Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC since 1963. The programme depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called "the Doctor", an extraterrestrial being, to all appearances human, from the planet Gallifrey. The Doctor explores the universe in a time-travelling space ship called the TARDIS. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Accompanied by a number of companions, the Doctor combats a variety of foes while working to save civilisations and help people in need.
The show is a significant part of British popular culture,[2][3] and elsewhere it has gained a cult following. It has influenced generations of British television professionals, many of whom grew up watching the series.[4] The programme 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 programme was relaunched in 2005, and since then has been produced in-house by BBC Wales in Cardiff. Doctor Who has also spawned numerous spin-offs, including comic books, films, novels, audio dramas, and the television series Torchwood (2006–2011), The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–2011), K-9 (2009–2010), and Class (2016), and has been the subject of many parodies and references in popular culture.
Thirteen actors have headlined the series as the Doctor. The transition from one actor to another is written into the plot of the show with the concept of regeneration into a new incarnation, a plot device in which a Time Lord "transforms" into a new body when the current one is too badly harmed to heal normally. Each actor's portrayal is unique, 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 feature of the plot means that different incarnations of the Doctor occasionally meet. The Doctor is currently portrayed by Jodie Whittaker, who took on the role after Peter Capaldi's exit in the 2017 Christmas special "Twice Upon a Time".
Premise
Doctor Who follows the adventures of the title character, a rogue Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey who goes by the name "the Doctor". The Doctor fled Gallifrey in a stolen TARDIS ("Time and Relative Dimension 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 often brings one or more companions to share 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 the Earth is threatened. The Doctor is centuries old and, as a Time Lord, has the ability to regenerate in case of mortal damage to the body, taking on a new appearance and personality. The Doctor has gained numerous reoccurring enemies during their travels, including the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Master, another renegade Time Lord.
History
Main article: History of Doctor Who
Doctor Who first appeared on BBC TV at 17:16:20 GMT on Saturday, 23 November 1963; this was eighty seconds later than the scheduled programme time, due to the assassination of John F. Kennedy the previous day.[5][6] 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. Writer Anthony Coburn, story editor David Whitaker and initial producer Verity Lambert also heavily contributed to the development of the series.[7][note 1]
The programme was originally intended to appeal to a family audience[8] as an educational programme using time travel as a means to explore scientific ideas and famous moments in history. On 31 July 1963, 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 producer Verity 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, and was responsible for the BBC's first merchandising boom.[9]
The BBC drama department's serials division produced the programme for 26 seasons, broadcast on BBC 1. Falling viewing numbers, a decline in the public perception of the show and a less-prominent transmission slot saw production suspended in 1989 by Jonathan Powell, controller of BBC 1.[10] Although it was effectively cancelled with the decision not to commission a planned 27th season, which would have been broadcast in 1990, the BBC repeatedly affirmed, over several years, that the series would return.[11]
While in-house production had ceased, the BBC hoped to find an independent production company to relaunch the show. Philip Segal, a British expatriate who worked for Columbia Pictures' television arm in the United States, had approached the BBC about such a venture as early as July 1989, while the 26th season was still in production.[11] Segal's negotiations eventually led to a Doctor Who television film, broadcast on the Fox Network in 1996 as an international co-production between Fox, Universal Pictures, the BBC and BBC Worldwide. Although the film was successful in the UK (with 9.1 million viewers), it was less so in the United States and did not lead to a series.[11]
Licensed media such as novels and audio plays provided new stories, but as a television programme Doctor Who remained dormant until 2003. In September of that year,[12] 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 executive producers of the new incarnation of the series were writer Russell T Davies and BBC Cymru Wales head of drama Julie Gardner.
Doctor Who finally returned with the episode "Rose" on BBC One on 26 March 2005.[13] There have since been ten further series in 2006–2008, 2010–2015 and 2017–2018, and Christmas Day specials every year since 2005. No full series was broadcast in 2009,[14] although four additional specials starring David Tennant were made. Davies left the show in 2010 after the end of series 4 and the David Tennant specials were completed. Steven Moffat, a writer under Davies was announced as Davies' successor along with Matt Smith as the new doctor.[15] In January 2016, Moffat announced that he would step down after the 2017 finale, to be replaced by Chris Chibnall in 2018.[16] The tenth series debuted in April 2017, with a Christmas special preceding it in 2016.[17]
The 2005 version of Doctor Who is a direct plot continuation of the original 1963–1989 series[note 2] and the 1996 telefilm. This is similar to the 1988 continuation of Mission Impossible,[18] but differs from most other series relaunches which have either been reboots (for example, Battlestar Galactica[19] and Bionic Woman) or set in the same universe as the original but in a different time period and with different characters (for example, Star Trek: The Next Generation and spin-offs).
The programme has been sold to many other countries worldwide (see Viewership).
Public consciousness
It has been claimed that the transmission of the first episode was delayed by ten minutes due to extended news coverage of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy the previous day; in fact it went out after a delay of eighty seconds.[20] The BBC believed that many viewers had missed this introduction to a new series due to the coverage of the assassination, as well as a series of power blackouts across the country, and they broadcast it again on 30 November 1963, just before episode two.[citation needed][21]
The programme soon became a national institution in the United Kingdom, with a large following among the general viewing audience.[22][23] Many renowned actors asked for or were offered guest-starring roles in various stories.[24][25][26][27]
With popularity came controversy over the show's suitability for children. Morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse repeatedly complained to the BBC in the 1970s over what she saw as the show's frightening and gory content. John Nathan-Turner produced the series during the 1980s and was heard to say that he looked forward to Whitehouse's comments, as the show's ratings would increase soon after she had made them.[28]
The phrase "Hiding behind (or 'watching from behind') the sofa" entered British pop culture, signifying in humour the stereotypical early-series behaviour of children who wanted to avoid seeing frightening parts of a television programme while remaining in the room to watch the remainder of it.[29] The phrase retains this association with Doctor Who, to the point that in 1991 the Museum of the Moving Image in London named their exhibition celebrating the programme "Behind the Sofa". The electronic theme music too was perceived as eerie, novel, and frightening, at the time. A 2012 article placed this childhood juxtaposition of fear and thrill "at the center of many people's relationship with the show",[30] and a 2011 online vote at Digital Spy deemed the series the "scariest TV show of all time".[31]
During Jon Pertwee's second series as the Doctor, in the serial Terror of the Autons (1971), images of murderous plastic dolls, daffodils killing unsuspecting victims, and blank-featured policemen marked the apex of the show's ability to frighten children.[32] Other notable moments in that decade include a disembodied brain falling to the floor in The Brain of Morbius[33] and the Doctor apparently being drowned by a villain in The Deadly Assassin (both 1976)
A BBC audience research survey conducted in 1972 found that, by their own definition of violence ("any act[s] which may cause physical and/or psychological injury, hurt or death to persons, animals or property, whether intentional or accidental") Doctor Who was the most violent of the drama programmes the corporation produced at the time.[35] The same report found that 3% of the surveyed audience regarded the show as "very unsuitable" for family viewing.[36] Responding to the findings of the survey in The Times newspaper, journalist Philip Howard maintained that, "to compare the violence of Dr Who, sired by a horse-laugh out of a nightmare, with the more realistic violence of other television series, where actors who look like human beings bleed paint that looks like blood, is like comparing Monopoly with the property market in London: both are fantasies, but one is meant to be taken seriously."[35]
The image of the TARDIS has become firmly linked to the show in the public's consciousness; BBC scriptwriter Anthony Coburn, who lived in the resort of Herne Bay, Kent, was one of the people who conceived the idea of a police box as a time machine.[37] In 1996, the BBC applied for a trade mark to use the TARDIS' blue police box design in merchandising associated with Doctor Who.[38] In 1998, the Metropolitan Police Authority filed an objection to the trade mark claim; but in 2002, the Patent Office ruled in favour of the BBC.[39]
The programme's broad appeal attracts audiences of children and families as well as science fiction fans.[40]
The 21st century revival of the programme has become the centrepiece of BBC One's Saturday schedule, and has "defined the channel".[41] Since its return, Doctor Who has consistently received high ratings, both in number of viewers and as measured by the Appreciation Index.[42] In 2007, Caitlin Moran, television reviewer for The Times, wrote that Doctor Who is "quintessential to being British".[3] Director Steven Spielberg has commented that "the world would be a poorer place without Doctor Who".[43]
On 4 August 2013, a live programme titled Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor[44] was broadcast on BBC One, during which the actor who was going to play the Twelfth Doctor was revealed.[45] The live show was watched by an average of 6.27 million in the UK, and was also simulcast in the United States, Canada and Australia.[46][47]
Episodes
Further information: List of Doctor Who episodes (1963–1989) and List of Doctor Who episodes (2005–present)
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,[48] "Mission to the Unknown", featuring none of the regular cast[49]); almost an entire season of seven-episode serials (season 7); the ten-episode serial The War Games;[50] 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.[51] 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,[52][53] season 16's quest for the Key to Time,[54] season 18's journey through E-Space and the theme of entropy,[55] and season 20's Black Guardian trilogy.[56]
The programme was intended to be educational and for family viewing on the early Saturday evening schedule.[57] 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.[57] This was also reflected in the Doctor's original companions, one of whom was a science teacher and another a history teacher.[57]
However, science fiction stories came to dominate the programme, and the history-orientated episodes, which were not popular with the production team,[57] 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.[58]
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.[59] Following The Gunfighters (1966), however, each serial was given its own title, and the individual parts were simply assigned episode numbers.[59]
Of the programme's many writers, Robert Holmes was the most prolific,[60] while Douglas Adams became the most well known outside Doctor Who itself, due to the popularity of his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy works.[61][62]
The serial format changed for the 2005 revival, with 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 both standalone and multiple episodic stories, linked with a loose story arc that is resolved in the series finale. As in the early "classic" era, each episode, whether standalone or part of a larger story, has its own title. 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 exceeded an hour in length.
856 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 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 2-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,[63] 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.[64] In March 2013, it was announced that Tennant and Piper would be returning,[65] and that the episode would have a limited cinematic release worldwide.[66]
In April 2015, Steven Moffat confirmed that Doctor Who would run for at least another five years, extending the show until 2020.[67] 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.[68][69]
Missing episodes
Main article: Doctor Who missing episodes
Between about 1967 and 1978, large amounts of older material stored in the BBC's various video tape and film libraries were either destroyed,[note 3] wiped, or suffered from poor storage which led to severe deterioration from broadcast quality. This included many old episodes of Doctor Who, mostly stories featuring the first two Doctors: William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. In all, 97 of 253 episodes produced during the first six years of the programme are not held in the BBC's archives (most notably seasons 3, 4, 5, from which 79 episodes are missing). In 1972, almost all episodes then made were known to exist at the BBC,[70] while by 1978 the practice of wiping tapes and destroying "spare" film copies had been brought to a stop.[71]
No 1960s episodes exist on their original videotapes (all surviving prints being film transfers), though some were transferred to film for editing before transmission, and exist in their broadcast form.[72]
Some episodes have been returned to the BBC from the archives of other countries who bought prints for broadcast, or by private individuals who acquired them by various means. Early colour videotape recordings made off-air by fans have also been retrieved, as well as excerpts filmed from the television screen onto 8 mm cine film and clips that were shown on other programmes. Audio versions of all of the lost episodes exist from home viewers who made tape recordings of the show. Short clips from every story with the exception of Marco Polo (1964), "Mission to the Unknown" (1965) and The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve (1966) also exist.
In addition to these, there are off-screen photographs made by photographer John Cura, who was hired by various production personnel to document many of their programmes during the 1950s and 1960s, including Doctor Who. These have been used in fan reconstructions of the serials. These amateur reconstructions have been tolerated by the BBC, provided they are not sold for profit and are distributed as low-quality copies.[73]
One of the most sought-after lost episodes is part four of the last William Hartnell serial, The Tenth Planet (1966), which ends with the First Doctor transforming into the Second. The only portion of this in existence, barring a few poor-quality silent 8 mm clips, is the few seconds of the regeneration scene, as it was shown on the children's magazine show Blue Peter.[74] With the approval of the BBC, efforts are now under way to restore as many of the episodes as possible from the extant material.
"Official" reconstructions have also been released by the BBC on VHS, on MP3 CD-ROM, and as special features on DVD. The BBC, in conjunction with animation studio Cosgrove Hall, reconstructed the missing episodes 1 and 4 of The Invasion (1968), using remastered audio tracks and the comprehensive stage notes for the original filming, for the serial's DVD release in November 2006. The missing episodes of The Reign of Terror were animated by animation company Theta-Sigma, in collaboration with Big Finish, and became available for purchase in May 2013 through Amazon.com.[75] Subsequent animations made in 2013 include The Tenth Planet, The Ice Warriors (1967) and The Moonbase (1967).
In April 2006, Blue Peter launched a challenge to find missing Doctor Who episodes with the promise of a full-scale Dalek model as a reward.[76]
In December 2011, it was announced that part 3 of Galaxy 4 (1965) and part 2 of The Underwater Menace (1967) had been returned to the BBC by a fan who had purchased them in the mid-1980s without realising that the BBC did not hold copies of them.[77]
On 10 October 2013, the BBC announced that films of eleven episodes, including nine missing episodes, had been found in a Nigerian television relay station in Jos.[78] Six of the eleven films discovered were the six-part serial The Enemy of the World (1968), from which all but the third episode had been missing.[79] The remaining films were from another six-part serial, The Web of Fear (1968), and included the previously missing episodes 2, 4, 5, and 6. Episode 3 of The Web of Fear is still missing
The show is a significant part of British popular culture,[2][3] and elsewhere it has gained a cult following. It has influenced generations of British television professionals, many of whom grew up watching the series.[4] The programme 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 programme was relaunched in 2005, and since then has been produced in-house by BBC Wales in Cardiff. Doctor Who has also spawned numerous spin-offs, including comic books, films, novels, audio dramas, and the television series Torchwood (2006–2011), The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–2011), K-9 (2009–2010), and Class (2016), and has been the subject of many parodies and references in popular culture.
Thirteen actors have headlined the series as the Doctor. The transition from one actor to another is written into the plot of the show with the concept of regeneration into a new incarnation, a plot device in which a Time Lord "transforms" into a new body when the current one is too badly harmed to heal normally. Each actor's portrayal is unique, 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 feature of the plot means that different incarnations of the Doctor occasionally meet. The Doctor is currently portrayed by Jodie Whittaker, who took on the role after Peter Capaldi's exit in the 2017 Christmas special "Twice Upon a Time".
Premise
Doctor Who follows the adventures of the title character, a rogue Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey who goes by the name "the Doctor". The Doctor fled Gallifrey in a stolen TARDIS ("Time and Relative Dimension 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 often brings one or more companions to share 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 the Earth is threatened. The Doctor is centuries old and, as a Time Lord, has the ability to regenerate in case of mortal damage to the body, taking on a new appearance and personality. The Doctor has gained numerous reoccurring enemies during their travels, including the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Master, another renegade Time Lord.
History
Main article: History of Doctor Who
Doctor Who first appeared on BBC TV at 17:16:20 GMT on Saturday, 23 November 1963; this was eighty seconds later than the scheduled programme time, due to the assassination of John F. Kennedy the previous day.[5][6] 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. Writer Anthony Coburn, story editor David Whitaker and initial producer Verity Lambert also heavily contributed to the development of the series.[7][note 1]
The programme was originally intended to appeal to a family audience[8] as an educational programme using time travel as a means to explore scientific ideas and famous moments in history. On 31 July 1963, 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 producer Verity 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, and was responsible for the BBC's first merchandising boom.[9]
The BBC drama department's serials division produced the programme for 26 seasons, broadcast on BBC 1. Falling viewing numbers, a decline in the public perception of the show and a less-prominent transmission slot saw production suspended in 1989 by Jonathan Powell, controller of BBC 1.[10] Although it was effectively cancelled with the decision not to commission a planned 27th season, which would have been broadcast in 1990, the BBC repeatedly affirmed, over several years, that the series would return.[11]
While in-house production had ceased, the BBC hoped to find an independent production company to relaunch the show. Philip Segal, a British expatriate who worked for Columbia Pictures' television arm in the United States, had approached the BBC about such a venture as early as July 1989, while the 26th season was still in production.[11] Segal's negotiations eventually led to a Doctor Who television film, broadcast on the Fox Network in 1996 as an international co-production between Fox, Universal Pictures, the BBC and BBC Worldwide. Although the film was successful in the UK (with 9.1 million viewers), it was less so in the United States and did not lead to a series.[11]
Licensed media such as novels and audio plays provided new stories, but as a television programme Doctor Who remained dormant until 2003. In September of that year,[12] 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 executive producers of the new incarnation of the series were writer Russell T Davies and BBC Cymru Wales head of drama Julie Gardner.
Doctor Who finally returned with the episode "Rose" on BBC One on 26 March 2005.[13] There have since been ten further series in 2006–2008, 2010–2015 and 2017–2018, and Christmas Day specials every year since 2005. No full series was broadcast in 2009,[14] although four additional specials starring David Tennant were made. Davies left the show in 2010 after the end of series 4 and the David Tennant specials were completed. Steven Moffat, a writer under Davies was announced as Davies' successor along with Matt Smith as the new doctor.[15] In January 2016, Moffat announced that he would step down after the 2017 finale, to be replaced by Chris Chibnall in 2018.[16] The tenth series debuted in April 2017, with a Christmas special preceding it in 2016.[17]
The 2005 version of Doctor Who is a direct plot continuation of the original 1963–1989 series[note 2] and the 1996 telefilm. This is similar to the 1988 continuation of Mission Impossible,[18] but differs from most other series relaunches which have either been reboots (for example, Battlestar Galactica[19] and Bionic Woman) or set in the same universe as the original but in a different time period and with different characters (for example, Star Trek: The Next Generation and spin-offs).
The programme has been sold to many other countries worldwide (see Viewership).
Public consciousness
It has been claimed that the transmission of the first episode was delayed by ten minutes due to extended news coverage of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy the previous day; in fact it went out after a delay of eighty seconds.[20] The BBC believed that many viewers had missed this introduction to a new series due to the coverage of the assassination, as well as a series of power blackouts across the country, and they broadcast it again on 30 November 1963, just before episode two.[citation needed][21]
The programme soon became a national institution in the United Kingdom, with a large following among the general viewing audience.[22][23] Many renowned actors asked for or were offered guest-starring roles in various stories.[24][25][26][27]
With popularity came controversy over the show's suitability for children. Morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse repeatedly complained to the BBC in the 1970s over what she saw as the show's frightening and gory content. John Nathan-Turner produced the series during the 1980s and was heard to say that he looked forward to Whitehouse's comments, as the show's ratings would increase soon after she had made them.[28]
The phrase "Hiding behind (or 'watching from behind') the sofa" entered British pop culture, signifying in humour the stereotypical early-series behaviour of children who wanted to avoid seeing frightening parts of a television programme while remaining in the room to watch the remainder of it.[29] The phrase retains this association with Doctor Who, to the point that in 1991 the Museum of the Moving Image in London named their exhibition celebrating the programme "Behind the Sofa". The electronic theme music too was perceived as eerie, novel, and frightening, at the time. A 2012 article placed this childhood juxtaposition of fear and thrill "at the center of many people's relationship with the show",[30] and a 2011 online vote at Digital Spy deemed the series the "scariest TV show of all time".[31]
During Jon Pertwee's second series as the Doctor, in the serial Terror of the Autons (1971), images of murderous plastic dolls, daffodils killing unsuspecting victims, and blank-featured policemen marked the apex of the show's ability to frighten children.[32] Other notable moments in that decade include a disembodied brain falling to the floor in The Brain of Morbius[33] and the Doctor apparently being drowned by a villain in The Deadly Assassin (both 1976)
A BBC audience research survey conducted in 1972 found that, by their own definition of violence ("any act[s] which may cause physical and/or psychological injury, hurt or death to persons, animals or property, whether intentional or accidental") Doctor Who was the most violent of the drama programmes the corporation produced at the time.[35] The same report found that 3% of the surveyed audience regarded the show as "very unsuitable" for family viewing.[36] Responding to the findings of the survey in The Times newspaper, journalist Philip Howard maintained that, "to compare the violence of Dr Who, sired by a horse-laugh out of a nightmare, with the more realistic violence of other television series, where actors who look like human beings bleed paint that looks like blood, is like comparing Monopoly with the property market in London: both are fantasies, but one is meant to be taken seriously."[35]
The image of the TARDIS has become firmly linked to the show in the public's consciousness; BBC scriptwriter Anthony Coburn, who lived in the resort of Herne Bay, Kent, was one of the people who conceived the idea of a police box as a time machine.[37] In 1996, the BBC applied for a trade mark to use the TARDIS' blue police box design in merchandising associated with Doctor Who.[38] In 1998, the Metropolitan Police Authority filed an objection to the trade mark claim; but in 2002, the Patent Office ruled in favour of the BBC.[39]
The programme's broad appeal attracts audiences of children and families as well as science fiction fans.[40]
The 21st century revival of the programme has become the centrepiece of BBC One's Saturday schedule, and has "defined the channel".[41] Since its return, Doctor Who has consistently received high ratings, both in number of viewers and as measured by the Appreciation Index.[42] In 2007, Caitlin Moran, television reviewer for The Times, wrote that Doctor Who is "quintessential to being British".[3] Director Steven Spielberg has commented that "the world would be a poorer place without Doctor Who".[43]
On 4 August 2013, a live programme titled Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor[44] was broadcast on BBC One, during which the actor who was going to play the Twelfth Doctor was revealed.[45] The live show was watched by an average of 6.27 million in the UK, and was also simulcast in the United States, Canada and Australia.[46][47]
Episodes
Further information: List of Doctor Who episodes (1963–1989) and List of Doctor Who episodes (2005–present)
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,[48] "Mission to the Unknown", featuring none of the regular cast[49]); almost an entire season of seven-episode serials (season 7); the ten-episode serial The War Games;[50] 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.[51] 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,[52][53] season 16's quest for the Key to Time,[54] season 18's journey through E-Space and the theme of entropy,[55] and season 20's Black Guardian trilogy.[56]
The programme was intended to be educational and for family viewing on the early Saturday evening schedule.[57] 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.[57] This was also reflected in the Doctor's original companions, one of whom was a science teacher and another a history teacher.[57]
However, science fiction stories came to dominate the programme, and the history-orientated episodes, which were not popular with the production team,[57] 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.[58]
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.[59] Following The Gunfighters (1966), however, each serial was given its own title, and the individual parts were simply assigned episode numbers.[59]
Of the programme's many writers, Robert Holmes was the most prolific,[60] while Douglas Adams became the most well known outside Doctor Who itself, due to the popularity of his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy works.[61][62]
The serial format changed for the 2005 revival, with 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 both standalone and multiple episodic stories, linked with a loose story arc that is resolved in the series finale. As in the early "classic" era, each episode, whether standalone or part of a larger story, has its own title. 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 exceeded an hour in length.
856 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 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 2-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,[63] 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.[64] In March 2013, it was announced that Tennant and Piper would be returning,[65] and that the episode would have a limited cinematic release worldwide.[66]
In April 2015, Steven Moffat confirmed that Doctor Who would run for at least another five years, extending the show until 2020.[67] 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.[68][69]
Missing episodes
Main article: Doctor Who missing episodes
Between about 1967 and 1978, large amounts of older material stored in the BBC's various video tape and film libraries were either destroyed,[note 3] wiped, or suffered from poor storage which led to severe deterioration from broadcast quality. This included many old episodes of Doctor Who, mostly stories featuring the first two Doctors: William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. In all, 97 of 253 episodes produced during the first six years of the programme are not held in the BBC's archives (most notably seasons 3, 4, 5, from which 79 episodes are missing). In 1972, almost all episodes then made were known to exist at the BBC,[70] while by 1978 the practice of wiping tapes and destroying "spare" film copies had been brought to a stop.[71]
No 1960s episodes exist on their original videotapes (all surviving prints being film transfers), though some were transferred to film for editing before transmission, and exist in their broadcast form.[72]
Some episodes have been returned to the BBC from the archives of other countries who bought prints for broadcast, or by private individuals who acquired them by various means. Early colour videotape recordings made off-air by fans have also been retrieved, as well as excerpts filmed from the television screen onto 8 mm cine film and clips that were shown on other programmes. Audio versions of all of the lost episodes exist from home viewers who made tape recordings of the show. Short clips from every story with the exception of Marco Polo (1964), "Mission to the Unknown" (1965) and The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve (1966) also exist.
In addition to these, there are off-screen photographs made by photographer John Cura, who was hired by various production personnel to document many of their programmes during the 1950s and 1960s, including Doctor Who. These have been used in fan reconstructions of the serials. These amateur reconstructions have been tolerated by the BBC, provided they are not sold for profit and are distributed as low-quality copies.[73]
One of the most sought-after lost episodes is part four of the last William Hartnell serial, The Tenth Planet (1966), which ends with the First Doctor transforming into the Second. The only portion of this in existence, barring a few poor-quality silent 8 mm clips, is the few seconds of the regeneration scene, as it was shown on the children's magazine show Blue Peter.[74] With the approval of the BBC, efforts are now under way to restore as many of the episodes as possible from the extant material.
"Official" reconstructions have also been released by the BBC on VHS, on MP3 CD-ROM, and as special features on DVD. The BBC, in conjunction with animation studio Cosgrove Hall, reconstructed the missing episodes 1 and 4 of The Invasion (1968), using remastered audio tracks and the comprehensive stage notes for the original filming, for the serial's DVD release in November 2006. The missing episodes of The Reign of Terror were animated by animation company Theta-Sigma, in collaboration with Big Finish, and became available for purchase in May 2013 through Amazon.com.[75] Subsequent animations made in 2013 include The Tenth Planet, The Ice Warriors (1967) and The Moonbase (1967).
In April 2006, Blue Peter launched a challenge to find missing Doctor Who episodes with the promise of a full-scale Dalek model as a reward.[76]
In December 2011, it was announced that part 3 of Galaxy 4 (1965) and part 2 of The Underwater Menace (1967) had been returned to the BBC by a fan who had purchased them in the mid-1980s without realising that the BBC did not hold copies of them.[77]
On 10 October 2013, the BBC announced that films of eleven episodes, including nine missing episodes, had been found in a Nigerian television relay station in Jos.[78] Six of the eleven films discovered were the six-part serial The Enemy of the World (1968), from which all but the third episode had been missing.[79] The remaining films were from another six-part serial, The Web of Fear (1968), and included the previously missing episodes 2, 4, 5, and 6. Episode 3 of The Web of Fear is still missing
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