Portal:Doctor Who
The Doctor Who Portal
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterrestrial being called the Doctor, part of a humanoid species called Time Lords. The Doctor travels in the universe and in time using a time travelling spaceship called the TARDIS, which externally appears as a British police box. While travelling, the Doctor works to save lives and liberate oppressed peoples by combating foes. The Doctor often travels with companions.
Beginning with William Hartnell, fourteen actors have headlined the series as the Doctor; as of 2024[update], Ncuti Gatwa leads the series as the Fifteenth Doctor. The transition from one actor to another is written into the plot of the series with the concept of regeneration into a new incarnation, a plot device in which, when a Time Lord is fatally injured, their cells regenerate and they are reincarnated, into a different body with mannerisms and behaviour, but the same memories, explaining each actor's distinct portrayal, as they all represent different stages in the life of the Doctor and, together, they form a single lifetime with a single narrative. The time-travelling nature of the plot means that different incarnations of the Doctor occasionally meet. In 2017, Jodie Whittaker, as the Thirteenth Doctor, became the first woman to be cast in the lead role.
The series is a significant part of popular culture in Britain and elsewhere; it has gained a cult following. It has influenced generations of British television professionals, many of whom grew up watching the series. Fans of the series are sometimes referred to as Whovians. The series has been listed in Guinness World Records as the longest-running science-fiction television series in the world, as well as the "most successful" science-fiction series of all time, based on its overall broadcast ratings, DVD and book sales. (Full article...)
Recognized quality articles
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"The Bells of Saint John" is the sixth episode of the seventh series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. It premiered in the United Kingdom on 30 March 2013 on BBC One; the episode was the first of the second half of the series. It was written by Steven Moffat and directed by Colm McCarthy.
The episode marks the third appearance of Jenna-Louise Coleman as Clara Oswald, but her first official appearance as the Eleventh Doctor's new companion. The story focuses on alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) and his search for Oswald, following two previous encounters with her in different moments of time, both ending in her death. Finding a third version in present-day London, he soon becomes involved in saving her and the rest of Earth from Miss Kizlet (Celia Imrie) and her employer, the Great Intelligence, as they use the world's Wi-Fi to upload people to a datacloud via robots known as Servers, casually referred to as Spoonheads. (Full article...) -
"Planet of the Ood" is the third episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 19 April 2008.
The episode takes place in the year 4126 on the Ood-Sphere, the titular planet of the episode. The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) and his companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) investigate Ood Operations, a company that is selling the Ood as a servant race, to discover the reason the Ood are happy to serve. When they find a group of unprocessed Ood, they become horrified at the alterations performed and resolve to free the Ood. (Full article...) -
"Voyage of the Damned" is an episode of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. First broadcast on BBC One on 25 December 2007, it is the third Doctor Who Christmas special since the show's revival in 2005. The episode was written by Russell T Davies and directed by James Strong.
In the episode, the alien businessman Max Capricorn (George Costigan) seeks revenge on his company after it votes him out. He sets a starship replica of the RMS Titanic on a collision course with Earth to frame the board of directors for killing the humans on Earth. The episode features the only performance in Doctor Who by the Australian singer and actress Kylie Minogue, who plays the waitress Astrid Peth. Davies described her casting as a "very exceptional case", having written the part of Astrid specifically for Minogue. (Full article...) -
"Boom" is the third episode of the fourteenth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was written by Steven Moffat, who had previously been showrunner from 2010 to 2017, and directed by Julie Anne Robinson. It was broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 18 May 2024 and released in the United States on Disney+ on 17 May.
The episode revolves around the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and his companion, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), who land on an alien planet in the midst of a large-scale war. When the Doctor steps on a landmine, he is forced to come up with a solution to disarm it without moving. In what is considered to be a bottle episode, Varada Sethu, who was not expected to debut in Doctor Who until the following series, makes a guest appearance as Mundy Flynn. (Full article...) -
"The Devil's Chord" is the second episode of the fourteenth series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. Released alongside "Space Babies," it was written by Russell T. Davies, directed by Ben Chessell. The episode was released on BBC iPlayer in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2024 and Disney+ in the United States on 10 May.
The story sees the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) go to see the British rock band the Beatles in 1963, only to find that the world has lost interest in music as they are confronted by the mysterious Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon). (Full article...) -
"From the Doctor to My Son Thomas" is a viral video recorded by actor Peter Capaldi and sent to Thomas Goodall, an autistic nine-year-old boy in England, to console the child over grief from the death of Goodall's grandmother. Capaldi filmed the 42-second video in character as the Twelfth Doctor from the BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who. Capaldi's message had a positive effect on Thomas: he smiled for the first time since learning of his grandmother's death, and gained the courage to go to her funeral.
Thomas's father Ross Goodall posted the video to YouTube on 6 November 2014, wanting to make the video available to his family, but had no idea it would become popular online. The video was viewed over 200,000 times in its first 48 hours online, and more than doubled the next day, and less than a week later it had over 900,000 total views, making it a viral video, with the responses becoming a global phenomenon. (Full article...) -
"Planet of the Dead" is the first of four special episodes of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who broadcast between mid-2009 and early 2010. It was simultaneously broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 11 April 2009. The specials served as lead actor David Tennant's final stories as the Tenth Doctor. He is joined in the episode by actress Michelle Ryan, who plays Lady Christina de Souza, a one-off companion to the Doctor. The episode was written by Russell T Davies and Gareth Roberts, the first co-writing credit since the show's revival in 2005. "Planet of the Dead" serves as the 200th story of Doctor Who.
The episode depicts Christina fleeing the police from a museum robbery by boarding a bus that accidentally travels from London to the desert planet of San Helios, trapping her, the Doctor, and several passengers on board the damaged vehicle. After the bus driver dies trying to return to Earth, the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, headed by Captain Erisa Magambo (Noma Dumezweni) and scientific advisor Malcolm Taylor (Lee Evans), attempt to return the bus while preventing a race of metallic stingray aliens from posing a threat to Earth. At the end of the episode, one of the passengers delivers a warning to the Doctor that "he will knock four times", foreshadowing the remaining three specials. (Full article...) -
"The Big Bang" is the thirteenth and final episode of the fifth series of British science fiction television programme Doctor Who, first broadcast on 26 June 2010 on BBC One. It is the second part of the two-part series finale; the first part, "The Pandorica Opens", aired on 19 June. The episode was written by head writer and executive producer Steven Moffat and directed by Toby Haynes.
Following the end of the previous episode, alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) is trapped in a prison from which escape is impossible, the space-time vessel the TARDIS has blown up with the time-travelling archaeologist River Song (Alex Kingston) inside, and the Doctor's companion Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) has been shot and killed by an Auton replica of her fiancé Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill). As the universe is collapsing, the Doctor uses time travel to solve these problems and ultimately reboot the universe. (Full article...) -
"Father's Day" is the eighth episode of the first series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who, first broadcast on 14 May 2005 on BBC One. It was written by Paul Cornell and directed by Joe Ahearne.
In the episode, alien time traveller the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) agrees to take his companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) back to the day her father Pete (Shaun Dingwall) died in 1987. When Rose intervenes and pulls her father out of the path of a car, time is wounded and dangerous Reapers attack, threatening to erase history. Pete eventually realises that to get rid of the Reapers, he must throw himself under the car that was originally meant to kill him. (Full article...) -
"A Town Called Mercy" is the third episode of the seventh series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, transmitted on BBC One in the United Kingdom on 15 September 2012. It was written by Toby Whithouse and directed by Saul Metzstein.
The episode featured alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) and his companions Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) visiting the Wild West, where they encounter a town which is cut off from the rest of the frontier until they hand over Kahler-Jex, an alien doctor, to a cyborg called the Gunslinger. However, the Gunslinger is a product of experiments by Jex to win a civil war on his planet, and the Doctor is unsure of what is the right thing to do. (Full article...) -
Marco Polo is the fourth serial of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC TV in seven weekly parts from 22 February to 4 April 1964. It was written by John Lucarotti and directed largely by Waris Hussein; John Crockett directed the fourth episode. The story is set in Yuan-era China in the year 1289, where the Doctor (William Hartnell), his granddaughter Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), and her teachers Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) meet the Italian merchant-explorer Marco Polo (Mark Eden) and Mongolian Emperor Kublai Khan (Martin Miller).
Lucarotti—who had previously written works based on Marco Polo's adventures—was suggested to producers by Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman when the show was early in development. Throughout production, the script was rewritten to make the story more personal to Polo. Barry Newbery, the serial's designer, used several historical books for research of the old designs, taking inspiration from 1900 Korean architecture. The serial premiered with nine million viewers, and maintained audience figures throughout its seven-week run. It received generally positive responses from critics and was sold widely overseas, but was erased by the BBC in 1967; the entire serial is missing as a result. The serial received later print adaptations, and soundtrack releases using the surviving audio. (Full article...) -
Captain Jack Harkness is a fictional character played by John Barrowman in Doctor Who and its spin-off series, Torchwood. The character first appears in the 2005 Doctor Who episode "The Empty Child" and subsequently features in the remaining episodes of the first series (2005) as a companion to the series' protagonist, the Doctor. Subsequent to this, Jack became the central character in the adult-themed Torchwood, which aired from 2006 to 2011. Barrowman reprised the role for appearances in Doctor Who in its third, fourth, and twelfth series, as well as specials "The End of Time", and "Revolution of the Daleks".
In contrast to The Doctor, Jack is more of a conventional action hero, as well as outwardly flirtatious and capable of acts which The Doctor would view as less than noble. In the programme's narrative, Jack begins as a time traveller and con man from the 51st century, who comes to travel with the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and his companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper). As a consequence of his death and resurrection in the Series 1 finale, "The Parting of the Ways", Jack becomes immortal and is stranded on 19th-century Earth. There he becomes a member of Torchwood, a British organization dedicated to combating alien threats. He spends over a century waiting to reunite with the Doctor, over which time he becomes the leader of the Torchwood branch in Cardiff. He later reunites with the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) and Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) for further stints on Doctor Who. Aspects of the character's backstory—both prior to meeting the Doctor, and during his many decades living on Earth—are gradually revealed over Torchwood (and to a lesser extent, Doctor Who) through the use of flashback scenes and expository dialogue. (Full article...) -
The Chase is the eighth serial of the second season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Written by Terry Nation and directed by Richard Martin, the serial was broadcast on BBC in six weekly parts from 22 May to 26 June 1965. Set in multiple time periods on several different planets, including Aridius, Earth, and Mechanus, the serial features the Dalek race travelling through time while pursuing the TARDIS and its occupants—the First Doctor (William Hartnell) and his companions Ian Chesterton (William Russell), Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), and Vicki (Maureen O'Brien)—to kill them and seize the TARDIS for themselves. The Doctor and companions encounter several characters, including monsters Dracula (Malcolm Rogers) and Frankenstein's monster (John Maxim), human astronaut Steven Taylor (Peter Purves), and an android replica of the Doctor (Edmund Warwick).
Nation was commissioned to write the serial by story editor Dennis Spooner following the success of the Daleks in The Daleks (1963–1964) and its sequel The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964); Martin was also chosen to direct based on his work on these serials. The Chase was the final work on Doctor Who by Martin and Spooner. The story was allocated a larger budget than normal, resulting in minimal budget for the preceding and following stories. A substantial part of the budget was allocated to the construction of the Mechonoids; they were given a press launch, and their merchandising rights were offered to manufacturers. The production crew coordinated with the Beatles's manager Brian Epstein to feature a clip of the band in the first episode of The Chase. Dudley Simpson composed the serial's incidental score. (Full article...) -
City of Death is the second serial of the seventeenth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor. It was produced by the BBC and first broadcast in four weekly parts between 29 September 1979 and 20 October 1979 on BBC1. The serial was written by "David Agnew" – a pseudonym for the combined work of David Fisher, Douglas Adams, and Graham Williams – and directed by Michael Hayes.
City of Death features the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and his companion Romana (Lalla Ward). Set primarily in present day Paris, the plot concerns a scheme by Count Scarlioni (Julian Glover), in reality an alien called Scaroth, to steal the Mona Lisa to finance experiments in time travel in the hope of averting the accident that killed the remainder of his race four hundred million years previously, which began the existence of life on the planet as well. (Full article...) -
The twelfth series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who premiered on 1 January 2020 and aired until 1 March 2020. It is the second series to be led by Chris Chibnall as head writer and executive producer, alongside executive producer Matt Strevens, the twelfth to air after the programme's revival in 2005, and the thirty-eighth season overall. The twelfth series was broadcast on Sundays, except for the premiere episode, continuing the trend from the eleventh series. Prior to the eleventh series, regular episodes of the revived era were commonly broadcast on Saturdays. The series was followed by the 2021 New Year's Day special, "Revolution of the Daleks".
Jodie Whittaker returns for her second series as the Thirteenth Doctor, an incarnation of the Doctor, an alien Time Lord who travels through time and space in her TARDIS, which appears from the outside to be an old fashioned British police box. It also stars Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole and Mandip Gill as the Doctor's travelling companions, playing Graham O'Brien, Ryan Sinclair and Yasmin Khan, respectively. The series follows the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions, who meet a new incarnation of the Master, the destruction of Gallifrey, the return of Jack Harkness, the appearance of an unknown incarnation of the Doctor, the Cybermen, and the secret of the "Timeless Child". (Full article...)
Selected story
The Celestial Toymaker is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from April 2 to April 23, 1966.
The First Doctor and his companions arrive in a strange domain presided over by the Celestial Toymaker — an enigmatic, immortal entity who forces them to play a series of games, failure at which will render them his playthings. The Doctor has to solve the Trilogic game while Steven and Dodo are faced with defeating a succession of apparently child-like but potentially lethal animated toys.
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Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that working broadcast journalists were used as extras for the portions of the Doctor Who episode "73 Yards" that were filmed at the BBC Cymru Wales New Broadcasting House?
- ... that three-quarters of Doctor Who's longest story are missing?
- ... that the Doctor Who episode "The Devil's Chord" references the events of an episode that aired more than sixty years before?
- ... that "Mission to the Unknown" is the only Doctor Who serial not to feature the Doctor at all?
- ... that the Doctor Who serial The Chase was to feature the Beatles dressed as old men, performing as part of a fictional 50th-anniversary concert, but the idea was rejected by their manager?
- ... that the fifteen bags of seaweed used as set dressing for the Doctor Who serial The Web Planet emanated an overpowering vegetable smell under the hot studio lights?
Selected quote
| “ | There's something that doesn't make sense. Let's go and poke it with a stick. | ” |
| — Eleventh Doctor, Amy's Choice | ||
Events
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 29 August 2022 | Another SMTV Live crossover episode |
| 1 January 2022 | 2022 specials |
| December 2021 | Big Finish audio play The Year of Martha Jones [1] |
| February 2022 | Second volume of the Big Finish audio play The Lone Centurion [2] |
| May 2022 | Series 2 of the audio play Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures |
More did you know?
- ... that for his role in the Doctor Who serial The Aztecs, actor John Ringham was told to "make all the children in the country hate you"?
- ... that the budget for the Doctor Who serial The Daleks allowed for only four Daleks (one pictured) to be made?
- ... that actress Carole Ann Ford described her character in the Doctor Who serial The Keys of Marinus as "pathetic"?
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