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Doctor Who is a British science fiction television series, produced by the BBC and concerning the adventures of a mysterious time travelling adventurer known only as "The Doctor". It is also the title of a 1996 television movie featuring the same character (see Enemy Within).
The programme was and remains a significant part of British popular culture, widely recognised for its creative storytelling, use of innovative music which was produced by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and budget special effects. The show has become a cult television favourite on par with Star Trek, and has influenced generations of British genre television writers, many of whom grew up watching the series. In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, Doctor Who was placed third.
A new series of Doctor Who television episodes is being produced by the BBC. It is scheduled to broadcast in Spring 2005.
Overview
History
- For more detailed information on the production history of the programme, see History of Doctor Who.
Doctor Who debuted on BBC television on November 23 1963, born out of discussions and plans that had been ongoing for the past year. It had been mainly developed by Head of Drama Sydney Newman, Head of the Script Department (later Head of Serials) Donald Wilson and staff writer C. E. 'Bunny' Webber. Writer Anthony Coburn, story editor David Whitaker and initial producer Verity Lambert also heavily contributed.
The programme was produced in-house by the BBC drama department's Serials division for the following twenty-six seasons, shown on BBC One. Falling viewing figures, a decline in the public perception of the show and a less prominent transmission slot saw it suspended as an ongoing series by Controller of BBC One Jonathan Powell in 1989. It was not cancelled outright as such; 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 by Philip Segal, a British expatriate who worked for Columbia Pictures' television arm in the United States.
Segal's negotiations eventually led to a television movie transmitted on the Fox Network in 1996, a co-production between Fox, Universal Pictures, the BBC and BBC Worldwide. However, although the film was a success in the UK, it was less so in the United States and a series was not commissioned. The programme remained dormant until 2004, when BBC Television began producing a new in-house series after several years of unsuccessful attempts by BBC Worldwide to find backing for a feature film version. The new series is due to debut on BBC One in 2005.
Format
Each of the weekly episodes formed part of a contained story (or "serial") of between one and eight parts - usually six in earlier years and three to four in later years. Three notable exceptions were The Trial of a Time Lord, which ran for 14 episodes and took up the whole of Season 23; the epic The Daleks' Master Plan, which made it to 12 episodes (plus a one episode Doctor-less teaser entitled Mission to the Unknown); and the 10-episode serial The War Games.
The programme was initially devised to be partly educational and for family viewing on the early Saturday evening schedule, with stories set in the past to educate the younger audience about history and stories set in the future to educate them about science. In relation to the former, several early serials saw the Doctor and his companions travel to important periods in human history, such as the French Revolution, the Roman Empire and the Battle of Culloden Moor. These so-called "historicals" were dropped after the first few years in favour of the more popular science-fiction stories, and the series would not return to a purely historical story until the 1982 serial Black Orchid, set in 1920s Britain.
Doctor Who ran for 26 seasons on the BBC from November 23, 1963 until December 6, 1989. After an absence of 16 years (barring a few one-off specials), it is scheduled to return to the small screen in 2005, maintaining its record of being the longest-running science fiction television series ever. Writers over the years have included Douglas Adams, Robert Holmes, Terrance Dicks, Dennis Spooner, Eric Saward, Malcolm Hulke, Christopher H. Bidmead and Brian Hayles. For the new series, talents such as Russell T. Davies and Mark Gatiss have come on board.
Who is the Doctor?
- For more detailed information on the character of The Doctor, see The Doctor (Doctor Who).
The character of The Doctor is initially shrouded in mystery - all that is known about him is that he has a granddaughter, Susan, and that he cannot fully control his time machine, the TARDIS - which is larger on the inside than the out and stuck in the form of a police box. Initially an irascible and highly irritable character, he is quickly shown to be a man of great concern and compassion, who will always help others if he can and who abhors evil in the universe.
Over time it is gradually made clear that The Doctor is from an extraterrestrial race known as the Time Lords from the planet Gallifrey. The circumstances under which he left his planet are deliberately vague, but at least some of it had to do with the restrictive nature of Time Lord society, their rules against interfering with the rest of the universe, and his own desire to explore time and space.
It is also revealed that the Doctor has the ability to 'regenerate' his body when he dies, something he is allowed to do twelve times. This allowed the production team to re-cast the part when an actor wanted to leave or otherwise needed to be replaced. So far, nine actors have played the part in the regular television series, including the 1996 television movie and the 2005 revival:
- William Hartnell (1963-1966)
- Patrick Troughton (1966-1969)
- Jon Pertwee (1970-1974)
- Tom Baker (1974-1981)
- Peter Davison (1981-1984)
- Colin Baker (1984-1986)
- Sylvester McCoy (1987-1989)
- Paul McGann (1996)
- Christopher Eccleston (2005-)
Peter Cushing also played the part in the 1960s in two feature films, although these are not regarded as being part of the ongoing continuity of the series.
The monsters
Daleks: Exterminate! Exterminate!
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 a staple of Doctor Who almost from the beginning, and audiences responded to them.
Notable adversaries of the Doctor include the Autons, the Cybermen, the Sontarans and the Silurians. However, the monsters that ensured the series' place in the public's imagination were the Daleks. The Daleks are a lethal race of mutants in tank-like mechanical armour from the planet Skaro whose chief role in the great scheme of things would appear to be, as they frequently observe in their instantly-recognisable metallic voices, to "Exterminate!"
The Daleks were created by writer Terry Nation (who also wrote for 1960s telefantasy like The Avengers and would later create the 1970s science fiction programmes Survivors and Blake's 7) and special effects engineer Raymond Cusick. The Daleks' debut in the programme's second serial, The Daleks, caused a tremendous reaction in the viewership ratings, and put Doctor Who on the map. The Daleks even appeared on a postage stamp celebrating British popular culture in 1999, photographed by Lord Snowdon.
Viewership
Doctor Who has always been transmitted on the BBC's mainstream BBC One channel, drawing audiences of many millions of viewers. Its most popular period was the late 1970s, when audiences frequently averaged as high as 12 million, and during the ITV network strike of 1979, peaked at 16 million. No first-run episode of Doctor Who has ever drawn fewer than 3 million viewers on BBC One, although its late 1980s performance of 3 to 5 million regular viewers was seen as being very poor at the time, and one of the leading factors in the programme's 1989 suspension. Such figures would likely been seen as a reasonable performance in the UK in the current multi-channel digital television age, however.
Only four episodes have ever had their premier showings on channels other than BBC One. The 1983 twentieth anniversary special The Five Doctors had its debut on November 23 on a Chicago PBS station in the United States, two days prior to its BBC One broadcast. The 1988 story Silver Nemesis was broadcast with all three episodes edited together in compilation form 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 movie premiered on May 12 on City TV in Vancouver, Canada, fifteen days before the BBC One showing.
There was some controversy over the show being suitable for viewing by children. Moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse made a series of complaints to the BBC in the 1970s over its sometimes gory or scary content. However, her actions ironically made the programme even more popular, especially with children. Producer John Nathan-Turner was heard to say that he looked forward to Mrs. Whitehouse's comments, as the show's ratings would increase soon after she had made them.
Also during the 1970s, the Radio Times, the BBC's own listings magazine, announced that a child's mother said the theme song terrified her son. The Radio Times was apologetic, but her view is not the prevailing one. Indeed, the tune has made its way to the world of mobile phone ringtunes. During Jon Pertwee's second season as the Doctor, in the serial Terror of the Autons, images of murderous plastic dolls, daffodils killing unsuspecting victims and blank-featured android policemen marked the apex of the show's ability to frighten children.
It has been said that watching Doctor Who from a position of safety "behind the sofa" (as the Doctor Who exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image in London was titled) and peering cautiously out to see if the scary bit was over is one of the great shared experiences of British childhood. The term has become a common phrase used in association with the programme. Some have argued that this experience is a myth, pointing out that the traditional positioning of a sofa did not allow for hiding behind it. Nevertheless, people continue to reminisce about watching Doctor Who as children, through the cracks of their fingers... and from behind the sofa.
A wide selection of serials is available on VHS and DVD from BBC Video, on sale in the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States.
Other appearances
Doctor Who has appeared on stage numerous times, most significantly in a stage play titled, Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure where the role of the Doctor has been played by, among others, screen Doctors Colin Baker and Jon Pertwee. Other original plays have been staged as amateur productions, with other actors playing the Doctor.
The Doctor has also appeared in two movies: Dr. Who and the Daleks in 1965 and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD in 1966. Both were essentially retellings of existing stories on the big screen, with a larger budget. In these films, as played by actor Peter Cushing, the Doctor introduces himself as "Dr. Who", and is apparently a human scientist who invented his time machine.
The pilot episode for a potential spin-off series, K-9 and Company, was aired in 1981 with Elisabeth Sladen reprising her role as companion Sarah Jane Smith and John Leeson as the voice of K-9, but was not picked up as a regular series.
In 1999 a special entitled "Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death" was made for Red Nose Day 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. (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 comedy writer Steven Moffat.
The Doctor in his fourth incarnation is also frequently impersonated by Jon Culshaw in the Dead Ringers series. Culshaw's "Doctor" has telephoned two of the "real" Doctors - Tom Baker and Sylvester McCoy - in character as the Fourth Doctor. This prompted the bemused (and confused) McCoy to ask the classic question, "Tom? Are you in the pub?". When Culshaw phoned Baker himself and stated that he "was The Doctor", Baker replied, "There must be some mistake...I'm The Doctor..."
The Doctor has also appeared in audio plays and webcasts. See Doctor Who spin-offs for more details.
Missing episodes
Sometime between about 1967 and 1978 large amounts of older material stored in the BBC's video tape and film libraries were destroyed or wiped to make way for newer material. This happened for a number of reasons. Most episodes of Doctor Who were made on 2-inch quad video tape for initial broadcast, and telerecorded on to 16mm film by BBC Enterprises for further commercial exploitation. At this time the BBC had no central archive - the Film Library kept programmes which had been made on film while the Engineering Department was responsible for storing video tapes. BBC Enterprises sold the programme to overseas broadcasters (generally as 16mm telerecordings) and thus kept copies of programmes they deemed commercially exploitable. BBC Enterprises had little dedicated storage space and tended to keep piles of film canisters wherever they could find space for them, and, from around 1972 until 1978, Enterprises had a big clearout of older material, including many old episodes of Doctor Who.
In the meantime, as the Engineering Department library had no mandate to archive programmes, older tapes were regularly wiped for reuse and to free up space. The Film Library had no responsibility for storing programmes which had not been made on film, and there were conflicting views at the Film Library and Enterprises over whose responsibility it was to archive programmes. All of these processes combined to erase enormous quantities of older black and white programming from the BBC's various libraries - while thousands of other programmes have been destroyed in this way, the missing episodes of Doctor Who are probably the best known example of how this lack of a consistent programme archiving policy has caused lasting damage. Currently, 108 episodes of Doctor Who from the black and white era are missing from the BBC's archives despite ongoing attempts to recover them.
This phenomenon mostly affects the first two Doctors - William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. Archival holdings are complete from the advent of the programme's move to colour television which coincided with the beginning of Jon Pertwee's time as the Doctor, though a few Pertwee episodes have required substantial restoration work due to loss or damage of the original 625-line PAL transmission masters and a few episodes are still only held as 16mm B/W TRs.
There have been some successes in the ongoing attempt to recover the missing episodes. A number of countries (notably Australia and Canada) bought rights to the series for broadcast abroad, and some episodes have been returned to the BBC from the archives of those television companies (The Tomb of the Cybermen was recovered in this manner from Hong Kong). Still other episodes are rumoured to have been returned by ex-employees of the BBC who did not wish to see a part of their childhood destroyed and instead of destroying the tapes, hid them at home. Early colour videotape recordings made off-air by fans have also been retrieved. Whilst of poor quality, these have proved invaluable for restoring colour information to some of the black-and-white Pertwee telerecordings found in the archives. Finally, audio versions of all of the lost Doctor Who episodes exist from home viewers making tape recordings of the show.
The most sought after lost episode is Part Four of the last William Hartnell serial, The Tenth Planet, where at the end, the William Hartnell Doctor regenerates into the Patrick Troughton version. The only portion of this still in existence, bar a few poor quality silent 8mm clips, is the few seconds of the regeneration scene which had been rebroadcast as part of a 1973 episode of Blue Peter. In 1992, a fan named Roger Barrett claimed to have a videotape of the episode, and offered to sell it to some Doctor Who fans and the BBC. However, Barrett turned out to be an alias, and the existence of the episode a hoax. Unfortunately, hoaxes of this kind are not uncommon in Doctor Who fandom, with people willing to exploit the hope that copies of the missing episodes may still exist somewhere, waiting to be recovered.
With the approval of the BBC, efforts are now under way to restore as many of the episodes as possible from the extant material. Using modern digital image processing techniques, the Doctor Who Restoration Team is using available professional and amateur film and video recordings to generate digitally remastered versions of the early episodes. These techniques were first tried on The Dæmons, and have since been applied to many others.
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