Doctor Who for Beginners: The Classic Series (1963-1989)

November 23, 1963 marked the birth of a television phenomenon with the debut of Doctor Who, a new series on BBC television in the UK. The program has become the longest running science fiction series in television history. The original series ran for twenty-six seasons from 1963 until 1989, and has spawned numerous novels, audio dramas, two big screen films, a TV movie and a new series currently airing on BBC1 and SCI-FI. This is the first of a three-part series examining the history of Doctor Who. This first installment will examine the classic DW series, while part two will cover the movies, books and part three will delve into the new series.

Doctor Who was developed by the BBC's Head of Drama, Sidney Wilson, and Donald Wilson who was head of the Script Department at that time. Verity Lambert was named the program's producer. Ron Grainer composed the show's now-famous theme music, performed by Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The cast consisted of William Hartnell as the Doctor, Carole Ann Ford as his granddaughter Susan, and William Russell and Jacqueline Hill as schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. The series was developed in a serial format of 25-minute episodes, with the average story running four episodes, although some stories would run longer.

"An Unearthly Child," Doctor Who's premiere adventure, was broadcast in November of 1963, with the first episode airing the evening after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The story involved Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton, two London teachers who decide to follow a student home one evening after school. "An Unearthly Child" quickly established that Susan and her grandfather, known only as "The Doctor," are not of this world, but travelers in space and time from another planet. Their ship, the TARDIS (an acronym for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space), is dimensionally transcendental, making the craft larger on the inside than on the outside. The TARDIS has a chameleon circuit, which allows the ship to change its outer appearance to blend in with its surroundings. But when the Doctor takes Susan, Ian and Barbara back in time to the year 100,000 B.C., the chameleon circuit freezes, keeping the craft in the shape of a British police call box. Apart from a couple of attempts over the year by the Doctor to repair the circuit, the TARDIS has remained in the form of a police box.

But it was the second story, "The Daleks," which put the series on the map. Terry Nation scripted this seven-part morality play with the Daleks, a race of grotesque mutants living inside armored metal casings on the planet Skaro, assuming a Nazi-like role as they attempted to exterminate a humanoid race called the Thals. "The Daleks" established Doctor Who as a popular television program. This story was remade as a big screen film in 1965 as Dr. Who and the Daleks, starring Peter Cushing as Dr. Who.

William Hartnell continued to play the Doctor for two more seasons traveling with his ever-changing array of companions, fighting Daleks, Sensorites, Zarbi and many other foes. The most ambitious Doctor Who story of Hartnell's tenure with the show was, perhaps, the twelve-part epic adventure "The Daleks' Master Plan." This was the lengthiest DW story ever made, and that record would stand for twenty years.

William Hartnell's poor health and poor relations with new producers John Wiles and Innes Lloyd forced him to leave the program. Looking for a way to keep the series going, Wiles and Lloyd cast Patrick Troughton to step into the role of the Doctor. They decided to explain the change by having the Doctor tell his startled traveling companions that his people are capable of regenerating their bodies when they become seriously ill or are mortally wounded. The regeneration took place at the end of "The Tenth Planet," the second story of Season Four. "The Tenth Planet" also introduced a new archenemy in the Cybermen, a race of humans who had gradually mechanized themselves by replacing limbs and organs with cybernetic parts until they became more machine than man.

Troughton's portrayal of the Doctor was very different from that of William Hartnell. While Hartnell's Doctor was a crotchety, old man with long white hair and Edwardian style clothing, Troughton's was a Chaplinish hobo with a Beatlesque mop. Patrick Troughton continued in the role traveling through space and time, battling Cybermen, Daleks, Yeti and Ice Warriors until the end of Season Six. His last adventure as the Doctor was a ten-part epic titled "The War Games," airing in 1969. It is near the end of this story that the Doctor's people are identified as the "Time Lords." When the Doctor has to request help from his people, the Time Lords are willing to assist, but they also bring him home to stand trial for interfering in the affairs of alien cultures. The Doctor confesses that he has interfered on many occasions, but adds than it has always been on the side of good versus evil. The Time Lords decide to make the Doctor's appearance change once again, and to send him to Earth to stay in exile.

During the 1960's and 70's, the BBC engaged in a practice of "junking" or erasing videotapes of several programs including high profile shows such as Z-Cars, Steptoe and Son (which NBC adapted as Sanford and Son), and Dad's Army as well as Doctor Who. This resulted in the loss of more than a hundred DW episodes, mostly from the Hartnell and Troughton eras of the 1960's. Several of the missing episodes have been recovered over the years, but many more remain unaccounted for.

1970 marked the beginning of a new era for Doctor Who. In addition to the casting of a new Doctor in Jon Pertwee, Barry Letts took over as the program's producer. And after six seasons in black and white, Doctor Who was going color-well, sort of. The first and last stories of Season Seven-"Spearhead from Space" and "Inferno"-were broadcast in color, while the two middle stories were in black and white. Season Eight featured two color adventures and three black and white stories. All Doctor Who adventures after Season Eight would be done in color.

Prior to accepting the role of the Doctor, Jon Pertwee had done mostly comedy. But upon joining the cast of Doctor Who, he wanted to shift gears and emphasize his Doctor as a man of action. Pertwee assumed the role during a time when the James Bond films were still at the height of their popularity. His tenure as the Time Lord became known to many fans as the "007 Era of Doctor Who," featuring fast cars, fancy gadgets and attractive female assistants. Pertwee wore frilly shirts, smoking jackets and opera cloaks. His cars included "Bessie" a souped-up yellow roadster, and the "Whomobile," a car that resembled a spacecraft.

During the Doctor's exile on Earth, he accepted a position as an unpaid scientific advisor for UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce), a top-secret quasi-military organization run by the UN to combat alien invaders. The British division of UNIT was led by Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, played by Nicholas Courtney. Lethbridge-Stewart had been introduced during Season Five in the story "The Web of Fear," returning a year later in "The Invasion," introducing UNIT.

The Pertwee era saw the program move away from science fantasy to become more of an actual science fiction program. It also saw the introduction of a new villain in The Master, played by Roger Delgado. The Master was a Time Lord, just like the Doctor, with a TARDIS of his own. Pertwee and Delgado had been friends for many years before working together in Doctor Who, and they had great chemistry together as the Doctor and Master. The Master became the perfect foil for the Doctor, and the two developed rather a Holmes and Moriarty-like relationship.

The fall of 1972 saw the series open Season Ten with "The Three Doctors," a four-part adventure in which the Doctor is joined by his two previous incarnations to face Omega, the solar engineer who gave the Time Lords the power of time travel. Presumed to have been killed in the process, Omega survived, trapped for centuries in an anti-matter universe. He wants to return home, but the consequences would be catastrophic for both universes. After the Doctors defeat Omega, the Time Lords lift the Third Doctor's exile, allowing him to travel freely in space and time once again. Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton kept viewers laughing with their Laurel and Hardy-like exchanges. William Hartnell's deteriorating health limited his participation in the story, as his Doctor was mainly shown on a small video monitor advising his two future incarnations.

Tragedy struck the cast and crew of Doctor Who in 1973 when Roger Delgado was killed in an automobile accident while filming a movie in Turkey. Delgado had played the Master for three seasons and was set to come back for one final confrontation with the Doctor in Season Eleven. Jon Pertwee left the show at the end of the season, which saw the introduction of both a new enemy in the Sontarans (an alien race which looked an awful lot like Humpty Dumptys in leather spacesuits), and a new traveling companion in investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith (played by Elisabeth Sladen). Season Eleven also revealed the name of the Doctor's homeworld as a planet called Gallifrey in the four-part opening story "The Time Warrior."

Season Twelve saw the introduction of Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. Baker's Doctor wore a beat up brown fedora and a long, multi-colored scarf, which became his trademark. He ate jelly babies and had a rather flip sense of humor. Tom Baker became the most popular actor to ever portray the Doctor, and his seven-season run was the longest tenure any actor has ever had in the role. In addition to fighting classic villains such as the Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans and the Master, the writers also brought in many original enemies for the Fourth Doctor including the Kraals, the Zygons, a man-eating plant called a Krynoid, and Magnus Greel, a criminal from the distant future trapped in Victorian London. The Tom Baker era also saw more revelations about the Doctor and the Time Lords, including a bypass respiratory system, self-induced comas to feign death and the fact that Time Lords were able to regenerate twelve times before the end of their lives (Time Lords also have two hearts and a stable body temperature of 15 degrees celsius). The Fourth Doctor's travels also took him on a season-long quest for the Key to Time during Season Sixteen.

After seven seasons as the Doctor, Tom Baker left Doctor Who at the end of Season Eighteen. His successor was a young actor named Peter Davison. He and DW producer John Nathan-Turner had previously worked together on the BBC drama All Creatures Great and Small. Davison saw the Doctor as an honorary Englishman, and his Time Lord wore a British cricket sweater and cricket trousers, with a sprig of celery attached to the lapel of his coat. Rather than mimicking the larger-than-life portrayals of the last two Doctors, Davison's was much more vulnerable, a hero who did not always win the day.

On November 23, 1983, the BBC broadcast "The Five Doctors," a 90-minute special adventure commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Doctor Who. Peter Davison was joined by predecessors Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee. William Hartnell had died ten years earlier, so look-alike actor Richard Hurndall stepped in as the First Doctor. Tom Baker had declined the invitation to participate in "The Five Doctors," so producer John Nathan-Turner and director Peter Moffatt decided to use footage from "Shada," an unfinished story from the latter years of the Baker era. Nathan-Turner and Moffatt doctored the footage with some visual effects, and then created the subplot of the Fourth Doctor being trapped in the space-time vortex as an explanation for his non-participation in the story.

The end of Season Twenty-One saw change once again as Peter Davison left the show. His successor was Colin Baker, who had previously had a supporting role in the Season Twenty story "Arc of Infinity." Baker's Doctor was brash and obnoxious, wearing a loud multi-colored outfit that was the epitome of bad taste. Colin assumed the role of the Sixth Doctor in the Season Twenty-One finale "The Twin Dilemma."

The following season saw more change as the program's format changed from twenty-five minute to forty-five minute episodes. A four-part story on the old format was a two-parter in this new format. Season Twenty-Two included five 2-part stories and one 3-part adventure (roughly equivalent to a six-parter on the old format). This new format was not very well received, and the series returned to the twenty-five minute episode format the following season. Patrick Troughton did return once more as the Second Doctor during Season Twenty-Two, joining Colin Baker in the three-parter "The Two Doctors." This was Troughton's final on-screen appearance as the Doctor before his death in 1987.

Following the end of the twenty-second season, Doctor Who was placed on an eighteen-month hiatus by then-BBC One controller Michael Grade, who made no secret of his dislike for the program. The series was reportedly rested due to low ratings and viewer concerns of increasing violence over the last few seasons. The hiatus left many fans and BBC executives in doubt of the show's future, and prompted a letter-writing campaign to save the series.

Doctor Who returned in the fall of 1986 with Colin Baker as the Doctor. The twenty-third season consisted of fourteen twenty-five minute episodes which comprised the season-long story "The Trial of a Time Lord," in which an inquiry into the Doctor's behavior soon sees him on trial for his life. Script editor Eric Saward and his writers drew inspiration from Dickens' A Christmas Carol in structuring the plot to show trial evidence from three stages of the Doctor's life: his past, present and future. Veteran DW writer Robert Holmes died suddenly while writing the last two episodes of the season leaving Saward and writers Pip and Jane Baker to finish the scripts. Eric Saward also disagreed strongly with producer John Nathan-Turner over how the season should end. Saward wanted to finish with a cliffhanger while Nathan-Turner wanted a more conclusive ending. Saward would step down as script editor before production of the season was finished.

After the end of Season Twenty-Three, Michael Grade did give Doctor Who the green light for another season, but only on the condition that Colin Baker be replaced as the Doctor. Baker was asked to appear in the first story of the twenty-fourth season to explain his Doctor's regeneration, but declined to do so. John Nathan-Turner fully expected to be replaced as the producer of Doctor Who after six seasons with the program, but was told he would have to remain at that post for the following season. Nathan-Turner was reluctant to stay with the show, but actually had no choice but to do so if he wanted to remain a staff producer at the BBC.

A Scotsman named Sylvester McCoy became the seventh actor to play the Doctor. McCoy made his debut in the first episode of the Season Twenty-Four opening story "Time and the Rani," broadcast on September 7, 1987. The light-hearted, comedic approach taken by the writers to scripting the twenty-fourth season drew complaints from many viewers that Doctor Who had degenerated into a slapstick comedy program. This led script editor Andrew Cartmel to go back and examine several of the series' highly regarded stories from the 1970's. He then decided that the essentially serious approach taken during that era was much more effective, and that a return to that direction was necessary.

Cartmel also wanted to bring a sense of mystery back to the character of the Doctor. He felt that too much had been revealed about the time traveler over the years, gradually reducing the character's appeal to viewers. After gaining the approval of John Nathan-Turner, Cartmel began to brief the writers for Season Twenty-Five on bringing some elements into their scripts that would cast doubt on aspects of the Doctor's history and even on the true nature of his character.

Cartmel's ideas turned out to be very much in line with Sylvester McCoy's own thinking regarding the role. Much of McCoy's previous acting experience had been in comedy, so his natural instinct upon taking on the role of the Doctor had been to interpret the character in a humorous way. But in time he realized that a straighter approach to the role with some occasional humor would work much better. The Doctor also became darker and more manipulative during Seasons Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six, even using his friends and companions when he felt it was necessary.

At the end of the twenty-sixth season, production of Doctor Who came to a close, although the BBC never officially cancelled the series. The viewing public would have to wait nearly seven years for an all-new Doctor Who adventure to come to television, and another nine for the program to return as a regular series. In the second part of this series, I will cover the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie, as well as the two big screen films from the mid 1960's, plus the DW novels and audio dramas. Part Three will center exclusively around the new Doctor Who program currently airing on BBC One and SCI-FI.