Doctor Who (Through The Years).

History of Doctor Who



Doctor Who title card (2014-17)

Doctor Who is a British television science fiction series, produced and screened by the BBC on the BBC TV channel from 1963 to 1964, and on BBC1 (later BBC One) from 1964 to 1989 and since 2005. A one-off television movie, co-produced with Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox Television, was screened on the Fox Network in the United States in 1996.

Origins



The title screen of the first episode
of Doctor Who

In March 1962, Eric Maschwitz, the Assistant and Adviser to the Controller of Programmes at BBC Television, asked Donald Wilson, the Head of the Script Department, to have his department's Survey Group prepare a study on the feasibility of the BBC producing a new science fiction television series. The report was prepared by staff members Alice Frick and Donald Bull, and delivered the following month, much to the commendation of Wilson, Maschwitz and the BBC's Assistant Controller of Programmes Donald Baverstock. A follow-up report into specific ideas for the format of such a programme was commissioned, and delivered in July. Prepared by Frick with another Script Department staff member, John Braybon, this report recommended a series dealing with time travel as being an idea particularly worthy of development.

In December, Canadian-born Sydney Newman arrived at BBC Television as the new Head of Drama. Newman was a science fiction fan who had overseen several such productions in his previous positions at ABC Television and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In March 1963, he was made aware by Baverstock – now promoted to Controller of Programmes – of a gap in the schedule on Saturday evenings between the sports showcase Grandstand and the pop music programme Juke Box Jury. Ideally, any programme scheduled here would appeal to children that had previously been accustomed to the timeslot; the teenaged audience of Juke Box Jury; and the adult sports fan audience of Grandstand. Newman decided that a science fiction programme would be perfect to fill the gap, and enthusiastically took up the existing Script Department research, initiating several brainstorming sessions with Wilson, Braybon, Frick and another BBC staff writer, C. E. 'Bunny' Webber.

Wilson and Webber contributed heavily to the formatting of the programme and its initial cast of regular characters, and co-wrote the programme's first format document with Newman. Newman personally came up with the idea of a time machine larger on the inside than the outside and the idea of the central character, the mysterious "Doctor"; he also gave the series the name Doctor Who. Later in the year production was initiated and handed over to producer Verity Lambert and story editor David Whitaker to oversee, after a brief period when the show had been handled by a "caretaker" producer, Rex Tucker. Concerned about Lambert's relative lack of experience, Wilson appointed the experienced staff director Mervyn Pinfield as associate producer. Australian staff writer Anthony Coburn also contributed, penning the very first episode from a draft initially prepared by Webber, and coming up with the idea that the time machine, the TARDIS, should externally resemble a police box.

Doctor Who was originally intended to be an educational series, with the TARDIS taking the form of an object from that particular episode's time period (a column in Ancient Greece, a sarcophagus in Egypt, etc.). When the show's budget was calculated, however, it was discovered that it was prohibitively expensive to re-dress the TARDIS model for each episode; instead, the TARDIS's "Chameleon Circuit" was said to be malfunctioning, giving the prop its characteristic 'police-box' appearance.

The series' theme music was written by film and television composer Ron Grainer (who would later go on to also compose the theme to The Prisoner, among others) in collaboration with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. While Grainer wrote the theme, it was Delia Derbyshire who was responsible for its creation, using a series of tape recorders to laboriously cut and join together the individual sounds she created with both concrete sources and square- and sine-wave oscillators. Grainer was amazed at the results and asked "Did I write that?" when he heard it. Derbyshire replied that he mostly had. The BBC (who wanted to keep members of the Workshop anonymous) prevented Grainer from getting her a co-composer credit and half the royalties. The title sequence was designed by graphics designer Bernard Lodge and realised by electronic effects specialist Norman Taylor.

1960s



William Hartnell

23 November 1963 – 29 October 1966

First Doctor

After actors Hugh David (later a director on the series) and Geoffrey Bayldon had both turned down approaches to star in the series, Verity Lambert and the first serial's director Waris Hussein managed to persuade 55-year-old character actor William Hartnell to take the part of the Doctor. Hartnell was known mostly for playing army sergeants and other tough characters in a variety of films, but Lambert had been impressed with his sensitive performance as a rugby league talent scout in the film version of This Sporting Life, which inspired her to offer him the role.

Hartnell's Doctor would initially be accompanied by his granddaughter Susan Foreman (played by Carole Ann Ford), originally to have been merely a travelling companion, but with a family tie added by Coburn, who was uncomfortable with the possible undertones the relationship could carry were they to be unrelated. They were joined in the first episode by two of Foreman's schoolteachers, Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) and Ian Chesterton (William Russell), from contemporary 20th century England. This remained the line-up of the series for the entire first season, but over time the regular line-up would change regularly as the Doctor's various companions left him to return home, having found new causes on worlds they had visited and elected to stay there, or even occasionally being killed off. However, he would always quickly find new travelling companions. Such characters were used by the production team to relate the point of view of the viewers at home, asking questions and furthering the stories by getting into trouble.

The first (pilot) episode of the series, "An Unearthly Child", had to be re-recorded owing to technical problems and errors made during the performance. During the days between the two tapings, changes were made to costuming, effects, performances, and the script (which had originally featured a more callous Doctor, and Susan doing unexplained things such as flicking ink on paper and folding it to produce a symmetrical pattern, and then tracing shapes over the pattern). This second version of "An Unearthly Child", the first episode of the very first serial, was transmitted at 5.15 pm on 23 November 1963, but due to both a power failure in certain areas of the country and the overshadowing news of US President John F. Kennedy's assassination, it drew minimal comment and was repeated the following week immediately before the second episode.

It was not until the second serial, The Daleks, that the programme caught the imaginations of viewers and began to ingrain itself in the popular consciousness. This was primarily due to the Dalek creatures introduced in this story. Devised by scriptwriter Terry Nation and designer Raymond Cusick, they were completely un-humanoid and like nothing that had been seen on television before. Lambert had in fact been strongly advised against using Nation's script by her direct superior Donald Wilson, but used the excuse that they had nothing else ready in order to produce it. Once it was clear what a great success it had been, Wilson admitted to Lambert that he would no longer interfere with her decisions as she clearly knew the programme better than he did.

Hartnell's Doctor was not initially paternal or sympathetic; he described himself and Susan simply as "wanderers in the 4th dimension". He was cantankerous, bossy and occasionally showed a streak of ruthlessness. However, the character mellowed as he grew closer to his companions, and he soon became a popular icon, especially among children who watched the series. This alteration in the portrayal of the Doctor began during the fourth serial, Marco Polo. The Doctor's role was minimal during episode two, "The Singing Sands", and from the later episodes his portrayal of the character mellowed considerably.

The programme became a great success, frequently drawing audiences of 12 million or more, and the Daleks came back for several return appearances. Whitaker left the show early in the second season (though continued writing for it until 1970), being briefly replaced by Dennis Spooner, who in turn was replaced by Donald Tosh at the end of the season. Pinfield also left halfway through the season due to poor health, but was not replaced.

By the time of the third season in 1965, however, some difficulties were beginning to arise. Lambert had moved on, to be replaced as producer by John Wiles, who did not have a good working relationship with Hartnell. The lead actor himself was finding it increasingly difficult to remember his lines as he was suffering from the early stages of the arteriosclerosis that would later cause his death. Wiles and Tosh came up with a way of writing Hartnell out in the story The Celestial Toymaker, by having the Doctor made invisible for part of the story, intending that when he re-appeared he would be played by a new actor. However, Wiles was forbidden to replace Hartnell by the new Head of Serials, Gerald Savory. Wiles had also hoped to make other bold changes, such as introducing a companion with a cockney accent (which was vetoed, as he was told all characters must speak "BBC English"), and resigned shortly afterwards (allegedly after learning that he would be sacked at the end of the season), with Tosh also resigning on principle.
By 1966, however, it was clear that Hartnell's health was affecting his performances, and that he would not be able to carry on playing the Doctor for a long period of time. By this point Savory had moved on as Head of Serials and his successor, Shaun Sutton, was more agreeable to change, allowing Wiles' replacement, Innes Lloyd, to make many of the very changes that Wiles had been barred from. Lloyd discussed the situation with Hartnell and the actor agreed that it would be best to leave, although later in life he would claim that he had not wanted to go.

Second Doctor



Patrick Troughton

29 October 1966 – 21 June 1969

Lloyd and story editor Gerry Davis came up with an intriguing way of writing the First Doctor out – as he was an alien being, they decided that he would have the power to change his body when it became worn out or seriously injured, a process that was called "renewal" but would later become known within the mythology of the series as "regeneration". Lloyd and Davis cast actor Patrick Troughton, who first appeared in November 1966 after the changeover from Hartnell had been seen at the end of the story The Tenth Planet. That serial also introduced the popular Cybermen, villains who would return to face the Doctor on several subsequent occasions.

Troughton played the role generally in a more lightweight, comical manner, albeit still with much of the original character's passionate hatred of evil and desire to help the oppressed. He also on occasion showed a darker side, manipulating his companions and the people around him for the greater good (examples include The Tomb of the Cybermen and The Evil of the Daleks). Davis left the show at the end of the fourth season, and was replaced by Peter Bryant. A few months later, Lloyd left the show and Bryant was promoted to producer. Bryant's successor as script editor was Derrick Sherwin (though Victor Pemberton had filled the job for Bryant's first serial, The Tomb of the Cybermen).

Troughton remained in the part for three seasons until 1969, eventually tiring of the workload of starring in a regular series. By this time, the viewing figures for Doctor Who had fallen considerably, and new script editor Terrance Dicks recalled that there was some talk of ending the series at the conclusion of its sixth season in 1969 (though this has been denied by Bryant, Sherwin and director David Maloney, with paperwork suggesting it was actually in danger at the end of the seventh season in 1970). The series' budget was also increasingly strained by the cost of exotic sets, costumes and props every time the Doctor visited a new setting, and so Bryant and Sherwin (now effectively acting as co-producer, though the BBC refused to credit him as such) came up with the idea of reducing the cost of the series by setting all of the adventures on Earth, with the Doctor to act as the Scientific Advisor to an organisation called UNIT, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, charged with defending the Earth from alien invasion.
This new set-up was tested in the season six story The Invasion, and at the end of the season was put in place more permanently by having the Second Doctor captured by his own race, the Time Lords, and sentenced to exile on Earth with his appearance being changed again as punishment for his interference in the affairs of other races. Thus Doctor Who ended its sixth production block, and its black and white era. From then on, in common with other British television programmes, it was produced in colour.

1970s

Third Doctor



Jon Pertwee

3 January 1970 – 8 June 1974



The Doctor Who "diamond" logo,
used in the show's opening titles
from 1973 to 1980

Sherwin's first choice to replace Troughton was actor Ron Moody, star of the musical Oliver!, but when he turned the part down, comic actor Jon Pertwee, another candidate from Sherwin's shortlist, was cast instead. Sherwin had hoped that Pertwee would bring much of his comic acting skill to the part, but he was keen to establish himself as a serious dramatic actor as well as a comedian. Although some lighter touches were visible throughout Pertwee's era, he essentially played it very "straight" and not at all as Sherwin had envisioned. Pertwee's Doctor was more action-oriented than his predecessors, and the producers allowed Pertwee to indulge his love of riding various vehicles during his tenure, including motorcycles, hovercraft, the so-called "Whomobile" and the Doctor's vintage roadster, "Bessie".

Sherwin stayed only to oversee the first story of the seventh season. Spearhead from Space was the first Doctor Who story to be made in colour and – due to industrial action in the electronic studios – the only example of the original series to be made entirely on film. Thereafter, he moved on to work on the series Paul Temple, and was replaced by director Barry Letts after another regular director on the show, Douglas Camfield, had turned down the job.
The seventh season, at twenty-five episodes, was shorter than any before, and established a pattern of Doctor Who seasons being between twenty and twenty-eight episodes in length, one that would last until the middle of the 1980s. However, although the new format of the Doctor being stuck on Earth had proved popular enough to save the programme from cancellation, neither Letts nor his script editor Terrance Dicks were particularly keen on the idea, and from the eighth season onwards sought reasons for the Doctor to be able to travel in time and space again, eventually having the Time Lords grant him full freedom at the conclusion of the 1973 tenth anniversary story, The Three Doctors, a serial which also featured guest appearances from Troughton and Hartnell, the latter in a restricted role due to his poor health.

Another innovation of theirs from the eighth season onwards was the introduction of the character of the Master as a new nemesis for the Doctor, conceived as a Professor Moriarty to the Doctor's Sherlock Holmes. Played by Roger Delgado, he became a highly popular character, although over the following two seasons it was felt, by both the Public, and the production company, that he became a little overused. Delgado and the production team eventually agreed that he should be written out during the eleventh season by killing the character off, with some ambiguity as to whether or not he had died to save the Doctor.

However, before this story could be written, Delgado was killed in a car accident in Turkey. His death had a profound effect on Pertwee. With actress Katy Manning also having departed from her role as companion Jo Grant after three seasons, and Letts and Dicks both planning to move on, Pertwee felt that his "family" on the show was breaking up, and he decided to leave at the conclusion of the eleventh season in 1974. According to Elisabeth Sladen in an interview on the DVD release of Invasion of the Dinosaurs Pertwee asked for a substantially increased fee for another year on the series, that he was turned down and subsequently resigned from the role.

Fourth Doctor



Tom Baker

8 June 1974 – 21 March 1981

Although Letts and Dicks were both planning on leaving at the end of the same season, it was they who worked closely on re-casting the role of the Doctor, in preparation to hand over to their successors, producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes, who had been a long-time writer for the programme.

Letts had intended to cast an older actor as the Fourth Doctor, to hark back to Hartnell's portrayal in the 1960s, but after a long search he eventually selected Tom Baker, who was suggested to him by the incoming Head of Serials, Bill Slater. Baker was only forty years old, almost fifteen years Pertwee's junior, but despite not being the type of actor Letts had originally been looking for, he went on to become arguably the most popular and best-remembered to play the role. He starred in the series for seven years, longer than any of his predecessors or successors, and during his time on the programme Doctor Who enjoyed a consistent run of popular success and high viewing figures. Baker's Doctor was a more eccentric personality, at times passionate and caring, but at other times aloof and alien. This ambivalence was a deliberate choice by Baker, in an attempt to remind the viewers that the Doctor was not human, and therefore had non-human characteristics.

Under the control of Hinchcliffe and Holmes, who took over from the beginning of the twelfth season, Doctor Who became a much darker programme, with the pair being heavily influenced by Hammer Films' successful horror film productions and other gothic influences. Their era achieved the highest viewing figures (average ratings for Hinchcliffe's 3 years were over 1 million higher than the average for any other producer) and is frequently praised by fans as a highly successful one, with many serials from that period remaining fan favourites. However, the BBC received complaints from Mary Whitehouse of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, that the programme was unfit for children and could traumatise them. While the BBC publicly defended the programme, after three seasons Hinchcliffe was moved on to the adult police thriller series Target in 1977, and his replacement, Graham Williams, was specifically instructed to lighten the tone of the storylines.

After staying on during the fifteenth season under Williams for a brief handover period, Holmes also left the programme, and his replacement, Anthony Read, worked with Williams, who was told to create a less violent and more humour-based approach, much to Baker's liking. The actor now felt very possessive of the part and frequently argued with directors over his inclusion of ad-libbed lines, but he was extremely pleased when the levity of the show increased even further after the departure of Read and the hiring of Douglas Adams as script editor for season seventeen in 1979. Some fans have criticised Adams for introducing too much of the sort of humorous content that served him well in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. However, others consider some of Adams' scripts to be among the series' high points, with City of Death (1979) being the primary example.

Season 17 saw the show garner its highest-ever viewing figures during the ITV network strike, with estimates of between 16 and 19 million viewers for episodes of the Williams and Adams penned story City of Death. However, there were also problems: director Alan Bromly left the production towards the end of the story Nightmare of Eden due to frustrations at the technicalities of production and arguments with Baker, leaving Williams to oversee completion of the story. Rampant inflation in the television industry was squeezing the series, with the budget much reduced in real terms from where it had been under Hinchcliffe. The scheduled final story of the season, Adams' own Shada, was abandoned midway through recording due to industrial action, and the season finished, after just twenty episodes, in January 1980.

Williams and Adams both departed at the end of the season, Williams because he had had enough of the programme after three seasons in charge, and Adams to concentrate on his increasingly successful Hitchhiker's franchise. Williams recommended to the Head of Series & Serials, Graeme MacDonald, that he be replaced by his Production Unit Manager, John Nathan-Turner. Although MacDonald agreed with the principle of appointing someone familiar with the workings of the show, he first offered the job to Nathan-Turner's predecessor George Gallaccio, who after leaving Doctor Who in 1977 had already gained experience as a producer on the BBC Scotland drama The Omega Factor. However, Gallaccio turned the role down, and MacDonald offered it instead to Nathan-Turner, who accepted, and became the new producer.

1980s

John Nathan-Turner era

As Nathan-Turner was a new producer and a restructure of the Drama Department meant that MacDonald would not be able to offer the direct support that had been available to previous producers, the latter appointed Barry Letts to return to the series as Executive Producer and oversee Nathan-Turner's initial season working on the series. Letts had, in fact, been offering unofficial advice and comment to Graham Williams for some time beforehand.

Nathan-Turner and the new script editor, Christopher H. Bidmead, sought to return to a more serious tone for the series, reining in much of the humour that had been prevalent during Williams' tenure and changing the character's costumes. The new producer also sought to bring the show "into the 1980s", commissioning a new title sequence, bringing all the incidental music in-house to be produced electronically by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and commissioning Peter Howell of the Workshop to come up with a brand-new arrangement of the series' famous theme tune. This displeased both Baker and his co-star Lalla Ward, who did not see eye-to-eye with Nathan-Turner on the new direction.

These changes arrived with season eighteen in the autumn of 1980, when the audience for Doctor Who had fallen dramatically to around five million viewers, due chiefly to competition from the ITV network's American import Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. There was a further blow when Tom Baker decided that after seven seasons in the part he would leave the role. His departure was heavily publicised in the press, with Baker attracting much comment for his tongue-in-cheek suggestion that his successor could be a woman, which the publicity-aware Nathan-Turner was not quick to deny.

Fifth Doctor



Peter Davison

21 March 1981 – 16 March 1984

The producer initially sought actor Richard Griffiths to succeed Baker, but when he proved unavailable, cast Peter Davison, with whom he had previously worked on the popular drama series All Creatures Great and Small. Davison was very different from his four predecessors, being much younger, in line with Nathan-Turner's desire for the Fifth Doctor to be completely unlike the popular Fourth, so that the public would not draw unfavourable comparisons between the two. Davison's Doctor was arguably the most human of them all, and the one whose vulnerability was emphasised the most. The Fifth Doctor, more often than not, reacted to circumstances around him rather than being proactive, and had the air of a young aristocrat about him, in contrast to Baker's bohemian personality.

Davison made his first appearance at the end of the season eighteen closer, Logopolis, although it was to be a year until his first full season in the part began in 1982. In the meantime Alan Hart, Controller of BBC 1, had decided to move the programme from an autumn to a spring transmission slot. This was partly because, after eighteen years on Saturday evenings, he had also decided to change the transmission date, running the series twice-weekly on weekdays instead of once a week on Saturdays. This had the effect of halving the number of weeks the series was on-air to thirteen instead of twenty-six, and moving from an autumn to a spring debut. Additionally, Davison was also working on the BBC sit com Sink or Swim and was unavailable to record enough episodes to make an autumn start date viable.

This experiment in seeing the viability of running a twice-weekly drama serial would later lead to the launching of the massively popular soap opera EastEnders in a similar slot. It also had the short-term effect of doubling the Doctor Who audience, with the story Black Orchid being the final story of the regular run – and the only one of the 1980s – to break the double-figure millions barrier for the story overall, with a recorded figure of ten million viewers. The last individual episode with over ten million viewers was the first part of 1982's Time-Flight.

During production of the nineteenth season, Bidmead decided to move on and was replaced as script editor, first on a temporary basis by Antony Root and then on a more permanent basis by Eric Saward, who remained in the role for several years. He and Nathan-Turner oversaw an increasing reliance on the show's history in following seasons, with the return of various characters and adversaries from the Doctor's past, culminating in 1983 with the twentieth anniversary special 90-minute episode, The Five Doctors.

Davison left the part after only three seasons in 1984. He had been advised by Patrick Troughton to stay no longer than three years, and was also disenchanted with the quality of the scripts on the programme during the twentieth season. Although he felt things had improved in the twenty-first, by then his departure had already been announced, and Nathan-Turner had selected Colin Baker – who had guest-starred in the season twenty story Arc of Infinity – to replace him. Colin Baker became the Sixth Doctor on screen in March 1984 at the conclusion of Davison's final story, The Caves of Androzani.

Sixth Doctor



Colin Baker

16 March 1984 – 6 December 1986

Colin Baker's first full season in 1985 was reasonably successful despite several changes. Alan Hart had decided to experiment with doubling the length of Doctor Who episodes, with season twenty-two comprising thirteen 45-minute episodes rather than twenty-six 25-minute ones as had previously been the case. The series also returned to Saturday evenings, where it continued to draw reasonably respectable figures of seven to eight million viewers for most episodes even though it faced stiff opposition from another American import on ITV, The A-Team. Baker's portrayal of the Doctor also met with criticism. A more bombastic and overbearing personality than any of the others, the Doctor's use of deadly force against his enemies in a few stories caused controversy.

The series once again drew some criticism for the "horrific" content of some of the episodes. Unlike those misgivings levelled at the earlier reign of producer Philip Hinchcliffe, however, many of these came from within the BBC itself. Michael Grade had taken over as Controller of BBC 1 in 1984, and was not a fan of the series. In fact, he later admitted in interviews that he "hated" the programme, and he wanted to cancel it outright. There is much debate, however, as to how far his decisions were driven by his personal views. At the time, the BBC was suffering a financial shortfall due to expensive ventures such as the launch of EastEnders, breakfast and daytime television, and savings were needed across the Corporation.

In any case, when it was announced that Doctor Who's production would be moved back a financial year, the news was interpreted as that the show was under threat of cancellation. The press and public outcry was much larger than Grade or the Board of Governors of the BBC had expected, being given a full-page front cover story in the popular tabloid newspaper The Sun. A charity single, "Doctor in Distress", was even produced and released in March 1985. It was written by Ian Levine and Fiachra Trench and performed by a group of 30 mid-level celebrities, including Nicola Bryant, Nicholas Courtney and Colin Baker himself, under the banner "Who Cares". The single was universally panned.

Baker's era was interrupted by what would be a long 18-month hiatus between seasons 22 and 23 (prior to its postponement, plans for season 23 was well advanced with episodes already drafted and in at least one case distributed to cast and production), officially because the show was moved back from the spring to the autumn schedule, with only one new Doctor Who story, Slipback, made on radio during the hiatus, broadcast as 6 parts (at 10 minutes each) on BBC Radio 4 from 25 July to 8 August 1985, as part of a children's magazine show called Pirate Radio Four.

Season twenty-three eventually aired in the autumn of 1986. Production of the new season was complicated by various factors. Although the episode length had been reverted to 25 minutes, the number of episodes was reduced to fourteen, just over half the length of most previous seasons. The series was still up against The A-Team and, having been off the air for eighteen months, found it hard to regain viewers who had turned to ITV. Saward and Nathan-Turner had decided on an overarching storyline for the entire season entitled The Trial of a Time Lord, but its complexities proved confusing to both writers and viewers, with the season drawing viewing figures of only four to five million.

Problems existed behind the scenes as well. Robert Holmes, who had returned to writing for the series on a semi-regular basis in 1984, died before he could deliver the final episode. In addition, Saward and Nathan-Turner had a falling out, with Saward resigning from the programme, and Nathan-Turner unofficially taking on the role of script editor after Saward's departure. Despite all of this, Grade consented to allow the series to continue, but moved it away from Saturday nights into a mid-week slot once more, and limited it to one episode per week. He also ordered that a new Doctor be found, as he was not enamoured of Colin Baker's portrayal. Baker was therefore dismissed from the role, despite Nathan-Turner's pleas to the BBC brass that Baker did not fulfill his three-year contract due to the 18-month hiatus when nothing was filmed, plus the format changes between the two seasons, where Baker only did the equivalent of just a season and a half's worth of work in total.

Seventh Doctor



Sylvester McCoy

7 September 1987 – 6 December 1989

Nathan-Turner had thought that he too would finally be leaving the series, but with no other producer available or willing to take on the series, he was instructed to remain. As a BBC staff producer, he had little choice but to either accept this or resign from the Corporation's staff. Not having expected to be producing season twenty-four, Nathan-Turner was left with little time to prepare, hiring inexperienced Andrew Cartmel as script editor on the advice of a friend who had run a BBC Drama Script Unit course that Cartmel had attended, and casting little-known Scottish actor Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor. In his first season, McCoy, a comedy actor, portrayed the character with a degree of clown-like humour, but Cartmel's influence soon changed that. The Seventh Doctor developed into a darker figure than any of his earlier incarnations, manipulating people like chess pieces and always seeming to be playing a deeper game than he ever let on.

The new season was placed by Grade at 7.35 pm on Monday evenings opposite the ITV soap opera, Coronation Street. The latter was the most-watched programme on British television, and the viewing figures for Doctor Who suffered accordingly, though they were frequently the best for any BBC programme broadcast in the slot (viewing figures at the time did not take account of video recordings). The season's quality was also publicly derided by many fans of the programme, although over the following two seasons the criticism was balanced out by some happier viewers, who felt that the young team of writers being assembled by Cartmel was taking the programme in the right direction.

Nathan-Turner attempted to leave once more at the end of production on the twenty-fifth season in 1988, but was once again persuaded to stay for a further year after another BBC producer – Paul Stone, who had produced The Box of Delights – was offered the position but declined. He and Cartmel remained on the production team for the twenty-sixth season in 1989. Although the season once again drew praise, the viewing figures were disastrous, starting at around the 3 million mark and improving to only around 4.5 million by the season's conclusion. At the end of the year, Cartmel was head-hunted to script-edit the BBC's popular medical drama, Casualty, and Nathan-Turner also finally left the show, although no replacements were assigned for either position as in-house production was being shut down.
Although Michael Grade had left the BBC in 1987 to take up a new position as Chief Executive of Channel 4, Doctor Who remained in its poor slot opposite Coronation Street and continued to suffer in the ratings. Jonathan Powell, the new Controller of BBC 1, who regarded Nathan-Turner with contempt, decided to suspend the series, a decision which was clear to the production team by the end of production on the twenty-sixth season in August 1989.

The final story to be produced as part of the original run was Ghost Light, although it was not the last to be broadcast. That was Survival, the last episode of which was transmitted on 6 December 1989, and brought the series' twenty-six year run to a close. John Nathan-Turner decided close to transmission that a more suitable conclusion should be given to the final episode as it was possibly going to be the last ever. Accordingly, Andrew Cartmel wrote a short, melancholic closing monologue for Sylvester McCoy, which McCoy recorded on 23 November 1989 – by coincidence, the show's twenty-sixth anniversary. This was dubbed over the closing scene as the Doctor and his companion Ace walked off into the distance, apparently to further adventures.

1990s

Planned Season 27

At the time production of the original series was cancelled, work had already begun on Season 27. Both McCoy and incumbent companion Sophie Aldred (Ace) have stated that they would have left during this season. Storylines would have seen Ace joining the Time Lord academy on Gallifrey, and the introduction of a cat burglar as the new companion. Script editor Andrew Cartmel had already begun work on four loosely connected stories which would have comprised the season: Earth Aid by Ben Aaronovitch (a space opera featuring insect-like aliens), Ice Time by Marc Platt (set in 1960s London, featuring the return of the Ice Warriors and Ace's departure), Crime of the Century by Cartmel (a contemporary story featuring animal testing), and Alixion by Robin Mukherjee (in which the Doctor is lured to an isolated asteroid to play a series of life-or-death games).[citation needed] Ahead of the new companion's introduction, Ice Time would have featured her father, a criminal named Sam Tollinger, who was intended to be a recurring character. Alixion would have seen the Doctor going insane after facing a psychic enemy, with mental rather than physical strain being the cause of his regeneration at the end of the season. However, since the programme was placed on indefinite hiatus, none of these stories were fully developed. Actors Richard Griffiths and Ian Richardson were two names mentioned by the production team as replacements for McCoy.

(The above details appear based primarily on a theoretical article written by Dave Owen for Doctor Who Magazine in issue 205, August 1997. In particular, the concept of regeneration through insanity was of Owen's own invention and was never part of the plans of Andrew Cartmel or his team of writers, although Cartmel has since become aware of the idea and given it his approval as a potentially fitting end to the Seventh Doctor. None of the stories above were commissioned at the time of cancellation, even to the point of rough outlines, and were put together by Dave Owen from interviews with the most likely authors to have been commissioned had the series gone ahead).

On 12 November 2009 Big Finish Productions announced they were doing an audio version of Season 27 with Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred and Beth Chalmers as new companion named Raine Creevey (not Kate Tollinger as previously suggested). Marc Platt contributed Thin Ice, while script editor Andrew Cartmel has written Crime of the Century, Animal and co-written Earth Aid with Ben Aaronovitch.

Beyond television

After the series was taken off the air in 1989, various Doctor Who projects were produced under license by the BBC. Doctor Who Magazine continued its long-running comic strip and published original fiction, initially continuing the run of stories with the seventh Doctor and Ace and featuring other companions and Doctors. Virgin Publishing published a series of original books, The New Adventures of Doctor Who (NAs), from 1991 to 1997. This series continued the stories of the seventh Doctor, further exploring and developing the themes and ideas introduced in the later years of the television series. Several writers who had worked on that era wrote NAs, as well as writers of earlier eras and some writers who would work on the new series, including Russell T Davies, Paul Cornell, Mark Gatiss and Gareth Roberts. The NAs introduced original companions, including Bernice Summerfield, and at one point the series editors considered regenerating the Doctor; they did however regenerate The Master. The success of the NAs led Virgin to publish The Missing Adventures, featuring earlier Doctors and companions, and several short story anthologies.

Following the television movie (see below), the eighth Doctor replaced the seventh in both the comic strip and original books. BBC Books took back the rights to publish original fiction in 1997 and published two series, the Eighth Doctor Adventures and the Past Doctor Adventures as well as some anthologies of short stories, until 2005. Big Finish Productions adapted several NAs, minus the Doctor, into audio plays; on the back of these, they won a license from the BBC to produce original audio plays featuring the Doctors and their companions, and eventually also produced plays featuring other characters and monsters from the TV series and spin-offs; Big Finish has also published short story anthologies. Big Finish attracted a number of writers from the books series as well as new writers, including Rob Shearman; it also gave future Doctor David Tennant his first acting role in a Doctor Who story.

Although it was for all intents and purposes cancelled (series co-star Sophie Aldred said in the documentary More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS that she was told it was cancelled), the BBC maintained the series was merely "on hiatus" and insisted the show would return. Nathan-Turner would produce just one more Doctor Who project, the 30th anniversary special Dimensions in Time, in 1993, a replacement for an aborted 30th anniversary project called The Dark Dimension.

Eighth Doctor



Paul McGann


27 May 1996

Although in-house production had ceased, the BBC were hopeful of finding an independent production company to re-launch the show and had been approached for such a venture as early as July 1989 (while the 26th series was still in production) by Philip Segal, a British expatriate who worked for Columbia Pictures' television arm in the United States. Segal's negotiations dragged on for several years, and followed him from Columbia to Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment company and finally to Universal Studios' television arm. At Amblin, Segal had come close to interesting the CBS network in commissioning the series as a mid-season replacement show in 1994, but this eventually came to nothing.

Finally, at Universal, Segal managed to interest the Fox Network in the programme, in the form of their Vice-President in charge of Television Movie production, Trevor Walton, an Englishman who was already familiar with the series. Although Walton had no power to commission a series, he was able to commission a one-time television movie that served as a backdoor pilot for a possible series revival. The movie that was eventually made was simply titled Doctor Who. To distinguish it from the television series, Segal later suggested the alternate title Enemy Within. Opinions on how to refer to the television movie differ among fans, but the most common usage is to just call it the "television movie" or abbreviate it as "the TVM".

The original plan was for a completely new American version of Doctor Who, in the same way that Sanford and Son was an unrelated re-make of Steptoe and Son and All in the Family had re-made Till Death Us Do Part. However, when new scriptwriter Matthew Jacobs came on board in 1995 – at Walton's persuasion, feeling that a simpler story was needed than the intricate back-stories Segal had created with writer John Leekley – he persuaded Segal that the movie should instead be a direct continuation of the BBC series, something no American production had ever attempted before when buying the rights to a British programme.

Segal agreed, and Sylvester McCoy appeared briefly at the beginning of the film, before "regenerating" into the Eighth Doctor as played by Paul McGann. McGann had been Segal's first choice for the part, although both the actor himself and the Fox Network had not initially been keen. Segal later claimed that the BBC's Executive Producer on the project, Jo Wright, had wanted the role of the "previous Doctor" to be played by Tom Baker, as it was felt he was regarded as the definitive Doctor by the British public and McCoy's tenure had not been as popular, but she backed down when Segal explained how this went against the continuity of the programme. Segal also had to fight to retain the familiar Doctor Who theme: composer John Debney wanted to write a new piece, but was convinced to create a rearrangement of Ron Grainer's composition, although Grainer did not receive screen credit for his work. A further tie to the BBC series was the use of the logo used from 1970 to 1973 during the Jon Pertwee era. This logo subsequently became the official franchise logo until it was replaced in 2004, although it still appears on all merchandise featuring any of the original series Doctors.

Transmitted on the Fox Network on 14 May 1996 and on BBC One thirteen days later – although actually having debuted on CityTV in Toronto, Canada, the film having been shot in Vancouver, on 12 May – the production drew only 5.5 million viewers in the United States, although it was far more successful in the UK with 9 million viewers, one of the top-ten programmes of the week.

McGann's Doctor was a combination of boyish glee and wonder at the universe with occasional flashes of an old soul in a young body, and was well received by fans, even if the reactions to the television movie were mixed. However, in spite of the success and popularity of the film in the UK, the disappointing US viewing figures led Fox to decline to commission a series. With no broadcast network attached in the United States, Universal could not produce a series for the BBC alone. Indeed, it would have been cheaper for the BBC to make a new series themselves rather than pay for a series with no production partner. Thus plans for a new series were scrapped, with no new production looking likely as the decade came to an end.

Back to the BBC

Following the 1996 television movie, Universal retained some rights to produce new Doctor Who stories, but without a broadcaster attached, they allowed those rights to expire. Full production rights therefore reverted to the BBC in 1997.
Little happened at the BBC regarding new Doctor Who production until the following year, when producer Mal Young arrived at the Corporation's in-house production arm as Head of Continuing Drama Series. Young was keen on reviving the programme, and this interest was shared by the then controller of BBC One, Peter Salmon. Tony Wood, a producer in Young's department, who previously worked at Granada Television, recalled his former colleague Russell T Davies' enthusiasm for the programme and recommended him to Young as someone who might make a good writer of a new version. Davies had recently written for the Granada dramas The Grand and Touching Evil for the ITV network, and earlier in the decade had worked for the BBC, writing the well-received children's science fiction serials Century Falls and Dark Season, which itself contained many Doctor Who-influenced themes.

A meeting was arranged between Davies and Mal Young's development producer, Patrick Spence. In 1999 the media took hold of the story following the success and critical acclaim surrounding Davies' Channel 4 drama, Queer as Folk. Although various sources claimed that a provisional title of Doctor Who 2000 had been given to the proposed new series, in reality very little work had been done, as Peter Salmon had been informed by BBC Worldwide that a new series would upset the tentative plans they were making for a new film version of the series. Thus, plans for the television revival were shelved for the time, and seemed to become even less likely in 2000 when Salmon was replaced as controller of BBC One.

2000s

40th Anniversary Doctor

However, Salmon's successor, Lorraine Heggessey, proved to be equally enthusiastic about the idea of new Doctor Who, often commenting to the press that she would like to pursue the idea but that "rights difficulties" prevented it. Similarly positive comments were made by the Corporation's overall Head of Drama, Jane Tranter. Heggessey had received several new series proposals since she had taken over control of BBC One, the highest-profile being from producer Dan Freedman – who had produced a full-cast, official, audio Doctor Who story, entitled Death Comes to Time, for the BBCi website in 2001. Another came from actor and writer Mark Gatiss, who in 2002 drew up and submitted a proposal in collaboration with writer Gareth Roberts and then Doctor Who Magazine editor Clayton Hickman.

In the meantime, BBCi, the interactive media arm of the corporation, who had scored successes with their Doctor Who webcasts (beginning with the aforementioned Death Comes to Time, which was followed by Real Time in 2002 and a re-make of the uncompleted Shada in 2003), decided on a more ambitious project to celebrate the programme's upcoming 40th anniversary. In July 2003, BBCi announced the production of Scream of the Shalka, a fully animated adventure adapted for webcasting with Richard E. Grant as the Doctor and Sir Derek Jacobi as the Master. As there were no concrete plans for producing a new series, BBCi announced Shalka as the official continuation of the programme, and that Grant was the official Ninth Doctor. However, events were soon to overtake that.

Ninth Doctor



Christopher Eccleston

26 March 2005 – 18 June 2005

In September 2003, Heggessey managed to persuade Worldwide that as several years had now passed and they were no nearer to producing a film, BBC television should be allowed to make a new series. The other proposals notwithstanding, Tranter and Heggessey elected to approach Davies once again, who had often told the BBC when approached for other projects that he would only return to them to take charge of a new series of Doctor Who. He quickly accepted, and on 26 September 2003 it was officially announced that Doctor Who would be returning to BBC One, produced in-house at BBC Wales in 2004 for transmission in 2005.

Davies was made the chief writer and Executive Producer of the new series (called Series One instead of continuing the numbering with Season 27, although the narrative thread continued from the old series rather than starting afresh), and other writers included Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat, Paul Cornell and Rob Shearman. The Producer was Phil Collinson and the other Executive Producers were Mal Young (although he subsequently left the BBC midway through production at the end of 2004), and BBC Wales Head of Drama, Julie Gardner. A new arrangement of the theme tune was composed by Murray Gold. Gardner later commented that the choice of Cardiff as the base for filming the series was the result of a combination of factors. She and Davies, who had worked together on the BBC drama series Casanova starring David Tennant, were both from Wales; the BBC was looking to move more of its productions away from London; and there was a good variety of filming locations in the area.

The new series would comprise thirteen 45-minute-long episodes, with the first story titled "Rose" after the Doctor's new companion Rose Tyler. Unlike past seasons which used serial-style storytelling, the new series would have mainly standalone or two-part episodes. Filming of the first season began in Cardiff on 18 July 2004. With the new series confirmed, when Shalka was webcast in November 2003, the further adventures of Grant's Ninth Doctor were in doubt. In February 2004, plans for sequels to Shalka were indefinitely shelved, although Grant's version of the character, now dubbed the "Shalka Doctor", would return in a short story entitled "The Feast of the Stone" published on the BBC website.

After much speculation in the press about possible candidates, BBC announced that Christopher Eccleston would be the Ninth Doctor, accompanied by former pop singer Billie Piper as Rose. In the April 2004 issue of Doctor Who Magazine, Davies announced that Eccleston's Doctor would indeed be the Ninth Doctor, relegating Grant's Ninth Doctor to non-official status.

In April 2004, Michael Grade returned to the BBC, this time as the Chairman of the Board of Governors, although this position does not involve any commissioning or editorial responsibilities. Although he was quoted as being generally indifferent to the new series, he eventually wrote an e-mail to BBC Director-General Mark Thompson in June 2005, after the successful new first series, voicing approval for its popularity. He also declared, "I never dreamed I would ever write this. I must be going soft!"

However, not everyone was pleased with the new production. Some fans criticised the new logo and perceived changes to the TARDIS model. According to various news sources, members of the production team even received hate mail and death threats. The new logo and trailers were posted on the BBC website and were followed up by television spots in March 2005 with a media blitz in the run up to the transmission of "Rose" on 26 March. An employee of a third party company associated with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation leaked a rough cut of the premiere on the internet; the leak attracted much media attention and discussion amongst fans. Advance reviews in the British media were generally positive.

"Rose" finally saw transmission on 26 March at 7 pm on BBC One, the first regular episode of Doctor Who for over 15 years. To complement the series, BBC Wales also produced Doctor Who Confidential, a 13-part documentary series with each episode broadcast on BBC Three immediately after the end of the weekly instalment on BBC One. "Rose" received average overnight ratings of 9.9 million viewers, peaking at 10.5 million. The final figure for the episode, including video recordings watched within a week of transmission, was 10.81 million, No. 3 for BBC One that week and No. 7 across all channels. The success of the launch saw the BBC's Head of Drama Jane Tranter confirming on 30 March that the series would return both for a Christmas Special in December 2005 and a full second series in 2006.

The series was well received by both critics and the public. The 2005 TV Choice/TV Quick Award went to Eccleston for Best Actor, and Doctor Who was nominated for Best Series. Eccleston, Piper, and Doctor Who were all winners in their categories at the UK's National Television Awards, announced on 25 October 2005. Although not as prestigious as the British Academy Television Awards (BAFTAs), they are the highest-profile UK television awards voted on by members of the public. The series did go on to win two BAFTA awards in May, including the Best Drama Series category.

Due to an initial lack of interest by networks in the United States, Doctor Who debuted on the Sci Fi Channel on 17 March 2006, one year after the Canadian and UK showings.

Although the new series clearly continues the storyline of the original – with Eccleston identified in publicity materials as the Ninth Doctor, and the appearance of original series elements such as UNIT and Sarah-Jane Smith—the BBC is officially treating the series as a new programme, calling the 2005 season "Series 1". This has led to controversy between fans who wish to follow the BBC's numbering and those who consider the 2005 series to be Season 27 (and so on).

Concurrent with the new series, BBC Books revamped its line of Doctor Who original fiction, retiring for now its Eighth Doctor and Past Doctor paperback line (the last such volume appearing in late 2005) and launching a new series of hardback novels featuring the Ninth and, later, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors (see New Series Adventures).

Tenth Doctor



David Tennant

18 June 2005 – 1 January 2010

Hours after the announcement of a second series, tabloid newspapers The Sun and the Daily Express reported that Eccleston had quit the series. Eccleston then apparently released a statement through the BBC, saying that he would be leaving the role at Christmas for fear of being typecast.
Fan reaction to the news ranged from disappointment to irritation to outright anger. Some did point out, however, that the series is uniquely suited to deal with cast changes. The number of angry postings on the popular Outpost Gallifrey fan forum was enough for Shaun Lyon, the owner of the website, to close down the forum for two days to allow tempers to cool.

Speculation arose as to how long the production team had been aware of Eccleston's decision. Eventually, it transpired that the departure had been planned and the scripts written to accommodate Eccleston's departure, but it was not meant to have been announced until after the first series had concluded. The BBC said that they had falsely attributed the statement to Eccleston, and released it in violation of an earlier agreement not to reveal his departure publicly. The statement had been made after journalists made queries to the press office.

On 16 April 2005, the BBC confirmed that David Tennant would be the Tenth Doctor. The regeneration from Eccleston to Tennant took place in "The Parting of the Ways", the season finale. Tennant and Piper next starred in a 7-minute mini-episode for Children in Need. Tennant's first full story as the Doctor was the 2005 Christmas special, "The Christmas Invasion", and Piper joined him for the whole of Series 2.

At a BAFTA screening of "The Parting of the Ways", the finale of the 2005 series, on 15 June 2005, Jane Tranter announced that both a second seasonal episode (later titled "The Runaway Bride") and third series of Doctor Who had been commissioned. Piper left the programme at the end of Series 2, and a new companion, Martha Jones (played by Freema Agyeman), joined Tennant at the start of Series 3 on 31 March 2007.
Series 2 aired in the UK and US in 2006, and finished airing in Canada on 12 February 2007. The third series aired in the UK in the spring of 2007 and began airing in Canada and the US during the summer of that year. A 2007 Christmas Special "Voyage of the Damned" was broadcast on 25 December 2007 in the UK, featuring Kylie Minogue as a waitress named Astrid.

The fourth series aired in the UK in 2008 featuring two companions; Donna Noble, who first appeared in "The Runaway Bride" and Martha Jones, who returned to the series for five episodes of series four. Billie Piper also returned to the show to reprise her original role as Rose Tyler.
Following broadcast of the fourth series, the BBC announced that the show would not return as a weekly series in 2009, due to a number of factors. Instead, four specials would be broadcast in 2009, with a full series returning in 2010. It was later announced that when the full series returned in 2010, Tennant would no longer be the Doctor. Playing the role would be the 26-year-old actor Matt Smith.

The return of Doctor Who has led to the BBC launching a number of spin-offs and related programmes. The first of these was the behind-the-scenes series Doctor Who Confidential which began airing on BBC Three in conjunction with the 2005 series and returned for a new set of episodes in 2006; each episode focuses on elements of that week's Doctor Who episode, and the series has continued alongside all stories since 2005. In 2006, the first full Doctor Who spin-off series, Torchwood, debuted on BBC Three; it did not air in the United States until BBC America debuted it in September 2007, while the Canadian CBC aired it in October 2007. A second behind-the-scenes series, Totally Doctor Who, which aired on BBC One, also debuted in 2006. After the appearance of Sarah Jane Smith in the 2006 episode "School Reunion", it was announced that Elisabeth Sladen would reprise the role in a new series entitled The Sarah Jane Adventures, the first episode of which aired on BBC One on 1 January 2007, followed by its debut as a weekly series in September 2007. Following Sladen's death, the programme came to an end after its fifth series in autumn 2011. Yet another spin-off series, K-9, was announced for 2007, but this series was not being produced by the BBC. In addition, Tennant and Agyeman provided voice acting work for The Infinite Quest, an animated serial that aired as part of the 2007 series of Totally Doctor Who.

2010s

Eleventh Doctor



Matt Smith

1 January 2010 – 25 December 2013

On 20 May 2008 it was announced that Russell T Davies would step down as executive producer and head writer of Doctor Who in 2009; Steven Moffat was confirmed as his replacement.



The current TARDIS prop used
since 2010.

On 29 October 2008, during his acceptance speech via live feed at the National Television Awards, David Tennant publicly announced his intention to exit the series at the end of the 2009 specials, making way for a new actor to portray the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor in the 2010 series. 26-year-old actor Matt Smith was announced as his successor in a special edition of Doctor Who Confidential, broadcast on BBC One on 3 January 2009. Production on Moffat and Smith's first series began in July 2009, and the first episode was broadcast on 3 April 2010.
The new series was accompanied by a new logo, unveiled on 6 October 2009, and a new title sequence. The series featured a completely redesigned TARDIS interior, a slightly altered TARDIS exterior, and a new companion – Amy Pond – portrayed by Karen Gillan. Gillan was joined on a recurring basis by Arthur Darvill, playing Amy's boyfriend (later husband) Rory Williams, and Alex Kingston as the mysterious River Song.
The Eleventh Doctor's first series concluded on 26 June 2010 with transmission of the series finale "The Big Bang", followed by another Christmas Special, "A Christmas Carol" and a pair of Comic Relief mini-episodes, "Space" and "Time," broadcast on 18 March 2011.
A second full series of 13 episodes was commissioned for 2011, with Smith and Gillan both returning as the Doctor and Amy respectively (making it the first time since the show's relaunch in 2005 that both the Doctor and main companion had remained the same from one series to the next). The series was broadcast in two halves, with the first seven episodes broadcast between April and June 2011, and the final six beginning on 27 August 2011. With the new series, Darvill was upgraded to series regular and full-time companion as Rory, and Kingston continued to appear on a recurring basis as River Song.

Due partly to budget restrictions at the BBC, the expected 2012 series, Smith's third, was split into 5 episodes transmitted from September 2012 and a further 8 transmitted from April 2013, with the now traditional Christmas special between these 2 groups of episodes. The advent of the show's 50th anniversary in November 2013 meant that instead of starting to film an 8th series, the BBC started work on a feature-length special, to be transmitted on 23 November 2013, the precise date of the show's 50th anniversary. As well as being made in 3D for presentation at selected cinemas, the episode was also announced to be co-starring David Tennant and Billie Piper, reprising their roles of the Tenth Doctor and Rose, though ultimately Billie Piper played The Moment, a Gallifreyan Weapon that took the form of Rose.

Smith stepped down as the Eleventh Doctor with his last episode being the 2013 Christmas special. On 4 August 2013 in a live TV special, Peter Capaldi was revealed as the Twelfth Doctor.

Twelfth Doctor



Peter Capaldi

25 December 2013 – 25 December 2017

It was announced on 4 August 2013 on a live BBC special entitled Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor that Peter Capaldi would portray the twelfth incarnation of the Doctor in 'Doctor Who'. During his appearance in the special, he said that he had been a fan of the series; a letter that he had written to the Radio Times at the age of 15 about the show was read aloud. Capaldi had already appeared in the series 4 episode "The Fires of Pompeii" as Caecilius, the father of the family that the Doctor saves from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. He had also appeared in Torchwood: Children of Earth as the civil servant John Frobisher.

On 22 January 2016, the BBC announced that Moffat would be stepping down as show runner and be replaced by Chris Chibnall as lead writer and executive producer. In addition, Series 10 of Doctor Who would debut in Spring 2017, with a Christmas special airing in 2016.
On 30 January 2017, Peter Capaldi announced he would be stepping down as the Twelfth Doctor in the 2017 Christmas special.

Thirteenth Doctor



Jodie Whittaker

25 December 2017 – present

It was announced on 16 July 2017 that Jodie Whittaker would portray the Thirteenth Doctor. She is the first woman to be cast in the role.

Characters

The Doctor



The Doctor portrayed by series leads
in chronological order. Left to right
from top row; William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton,
Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker,
Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston,
David Tennant, Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi and Jodie Whittaker.

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 time machine, the "TARDIS" (an acronym for Time and Relative Dimension in Space), which notably appears much larger on the inside than on the outside (a quality referred to as "dimensional transcendentality").

The initially irascible and slightly sinister Doctor quickly mellowed 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.

Changes of appearance

Producers introduced the concept of regeneration to permit the recasting of the main character. This was prompted by the poor health of the original star, William Hartnell. The term "regeneration" was not conceived until the Doctor's third on-screen regeneration; Hartnell's Doctor merely described undergoing a "renewal", and the Second Doctor underwent a "change of appearance". The device has allowed for the recasting of the actor various times in the show's history, as well as the depiction of alternative Doctors either from the Doctor's relative past or future.

The serials The Deadly Assassin and Mawdryn Undead established that a Time Lord can only regenerate 12 times, for a total of 13 incarnations. This line became stuck in the public consciousness despite not often being repeated, and was recognised by producers of the show as a plot obstacle for when the show finally had to regenerate the Doctor a thirteenth time. The episode "The Time of the Doctor" depicted the Doctor acquiring a new cycle of regenerations, starting from the Twelfth Doctor, due to the Eleventh Doctor being the product of the Doctor's twelfth regeneration from his original set.

Although the idea of casting a woman as the Doctor had been suggested by the show's writers several times, including by Newman in 1986 and Davies in 2008, until 2017, all official depictions were played by men. Jodie Whittaker took over the role as the Thirteenth Doctor at the end of the 2017 Christmas special, and is the first woman to be cast as the character. Whittaker had previously starred in television series such as Return to Cranford, Broadchurch alongside David Tennant (Tenth Doctor) and the dystopian anthology Black Mirror. The show introduced the Time Lords' ability to change sexes on regeneration in earlier episodes, first in dialogue, then with Michelle Gomez's version of The Master.


Series lead Incarnation Tenure
William Hartnell First Doctor 1963–66
Patrick Troughton Second Doctor 1966–69
Jon Pertwee Third Doctor 1970–74
Tom Baker Fourth Doctor 1974–81
Peter Davison Fifth Doctor 1982–84
Colin Baker Sixth Doctor 1984–86
Sylvester McCoy Seventh Doctor 1987–89
Paul McGann Eighth Doctor 1996
Christopher Eccleston Ninth Doctor 2005
David Tennant Tenth Doctor 2005–10
Matt Smith Eleventh Doctor 2010–13
Peter Capaldi Twelfth Doctor 2014–17
Jodie Whittaker Thirteenth Doctor

In addition to those actors who have headlined the series, others have portrayed versions of the Doctor in guest roles. Notably, in 2013, John Hurt guest-starred as a hitherto unknown incarnation of the Doctor known as the War Doctor in the run-up to the show's 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor". He is shown in mini-episode "The Night of the Doctor" retroactively inserted into the show's fictional chronology between McGann and Eccleston's Doctors, although his introduction was written so as not to disturb the established numerical naming of the Doctors.[93] Another example is from the 1986 serial The Trial of a Time Lord, where Michael Jayston portrayed the Valeyard, who is described as an amalgamation of the darker sides of the Doctor's nature, somewhere between his twelfth and final incarnation.

On rare occasions, other actors have stood in for the lead. In The Five Doctors, Richard Hurndall played the First Doctor due to William Hartnell's death in 1975; 34 years later David Bradley similarly replaced Hartnell in Twice Upon a Time. In Time and the Rani, Sylvester McCoy briefly played the Sixth Doctor during the regeneration sequence, carrying on as the Seventh. For more information, see the list of actors who have played the Doctor. In other media, the Doctor has been played by various other actors, including Peter Cushing in two films.

The casting of a new Doctor has often inspired debate and speculation. Common topics of focus include the Doctor's sex (prior to the casting of Whittaker, all official incarnations were male), race (all Doctors to date have been white) and age (the youngest actor to be cast is Smith at 26, and the oldest are Capaldi and Hartnell, both 55).

Meetings of different incarnations

There have been instances of actors returning 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, and Tom Baker appeared in previously unseen footage from the uncompleted Shada episode. For this episode, Richard Hurndall replaced William Hartnell. Patrick Troughton again returned in 1985's The Two Doctors with Colin Baker. In 2007, Peter Davison returned in the Children in Need short "Time Crash" alongside David Tennant, and in 2013's 50th anniversary special episode, "The Day of the Doctor", David Tennant's Tenth Doctor appeared alongside Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor and John Hurt as the War Doctor, as well as brief footage from all of the previous actors. In 2017, the First Doctor (this time portrayed by David Bradley) returned alongside Peter Capaldi in "The Doctor Falls" and "Twice Upon a Time". In "The Name of the Doctor", the Eleventh Doctor meets a previously unseen incarnation of himself, subsequently revealed to be the War Doctor. Additionally, multiple incarnations of the Doctor have met in various audio dramas and novels based on the television show.

Revelations about the Doctor

Throughout the programme's long history, there have been revelations about the Doctor that have raised additional questions. In The Brain of Morbius (1976), it was hinted that the First Doctor might not have been the first incarnation (although the other faces depicted might have been incarnations of the Time Lord Morbius). In subsequent stories the First Doctor was depicted as the earliest incarnation of the Doctor. In Mawdryn Undead (1983), the Fifth Doctor explicitly confirmed that he was then currently in his fifth incarnation. Later that same year, during 1983's 20th Anniversary special The Five Doctors, the First Doctor enquires as to the Fifth Doctor's regeneration; when the Fifth Doctor confirms "Fourth", the First Doctor excitedly replies "Goodness me. So there are five of me now." In 2010, the Eleventh Doctor similarly calls himself "the Eleventh" in "The Lodger". In the 2013 episode "The Time of the Doctor," the Eleventh Doctor clarified he was the product of the twelfth regeneration, due to a previous incarnation which he chose not to count and one other aborted regeneration. The name Eleventh is still used for this incarnation; the same episode depicts the prophesied "Fall of the Eleventh" which had been trailed throughout the series.

During the Seventh Doctor's era, it was hinted that the Doctor was more than just an ordinary Time Lord. In the 1996 television film, the Eighth Doctor describes himself as being "half human". The BBC's FAQ for the programme notes that "purists tend to disregard this", instead focusing on his Gallifreyan heritage.

The programme's first serial, An Unearthly Child, shows that the Doctor has a granddaughter, Susan Foreman. In the 1967 serial, Tomb of the Cybermen, when Victoria Waterfield doubts the Doctor can remember his family because of, "being so ancient", the Doctor says that he can when he really wants to—"The rest of the time they sleep in my mind". The 2005 series reveals that the Ninth Doctor thought he was the last surviving Time Lord, and that his home planet had been destroyed; in "The Empty Child" (2005), Dr. Constantine states that, "Before the war even began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I am neither." The Doctor remarks in response, "Yeah, I know the feeling." In "Smith and Jones" (2007), when asked if he had a brother, he replied, "No, not any more." In both "Fear Her" (2006) and "The Doctor's Daughter" (2008), he states that he had, in the past, been a father.

In "The Wedding of River Song" (2011), it is implied that the Doctor's true name is a secret that must never be revealed; this is explored further in "The Name of the Doctor" (2013), when River Song speaking his name allows the Great Intelligence to enter his tomb, and in "The Time of the Doctor" (2013) where speaking his true name becomes the signal by which the Time Lords would know they can safely return to the universe.

Companions

The companion figure – generally a human – has been a constant feature in Doctor Who since the programme's inception in 1963. One of the roles of the companion is to remind the Doctor of his "moral duty". The Doctor's first companions seen on screen were his granddaughter Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford) and her teachers Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) and Ian Chesterton (William Russell). These characters were intended to act as audience surrogates, through which the audience would discover information about the Doctor who was to act as a mysterious father figure. The only story from the original series in which the Doctor travels alone is The Deadly Assassin. Notable companions from the earlier series included Romana (Mary Tamm and Lalla Ward), a Time Lady; Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen); and Jo Grant (Katy Manning). Dramatically, these characters provide a figure with whom the audience can identify, and serve to further the story by requesting exposition from the Doctor and manufacturing peril for the Doctor to resolve. The Doctor regularly gains new companions and loses old ones; sometimes they return home or find new causes — or loves — on worlds they have visited. Some have died during the course of the series. Companions are usually human, or humanoid aliens.

Since the 2005 revival, the Doctor generally travels with a primary female companion, who occupies a larger narrative role. Steven Moffat described the companion as the main character of the show, as the story begins anew with each companion and she undergoes more change than the Doctor. The primary companions of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors were Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), and Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) with Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke) and Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) recurring as secondary companion figures. The Eleventh Doctor became the first to travel with a married couple, Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill), whilst out-of-sync meetings with River Song (Alex Kingston) and Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) provided ongoing story arcs. The tenth series introduced Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts, the Doctor's newest traveling companion. Bill Potts is the Doctor's first openly gay companion. Pearl Mackie said that the increased representation for LGBTQ people is important on a mainstream show.

Some companions have gone on to re-appear, either in the main series or in spin-offs. Sarah Jane Smith became the central character in The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–11) following a return to Doctor Who in 2006. Guest stars in the series included former companions Jo Grant, K9, and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney). The character of Jack Harkness also served to launch a spin-off, Torchwood, (2006–2011) in which Martha Jones also appeared.

Adversaries

When Sydney Newman commissioned the series, he specifically did not want to perpetuate the cliché of the "bug-eyed monster" of science fiction. However, monsters were popular with audiences and so became a staple of Doctor Who almost from the beginning.

With the show's 2005 revival, executive producer Russell T Davies stated his intention to reintroduce classic icons of Doctor Who. The Autons with the Nestene Consciousness and Daleks returned in series 1, Cybermen in series 2, the Macra and the Master in series 3, the Sontarans and Davros in series 4, and the Time Lords including Rassilon in the 2009–10 Specials. Davies' successor, Steven Moffat, has continued the trend by reviving the Silurians in series 5, Cybermats in series 6, the Great Intelligence and the Ice Warriors in Series 7, and Zygons in the 50th Anniversary Special. Since its 2005 return, the series has also introduced new recurring aliens: Slitheen (Raxacoricofallapatorian), Ood, Judoon, Weeping Angels and the Silence.

Besides infrequent appearances by the Ice Warriors, Ogrons, the Rani, and Black Guardian, three adversaries have become particularly iconic: the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Master.

Daleks



A Dalek at the
Doctor Who Experience,
Cardiff

The Dalek race, which first appeared in the show's second serial in 1963, are Doctor Who's oldest villains. The Daleks are Kaleds from the planet Skaro, mutated by the scientist Davros and housed in mechanical armour shells for mobility. The actual creatures resemble octopi with large, pronounced brains. Their armour shells have a single eye-stalk, a sink-plunger-like device that serves the purpose of a hand, and a directed-energy weapon. Their main weakness is their eyestalk; attacks upon them using various weapons can blind a Dalek, making it go mad. Their chief role in the series plot, as they frequently remark in their instantly recognisable metallic voices, is to "exterminate" all non-Dalek beings. They even attack the Time Lords in the Time War, as shown during the 50th Anniversary of the show. They continue to be a recurring 'monster' within the Doctor Who franchise, their most recent appearances being in the 2015 episodes "The Witch's Familiar" and "Hell Bent". Davros has also been a recurring figure since his debut in Genesis of the Daleks, although played by several different actors.

The Daleks were created by writer Terry Nation (who intended them to be an allegory of the Nazis) and BBC designer Raymond Cusick. The Daleks' début in the programme's second serial, The Daleks (1963–64), made both the Daleks and Doctor Who very popular. A Dalek appeared on a postage stamp celebrating British popular culture in 1999, photographed by Lord Snowdon. In "Victory of the Daleks" a new set of Daleks were intorduced that come in a range of colours; the colour denoting its role within the species.

Cybermen



Original Cyberman 1966.



A 2006 Cyberman

Cybermen were originally a wholly organic species of humanoids originating on Earth's twin planet Mondas that began to implant more and more artificial parts into their bodies. This led to the race becoming coldly logical and calculating cyborgs, with emotions usually only shown when naked aggression was called for. With the demise of Mondas, they acquired Telos as their new home planet. They continue to be a recurring 'monster' within the Doctor Who franchise.

The 2006 series introduced a totally new variation of Cybermen. These Cybus Cybermen were created in a parallel universe by the mad inventor John Lumic; he was attempting to preserve the humans by transplanting their brains into powerful metal bodies, sending them orders using a mobile phone network and inhibiting their emotions with an electronic chip.

The Master

The Master is the Doctor's archenemy, a renegade Time Lord who desires to rule the universe. Conceived as "Professor Moriarty to the Doctor's Sherlock Holmes", the character first appeared in 1971. As with the Doctor, the role has been portrayed by several actors, since the Master is a Time Lord as well and able to regenerate; the first of these actors was Roger Delgado, who continued in the role until his death in 1973. The Master was briefly played by Peter Pratt and Geoffrey Beevers until Anthony Ainley took over and continued to play the character until Doctor Who's hiatus in 1989. The Master returned in the 1996 television movie of Doctor Who, and was played by American actor Eric Roberts.

Following the series revival in 2005, Derek Jacobi provided the character's re-introduction in the 2007 episode "Utopia". During that story, the role was then assumed by John Simm who returned to the role multiple times through the Tenth Doctor's tenure. As of the 2014 episode "Dark Water," it was revealed that the Master had become a female incarnation or "Time Lady," going by the name of "Missy" (short for Mistress, the feminine equivalent of "Master"). This incarnation is played by Michelle Gomez.

John Simm returned in his role as the Master in the tenth series.

Music

Theme music

The Doctor Who theme music was one of the first electronic music signature tunes for television, and after five decades remains one of the most easily recognised. The original theme was composed by Ron Grainer and realised by Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, with assistance from Dick Mills and was released as a single on Decca F 11837 in 1964. The various parts were built up using musique concrète techniques, 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). It is regarded as a significant and innovative piece of electronic music, recorded well before the availability of commercial synthesisers or multitrack mixers. Each note was individually created by cutting, splicing, speeding up and slowing down segments of analogue tape containing recordings of a single plucked string, white noise, and the simple harmonic waveforms of test-tone oscillators, intended for calibrating equipment and rooms, not creating music. New techniques were invented to allow mixing of the music, as this was before the era of multitrack tape machines. On hearing the finished result, Grainer asked, "Jeez, Delia, did I write that?" Although Grainer was willing to give Derbyshire the co-composer credit, it was against BBC policy at the time.


A different arrangement was recorded by Peter Howell for season 18 (1980), which was in turn replaced by Dominic Glynn's arrangement for the season-long serial The Trial of a Time Lord in season 23 (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. American composer John Debney created a new arrangement of Ron Grainer's original theme for Doctor Who in 1996. 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"; Gold returned as composer for the 2010 series. He was responsible for a new version of the theme which was reported to have had a hostile reception from some viewers. In 2011, the theme tune charted at number 228 of radio station Classic FM's Hall of Fame, a survey of classical music tastes. A revised version of Gold's 2010 arrangement had its debut over the opening titles of the 2012 Christmas special "The Snowmen", and a further revision of the arrangement was made for the 50th Anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor" in November 2013.

Versions of the "Doctor Who Theme" have also been released as pop music 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 1978 a disco version of the theme was released in the UK, Denmark and Australia by the group Mankind, which reached number 24 in the UK charts. 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"). Others who have covered or reinterpreted the theme include Orbital, Pink Floyd, the Australian string ensemble Fourplay, New Zealand punk band Blam Blam Blam, The Pogues, Thin Lizzy, Dub Syndicate, and the comedians Bill Bailey and Mitch Benn. Both the theme and obsessive fans were satirised on The Chaser's War on Everything. The theme tune has also appeared on many compilation CDs, and has made its way into mobile-phone ringtones. Fans have also produced and distributed their own remixes of the theme. In January 2011 the Mankind version was released as a digital download on the album Gallifrey And Beyond.

Incidental music

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 to the 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 15 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).

In 1980 starting with the serial The Leisure Hive 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 1986's The Trial of a Time Lord series, and Keff McCulloch took over as the series' main composer until the end of its run, 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 appeared 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 on 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.

Six soundtrack releases have been released since 2005. The first featured tracks from the first two series, the second and third featured music from the third and fourth series respectively. The fourth was released on 4 October 2010 as a two disc special edition and contained music from the 2008–2010 specials (The Next Doctor to End of Time Part 2). The soundtrack for Series 5 was released on 8 November 2010. In February 2011, a soundtrack was released for the 2010 Christmas special: "A Christmas Carol", and in December 2011 the soundtrack for Series 6 was released, both by Silva Screen Records.

In 2013, a 50th-anniversary boxed set of audio CDs was released featuring music and sound effects from Doctor Who’s 50-year history. The celebration continued in 2016 with the release of Doctor Who: The 50th Anniversary Collection Four LP Box Set by New York City-based Spacelab9. The company pressed 1,000 copies of the set on "Metallic Silver" vinyl, dubbed the "Cyberman Edition".

Viewership

United Kingdom



The image of the TARDIS
is iconic in British popular
culture.

Premiering the day after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the first episode of Doctor Who was repeated with the second episode the following week. Doctor Who has always appeared initially on the BBC's mainstream BBC One channel, where it is regarded as a family show, drawing audiences of many millions of viewers; episodes were also repeated on BBC Three, before its transition to an online-only channel . The programme's popularity has waxed and waned over the decades, with three notable periods of high ratings. The first of these was the "Dalekmania" period (circa 1964–1965), when the popularity of the Daleks regularly brought Doctor Who ratings of between 9 and 14 million, even for stories which did not feature them. The second was the mid to late 1970s, when Tom Baker occasionally drew audiences of over 12 million.

An audience survey during the 1970s revealed that at the time 60% of the viewership were adults.

During the ITV network strike of 1979, viewership peaked at 16 million. Figures remained respectable into the 1980s, but fell noticeably after the programme's 23rd series was postponed in 1985 and the show was off the air for 18 months. At the time of Season 19's broadcast in 1982 the show was being watched by a global audience of 98 million, 88 million in 38 foreign countries, and an average of ten million in the United Kingdom.
Its late 1980s performance of three to five million viewers was seen as poor at the time and was, according to the BBC Board of Control, a leading cause of the programme's 1989 suspension. Some fans considered this disingenuous, since the programme was scheduled against the soap opera Coronation Street, the most popular show at the time. After the series' revival in 2005 (the third notable period of high ratings), it has consistently had high viewership levels for the evening on which the episode is broadcast.

The BBC One broadcast of "Rose", the first episode of the 2005 revival, drew an average audience of 10.81 million, third highest for BBC One that week and seventh across all channels. The current revival also garners the highest audience Appreciation Index of any drama on television.

International



Map of countries that have or currently
broadcast Doctor Who in either its
current or classic incarnation
(map correct as of October 2014)

Doctor Who has been broadcast internationally outside of the United Kingdom since 1964, a year after the show first aired. As of 1 January 2013, the modern series has been or is currently broadcast weekly in more than 50 countries.

Doctor Who is one of the five top grossing titles for BBC Worldwide, the BBC's commercial arm. BBC Worldwide CEO John Smith has said that Doctor Who is one of a small number of "Superbrands" which Worldwide will promote heavily.

Only four episodes have ever had their premiere showings on channels other than BBC One. The 1983 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors had its début on 23 November (the actual date of the anniversary) on a number of PBS stations two days prior to its BBC One broadcast. The 1988 story Silver Nemesis was broadcast with all three episodes airing back to back on TVNZ in New Zealand in November, after the first episode had been shown in the UK but before the final two instalments had aired there. Finally, the 1996 television film premiered on 12 May 1996 on CITV in Edmonton, Canada, 15 days before the BBC One showing, and two days before it aired on Fox in the United States.

Oceania

New Zealand was the first country outside the United Kingdom to screen Doctor Who, beginning in September 1964, and continued to screen the series for many years, including the new series from 2005.

In Australia, the show has had a strong fan base since its inception, having been exclusively first run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) since January 1965. (See Doctor Who in Australia) The ABC has periodically repeated episodes; of note were the weekly screenings of all available classic episodes starting in 2003, for the show's 40th anniversary, and the weekdaily screenings of all available revived episodes in 2013 for the show's 50th anniversary. The ABC broadcasts the modern series first run on ABC1 and ABC ME, with repeats on ABC2. The ABC also provided partial funding for the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors in 1983.

Americas

The series also has a fan base in the United States, where it was shown in syndication from the 1970s to the 1990s, particularly on PBS stations.

TV Ontario picked up the show in 1976 beginning with The Three Doctors and aired each series (several years late) through to series 24 in 1991. From 1979 to 1981, TVO airings were bookended by science-fiction writer Judith Merril who would introduce the episode and then, after the episode concluded, try to place it in an educational context in keeping with TVO's status as an educational channel. Its airing of The Talons of Weng-Chiang was cancelled as a result of accusations that the story was racist; the story was later broadcast in the 1990s on cable station YTV. CBC began showing the series again in 2005. The series moved to the Canadian cable channel Space in 2009.

For the Canadian broadcast, Christopher Eccleston recorded special video introductions for each episode (including a trivia question as part of a viewer contest) and excerpts from the Doctor Who Confidential documentary were played over the closing credits; for the broadcast of "The Christmas Invasion" on 26 December 2005, Billie Piper recorded a special video introduction. CBC began airing series two on 9 October 2006 at 20:00 E/P (20:30 in Newfoundland and Labrador), shortly after that day's CFL double header on Thanksgiving in most of the country.

Series three began broadcasting on CBC on 18 June 2007 followed by the second Christmas special, "The Runaway Bride" at midnight, and the Sci Fi Channel began on 6 July 2007 starting with the second Christmas special at 8:00 pm E/P followed by the first episode.

Series four aired in the United States on the Sci Fi Channel (now known as Syfy), beginning in April 2008. It aired on CBC beginning 19 September 2008, although the CBC did not air the Voyage of the Damned special. The Canadian cable network Space broadcast "The Next Doctor" (in March 2009) and all subsequent series and specials.

DVD and video

A wide selection of serials are available from BBC Video on DVD, on sale in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the United States. Every fully extant serial has been released on VHS, and BBC Worldwide continues to regularly release serials on DVD. The 2005 series is also available in its entirety on UMD for the PlayStation Portable. Eight original series serials have been released on Laserdisc and many have also been released on Betamax tape and Video 2000. One episode of Doctor Who (The Infinite Quest) was released on VCD. Only the series from 2009 onwards are available on Blu-ray, except for the 1970 story Spearhead from Space, released in July 2013 and the 1996 TV film Doctor Who released in September 2016. Many early releases have been re-released as special editions, with more bonus features.

Adaptations and other appearances

Doctor Who films



Peter Cushing Played Dr Who In Both Films.

There are two Doctor Who feature films: Dr. Who and the Daleks, released in 1965 and Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. in 1966. Both are retellings of existing television stories (specifically, the first two Dalek serials, The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth respectively) 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 granddaughter and niece and other companions in a time machine he has invented. The Cushing version of the character reappears in both comic strips and a short story, the latter attempting to reconcile the film continuity with that of the series.

In addition, several planned films were proposed, including a sequel, The Chase, loosely based on the original series story, 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.
Paul McGann starred in the only television film as the eighth incarnation of the Doctor. After the film, he continued the role in audio books and was confirmed as the eighth incarnation through flashback footage and a mini episode in the 2005 revival, effectively linking the two series and the television movie.

In 2011, David Yates announced that he had started work with the BBC on a Doctor Who film, a project that would take three or more years to complete. Yates indicated that the film would take a different approach to Doctor Who, although the current Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat stated later that any such film would not be a reboot of the series and a film should be made by the BBC team and star the current TV Doctor.

Spin-offs

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. 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 (better known for playing 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 spinoff 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 K9, 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.
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. John Barrowman reprised his role of Jack Harkness from the 2005 series of Doctor Who. 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", 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 series was broadcast from 6 to 10 July 2009, and consisted of a single five-part story called Children of Earth which was set largely in London. A fourth series, Torchwood: Miracle Day jointly produced by BBC Wales, BBC Worldwide and the American entertainment company Starz debuted in 2011. The series was predominantly set in the United States, though Wales remained part of the show's setting.

The Sarah Jane Adventures, starring Elisabeth Sladen who reprised her role as investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith, was developed by CBBC; a special aired on New Year's Day 2007 and a full series began on 24 September 2007. A second series followed in 2008, notable for (as noted above) featuring the return of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. A third in 2009 featured a crossover appearance from the main show by David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. In 2010, a further such appearance featured Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor alongside former companion actress Katy Manning reprising her role as Jo Grant. A final, three-story fifth series was transmitted in autumn 2011 – uncompleted due to the death of Elisabeth Sladen in early 2011.

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 series. A second animated serial, Dreamland, aired in six parts on the BBC Red Button service, and the official Doctor Who website in 2009.

Class, featuring students of Coal Hill School, was first aired on-line on BBC Three from 22 October 2016, as a series of eight 45 minute episodes, written by Patrick Ness. Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor appears in the show's first episode. The series was picked up by BBC America on 8 January 2016 and by BBC One a day later. On 7 September 2017, BBC Three controller Damian Kavanagh confirmed that the series had officially been cancelled.

Numerous other spin-off series have been created not by the BBC but by the respective owners of the characters and concepts. Such spin-offs include the novel and audio drama series Faction Paradox, Iris Wildthyme and Bernice Summerfield; as well as the made-for-video series P.R.O.B.E.; the Australian-produced television series K-9, which aired a 26-episode first season on Disney XD; and the audio spin-off Counter-Measures.

Aftershows

When the revived series of Doctor Who was brought back, an aftershow series was created by the BBC, titled Doctor Who Confidential. There have been three aftershow series created, with the latest one titled Doctor Who: The Fan Show, which began airing from the tenth series. Each series follows behind-the-scenes footage on the making of Doctor Who through clips and interviews with the cast, production crew and other people, including those who have participated in the television series in some manner. Each episode deals with a different topic, and in most cases refers to the Doctor Who episode that preceded it.

Series Episodes First aired Last aired Narrator / Presenter
Doctor Who Confidential 87 26 March 2005 1 October 2011 David Tennant (2005)
Simon Pegg (2005)
Mark Gatiss (2005–06)
Anthony Head (2006–10)
Noel Clarke (2009)
Alex Price (2010)
Russell Tovey (2010–11)
Doctor Who Extra 90 23 August 2014 5 December 2015 Matt Botten
Rufus Hound
Matt Lucas
Charity Wakefield
Doctor Who: The Fan Show 12 15 April 2017 present Christel Dee (Main host)
Luke Spillane (co-host)

Charity episodes

In 1983, coinciding with the series' 20th anniversary, The Five Doctors was shown as part of the annual BBC Children in Need Appeal, however it was not a charity based production, simply scheduled within the line-up of Friday 25 November 1983. This was the programme's very first co-production with Australian broadcaster ABC. 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 (the television movie ran slightly longer on broadcast where it included commercial breaks).

In 1993, for the franchise's 30th anniversary, another charity special, titled 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. It also featured a crossover with the soap opera EastEnders, the action taking place in the latter's Albert Square location and around Greenwich. 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 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.

Since the return of Doctor Who in 2005, the franchise has produced two original "mini-episodes" to support Children in Need. The first, aired in November 2005, was an untitled seven-minute scene which introduced David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. 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).
A set of two mini-episodes, titled "Space" and "Time" respectively, were produced to support Comic Relief. They were aired during the Comic Relief 2011 event.

During 2011 Children in Need, an exclusively-filmed segment showed the Doctor addressing the viewer, attempting to persuade them to purchase items of his clothing, which were going up for auction for Children in Need. The 2012 edition of CiN featured the mini-episode The Great Detective.