Doctor Who
A Time Lord travels through space and time in a police box.
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television series first broadcast by the BBC in 1963. It follows the adventures of the Doctor, an extraterrestrial Time Lord who travels through space and time in a time machine called the TARDIS. The series is recognized as the longest-running science-fiction television series in the world and a staple of British popular culture.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Science fiction
- Adventure
- Drama
- Creator
- Sydney Newman
- C. E. Webber
- Donald Wilson
- Starring
- Various cast members
- as the Doctor
- and companions
- Theme music
- Ron Grainer
- Opening theme
- Doctor Who theme music
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- Seasons
- 26 (1963–1989)
Facts from the source article.
History
Doctor Who was originally conceived as a family educational programme, using time travel to explore scientific ideas and historical moments. It first aired on the BBC Television Service at 17:16:20 GMT on 23 November 1963, eighty seconds late due to announcements about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The programme had been in development for a year, with Sydney Newman, head of drama, playing a key role alongside Donald Wilson and C. E. Webber. Wilson later claimed to have named the series, a claim Newman did not dispute. Writer Anthony Coburn, story editor David Whitaker, and initial producer Verity Lambert also contributed significantly. On 31 July 1963, Whitaker commissioned Terry Nation to write a story titled The Mutants. Originally, the Daleks and Thals were victims of a neutron bomb, but Nation later made the Daleks the aggressors. Wilson rejected the script because the programme was not permitted to contain 'bug-eyed monsters', but Lambert noted they had no other serial ready. The script became the second Doctor Who serial, The Daleks, introducing the series' most popular monsters and sparking 'Dalekmania', which led to the BBC's first merchandising boom.
Episodes
Doctor Who originally ran for 26 seasons on BBC One from 23 November 1963 to 6 December 1989. Episodes were grouped into serials, typically of four to seven parts in the 1960s and early 1970s, four to six in the mid-to-late 1970s, and two to four in the 1980s. Some serials were loosely connected by storylines, such as season 8's focus on the Master, season 16's quest for the Key to Time, season 18's journey through E-Space, and season 20's Black Guardian trilogy. The programme initially alternated historical stories for education and science fiction tales, but historical episodes were dropped after The Highlanders (1967), though historical settings continued as backdrops. Black Orchid (1982) was an exception, set in 1920s England. From the 2023 Christmas special and the 2024 season, the show incorporated more fantasy elements while retaining hard science fiction in episodes like 'Boom'. Early serials had individual episode titles, but after The Gunfighters (1966), each serial received its own title with numbered parts. Robert Holmes was the most prolific writer, while Douglas Adams became the best known outside the show due to his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy works.
Characters
The Doctor was initially an enigmatic figure: an eccentric alien traveller of great intelligence who fought injustice while exploring time and space in an unreliable TARDIS, which appears larger inside than outside. The character mellowed from irascible and sinister to more compassionate, and was eventually revealed to be a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, which the Doctor fled by stealing the TARDIS. In 2020, it was revealed the Doctor came from another world entirely. The concept of regeneration was introduced to allow recasting, prompted by William Hartnell's poor health. The term 'regeneration' was not used until the third on-screen regeneration; Hartnell's Doctor described a 'renewal', and the Second Doctor underwent a 'change of appearance'. The Deadly Assassin (1976) established that a Time Lord can regenerate only 12 times, for 13 incarnations total. This limit became a plot obstacle, resolved in 'The Time of the Doctor' (2013) when the Eleventh Doctor acquired a new regeneration cycle. Although casting a woman as the Doctor had been suggested by writers including Newman in 1986 and Davies in 2008, Jodie Whittaker became the first woman to play the role as the Thirteenth Doctor in 2017. The show had earlier introduced the ability for Time Lords to change sex on regeneration, first in dialogue and then with Michelle Gomez's version of the Master.
Music
The Doctor Who theme music was one of the first electronic television signature tunes. Composed by Ron Grainer and realised by Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with assistance from Dick Mills, it was released as a single in 1964. Derbyshire's arrangement, with minor edits, served as the theme until the end of season 17 (1979–1980). It was created before commercial synthesisers or multitrack mixers, with each note produced by cutting, splicing, and manipulating analogue tape containing a plucked string, white noise, and test-tone oscillator waveforms. New mixing techniques were invented. On hearing the result, Grainer asked, 'Jeez, Delia, did I write that?' She replied, 'Most of it.' Grainer wanted to give her co-composer credit, but BBC policy prevented it; she received on-screen credit only in the 2013 anniversary story 'The Day of the Doctor'. Later arrangements included Peter Howell's for season 18, Dominic Glynn's for The Trial of a Time Lord in 1986, and Keff McCulloch's for the Seventh Doctor's era until 1989. John Debney arranged the theme for the 1996 film. Murray Gold provided arrangements from 2005, except for series 11–13 and the 2022 specials, which were arranged by Segun Akinola. Akinola also created a closing theme in Punjabi style for 'Demons of the Punjab' (2018).
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