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Do you love science fictions? Are larger than the life characters and setup and their rush to leave large impact on the universe mesmerizes you? Then probably you will love to know about and explore BBC TV Serial “Doctor Who” without a doubt.
Well, calling Doctor Who a TV Series or a TV Serial is also not enough. It is a serial where the character of Doctor Who is also incarnated many times. And it is perfectly valid as per the story line! It makes the series more interesting, and allow replacement of the lead actors easily (when they decided to leave due to various reasons).
The protagonist is an alien who introduces himself simply as “Doctor”. Hence each incarnation of Doctor, is referred as first doctor, second doctor, etc. Till 2017 there are 12 incarnation of Doctor is explored in the series. Peter Capaldi is playing Doctor since year 2014.
William Hartnell played the first Doctor in 1963 when the first season was aired. The first episode was aired at 5:15 pm, on Saturday, 23 November 1963. It is interesting to note that it is said that the transmission of the first episode was delayed by 10 minutes. Reason, the assassination of US President John Kennedy was being reported on BBC. The channel also believed that due to vast coverage of so much important political incident, many viewers could have missed the introduction to the series. To let them associated with the TV Series in better manner, the first episode was re-aired along with the second episode (on 30th November 1963).
Here is the list of all the actors who played protagonist over the years.
| Lead Actor | Played | During (Years) |
|---|---|---|
| William Hartnell | First Doctor | 1963–66 |
| Patrick Troughton | Second Doctor | 1966–69 |
| Jon Pertwee | Third Doctor | 1970–74 |
| Tom Baker | Fourth Doctor | 1974–81 |
| Peter Davison | Fifth Doctor | 1982–84 |
| Colin Baker | Sixth Doctor | 1984–86 |
| Sylvester McCoy | Seventh Doctor | 1987–89 |
| Paul McGann | Eighth Doctor | 1996 |
| Christopher Eccleston | Ninth Doctor | 2005 |
| David Tennant | Tenth Doctor | 2005–10 |
| Matt Smith | Eleventh Doctor | 2010–13 |
| Peter Capaldi | Twelfth Doctor | 2014–present |
In a sad note large amount of older broadcasting material stored in BBC warehouse was either wiped out, destroyed Or became deteriorated in quality. This happened somewhere between 1964 and 1973 and affected several video tapes including a few of the Doctor Who episodes as well.
Some sources mentioned on Wikipedia says that almost 97 episodes are missing due to poor storage and other aspects. Hugely affected seasons are 3,4 and 5 for which almost 79 episodes are missing!
This is one of the reasons that in market also the DVDs are not available as a full set. We will thus provide you our views and reviews by the availability of the media only, and we will start with season 1 featuring Ninth Doctor (played by Christopher Eccleston).
| Title | Director | Written By | Release Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rose | Keith Boak | Russell T Davies | 26 March 2005 |
| The End of the World | Euros Lyn | Russell T Davies | 2 April 2005 |
| The Unquiet Dead | Euros Lyn | Mark Gatiss | 9 April 2005 |
| Aliens of London | Keith Boak | Russell T Davies | 16 April 2005 |
| World War Three | Keith Boak | Russell T Davies | 23 April 2005 |
| Dalek | Joe Ahearne | Robert Shearman | 30 April 2005 |
| The Long Game | Brian Grant | Russell T Davies | 7 May 2005 |
| Father’s Day | Joe Ahearne | Paul Cornell | 14 May 2005 |
| The Empty Child | James Hawes | Steven Moffat | 21 May 2005 |
| The Doctor Dances | James Hawes | Steven Moffat | 28 May 2005 |
| Boom Town | Joe Ahearne | Russell T Davies | 4 June 2005 |
| Bad Wolf | Joe Ahearne | Russell T Davies | 11 June 2005 |
| The Parting of the Ways | Joe Ahearne | Russell T Davies | 18 June 2005 |
After relaunch of the program in 2005 it is produced in-house by BBC Wales.
The popularity of the show resulted into many spin-offs for Doctor Who. It includes novels, books, dramas and films. There are some of the other TV Series aired which you can considered either spin-offs or somehow related to Doctor Who. The list includesthe television series Torchwood (2006–2011),
- Torchwood (2006–2011)
- The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–2011)
- K-9 (2009–2010)
- Class (2016)
Of course, every doctor needs a companion (actually every superhero/hero to be precise), and thus there are strong female characters found playing the same. For the ninth doctor, Rose, is the companion.
It is worth to note that Christopher Eccleston is considered as the third most popular Doctor. He also won several awards for his single series including the 2005 National Television Award for best actor.
External Links:
Official YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/doctorwho
Official URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/
We will keep reviewing it episode wise and the list of episodes mentioned above will be updated with the episode review links, so you should bookmark this page :). We will also be updating this page for the seasons feature other Doctors in the series. So fasten your seat belts to know more about this TV Serial and find out whether it is worth to explore it.
Over To You:
If you have already watched some of the episodes (or all of them), you are welcome to share your experiences via comments below. And yes, share information about this TV serial with your friends and family members who you think will find it interesting to explore.
