Dr Who

by Simon Matthews, Oct 2002

For anyone who has never seen it, Dr Who is absolutely fantastic. Even if you haven't seen it, you probably know that Dr Who is about this guy called the Doctor travelling around through time and space in his TARDIS fighting evil (sometimes even evil gods!). In this endeavour he is helped by various companions and by the fact that his people, the Time Lords, are a couple of billion years more advanced than any other race in the universe. You probably also know the names of some of the bad guys: Daleks, Cybermen etc.

Plot

The show lasted for some twenty-six years with the help of a very useful mechanic called regeneration, meaning that if the Doctor died he got an new body, i.e. when one actor got bored and decided to quit it allowed another to take his place with only minor difficulties. It was helped along by regularly changing the Doctor's companions and by being the best sci-fi series ever. It started in 1963 in black and white and ran almost non-stop until 1989, first being made in colour in 1970.

Obviously Dr Who had to compete with big budget American shows such as Star Trek. It being made by the BBC, it consequently had an effects budget that ran to about five pounds for each story. However it did have many things going for it, not the least of which were; a) a cool theme tune, b) some of the best model work that you will ever see, c) good supporting actors and d) brilliant script writers such as Terry nation (the guy who invented the Daleks) and Douglas Adams (yes, the Douglas Adams, the one responsible for the Hitch Hikers Guide).

From its 26-year run there are some stories that are particularly memorable, notably "The Daleks", which had, at the time, one of the scariest television moments, "The Invasion", which, in my opinion, is the best ever - Cybermen in the sewers of London and "Genesis of the Daleks", the other contender for best ever and it sees the introduction of Davros as well as Tom Baker's famous morality bit - does he have the right to destroy the Daleks?

For other reasons "The Time Monster" and "The Invasion of the Dinosaurs" are also memorable; the former for having a switch marked "Extreme Emergency", and the latter for having plastic dinosaurs roaming London alongside some very dodgy effects.

In its history, Dr Who has had a few continuity errors, e.g. in one episode claiming to have been responsible for something and then a regeneration or so later he goes and does it, or having many causes for the dinosaurs' extinction, or simply saying contradictory things throughout at different times. One story in particular caused many problems.

The Doctors

Obviously you'll need to know who the main people in Dr Who are, however, as regards the numbering of the Doctors, anyone who mentions "The Brain of Morbius" will be slapped.

1) Played by William Hartnell, he was grandfatherly and irascible, and also fairly childish at times. Regenerated after having faced the Cybermen for the first time.

2) Patrick Troughton came next and his doctor was more of a clown, although was often more light-hearted and friendly than silly. He was forced to regenerate by his own people and was exiled to Earth.

3) The third Doctor was portrayed by Jon Pertwee. Very fond of techno-babble ("Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!") and his sonic screwdriver, he tended to be a technical whiz and often patronising to his companions. Left in 1974 after saving Earth from an invasion by giant spiders.

4) Tom Baker came next with bulging eyes, floppy hat, big coat and a ridiculously long multi-coloured scarf. Absolutely fantastic and always ready to offer anyone a jelly baby! Brought a great deal of humour to the show as well as some great acting and fantastic stories (his reign coincided with Douglas Adams' appointment as script writer/editor). His swansong in "Logopolis" brought tears to the eyes of many Dr Who fans.

5) The fifth was Peter Davison whose Doctor was cricket mad. The only Doctor careless enough to lose a companion (i.e. have one die rather than leave him for random reasons such as getting married) he ended with "The Caves of Androzani", which was the story with the lowest survival rate (approximately two people out of an implied battalion of troops plus random extras).

6) Colin Baker was No. six, and is Tom Baker's brother. He had actually appeared in the show before as the head of the Time Lords' Chancellery Guard in the story "Arc of Infinity". He sported a huge multicolour, predominantly red coat, yellow trousers, green shoes and orange spats. With a bit of a temper he was not the most likeable of the Doctors. His last actual story was "Trial of a Time Lord" but he was shown to regenerate in the next, "Time and the Rani", although he did not actually appear in this, rather it was Sylvester McCoy wearing a wig.

7) Sylvester McCoy was the last to play the role in the television series. Wearing an elegant cream/beige outfit he was the most cunning of the Doctors, although by this time the series had become a bit of an action show but with many classic moments. We leave the series with the story "Survival" which ends with the Doctor and his companion Ace walking off through a field.

There have also been films of Dr who, in the 1960's the Doctor was played by Peter Cushing, and in the 90's Paul McGann. There was also a Comic Relief special, which initially starred Rowan Atkinson, but later had many regenerations including Hugh Grant.

There have been over 30 companions, including Brigadier Leftbridge-Stewart, head of Dr Who's private army, UNIT and Jo Grant, played by Katy Manning, who, in an attempt to throw off her Dr Who image, famously posed naked with a Dalek. Also there was Adric who was the only one to die, Romana, a Time Lord (or rather Lady) and K9, the Doctor's robotic dog.

The bad guys have ranged from giant ants to literally ultimate evil (on at least three occasions he had to fight evil gods/beings of pure evil). Amoung the most notable are the Daleks, evil creatures inside armoured travel machines who run around chanting "Exterminate" and were created by Davros, a wheelchair bound megalomaniac. Also the Cybermen, fairly obviously cybernetic men/humanoids, and the Sontarans, troll-like genetically engineered creatures from a high-G world.

Basically Dr Who is a lot of fun so long as you don't mind bubble-wrap and green paint put to imaginative use.

If you want to know more you could do worse than go to the BBC's official website.

The library has lots of Dr Who on video for loan as well as several books and audio books. Search the library database for a full list.

Above pictures are from Dr Who Image Archive.

Links

 Official Dr Who

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-10-23

Contents include - Official Site, Videos, History, Music, Bulletin Board/forum, Links, Quiz or competition, Images, Synopses, Reviews, People, News

Subjects include - Dr Who

A brilliant official site. This page is what you expect from the bbc, it's comprehensive, detailed and nicely presented. It's got clips, interviews, screensavers a new online drama... what more do you want.
It's a bbc site. Well laid out and structured. It's not flashy and maybe a little cheesy, but it fits the subject matter really well.

Some decent info there. One thing in particular - it includes "Curse of the Fatal Death" (Red Nose day thing) in RealPlayer format.

 This Planet Earth

Link submitted by John Kirk on 2002-10-23

Contents include - Shop

Subjects include - Dr Who

Buy your own Dalek! If you have
Slightly annoying thing where they block you from right-clicking on pages, but other than that pretty well laid out site.

 Big Finish

Link submitted by John Kirk on 2002-10-23

Contents include -

Subjects include - Science Fiction and Fantasy, TV Show, Dr Who

They sell audio CDs with new stories, with the voices of the original cast (e.g. Doctors and companions).

As I mentioned, they mainly sell audio CDs. However, they are now releasing a DVD (interview with Paul McGann), which has been reviewed here.

 The Doctor Who Appreciation Society

Link submitted by John Kirk on 2002-10-23

Contents include -

Subjects include - Science Fiction and Fantasy, TV Show, Dr Who

Fan club.

 fanfiction.net

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-07-28

Contents include - Fanfiction, Bulletin Board/forum

Subjects include - X-Files, Gerry Anderson , X-Men, Star Wars, Angel, Farscape, Babylon 5, Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Pratchett, Books, Comics, Movie Site, Star Trek - General, Stargate SG1, TV Show, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Enterprise, Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Dark Angel, Sliders, Highlander, Charmed, Blake's 7, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Red Dwarf, Star Trek: TNG, Dr Who, Firefly

If you want fanfiction, go here. This site is absolutely immense and beautifully layed out. I recon there's about 210 shows and 15,000 stories in the tv section alone. This site has many nice features - Categorised - sorted into large categories, like tv, comics, movies. Then sorted into smaller sections by tv show. Updated regularly - Updates appear every few hours, depending on how many authors are writing for a particular section. Author searches - each author has their own page, giving a full list of their fic's, links to their homepage, their favorite authors, whatever they wanna put there really. Discussion forums - if you are an author yourself, there's plenty of help available. Ratings - each fic has a summary, rating, word count and record of last update. You can even change the site colour scheme! How much more do you want?!
Brilliant. Fat loading and simple. You can even change the colour scheme if you want.

 Dr Who Image Archive

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-10-23

Contents include - Information, Images

Subjects include - Dr Who

A huge archive of photos and artwork. A great selection of images from the whole Dr Who series. You name it they've got a picture of it. They've also got pertinent information on actors, characters and episodes.
Nicely laid out, the images seem to be pretty efficiently thumbnailed or described with download sizes.

 Radio command Dalek

Link submitted by John Kirk on 2002-11-03

Contents include - Shop

Subjects include - Dr Who

12" high daleks for sale - 70 quid each.

 The Doctors -Thirty Years of Time Travel and Beyond

Link submitted by John Kirk on 2002-12-02

Contents include - Videos, Reviews

Subjects include - Dr Who

Review of a DVD - unofficial Dr Who documentary. I don't think I'll buy it, but I'd be interested to watch it.

 Doctor Who Reference Guide

Link submitted by John Kirk on 2003-09-27

Contents include - Synopses, Information

Subjects include - Dr Who

A very thorough guide, which ties together a timeline of all the Dr Who stories (episodes, comics, novels).

 Outpost Gallifrey

Link submitted by John Kirk on 2003-09-27

Contents include - Information, Bulletin Board/forum

Subjects include - Dr Who

Very frequent updates, gathering info from various sources.

 The Dalek builder's workshop manual

Link submitted by Cristina on 2006-01-24

Contents include - Images, Information

Subjects include - Science Fiction and Fantasy, TV Show, Dr Who

Workshop manual on how to build a Dalek. Including plans, materials, tips... everything you'll need to build a life-size (or a scaled) Dalek!
Actual manual is a pdf file

 Build your own tiny Dalek army

Link submitted by Cristina on 2006-01-24

Contents include - Humour

Subjects include - Science Fiction and Fantasy, TV Show, Dr Who

Build your own paper Dalek army!
3 pages of instructructions