one season, a decision that led to accomplished Shakespearean actor David Tennant's casting as the Tenth Doctor. In 2010, following several successful seasons in the TARDIS, Tennant handed the role off to Matt Smith, whose frenetic, bow-tie-wearing, fez-clad Eleventh Doctor was a hit with fans. Actor John Hurt portrayed the character in a fiftieth-anniversary special that altered the course of the series.

When Smith took his final bow after four years, popular actor and former punk rock musician Peter Capaldi took the reins as the Twelfth Doctor. In early July 2017, he appeared in his final regular season episode in the role, with his character's next regeneration slated to occur in a Christmas special later that year. Only days later, on July 16, following the men's Wimbledon final, the identity of the Thirteenth Doctor was revealed through a teaser trailer for the upcoming Christmas special. For the first time since the show's original airing, a woman was cast to play The Doctor. Jodie Whittaker, known for her role in the crime series Broadchurch, had been chosen to take on the mantle. Whittaker premiered as The Doctor on October 7, 2018. After three seasons, in 2022, it was announced that Scottish actor Ncuti Gatwa would become the fourteenth incarnation of The Doctor, becoming the first Black actor to take on the role. Though the BBC retained control over the show’s creative decisions, Doctor Who partnered with streaming service Disney+ in 2022, allowing the show to grow its global audience. The same year, the Tenth Doctor Who, Davis Tennant, temporarily returned to the series. He appeared in three special episodes in 2023 during the show’s sixtieth-anniversary series, which featured nostalgic and new elements of the show. Doctor Who remains one of the all-time most successful science-fiction franchises and an undisputed institution of British television.

Bibliography

"About Doctor Who." The Doctor Who Site, thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/doctorwho/information-about-doctor-who. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025.

Burk, Grame, and Robert Smith. "Previously, on Doctor Who…." Who Is the Doctor: The Unofficial Guide to Doctor Who. ECW Press, 2012, pp. Xii–xvi.

Doherty, John J. "Doctor Who." St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Vol. 2, 2nd ed., St. James Press, 2013, pp. 140–41.

Kamp, David. "What You Should Know about Peter Capaldi." Vanity Fair, 31 Aug. 2014, www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/08/peter-capaldi-doctor-who. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025.

Power, Ed. "Jodie Whittaker: Who Is the First Female Doctor Who?" The Telegraph, 7 Oct. 2018, www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/doctor-everything-need-know-jodie-whittaker-first-female-13th. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025.