Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a science-fiction television programme that originally ran on the BBC from 1963 to 1989. A television movie was co-produced with Universal Pictures in 1996, and a new season is being broadcast starting in March of 2005.

Doctor Who is about the adventures of a mysterious time-traveller known as the Doctor. The Doctor travels through space and time in a craft known as the TARDIS, an acronym for "Time and Relative Dimensions in Space". The Doctor is usually accompanied by one or more companions, who are often attractive females. The tone of the programme varies from serious to comic, from gothic horror to pantomime camp. The original Doctor Who series is fondly remembered among the general public both for frightening monsters (such as the Daleks and Sea Devils) and cheap special effects.

Accolades
In 2000, in a poll of industry professionals, the British Film Institute voted Doctor Who #3 in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes.

What makes Doctor Who unique
Fans often speak of the "undefinable magic" present in Doctor Who. What, though, makes the series so special?


 * The Doctor can change from serious to satirical, young to old, and change back again. He can go from self-doubting anti-hero to exuberant lover of life, all within the same continuity and he can change back again, remaking himself every couple of years.


 * The series can range in tone, style and genre, as well as encompassing almost any place and time. The travellers may meet storybook characters in a land of fantasy and the next week land in a credible day-after-tomorrow London.


 * No other telefantasy series has, as often quoted, stayed on air for so long. Its longevity enabled it to enthrall (and frighten) new generations of children and teenagers for three decades. Everyone can have "their" own favorite Doctor or period of the series, including those who prefer the novels to the television series.


 * The evolution of viewer from fan to maker of the series. As early as 1980, "Full Circle", a script authored by a young fan, Andrew Smith, appeared on the screen. In the same story, another young fan, Matthew Waterhouse, made his debut in the series as series regular. Though not crossing over in large numbers, members of fandom made the odd venture into the production side of the series up until the end of the original series. In 2005, the elders of Doctor Who fandom have grown up into the creators of the new series.

Other media
Although Doctor Who originated as a television programme, it has become much more than that. Starting with "Dalekmania" in the 1960s, a great deal of merchandise has sprung out of Doctor Who. Some of that merchandise has continued the story of the Doctor's adventures. Over the decades, Doctor Who has appeared on stage, screen, and radio, in novels, comics, full-cast audio adventures and webcasts. Many of these productions are highly regarded by Doctor Who fans, and all of the writers of the 2005 series previously wrote or scripted adventures for the Doctor in other media.

Discontinuities
A common contention among fans and producers of the series is that a large part of the Doctor's appeal comes from his mysterious and alien origins. While over the decades several revelations have been made about his background - that he is a Time Lord, that he is from Gallifrey, among others - the writers have often strived to retain some sense of mystery and to preserve the eternal question, "Doctor who?" This backstory was not rigidly planned from the beginning, but developed gradually (and somewhat haphazardly) over the years, the result of the work of many writers and producers.

Understandably, this has led to continuity problems. Characters such as the Meddling Monk were retroactively classified as Time Lords, early histories of races such as the Daleks were rewritten, and so on. The creation of a detailed backstory has also led to the criticism that too much being known about the Doctor limits both creative possibilities and the sense of mystery. Some of the stories during the Seventh Doctor's tenure, part of the so-called "Cartmel Masterplan", were intended to deal with this issue by suggesting that much of what was believed about the Doctor was wrong and that he is a far more powerful and mysterious figure than previously thought. In both an untelevised scene in Remembrance of the Daleks and the subsequent Silver Nemesis it is implied (to quote an excised line from "Rememberance") that the Doctor "is more than just a Time Lord." The suspension of the series in 1989, however, meant that none of these hints were ever resolved, at least on television. The Virgin New Adventure novel, "Lungbarrow," did resolve these hints and explain the Doctor's origins. However, not all fans regard the spin-off novels as canon, and so do not accept the revelations made in that particular story.

The 1996 television movie created even more uncertainty about the character, revealing that the Doctor had a human mother and he remembered his father. Fans, however, seemed to be more upset about the fact that the Eighth Doctor was shown kissing Dr. Grace Holloway, breaking the series' longstanding taboo against the Doctor having any romantic involvement with his companions.

The relevation in the 1996 television movie that the Doctor was half-human proved controversial among fans, and some have suggested that only the Eighth Doctor was half-human due to the particularly traumatic circumstances of his regeneration, rather than the Doctor having been half-human all along. (The evidence for or against this in the series is, typically, equivocal.) The Time Lord ability to change species during regeneration is referenced by the Eighth Doctor in relation to the Master in the television movie, and is supported by Romana's regeneration scene in the 1979 serial Destiny of the Daleks.

While some fans regard discontinuities as a problem, others regard it as a source of interest or humour (an attitude taken in the book The Discontinuity Guide). A common fan explanation is that a universe with time travellers is likely to have many historical inconsistencies. There has also been much fan speculation centred on exactly which aspects of the television series, books, radio dramatisations, and other sources will be considered canon in the new series to be broadcast in 2005.