TV Series Overview: Doctor Who

There was a bit of a brouhaha in 2006 when the Guinness Book of Records announced that the longest running science fiction TV series had been awarded to Stargate: SG-1. The record was 203 episodes, beating the previous holder (The X-files) by just one episode. That is, until fans from around the world pointed out that there was another contender, which had more episodes than both series put together: Doctor Who (723 episodes as of September 2006, and counting).

There probably wouldn't have been quite so much fuss (although still certainly quite a lot of fuss), had the show not recently been successfully relaunched in 2005, to critical acclaim worldwide. In the national television awards, the series has won 'best drama' and 'most popular actor' for three years running, and 'most popular actress' in 2005 and 2006. The two-part episodes 'The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances' won the Hugo award for best drama in 2006, with the episodes 'Dalek' and 'Father's Day' taking second and third places. The series has also won several other awards including BAFTAs, and has been nominated for many others.

First aired in 1963 in the UK, the series follows the adventures of The Doctor, a mysterious alien who travels through time and space in his ship, the TARDIS (An acronym for 'Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space). In the initial episodes, the ship was disguised as a 1950s police telephone box, but due to a fault has remained in that shape ever since. Despite the exterior only being about the size of a call box, the cavernous interior is far larger.

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In his travels the Doctor acquires (and loses) a number of travelling companions, visits alien worlds, defeats evil beings, and prevents (and sometimes causes) alterations to history. Recurring enemies which has entered the popular subconscious are the Daleks, a mutated race of evil squidlike creatures encased in armoured travelling machines, and the Cybermen, a species of human-like beings who have gradually replaced their bodies with machinery, to become emotionless automatons.

The role of the Doctor was originally played by William Hartnell, who left the series after a few seasons due to ill health. He was replaced by a much younger actor, Patrick Troughton, and the character's change of appearance was explained by him undergoing a complete physical renewal. This 'regeneration' became a repeatedly clever way to replace the main actor when they wished to move on to other things, and was later explained as being an inherent ability of the Doctor's people, the Time Lords. To date, in the official TV version, ten actors have reprised the role, the latest being David Tennant, star of BBC TV's 'Casanova'.

Doctor Who was originally put on hiatus in 1989, and did not return to the screens (barring an abortive attempt in the US 1996) until 2005. One of the major criticisms of the 'old' series were the creaky, low-budget sets and monsters, but these are noticeably gone, with a much higher production budget in the new series. Weekly viewing figures in the UK average around nine million viewers, the fourth series is at the time of writing building towards the series finale. Three special length episodes are comissioned for 2009, with a fifth series confirmed for 2010.

There have been have numerous attempts at spin off series from Doctor Who, the most successful of which have been recently. Torchwood, billed as a more 'mature' version of Doctor Who, has just been confirmed by the BBC for a third series, and The Sarah Jane Adventures, a spin-off centering around one of the more popular companions, is currently filming its second series.

Much has been suggested as to why the series has such lasting appeal; few shows can be said to have remained popular over so many decades. Part of the appeal is the format. Doctor Who has a literally open-ended premise; a particular show can be set anywhere in the universe, at any point in history. The only constants are the Doctor and his TARDIS. This flexibility has allowed the show to reinvent itself to match popular trends over the years and remain relevant. The regeneration concept for the main character is, if inadvertently, a masterstroke also. A completely new actor in the role periodically refreshes the concept, and allows them to bring their own interpretation to the character.

There's also a very loyal fan base, devoted even in comparison to many other Scifi fans. The show was kept alive between 1989-2005 by a core of writers and artists who produced no end of novels, audioplays and videos to keep the show in the popular eye. Many of the people involved with these (Russell T Davies, Gary Russell, Nicholas Briggs, Stephen Moffatt), are heavily involved with the new series, and are self-confessed fans since childhood. Even David Tennant admits he was devoted to the show in his childhood, and I would swear this comes out in his performance. Clearly, here is a man who's landed his dream role.