Doctor Who facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Doctor Who |
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Logo (2023)
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| Genre | |
| Created by |
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| Written by | Various |
| Starring |
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| Theme music composer | Ron Grainer |
| Opening theme | Doctor Who theme music |
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| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 26 (1963–1989) |
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| Running time |
50 minutes
Regular episodes:
Specials: Various: 50–90 minutes |
| Production company(s) | BBC Studios Productions Bad Wolf
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| Release | |
| Original network | BBC1 |
| Original release | 23 November 1963 – 6 December 1989 |
| Chronology | |
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Doctor Who is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterrestrial being called the Doctor, part of a humanoid species called Time Lords. The Doctor travels in the universe and in time using a time travelling spaceship called the TARDIS, which externally appears as a British police box. While travelling, the Doctor works to save lives and liberate oppressed peoples by combating foes. The Doctor often travels with companions.
Beginning with William Hartnell, fourteen actors have headlined the series as the Doctor; as of 2023, Ncuti Gatwa leads the series as the Fifteenth Doctor. The transition from one actor to another is written into the plot of the series with the concept of regeneration into a new incarnation, a plot device in which, when a Time Lord is fatally injured, their cells regenerate and they are reincarnated. Each actor's portrayal is distinct, but all represent stages in the life of the same character and, together, they form a single lifetime with a single narrative. The time-travelling nature of the plot means that different incarnations of the Doctor occasionally meet. In 2017, Jodie Whittaker, as the Thirteenth Doctor, became the first woman to be cast in the lead role.
The series is a significant part of popular culture in Britain and elsewhere; it has gained a cult following. It has influenced generations of British television professionals, many of whom grew up watching the series. Fans of the series are sometimes referred to as Whovians. The series has been listed in Guinness World Records as the longest-running science-fiction television series in the world, as well as the "most successful" science-fiction series of all time, based on its overall broadcast ratings, DVD and book sales.
The series originally ran from 1963 to 1989. There was an unsuccessful attempt to revive regular production in 1996 with a backdoor pilot in the form of a television film titled Doctor Who. The series was relaunched in 2005 and was produced in-house by BBC Wales in Cardiff. Since 2023, the show has been co-produced by Bad Wolf and BBC Studios Productions in Cardiff. Doctor Who has also spawned numerous spin-offs, including comic books, films, novels and audio dramas, and the television series Torchwood (2006–2011), The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–2011), K9 (2009–2010) and Class (2016). It has been the subject of many parodies and references in popular culture.
Premise
Doctor Who follows the adventures of the title character, a rogue Time Lord with somewhat unknown origins who goes by the name "the Doctor". The Doctor fled Gallifrey, the planet of the Time Lords, in a stolen TARDIS ("Time and Relative Dimension(s) in Space"), a time machine that travels by materialising into, and dematerialising out of, the time vortex. The TARDIS has a vast interior but appears smaller on the outside, and is equipped with a "chameleon circuit" intended to make the machine take on the appearance of local objects as a disguise. Due to a malfunction, the Doctor's TARDIS remains fixed as a blue British police box.
Across time and space, the Doctor's many incarnations often find events that pique their curiosity, and try to prevent evil forces from harming innocent people or changing history, using only ingenuity and minimal resources, such as the versatile sonic screwdriver. The Doctor rarely travels alone and is often joined by one or more companions on these adventures; these companions are usually humans, owing to the Doctor's fascination with planet Earth, which also leads to frequent collaborations with the international military task force UNIT when Earth is threatened. The Doctor is centuries old and, as a Time Lord, has the ability to regenerate when there is mortal damage to their body. The Doctor's various incarnations have gained numerous recurring enemies during their travels, including the Daleks, their creator Davros, the Cybermen, and the renegade Time Lord the Master.
History
Doctor Who was originally intended to appeal to a family audience as an educational programme using time travel as a means to explore scientific ideas and famous moments in history. On 31 July 1963, David Whitaker commissioned Terry Nation to write a story under the title The Mutants. As originally written, the Daleks and Thals were the victims of an alien neutron bomb attack but Nation later dropped the aliens and made the Daleks the aggressors. When the script was presented to Newman and Wilson, it was immediately rejected as the programme was not permitted to contain any "bug-eyed monsters". According to Lambert, "We didn't have a lot of choice—we only had the Dalek serial to go ... We had a bit of a crisis of confidence because Donald [Wilson] was so adamant that we shouldn't make it. Had we had anything else ready we would have made that." Nation's script became the second Doctor Who serial – The Daleks (also known as The Mutants). The serial introduced the eponymous aliens that would become the series' most popular monsters, dubbed "Dalekmania", and was responsible for the BBC's first merchandising boom.
The programme first appeared on the BBC Television Service at 17:16:20 GMT on 23 November 1963; this was eighty seconds later than the scheduled programme time, because of announcements concerning the previous day's assassination of John F. Kennedy. It was to be a regular weekly programme, each episode 25 minutes of transmission length. Discussions and plans for the programme had been in progress for a year. The head of drama Sydney Newman was mainly responsible for developing the programme, with the first format document for the series being written by Newman along with the head of the script department (later head of serials) Donald Wilson and staff writer C. E. Webber; in a 1971 interview Wilson claimed to have named the series, and when this claim was put to Newman he did not dispute it. Writer Anthony Coburn, story editor Whitaker and initial producer Verity Lambert also heavily contributed to the development of the series.
The BBC drama department's serials division produced the programme for 26 seasons, broadcast on BBC One. Due to his increasingly poor health, William Hartnell, first actor to play the Doctor, was succeeded by Patrick Troughton in 1966. In 1970, Jon Pertwee replaced Troughton and the series began production in colour. In 1974, Tom Baker was cast as the Doctor. His eccentric personality became hugely popular, with viewing figures for the series returning to a level not seen since the height of "Dalekmania" a decade earlier. After seven years in the role, Baker was replaced by Peter Davison in 1981, and Colin Baker replaced Davison in 1984. In 1985, the channel's controller Michael Grade attempted to cancel the series, but it returned after an 18-month hiatus. He also had Colin Baker removed from the starring role in 1986. The role was recast with Sylvester McCoy, but falling viewing numbers, a decline in the public perception of the series and a less-prominent transmission slot saw production ended in 1989 by Peter Cregeen, the BBC's new head of series. Although it was effectively cancelled, the BBC repeatedly affirmed over several years that the series would return.
While in-house production concluded, the BBC explored an independent production company to relaunch the series. Philip Segal, a British expatriate who worked for Columbia Pictures' television arm in the United States, had approached the BBC as early as July 1989, while the 26th season was still in production. Segal's negotiations eventually led to a Doctor Who television film as a pilot for an American series, broadcast on the Fox Network in 1996, as an international co-production between Fox, Universal Pictures, the BBC and BBC Worldwide. Starring Paul McGann as the Doctor, the film was successful in the UK (with 9.1 million viewers), but was less so in the United States and did not lead to a series.
Licensed media such as novels and audio plays provided new stories, but as a television programme, Doctor Who remained dormant. In September 2003, BBC Television announced the in-house production of a new series, after several years of attempts by BBC Worldwide to find backing for a feature film version. The 2005 revival of Doctor Who is a direct plot continuation of the original 1963–1989 series and the 1996 television film. The executive producers of the new incarnation of the series were Queer as Folk writer Russell T Davies and BBC Cymru Wales head of drama Julie Gardner. From 2005, the series switched from a multi-camera to a single-camera setup.
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Starring Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, Doctor Who returned with the episode "Rose" on BBC One on 26 March 2005, after a 16-year hiatus of in-house production. Eccleston left after one series and was replaced by David Tennant. Davies left the production team in 2009. Steven Moffat, a writer under Davies, was announced as his successor, along with Matt Smith as the new Doctor. Smith decided to leave the role of the Doctor in 2013, the 50th anniversary year. He was replaced by Peter Capaldi.
In January 2016, Moffat announced that he would step down after the 2017 finale, to be replaced by Chris Chibnall in 2018. Jodie Whittaker, the first female Doctor, appeared in three series, the last of which was shortened due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Both Whittaker and Chibnall announced that they would depart the series after a series of specials in 2022. Davies returned as showrunner from the 60th anniversary specials, twelve years after he had left the series previously. Bad Wolf co-produces the series in partnership with BBC Studios Productions. Bad Wolf's involvement sees Gardner return to the series alongside Davies and Jane Tranter, who recommissioned the series in 2005.
The programme has been sold to many other countries worldwide .
Episodes
Doctor Who originally ran for 26 seasons on BBC One, from 23 November 1963 until 6 December 1989. During the original run, each weekly episode formed part of a story (or "serial")—usually of four to six parts in earlier years and three to four in later years. Some notable exceptions were: The Daleks' Master Plan, which aired twelve episodes (plus an earlier one-episode teaser, "Mission to the Unknown", featuring none of the regular cast); almost an entire season of seven-episode serials (season 7); the ten-episode serial The War Games; and The Trial of a Time Lord, which ran for fourteen episodes (albeit divided into three production codes and four narrative segments) during season 23. Occasionally, serials were loosely connected by a story line, such as season 8 focusing on the Doctor battling a rogue Time Lord called the Master, season 16's quest for the Key to Time, season 18's journey through E-Space and the theme of entropy, and season 20's Black Guardian trilogy.
The programme was intended to be educational and for family viewing on the early Saturday evening schedule. It initially alternated stories set in the past, which taught younger audience members about history, and with those in the future or outer space, focusing on science. This was also reflected in the Doctor's original companions, one of whom was a science teacher and another a history teacher.
However, science fiction stories came to dominate the programme, and the history-oriented episodes, which were not popular with the production team, were dropped after The Highlanders (1967). While the show continued to use historical settings, they were generally used as a backdrop for science fiction tales, with one exception: Black Orchid (1982), set in 1920s England.
The early stories were serialised in nature, with the narrative of one story flowing into the next and each episode having its own title, although produced as distinct stories with their own production codes. Following The Gunfighters (1966), however, each serial was given its own title, and the individual parts were assigned episode numbers.
Of the programme's many writers, Robert Holmes was the most prolific, while Douglas Adams became the best known outside Doctor Who itself, due to the popularity of his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy works.
The serial format changed for the 2005 revival, with what was now called a series usually consisting of thirteen 45-minute, self-contained episodes (60 minutes with adverts, on overseas commercial channels) and an extended 60-minute episode broadcast on Christmas Day. This system was shortened to twelve episodes and one Christmas special following the revival's eighth series, and ten episodes from the eleventh series. Each series includes standalone and multiple episodic stories, often linked with a loose story arc resolved in the series finale. As in the early "classic" era, each episode has its own title, whether stand-alone or part of a larger story. Occasionally, regular-series episodes will exceed the 45-minute run time; notably, the episodes "Journey's End" from 2008 and "The Eleventh Hour" from 2010 were longer than an hour.
851 Doctor Who instalments have been televised since 1963, ranging between 25-minute episodes (the most common format for the classic era), 45/50-minute episodes (for Resurrection of the Daleks in the 1984 series, a single season in 1985, and the most common format for the revival era since 2005), two feature-length productions (1983's The Five Doctors and the 1996 television film), twelve Christmas specials (most of approximately 60 minutes' duration, one of 72 minutes), and four additional specials ranging from 60 to 75 minutes in 2009, 2010, and 2013. Four mini-episodes, running about eight minutes each, were also produced for the 1993, 2005, and 2007 Children in Need charity appeals, while another mini-episode was produced in 2008 for a Doctor Who–themed edition of The Proms. The 1993 two-part story, entitled Dimensions in Time, was made in collaboration with the cast of the BBC soap-opera EastEnders and was filmed partly on the EastEnders set. A two-part mini-episode was also produced for the 2011 edition of Comic Relief. Starting with the 2009 special "Planet of the Dead", the series was filmed in 1080i for HDTV and broadcast simultaneously on BBC One and BBC HD.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the show, a special 3D episode, "The Day of the Doctor", was broadcast in 2013. In March 2013, it was announced that Tennant and Piper would be returning and that the episode would have a limited cinematic release worldwide.
In June 2017, it was announced that due to the terms of a deal between BBC Worldwide and SMG Pictures in China, the company has first right of refusal on the purchase for the Chinese market of future series of the programme until and including Series 15.
Characters
The Doctor
The Doctor was initially shrouded in mystery. In the programme's early days, the character 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.
The initially irascible and slightly sinister Doctor quickly mellowed into a more compassionate figure and was eventually revealed to be a Time Lord, whose race are from the planet Gallifrey, which the Doctor fled by stealing the TARDIS.
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 (1976) and Mawdryn Undead (1983) 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" (2013) 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.
Upon Jodie Whittaker's final appearance as the character in "The Power of the Doctor" on 23 October 2022, she regenerated into a form portrayed by David Tennant, who was confirmed to be the Fourteenth Doctor and the first actor to play two incarnations. In the same year, Ncuti Gatwa was revealed to be portraying the Fifteenth Doctor, making him the first black actor to headline the series.
| Series lead | Incarnation | Tenure |
|---|---|---|
| William Hartnell | First Doctor | 1963–1966 |
| Patrick Troughton | Second Doctor | 1966–1969 |
| Jon Pertwee | Third Doctor | 1970–1974 |
| Tom Baker | Fourth Doctor | 1974–1981 |
| Peter Davison | Fifth Doctor | 1982–1984 |
| Colin Baker | Sixth Doctor | 1984–1986 |
| Sylvester McCoy | Seventh Doctor | 1987–1989 |
| Paul McGann | Eighth Doctor | 1996 |
| Christopher Eccleston | Ninth Doctor | 2005 |
| David Tennant | Tenth Doctor | 2005–2010 |
| Matt Smith | Eleventh Doctor | 2010–2013 |
| Peter Capaldi | Twelfth Doctor | 2014–2017 |
| Jodie Whittaker | Thirteenth Doctor | 2018–2022 |
| David Tennant | Fourteenth Doctor | 2023 |
| Ncuti Gatwa | Fifteenth Doctor | 2023–present |
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's and Eccleston's Doctors, although his introduction was written so as not to disturb the established numerical naming of the Doctors. The show later introduced another such unknown past Doctor with Jo Martin's recurring portrayal of the Fugitive Doctor, beginning with "Fugitive of the Judoon" (2020). An example from the classic series comes from The Trial of a Time Lord (1986), in which Michael Jayston's character the Valeyard is described as an amalgamation of the darker sides of the Doctor's nature, somewhere between the 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. In other media, the Doctor has been played by various other actors, including Peter Cushing in two films.
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 be a reminder for the Doctor's "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" (1976). Notable companions from the earlier series include 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 humans or humanoid aliens.
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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 that continued with the Twelfth Doctor. The tenth series included the alien Nardole (Matt Lucas) and introduced Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts, the Doctor's first openly gay companion. Pearl Mackie said that the increased representation of LGBTQ people is important on a mainstream show. The Thirteenth Doctor has primarily travelled with Ryan Sinclair (Tosin Cole), Graham O'Brien (Bradley Walsh), Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill), and Dan Lewis (John Bishop).
Some companions have gone on to reappear, either in the main series or in spin-offs. Sarah Jane Smith became the central character in The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–2011) following a return to Doctor Who in 2006. Guest stars in the series include 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.
Foes
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. Daleks, Cybermen, and the Master are some of the most iconic foes the Doctor has battled in the series.
With the show's 2005 revival, executive producer Russell T Davies stated his intention to reintroduce the classic monsters of Doctor Who. The Autons with the Nestene Consciousness, first seen in 1970's Spearhead from Space, and Daleks, first seen in 1963's The Daleks, returned in series 1. Davies's successor, Steven Moffat, continued the trend by reviving the Silurians, also first seen in 1970, in series 5 and Zygons, first seen in 1975, in the 50th-anniversary special. Since its 2005 return, the series has also introduced new recurring aliens: Slitheen (Raxacoricofallapatorians), Ood, Judoon, Weeping Angels and the Silence.
Daleks
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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 octopuses 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 appearance being the 2022 episode "The Power of the Doctor". 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 the 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 (1963–1964), 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 introduced that come in a range of colours; the colour denoting its role within the species.
Cybermen
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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 Cybermen have evolved dramatically over the course of the show. They were reintroduced in the 2006 series in the form of alternate universe aliens, with radically different back stories. The standerd Cybermen returned in "Closing Time", though they kept their 2006 design. In the 2020 series, the Cybermen aligned themselves with The Master, and were given the ability to regenerate.
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 reintroduction in the 2007 episode "Utopia". During that story, the role was then assumed by John Simm, who returned to the role multiple times throughout 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. Simm returned to his role as the Master alongside Gomez in the tenth series. The Master returned for the 2020 twelfth series with Sacha Dhawan in the role. This incarnation dubbed himself the "Spy Master" referencing a role he had taken with MI6.
Music
Theme music
The Doctor Who theme music was one of the first electronic music signature tunes for television, and after more than a half century 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 Derbyshire arrangement served, with minor edits, as the theme tune up to the end of season 17 (1979–1980). 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?" She answered, "Most of it." Although Grainer was willing to give Derbyshire the co-composer credit, it was against BBC policy at the time. Derbyshire would not receive an on-screen credit until the 50th-anniversary story "The Day of the Doctor" in 2013.
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".
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, and 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. 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 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.
On 26 June 2018, producer Chris Chibnall announced that the musical score for series 11 would be provided by Royal Birmingham Conservatoire alumnus Segun Akinola.
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.
From the 2005 revival to the 2017 Christmas episode "Twice Upon a Time", all incidental music for the series was 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 soundtracks 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".
Adaptations and other appearances
Films
There are two Dr. 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, 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 dramas 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 from Doctor Who, although then showrunner Steven Moffat stated later that any such film would not be a reboot of the series and that 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 spin-off series, K-9 and Company, 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 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, 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 fourth season 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 Sladen's death 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.
On 27 January 2023, Russell T Davies confirmed via GQ that future Doctor Who spin-offs were in the works. It is currently unknown what form these spin-offs will take, aside from one centering around UNIT and starring Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart.
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 (2005–2006) Anthony Head (2006–2010) Noel Clarke (2009) Alex Price (2010) Russell Tovey (2010–2011) |
| Doctor Who Extra | 90 | 23 August 2014 | 5 December 2015 | Matt Botten Rufus Hound Matt Lucas Charity Wakefield |
| Doctor Who: The Fan Show | 166 | 8 May 2015 | 3 August 2018 | Christel Dee (main host) Luke Spillane (co-host) |
| Doctor Who: Access All Areas | 10 | 13 October 2018 | 13 December 2018 | Yinka Bokinni |
| Doctor Who: Unleashed | Lua error: bad argument #1 to 'gsub' (string expected, got nil). | 17 November 2023 | present | Steffan Powell |
Charity episodes and appearances
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 first co-production with Australian broadcaster ABC. At 90 minutes long it was the longest single episode of Doctor Who produced to date. It featured three of the first five Doctors, a new actor to replace the deceased William Hartnell, and unused footage to represent Tom Baker.
In 1993, for the franchise's 30th anniversary, another charity special, Dimensions in Time, was produced for Children in Need, featuring all 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 of 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, which aired in November 2005, was an untitled seven-minute scene introducing David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. It was followed in November 2007 by "Time Crash", a 7-minute scene that featured the Tenth Doctor meeting the Fifth Doctor, 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 Children in Need 2011, 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. Children in Need 2012 featured the mini-episode "The Great Detective". In 2014, the Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi designed a Doctor Who-themed Paddington Bear statue, which was located at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich (one of 50 placed around London), which was auctioned to raise funds for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).
Museums and exhibitions
There have been various Doctor Who–related exhibitions in the United Kingdom, including the now-closed exhibitions at:
- Land's End (Cornwall)
- Blackpool
- Llangollen
- Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow
- Coventry Transport Museum, Coventry
- Centre for Life, Newcastle upon Tyne
- Melbourne, Australia
- Kensington Olympia Two, London
- Longleat, which ran for 30 years.
- Cardiff (the city where the series is filmed).
Merchandise
Since its beginnings, Doctor Who has generated hundreds of products related to the show, from toys and games to collectible picture cards and postage stamps. These include board games, card games, gamebooks, computer games, roleplaying games, action figures and a pinball game. Many games have been released that feature the Daleks, including Dalek computer games.
Audio
The earliest Doctor Who–related audio release was a 21-minute narrated abridgement of the First Doctor television story The Chase released in 1966. Ten years later, the first original Doctor Who audio was released on LP record; Doctor Who and the Pescatons featuring the Fourth Doctor. The first commercially available audiobook was an abridged reading of the Fourth Doctor story State of Decay in 1981. In 1988, during a hiatus in the television show, Slipback, the first radio drama, was transmitted.
Since 1999, Big Finish Productions has released several different series of Doctor Who audios on CD. The earliest of these featured the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors, with Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor joining the line in 2001. Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor began appearing for Big Finish in 2012. Along with the main range, adventures of the First, Second and Third Doctors have been produced in both limited cast and full cast formats, as well as audiobooks. The 2013 series Destiny of the Doctor, produced as part of the series' 50th-anniversary celebrations, marked the first time Big Finish created stories (in this case audiobooks) featuring the Doctors from the revived show. Along with this, in May 2016, the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant, appeared alongside Catherine Tate in a collection of three audio adventures. In August 2020, Big Finish announced a new series of audios beginning release in May 2021, featuring Christopher Eccleston reprising his role as the Ninth Doctor.
The main range, Doctor Who: The Monthly Adventures, holds the Guinness World Record for the longest-running science fiction audio play series. In 2020 Big Finish revealed that The Monthly Adventures would come to an end in favor of individual box sets.
In 2022, BBC Sounds began airing Doctor Who: Redacted, a 10-episode podcast written by Juno Dawson and starring Charlie Craggs and Jodie Whittaker. The podcast focuses on a trio of friends who host a paranormal conspiracy podcast, "The Blue Box Files", and end up getting involved in much more than they expected.
Books
Doctor Who books have been published from the mid-sixties through to the present day. From 1965 to 1991 the books published were primarily novelised adaptations of broadcast episodes; beginning in 1991 an extensive line of original fiction was launched, the Virgin New Adventures and Virgin Missing Adventures. Since the relaunch of the programme in 2005, a new range of novels has been published by BBC Books. Numerous non-fiction books about the series, including guidebooks and critical studies, have also been published, and a dedicated Doctor Who Magazine (DWM) with newsstand circulation has been published regularly since 1979: DWM is recognised by Guinness World Records as the longest running TV tie-in magazine, celebrating 40 years of continuous publication on 11 October 2019. This is published by Panini, as is the Doctor Who Adventures magazine for younger fans.
Awards
The show has received recognition as one of Britain's finest television programmes, winning the 2006 British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series and five consecutive (2005–2010) awards at the National Television Awards during Russell T Davies' tenure as executive producer. In 2011, Matt Smith became the first Doctor to be nominated for a BAFTA Television Award for Best Actor, and in 2016, Michelle Gomez became the first woman to receive a BAFTA nomination for the series, getting a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her work as Missy.
In 2013, the Peabody Awards honoured Doctor Who with an Institutional Peabody "for evolving with technology and the times like nothing else in the known television universe." The programme is listed in Guinness World Records as the longest-running science-fiction television show in the world, as the "most successful" science-fiction series of all time—based on its overall broadcast ratings, DVD and book sales, and iTunes traffic—and for the largest ever simulcast of a TV drama with its 50th-anniversary special.
In 1975, Season 11 of the series won a Writers' Guild of Great Britain award for Best Writing in a Children's Serial. In 1996, BBC television held the "Auntie Awards" as the culmination of their "TV60" series, celebrating 60 years of BBC television broadcasting, where Doctor Who was voted as the "Best Popular Drama" the corporation had ever produced, ahead of such ratings heavyweights as EastEnders and Casualty. In 2000, Doctor Who was ranked third in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century, produced by the British Film Institute and voted on by industry professionals. In 2005, the series came first in a survey by SFX magazine of "The Greatest UK Science Fiction and Fantasy Television Series Ever". In Channel 4's 2001 list of the 100 Greatest Kids' TV shows, Doctor Who was placed at number nine. In 2004 and 2007, Doctor Who was ranked number 18 and number 22 on TV Guide's Top Cult Shows Ever. In 2013, TV Guide ranked it as the sixth-best sci-fi show.
The revived series has received recognition from critics and the public, across various awards ceremonies. It won five BAFTA TV Awards, including Best Drama Series, the highest-profile and most prestigious British television award for which the series has ever been nominated. It was very popular at the BAFTA Cymru Awards, with 25 wins overall including Best Drama Series (twice), Best Screenplay/Screenwriter (thrice) and Best Actor. It was also nominated for 7 Saturn Awards, winning the only Best International Series in the ceremony's history. In 2009, Doctor Who was voted the 3rd greatest show of the 2000s by Channel 4, behind Top Gear and The Apprentice. The episode "Vincent and the Doctor" was shortlisted for a Mind Award at the 2010 Mind Mental Health Media Awards for its "touching" portrayal of Vincent van Gogh.
It has won the Short Form of the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, the oldest science fiction/fantasy award for films and series, six times since 2006. The winning episodes were "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances" (2006), "The Girl in the Fireplace" (2007), "Blink" (2008), "The Waters of Mars" (2010), "The Pandorica Opens"/"The Big Bang" (2011), and "The Doctor's Wife" (2012). The 2016 Christmas special "The Return of Doctor Mysterio" was also a finalist for the 2017 Hugo Awards. Doctor Who star Matt Smith won Best Actor in the 2012 National Television awards alongside Karen Gillan, who won Best Actress.
As a British series, the majority of its nominations and awards have been for national competitions such as the BAFTAs, but it has occasionally received nominations in mainstream American awards, most notably a nomination for "Favorite Sci-Fi Show" in the 2008 People's Choice Awards, and the series has been nominated multiple times in the Spike Scream Awards, with Smith winning Best Science Fiction Actor in 2011. The Canadian Constellation Awards have also recognised the series. In 2019, Doctor Who was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame based in Seattle, Washington.
See also
In Spanish: Doctor Who para niños
- Time travel in fiction
- List of Welsh television series
