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Doctor Who

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                                  Doctor Who
                        Current Doctor Who series logo
         Genre       Science fiction, drama
    Picture format   405-line (360i) black & white (1963–1967)
                     625-line (576i) black & white (1968–1969)
                     625-line (576i) colour (1970–1989)
                     525-line (480i) colour telecine (1996)
                     720x576 anamorphic 16:9 (2005–present)
     Running time    25 mins (1963–1984, 1986–1989)
                     45 mins (1985, 2005–present)
                     various other lengths
      Creator(s)     Sydney Newman
                     C. E. Webber
                     Donald Wilson
       Starring      Various, currently David Tennant
     Opening theme   Doctor Who theme music
     Ending theme    Doctor Who theme music
   Country of origin Flag of United Kingdom  United Kingdom
   Original channel  BBC One
     Original run    November 23, 1963– December 6, 1989 (original series)
                     May 12, 1996 (television movie)
                     March 26, 2005 – present (current series)
    No. of episodes  723 (as of 8 July 2006) ( List of episodes)
                                 IMDb profile
                                TV.com summary

   Doctor Who is a long-running British science fiction television
   programme (and 1996 television movie) produced by the BBC about a
   mysterious time-travelling adventurer known as " The Doctor", who
   explores time and space with his companions, fighting evil.

   The programme is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the
   longest-running science fiction television series in the world and is
   also a significant part of British popular culture. It has been
   recognised for its imaginative stories, creative low-budget special
   effects during its original run and pioneering use of electronic music
   (originally produced by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop). In Britain and
   elsewhere, the show has become a cult television favourite on a par
   with Star Trek and has influenced generations of British television
   professionals, many of whom grew up watching the series. It has
   received recognition from critics and the public as one of the finest
   British television programmes, including a BAFTA Award for Best Drama
   Series in 2006.

   The programme originally ran from 1963 to 1989. A television movie was
   made in 1996, and the programme was successfully relaunched in 2005,
   produced in-house by BBC Wales. Some development money for the new
   series is contributed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC),
   which is credited as a co-producer in overseas markets, although they
   do not have creative input into the series.

   A Christmas special, The Runaway Bride, is scheduled to air in December
   2006. A third series, starring David Tennant as the Doctor and Freema
   Agyeman as his companion Martha Jones, will follow in 2007 on BBC One.

History

   Doctor Who first appeared on BBC television at 5:15 p.m. ( GMT) on
   November 23, 1963. The programme was born out of discussions and plans
   that had been going on for a year. The Head of Drama, Sydney Newman,
   was mainly responsible for developing it, with contributions by the
   Head of the Script Department (later Head of Serials), Donald Wilson,
   staff writer C. E. 'Bunny' Webber, writer Anthony Coburn, story editor
   David Whitaker and initial producer, Verity Lambert. The series'
   distinctive, haunting title theme was composed by Ron Grainer and
   realised by Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

   The BBC drama department's Serials division produced the programme for
   twenty-six seasons, broadcast on BBC One. Falling viewing numbers, a
   decline in the public perception of the show and a less prominent
   transmission slot saw production suspended in 1989 by Jonathan Powell,
   Controller of BBC One. Although it was for all intents and purposes
   cancelled (series co-star Sophie Aldred said in the documentary Doctor
   Who: More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS that she was told it was
   cancelled), the BBC maintained the series was merely "on hiatus" and
   insisted the show would return.

   While in-house production had ceased, the BBC was hopeful of finding an
   independent production company to re-launch the show. Philip Segal, a
   British expatriate who worked for Columbia Pictures' television arm in
   the United States, approached the BBC about such a venture. Segal's
   negotiations eventually led to a television movie. The movie was
   broadcast on the Fox Network in 1996 as a co-production between Fox,
   Universal Pictures, the BBC, and BBC Worldwide. However, although the
   film was successful in the UK (with 9.1 million viewers), it was less
   so in the United States (possibly due to poor scheduling) and did not
   lead to a series.

   Although licensed media such as novels and audio plays provided new
   stories, the programme remained dormant until 2003. In September of
   that year, BBC Television announced the production of a new in-house
   series after several years of unsuccessful attempts by BBC Worldwide to
   find backing for a feature film version. The new incarnation of the
   series is executive-produced by writer Russell T. Davies and BBC Wales
   Head of Drama/ BBC Television Controller of Drama Commissioning Julie
   Gardner.

   The new programme debuted with the episode Rose on BBC One on March 26,
   2005 and the show has since been sold to many other countries (see
   Viewership). The programme debuted on the American Sci-Fi Channel on
   March 17, 2006, one year after the Canadian and UK showings. The BBC
   subsequently commissioned two more series and Christmas specials.
   Series 2 has finished its run in the UK and will be followed by The
   Runaway Bride in December. Series 2 began airing in the US on the
   Sci-Fi Channel on September 29, 2006, followed by the CBC on October 9.

Format

   Doctor Who originally ran for 26 seasons on BBC1, from November 23,
   1963 until December 6, 1989. During the original run, each weekly
   episode formed part of a story (or " serial") — usually of four to six
   parts in earlier years and three to four in later years. Three notable
   exceptions were the epic The Daleks' Master Plan (1965–66), which aired
   in 12 episodes (plus an earlier one-episode teaser, Mission to the
   Unknown, featuring none of the regular cast); the 10-episode serial The
   War Games (1969); and The Trial of a Time Lord which ran for 14
   episodes (containing four stories often referred to by individual
   titles, and connected by framing sequences) during Season 23 (1986).

   The programme was intended to be educational and for family viewing on
   the early Saturday evening schedule. Initially, it alternated stories
   set in the past, which would teach younger audience members about
   history, with stories set either in the future or in outer space to
   teach them about science. This was also reflected in the Doctor's
   original companions, one of whom was a science teacher and another a
   history teacher.

   However, science fiction stories came to dominate the programme and the
   "historicals", which were not popular with the production team, were
   dropped after The Highlanders (1967). While the show continued to use
   historical settings, they were generally used as a backdrop for science
   fiction tales, with one exception: Black Orchid (1982) set in 1920s
   Britain.

   The early stories were more serial-like in nature, with the narrative
   of one story flowing into the next, and each episode having its own
   title, although produced as distinct stories with their own production
   codes. Following The Gunfighters (1966), however, each serial was given
   its own title, with the individual parts simply being assigned episode
   numbers. What to name these earlier stories is often a subject of fan
   debate.

   Writers during the original run included Terry Nation, Henry Lincoln,
   Douglas Adams, Robert Holmes, Terrance Dicks, Dennis Spooner, Eric
   Saward, Malcolm Hulke, Christopher H. Bidmead, Stephen Gallagher, Brian
   Hayles, Chris Boucher, Marc Platt and Ben Aaronovitch.

   The serial format changed for the 2005 revival, with each series
   consisting of thirteen 45-minute, self-contained episodes (60 minutes
   with adverts on commercial channels overseas). This includes three
   two-parters and a loose story arc per season whose elements are brought
   together in the season finale.

   Over 700 Doctor Who instalments have been televised since 1963, ranging
   from 25-minute episodes (the most common format), to 45-minute episodes
   for a single season in 1985, to two feature-length productions (1983's
   The Five Doctors and the 1996 television movie). Doctor Who, having
   already completed 723 episodes, will surpass the number of individual
   instalments of the Star Trek franchise (726 episodes over five
   programmes) during the 2007 series.

   The current series is filmed in 576i25 DigiBeta widescreen format and
   then filmised to give a 25p image in post-production using a Snell and
   Wilcox Alchemist Platinum.

Public consciousness

   The programme rapidly became a national institution, the subject of
   countless jokes, newspaper mentions and other popular culture
   references. Many renowned actors asked for or were offered and accepted
   guest starring roles in various stories.

   However, with popularity came controversy over the show's suitability
   for children. The moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse made a series of
   complaints to the BBC in the 1970s over its sometimes frightening or
   gory content. Ironically, her actions made the programme even more
   popular, especially with children. John Nathan-Turner, who produced the
   series during the 1980s, was heard to say that he looked forward to
   Whitehouse's comments, as the show's ratings would increase soon after
   she had made them. During the 1970s, the Radio Times, the BBC's
   listings magazine, announced that a child's mother said the theme music
   terrified her son. The Radio Times was apologetic, but the theme music
   remained.

   There were more complaints about the programme's content than its
   music. During Jon Pertwee's second season as the Doctor, in the serial
   Terror of the Autons (1971), images of murderous plastic dolls,
   daffodils killing unsuspecting victims and blank-featured android
   policemen marked the apex of the show's ability to frighten children.
   Other notable moments in that decade included the Doctor apparently
   being drowned by Chancellor Goth in The Deadly Assassin (1976), and the
   allegedly negative portrayal of Chinese people in The Talons of
   Weng-Chiang (1977).

   It has been said that watching Doctor Who from a position of safety "
   behind the sofa" (as the Doctor Who exhibition at the Museum of the
   Moving Image in London was titled) and peering cautiously out to see if
   the frightening part was over is one of the great shared experiences of
   British childhood. The phrase has become a common phrase in association
   with the programme and occasionally elsewhere.

The Doctor

   The character of the Doctor was initially shrouded in mystery. All that
   was known about him in the programme's early days was that he was an
   eccentric alien traveller of great intelligence who battled injustice
   while exploring time and space in an unreliable old time machine called
   the TARDIS. The TARDIS is much larger on the inside than on the outside
   and, due to a chronic malfunction, stuck in the shape of a 1930s-style
   British police box.

   However, not only did the initially irascible and slightly sinister
   Doctor quickly mellow into a more compassionate figure, it was
   eventually revealed that he had been "on the run" from his own people,
   the Time Lords of the planet Gallifrey.

   Like all Time Lords, the Doctor has the ability to " regenerate" his
   body when near death, allowing for the convenient recasting of the lead
   actor. While a Time Lord can regenerate twelve times, the Doctor has
   gone through this process and its resulting after-effects on nine
   occasions, with each of his incarnations having his own quirks and
   abilities:
    1. First Doctor, played by William Hartnell (1963–1966)
    2. Second Doctor, played by Patrick Troughton (1966–1969)
    3. Third Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee (1970–1974)
    4. Fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker (1974–1981)
    5. Fifth Doctor, played by Peter Davison (1981–1984)
    6. Sixth Doctor, played by Colin Baker (1984–1986)
    7. Seventh Doctor, played by Sylvester McCoy (1987–1989, 1996)
    8. Eighth Doctor, played by Paul McGann (1996)
    9. Ninth Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston (2005)
   10. Tenth Doctor, played by David Tennant (2005–present)

   Other actors have also played the Doctor, though rarely more than once
   (see the list of actors who have played the Doctor for details).

   Despite these shifts in personality, the Doctor has always remained an
   intensely curious and highly moral adventurer, who would rather solve
   problems with his wits than through violence.

   Throughout the programme's long history certain controversial
   revelations about the Doctor have been made. For example, in The Brain
   of Morbius (1976), it was hinted that the First Doctor may not have
   been the Doctor's first incarnation; throughout the Seventh Doctor's
   era it was hinted that the Doctor was more than just an ordinary Time
   Lord, and in the 1996 television movie it was revealed that the Doctor
   is actually half-human on his mother's side. By the time of the 2005
   series, the Ninth Doctor had become the last known surviving Time Lord.

Companions

   The Doctor almost always shares his adventures with up to three
   companions (the only exception in the original series being The Deadly
   Assassin, in which he travels alone). The idea of the companion is to
   provide a surrogate with whom the audience can identify and to further
   the story by asking questions and getting into trouble. The Doctor
   regularly gains new companions and loses old ones; sometimes they
   return home or find new causes — or loves — on worlds they have
   visited. Some have even died during the course of the series.

   There are some disputes as to the definition of a companion, but fans
   mostly agree that at least thirty (including K-9 Marks I and II) meet
   the criteria for "companion" status in the television series, with
   others being established in the various spin-offs. For further details,
   see the notes in List of Doctor Who supporting characters.

   "Companion" is more generally used as a technical term in fandom; the
   press normally refers to them either as companions or assistants. The
   series does not apply the term consistently to those travelling with
   the Doctor, with him just as often introducing them simply as his
   friends. In the 2005 series, the Ninth Doctor states he "employed Rose
   [Tyler] as his companion" and then was promptly asked if it was sexual.

   Despite the fact that the majority of the Doctor's companions are
   young, attractive females, the production team for the 1963–1989 series
   maintained a longstanding taboo against any overt romantic involvement
   in the TARDIS: for example, Peter Davison, as the Fifth Doctor, was not
   allowed to put his arm around either Sarah Sutton ( Nyssa) or Janet
   Fielding ( Tegan). However, that has not prevented fans from
   speculating about possible romantic involvements, most notably between
   the Fourth Doctor and the Time Lady Romana (whose actors, Tom Baker and
   Lalla Ward, shared a romance and brief marriage). The taboo was
   controversially broken in the 1996 television movie when the Eighth
   Doctor was shown kissing companion Grace Holloway. The 2005 series
   played with this idea by having various characters think that the Ninth
   Doctor and Rose (played by Billie Piper) were a couple, which they
   vehemently denied (see also "The Doctor and romance").

   Previous companions have reappeared in the series, usually for
   anniversary specials. One former companion, Sarah Jane Smith (played by
   Elisabeth Sladen), together with the robotic dog K-9, appeared in an
   episode of the 2006 series more than twenty years after their last
   appearances in the 20th Anniversary story The Five Doctors (1983).

   Freema Agyeman will play Martha Jones, the Doctor's next companion
   after Rose. Apart from her name, the casting of family members and the
   information that she will be a medical student, no details are
   currently available about her character. She will not appear in the
   2006 Christmas special.

Adversaries

   When Sydney Newman commissioned the series, he specifically did not
   want to perpetuate the cliché of the "bug-eyed monster" of science
   fiction. However, monsters were a staple of Doctor Who almost from the
   beginning and were popular with audiences.

   Notable adversaries of the Doctor include the Autons, the Cybermen, the
   Sontarans, the Sea Devils, the Ice Warriors, the Yeti, the Silurians,
   the Slitheen and the Master, a rival Time Lord with a thirst for
   universal conquest. Of all the monsters and villains, the ones that
   most secured the series' place in the public's imagination were the
   Daleks. The Daleks are lethal mutants in tank-like mechanical armour
   from the planet Skaro. Their chief role in the great scheme of things,
   as they frequently remark in their instantly recognisable metallic
   voices, is to "Exterminate!" Davros, the Daleks' creator, also became a
   recurring villain after he was introduced.

   The Daleks were created by writer Terry Nation (who intended them as an
   allegory of the Nazis) and BBC designer Raymond Cusick. The Daleks'
   debut in the programme's second serial, The Daleks (1963–64), caused a
   tremendous reaction in the viewing figures and the public, putting
   Doctor Who on the cultural map. A Dalek even appeared on a postage
   stamp celebrating British popular culture in 1999, photographed by Lord
   Snowdon.

Music

   The original 1963 arrangement of the Doctor Who theme, as composed by
   Ron Grainer and realised by Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic
   Workshop, is widely regarded as a significant and innovative piece of
   electronic music, working from tape loops of an individually struck
   piano string and individual test oscillators and filters. The
   Derbyshire arrangement served, with minor edits, as the theme tune up
   to the end of Season 17 (1979–80).

   A more modern and dynamic arrangement was composed by Peter Howell for
   Season 18 (1980), which was in turn replaced by Dominic Glynn's
   arrangement for Season 23's The Trial of a Time Lord (1986). Keff
   McCulloch provided the new arrangement for the Seventh Doctor's era
   which lasted from Season 24 (1987) until the series' suspension in
   1989. For the new series in 2005, Murray Gold provided a new
   arrangement which featured samples from the 1963 original with further
   elements added.

   In the early 1970s, Jon Pertwee, who had played the Third Doctor,
   recorded a version of the Doctor Who Theme with spoken lyrics, titled,
   "Who Is The Doctor". In 1988 the band The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu
   (later known as The KLF) released the single " Doctorin' the Tardis"
   under the name The Timelords, which reached No. 1 in the UK. Others who
   have covered or reinterpreted the theme include Orbital, the Australian
   string ensemble Fourplay, The Pogues, Pink Floyd and the comedians Bill
   Bailey and Mitch Benn, and satirised on The Chaser's War on Everything.
   The theme tune has also appeared on many compilation CDs and has made
   its way into mobile phone ring tones. Fans have also produced and
   distributed their own remixes of the theme.

   A soundtrack CD of Gold's music for the new series is currently in
   production. A release date has been set for 4th December.

Viewership

   Doctor Who has always appeared on the BBC's mainstream BBC One channel,
   drawing audiences of many millions of viewers. It was most popular in
   the late 1970s, with audiences frequently as high as 12 million. During
   the ITV network strike of 1979, viewership peaked at 16 million. No
   first-run episode of Doctor Who has ever drawn fewer than three million
   viewers on BBC One, although its late 1980s performance of three to
   five million viewers was seen as poor at the time, and was according to
   the BBC Board of Control, a leading cause of the programme's 1989
   suspension. Some fans considered this disingenuous, since the programme
   was scheduled against the soap opera Coronation Street, the most
   popular show at the time. The BBC One broadcast of Rose, the first
   episode of the 2005 revival, drew an average audience of 10.81 million,
   third highest for BBC One that week and seventh across all channels.
   The 2005 series had an average audience of 7.95 million viewers, and
   the 2006 series achieved an average audience of about 7.71 million in
   the context of declining year-to-year viewership for all television
   channels. The episode Rise of the Cybermen managed sixth place in the
   charts across the week with 9.22 million viewers. The all-time highest
   chart placing for an episode of Doctor Who is fifth, for episode two of
   The Ark in Space in 1975.

   The programme also gained a strong following in Australia, possibly as
   a result of the close connection between the BBC and Australia's major
   public broadcaster, the ABC. The latest repeat of the classic series in
   Australia ran from September 2003 to February 2006, and the revived
   series has also been shown on ABC and UK.TV.

   The series also has a fan base in the United States, where it was shown
   in syndication from the 1970s to the 1990s, particularly on PBS
   stations (see Doctor Who in America). New Zealand was the first country
   outside the UK to screen Doctor Who beginning in September 1964, and
   continued to screen the series for many years, including the new series
   from 2005. In Canada, the series debuted in January 1965, but the CBC
   only aired the first twenty-six episodes. TVOntario picked up the show
   in the 1976 beginning with Inferno and aired it through to Season 24 in
   1991. TVO's schedule ran several years behind the BBC's throughout this
   period. In the 1970s TVO airings were bookended by a host who would
   introduce the episode and then, after the episode concluded, try to
   place it in an educational context in keeping with TVO's status as an
   educational channel. The airing of The Talons of Weng Chiang resulted
   in controversy for TVOntario as a result of accusations that the story
   was racist. Consequently the story was not rebroadcast. CBC began
   showing the series again in 2005.

   Only four episodes have ever had their premiere showings on channels
   other than BBC One. The 1983 twentieth anniversary special The Five
   Doctors had its debut on November 23 (the actual date of the
   anniversary) on the Chicago PBS station WTTW in the United States and
   various other PBS members two days prior to its BBC One broadcast. The
   1988 story Silver Nemesis was broadcast with all three episodes edited
   together in compilation form on TVNZ in New Zealand in November, after
   the first episode had been shown in the UK but before the final two
   instalments had aired there. Finally, the 1996 television movie
   premiered on May 12 on CITV in Edmonton, Canada, fifteen days before
   the BBC One showing, and two days before it aired on Fox in the USA.

   A wide selection of serials is available from BBC Video on VHS and DVD,
   on sale in the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States. Every
   fully extant serial has been released on VHS, and BBC Worldwide
   continues to regularly release serials on DVD. One disc of episodes
   from the 2005 series is available on UMD, with more releases planned.

   As of October 2006, the new series has been, or is currently, broadcast
   weekly in Australia ( ABC), Belgium ( één), Brazil ( People+Arts),
   Canada (in English on CBC and in French on Ztélé), Denmark ( Danmarks
   Radio), Finland ( TV2), France ( France 4), Hong Kong ( ATV World),
   Hungary ( RTL Klub-owned COOL TV), Israel ( Yes Weekend), Italy (
   Jimmy), Japan ( BS-2, a channel of NHK), Malaysia ( Astro Network), the
   Netherlands ( NED 3), New Zealand ( Prime TV), Norway ( NRK), Poland (
   TVP 1), Russia ( STS TV), Spain and Latin America ( People+Arts), South
   Korea ( KBS), the United States ( Sci Fi Channel), Greece ( Skai TV),
   Style UK (part of Showtime Arabia) for the Middle East, North Africa,
   and the Levant territories. The series has also been sold to, but not
   yet shown in, Germany ( Pro 7), Sweden ( SVT) and Romania ( TVR). A
   special logo has been designed for the Japanese broadcast with the
   katakana "ドクター・フー"..

   The 2005 series episodes aired in Canada a couple of weeks after their
   UK broadcast, a situation made possible by the cancellation of the
   2004-2005 National Hockey League season which left vast gaps in CBC's
   schedule. For the Canadian broadcasts, Christopher Eccleston recorded
   special video introductions for each episode (including a trivia
   question as part of a viewer contest) and excerpts from the Doctor Who
   Confidential documentary were played over the closing credits; for the
   broadcast of The Christmas Invasion on December 26, 2005, Billie Piper
   recorded a special video introduction. CBC Television began airing the
   2006 series on October 9, 2006 at 8:00 p.m. local (8:30 NT), shortly
   after that day's Canadian Football League (CFL) Thanksgiving
   doubleheader in much of the country. The first series is currently
   being rebroadcast late Tuesday nights/early Wednesday mornings at
   midnight. Old episodes of Doctor Who are shown nightly on the Canadian
   station BBC Kids.

   Series 2 is currently being broadcast on the Sci Fi Channel in the
   United States, starting with The Christmas Invasion on 29 September
   2006. Series 1 will be shown on BBC America beginning November 21,
   2006.

Fandom

   Doctor Who has amassed a large number of fans from all over the world.
   The series is a more mainstream part of popular culture in its native
   UK, where it is regarded as a family show and is shown on the main
   public service broadcasting channel, BBC One.

   The term Whovian, (similar to Trekkie for Star Trek) is used by the
   press to refer to Doctor Who fans, although the term is not often used
   by fans.

   Celebrity fans include comedians Jon Culshaw, David Walliams, Mitch
   Benn, Peter Kay, Mark Gatiss and Matt Lucas, cricketers Mike Gatting
   and Graham Gooch, actor David Hewlett, singer and actress Toyah
   Willcox, Cedric Bixler-Zavala of the Mars Volta, Simpsons creator Matt
   Groening, graphic novelist and fantasy writer Neil Gaiman, horror
   novelist Brian Keene, and science-fiction writer and critic Harlan
   Ellison.

List of episodes and serials

Missing episodes

   Between about 1967 and 1978, large amounts of older material stored in
   the BBC's video tape and film libraries were destroyed or wiped. This
   included many old episodes of Doctor Who, mostly stories featuring the
   first two Doctors — William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. Archives
   are complete from the programme's move to colour television (starting
   from Jon Pertwee's time as the Doctor), although a few Pertwee episodes
   have required substantial restoration and a handful have only been
   recovered in black and white. In all, 108 of 253 episodes produced
   during the first six years of the programme are not held in the BBC's
   archives.

   Some episodes have been returned to the BBC from the archives of other
   countries who bought copies for broadcast, or by private individuals
   who got them by various means. Early colour videotape recordings made
   off-air by fans have also been retrieved, as well as excerpts filmed
   off the television screen onto 8 mm cine film and clips that were shown
   on other programmes. Audio versions of all of the lost episodes exist
   from home viewers who made tape recordings of the show.

   In addition to these, there are photographs made by photographer John
   Cura, who was hired by the BBC to document the filming of many of their
   most popular programmes during the 1950s and 1960s, including Doctor
   Who. These have been used in fan reconstructions of the serials. These
   amateur reconstructions have been tolerated by the BBC, provided they
   are not sold for profit and are distributed as low quality VHS copies.

   One of the most sought-after lost episodes is Part Four of the last
   William Hartnell serial, The Tenth Planet (1966), which ends with the
   First Doctor transforming into the Second. The only portion of this in
   existence, barring a few poor quality silent 8 mm clips, is the few
   seconds of the regeneration scene, thanks to it having been shown on
   the children's magazine show Blue Peter. With the approval of the BBC,
   efforts are now under way to restore as many of the episodes as
   possible from the extant material. Starting in the early 1990s, the BBC
   began to release audio recordings of missing serials on cassette and
   compact disc, with linking narration provided by former series actors.
   "Official" reconstructions have also been released by the BBC on VHS,
   on MP3 CD-ROM and as a special feature on a DVD. The BBC, in
   conjunction with animation studio Cosgrove Hall has reconstructed the
   missing Episodes 1 and 4 of The Invasion (1968) in animated form, using
   remastered audio tracks and the comprehensive stage notes for the
   original filming, for the serial's DVD release in November 2006.

   In April 2006, the long running BBC children's television magazine Blue
   Peter launched a challenge to find these missing episodes with the
   promise of a full scale Dalek model.

Adaptations and other appearances

Spin-offs

   Doctor Who has appeared on stage numerous times. In the early 1970s,
   Trevor Martin played the role in Doctor Who and the Daleks in the Seven
   Keys to Doomsday which also featured former companion actress Wendy
   Padbury (Pertwee's Doctor made a cameo appearance via film). In the
   early 1990s, Jon Pertwee and Colin Baker both played the Doctor at
   different times during the run of a musical play entitled Doctor Who -
   The Ultimate Adventure. For two performances while Pertwee was ill,
   David Banks (best known for playing various Cybermen) played the
   Doctor. Other original plays have been staged as amateur productions,
   with other actors playing the Doctor, while Terry Nation wrote The
   Curse of the Daleks, a stage play mounted in the late 1960s, but
   without the Doctor.

   The Doctor has also appeared in two cinema films: Dr. Who and the
   Daleks in 1965 and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD in 1966. Both were
   essentially retellings of existing stories on the big screen, with a
   larger budget and numerous alterations to the series concept. In these
   films, Peter Cushing played a human scientist named Dr. Who, who
   travelled with his two granddaughters and other companions in a time
   machine he invented. Due to this and numerous other changes (not to
   mention the storylines that duplicated televised episodes), the movies
   are not regarded as part of the ongoing continuity of the series,
   although the Cushing version of the character would reappear in both
   comic strip and literary form, the latter attempting to reconcile the
   film continuity with that of the series.

   A pilot episode for a potential spin-off series, K-9 and Company, was
   aired in 1981 with Elisabeth Sladen reprising her role as companion
   Sarah Jane Smith and John Leeson as the voice of K-9, but was not
   picked up as a regular series.

   Doctor Who books have been published from the mid-sixties through to
   the present day. The Doctor has also appeared in many audio plays and
   in webcasts.

   Following the success of the 2005 series produced by Russell T. Davies,
   the BBC commissioned Davies to produce a 13-part spin-off series titled
   Torchwood (an anagram of "Doctor Who"), set in modern-day Britain and
   investigating alien activities and crime. The series debuted on BBC
   Three on 22 October 2006. John Barrowman reprises his role of Jack
   Harkness from the 2005 series of Doctor Who. It was shot in Summer and
   Autumn 2006. Eve Myles, who was in the 2005 Doctor Who episode The
   Unquiet Dead, also stars.

   A new K-9 children's series, K-9 Adventures, is being produced, but not
   by the BBC.

   The Sarah Jane Adventures, starring Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane
   Smith, has been developed by CBBC; a special will air in early 2007,
   with a full series to follow later in the year.

Charity episodes

   In 1993, coinciding with the series' 30th anniversary, a charity
   special entitled Dimensions in Time was produced in aid of Children in
   Need, featuring all of the surviving actors who played the Doctor and a
   number of previous companions. Not taken seriously by many, the story
   had the Rani opening a hole in time, cycling the Doctor and his
   companions through his previous incarnations and menacing them with
   monsters from the show's past. It also featured a crossover with the
   soap opera EastEnders, the action taking place in the latter's Albert
   Square location and around Greenwich, including the Cutty Sark. The
   special was one of several special 3D programmes the BBC produced at
   the time, using a 3D system that made use of the Pulfrich effect
   requiring glasses with one darkened lens; the picture would look
   perfectly normal to those viewers who watched without the glasses.

   In 1999, another special, Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death, was
   made for Red Nose Day and later released on VHS. An affectionate parody
   of the television series, it was split into four segments, mimicking
   the traditional serial format, complete with cliffhangers. (The version
   released on video was split into only two episodes.) In the story, the
   Doctor ( Rowan Atkinson) encounters both the Master ( Jonathan Pryce)
   and the Daleks. During the special the Doctor is forced to regenerate
   several times, with his subsequent incarnations played by, in order,
   Richard E. Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, and Joanna Lumley. The
   script was written by comedy writer Steven Moffat, who contributed two
   scripts to the 2005 series and one for the 2006 series.

   As noted above, on November 18, 2005, an untitled 7-minute
   "mini-episode", set in the immediate aftermath of The Parting of the
   Ways and leading directly into The Christmas Invasion, was shown as
   part of the Children in Need telethon.

Spoofs

   Doctor Who has been satirised and spoofed on many occasions by
   comedians including Spike Milligan and Lenny Henry. Doctor Who fandom
   has also been lampooned on programmes such as Saturday Night Live and
   Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

   The Doctor in his fourth incarnation (the one most Americans associate
   the Doctor with) has been represented on several episodes of The
   Simpsons, starting with the episode " Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming".

   Jon Culshaw frequently impersonates the Fourth Doctor in the BBC Dead
   Ringers series. Culshaw's "Doctor" has telephoned four of the "real"
   Doctors — Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy —
   in character as the Fourth Doctor. In the 2005 Dead Ringers Christmas
   special, broadcast shortly before The Christmas Invasion, Culshaw
   impersonated both the Fourth and Tenth Doctors, while the Second,
   Seventh and Ninth Doctors were impersonated by Mark Perry, Kevin
   Connelly and Phil Cornwell, respectively.

   Less a spoof and more of a pastiche is the character of Professor
   Gamble, a renegade from the Time Variance Authority, appeared in Marvel
   Comics' Power Man and Iron Fist #79 and Avengers Annual #22. His
   enemies include the rogue robots known as the Incinerators. Professor
   Gamble was created by Jo Duffy, Kerry Gammill, and Ricardo Villamonte.

   There have also been many references to Doctor Who in popular culture
   and other science fiction franchises, including Star Trek: The Next
   Generation (" The Neutral Zone", among others).

Merchandise

   Since its beginnings, Doctor Who has generated many hundreds of
   products related to the show, from toys and games to collectible
   picture cards and postage stamps. These include board games, card
   games, gamebooks, computer games and action figures.

   Many games have been released that feature the Daleks. See Dalek
   computer games.

   Doctor Who Pinball was a pinball machine released in the 1990s that
   featured Dalek multiball.

Awards

   Although Doctor Who was fondly regarded during its original 1963–1989
   run, it received little critical recognition at the time. In 1975,
   Season 11 of the series won a Writers' Guild of Great Britain award for
   Best Writing in a Children's Serial. In 1996, BBC television held the
   "Auntie Awards" as the culmination of their "TV60" season, celebrating
   sixty years of BBC television broadcasting, where Doctor Who was voted
   as the "Best Popular Drama" the corporation had ever produced, ahead of
   such ratings heavyweights as EastEnders and Casualty. In 2000, Doctor
   Who was ranked third in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television
   Programmes of the twentieth century, produced by the British Film
   Institute and voted on by industry professionals. In 2005, the series
   came first in a survey by SFX magazine of "The Greatest UK Science
   Fiction and Fantasy Television Series Ever". Also, in the 100 Greatest
   Kids' Shows (a Channel 4 countdown in 2001), the 1963–1989 run was
   placed at number eight.

   The revived series has received particular recognition from critics and
   the public. In 2005, at the National Television Awards (voted on by
   members of the British public), Doctor Who won "Most Popular Drama",
   Christopher Eccleston won "Most Popular Actor" and Billie Piper won
   "Most Popular Actress". The series and Piper repeated their wins at the
   2006 National Television Awards, and David Tennant won "Most Popular
   Actor". A scene from The Doctor Dances won "Golden Moment" in the BBC's
   "2005 TV Moments" awards, and Doctor Who swept all the categories in
   BBC.co.uk's online "Best of Drama" poll The programme also won the
   Broadcast Magazine Award for Best Drama. Eccleston was awarded the TV
   Quick and TV Choice award for Best Actor in 2005; in the same awards in
   2006 Tennant won Best Actor, Piper won Best Actress and Doctor Who won
   Best-Loved Drama.

   Doctor Who was nominated in the Best Drama Series category at the 2006
   Royal Television Society awards, but lost to BBC Three's medical drama
   Bodies.

   Doctor Who also received several nominations for the 2006 Broadcasting
   Press Guild Awards: the programme for Best Drama, Eccleston for Best
   Actor (David Tennant was also nominated for Secret Smile), Piper for
   Best Actress and Davies for Best Writer. However, it did not win any of
   these categories.

   Several episodes of the 2005 series of Doctor Who were nominated for
   the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Dalek,
   Father's Day and the double episode The Empty Child/ The Doctor Dances.
   At a ceremony at the Worldcon ( L.A. Con IV) in Los Angeles on 27
   August 2006, the Hugo was awarded to The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances.
   Dalek and Father's Day came in second and third places respectively.

   The British Academy Television Awards (BAFTA) nominations, released on
   March 27, 2006, revealed that Doctor Who had been shortlisted in the
   category of Best Drama Series. This is the highest-profile and most
   prestigious British television award for which the series has ever been
   nominated. Doctor Who was also nominated in several other categories in
   the BAFTA Craft Awards, including Best Writer ( Russell T. Davies),
   Best Director ( Joe Ahearne), and Break-through Talent (production
   designer Edward Thomas). However, it did not eventually win any of its
   categories at the Craft Awards.

   On Sunday May 7, 2006 the main BAFTA award winners were announced, and
   Doctor Who won both of the categories it was nominated for, the Best
   Drama Series and audience-voted Pioneer Award. Russell T. Davies also
   won the Dennis Potter Award for Outstanding Writing for Television.

   On April 22, 2006, the programme won five categories (out of fourteen
   nominations) at the lower-profile BAFTA Cymru awards, given to
   programmes made in Wales. It won Best Drama Series, Drama Director (
   James Hawes), Costume, Make-up and Photography Direction. Russell T
   Davies also won the Sian Phillips Award for Outstanding Contribution to
   Network Television.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who"
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