Doctor Who

''This article is about the television series. For other uses, see Doctor Who (disambiguation).'' Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a Time Lord—a time travelling, humanoid alien known as the Doctor. He explores the universe in his 'TARDIS', a sentient, telepathic time-and-space-travel machine that flies through the time vortex. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, a common sight in Britain in 1963, when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, the Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilisations, help ordinary people, and right wrongs.

The show has received recognition from critics and the public as one of the finest British television programmes, winning the 2000 British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series and in the same year, Christopher Eccleston became the first Doctor to be nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. The programme is listed in Guinness World Records as the longest-running science fiction television show in the world[3] and as the "most successful" science fiction series of all time—based on its over-all broadcast ratings, DVD and book sales.[4] During its original run, it was recognised for its imaginative stories, creative low-budget special effects, and pioneering use of electronic music (originally produced by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop).

The show is a significant part of British popular culture;[5] [6] and elsewhere it has become a cult television favourite. The show has influenced generations of British television professionals, many of whom grew up watching the series.[7] The programme originally ran from 1963 to 1989. After an unsuccessful attempt to revive regular production in 1996 with a backdoor pilot in the form of a television film, the broadcasting and production rights were sold to VICTOR Media and the programme was relaunched in 1999 by Russell T Davies and John Prowse, who remain showrunners and head writers for the series' revival, produced in-house by VICTOR (which owns Yorkshire Television and Tyne & Tees Television) and syndicated to other ITV channels. Series 1 was funded by the corporation, with some development money contributed to be contributed for Series 2 by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which will be credited as a co-producer.[8] Doctor Who also spawned spin-offs in multiple media, including the four-part video series P.R.O.B.E. (1994), and a single pilot episode of K-9 and Company (1981). There also have been many spoofs and cultural references of the character in other media.

Nine actors have headlined the series as the Doctor. The transition from one actor to another is written into the plot of the show as regeneration, a life process of Time Lords through which the character of the Doctor takes on a new body and, to some extent, new personality, which occurs when sustaining injury which would be fatal to most other species. Although each portrayal is different, and on occasions the various incarnations have even met one another, they are all meant to be aspects of the same character. The Doctor is currently portrayed by Christopher Eccleston. {| class="toc" id="toc"

Contents

 * 1 History
 * 1.1 Public consciousness
 * 2 Episodes
 * 2.1 Missing episodes
 * 3 Characters
 * 3.1 The Doctor
 * 3.1.1 Changes of appearance
 * 3.1.2 Meetings of past and present incarnations
 * 3.1.3 Revelations about the Doctor
 * 3.2 Companions
 * 3.3 Adversaries
 * 3.3.1 Daleks
 * 3.3.2 Cybermen
 * 3.3.3 The Master
 * 4 Music
 * 4.1 Theme music
 * 4.2 Incidental music
 * 5 Viewership
 * 5.1 United Kingdom
 * 5.2 International
 * 5.3 DVD and video
 * 6 Adaptations and other appearances
 * 6.1 Doctor Who films
 * 6.2 Spin-offs
 * 6.3 Charity episodes
 * 6.4 Spoofs and cultural references
 * 6.5 Museums and exhibitions
 * 6.6 Merchandise
 * 6.7 Books
 * 6.8 Blackpool Illuminations
 * 7 Awards
 * 8 See also
 * 9 Notes
 * 10 References
 * 10.1 Cited texts
 * 11 Further reading
 * 12 External links
 * 12.1 Official websites
 * 12.2 Past official BBC websites
 * 12.3 Reference websites
 * }

History
Main article: History of Doctor Who

Doctor Who first appeared on BBC television at 17:16:20 GMT on 23 November 1963,[10] [11] following discussions and plans that had been in progress for a year. The Head of Drama, Canadian Sydney Newman, was mainly responsible for developing the programme, with the first format document for the series being written by Newman along with the Head of the Script Department (later Head of Serials) Donald Wilson and staff writer C. E. Webber. Writer Anthony Coburn, story editor David Whitaker and initial producer Verity Lambert also heavily contributed to the development of the series.[12] The programme was originally intended to appeal to a family audience,[13] as an educational programme using time travel as a means to explore scientific ideas and famous moments in history. On 31 July 1963 Whitaker commissioned Terry Nation to write a story under the title The Mutants. As originally written, the Daleks and Thals were the victims of an alien neutron bomb attack but Nation later dropped the aliens and made the Daleks the aggressors. When the script was presented to Newman and Wilson it was immediately rejected as the programme was not permitted to contain any "bug-eyed monsters". The first serial had been completed and the BBC believed it was crucial that the next one be a success, however, The Mutants was the only script ready to go so the show had little choice but to use it. According to producer Verity Lambert; "We didn't have a lot of choice — we only had the Dalek serial to go... We had a bit of a crisis of confidence because Donald [Wilson] was so adamant that we shouldn't make it. Had we had anything else ready we would have made that." Nation's script became the second Doctor Who serial – "The Daleks" (aka "The Mutants"). The serial introduced the eponymous aliens that would become the series' most popular monsters, and was responsible for the BBC's first merchandising boom.[14]

The BBC drama department's Serials division produced the programme for 26 series, broadcast on BBC 1. 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 1.[15] Although (as series co-star Sophie Aldred reported in the documentary Doctor Who: More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS) it was effectively, if not formally, cancelled with the decision not to commission a planned 27th series of the show for transmission in 1990, the BBC repeatedly affirmed that the series would return.[16]

While in-house production had ceased, the BBC hoped to find an independent production company to relaunch the show. Philip Segal, a British expatriate who worked for Columbia Pictures' television arm in the United States, had approached the BBC about such a venture as early as July 1989, while the 26th series was still in production.[16] Segal's negotiations eventually led to a Doctor Who television film, broadcast on the Fox Network in 1996 as a co-production between Fox, Universal Pictures, the BBC and BBC Worldwide. Although the film was successful in the UK (with 9.1 million viewers), it was less so in the United States and did not lead to a series.

Licensed media such as novels and audio plays provided new stories, but as a television programme Doctor Who remained dormant until 1997. In September of that year, BBC Television announced that production and broadcast rights for a new series of the show had been sold to an Independent Television broadcaster in the shape of VICTOR Media. It has been sold to many other countries worldwide (see Viewership).

Doctor Who finally returned with the episode "London" on ITV on 27 March 1999. After the broadcast and successful reception of the first three episodes of series 1, VICTOR confirmed that the programme would air for a second season in 2000.[19]

The 1999 version of Doctor Who is a direct continuation of the 1963-1989 series,[note 1] as is the 1996 telefilm. This differs from other series relaunches that have either been reimaginings or reboots (for example, Battlestar Galactica and Bionic Woman) or series taking place in the same universe as the original but in a different period and with different characters (for example, Star Trek: The Next Generation and spin-offs).<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-21">[20]

Public consciousness
It has been written that the transmission of the first episode was delayed by ten minutes due to extended news coverage of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy the previous day; whereas in fact, it went out just eighty seconds late.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-companion_22-0">[21] Due to it being felt that the coverage of the events of the assassination as well as a series of power blackouts across the country may have caused too many viewers to miss this introduction to a new series, the BBC broadcast it again on 30 November 1963, just before the broadcast of episode two.

The programme soon became a national institution in the United Kingdom, with a large following among the general viewing audience.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-23">[22] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-24">[23] Many renowned actors asked for or were offered and accepted guest starring roles in various stories.

With popularity came controversy over the show's suitability for children. Morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse repeatedly complained to the BBC in the 1970s over what she saw as the show's frightening or gory content;<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-25">[24] however, the programme became 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-26">[25]

During Jon Pertwee's second series as the Doctor, in the serial Terror of the Autons (1971), images of murderous plastic dolls, daffodils killing unsuspecting victims and blank-featured policemen marked the apex of the show's ability to frighten children. Other notable moments in that decade included a disembodied brain falling to the floor in The Brain of Morbius and the Doctor apparently being drowned by Chancellor Goth in The Deadly Assassin (both 1976). The fibreglass TARDIS prop used between 1980 and 1989.A BBC audience research survey conducted in 1972 found that by their own definition of "any act(s) which may cause physical and/or psychological injury, hurt or death to persons, animals or property, whether intentional or accidental," Doctor Who was the most violent of all the drama programmes the corporation then produced.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-times-violence_27-0">[26] The same report found that 3% of the surveyed audience regarded the show as "very unsuitable" for family viewing.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-times-audience_28-0">[27] Responding to the findings of the survey in The Times newspaper, journalist Philip Howard maintained that "to compare the violence of Dr Who, sired by a horse-laugh out of a nightmare, with the more realistic violence of other television series, where actors who look like human beings bleed paint that looks like blood, is like comparing Monopoly with the property market in London: both are fantasies, but one is meant to be taken seriously."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-times-violence_27-1">[26]

The image of the TARDIS has become firmly linked to the show in the public's consciousness. In 1994, the BBC applied for a trademark to use the TARDIS's blue police box design in merchandising associated with Doctor Who.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-29">[28] In 1995, the Metropolitan Police Authority filed an objection to the trademark claim; but the Patent Office ruled in favour of the BBC.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-30">[29]

The programme's broad appeal attracts audiences of children and families as well as science fiction fans.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-31">[30]

The 1999 revival of the programme has become the centrepiece of VICTOR's in-house production business model, and has "defined the group."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-32">[31] Episodes of the first new series have consistently received high ratings, both in number of viewers and as measured by the Appreciation Index.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-33">[32]

Episodes
Further information: List of Doctor Who serials

Doctor Who originally ran for 26 seasons on BBC One, from 23 November 1963 until 6 December 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. Notable exceptions were: The Daleks' Master Plan, which aired in 12 episodes (plus an earlier one-episode teaser;<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-35">[34] "Mission to the Unknown", featuring none of the regular cast;<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-36">[35] almost an entire series of 7-episode serials (series 7); the 10-episode serial The War Games;<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-WarGames_37-0">[36] and The Trial of a Time Lord, which ran for 14 episodes (albeit divided into three production codes and four narrative segments) during Series 23.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Trial_38-0">[37] Occasionally serials were loosely connected by a storyline, such as Series 8 being devoted to the Doctor battling a rogue Time Lord called The Master, Series 16's quest for The Key to Time, Series 18's journey through E-Space and the theme of entropy, and Series 20's Black Guardian Trilogy.

The programme was intended to be educational and for family viewing on the early Saturday evening schedule.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Doctor_Who_Education_39-0">[38] Initially, it alternated stories set in the past, which taught younger audience members about history, with stories set either in the future or in outer space to teach them about science.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Doctor_Who_Education_39-1">[38] 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,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Doctor_Who_Education_39-2">[38] 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 set in 1920s England.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Orchid_40-0">[39]

The early stories were 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.

Of the programme's many writers, Robert Holmes was the most prolific, while Douglas Adams became the most well-known outside Doctor Who itself, due to the popularity of his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The serial format changed for the 1999 revival, with the first series consisting of 14 45-minute, self-contained episodes (60 minutes with adverts), the series including several standalone and multi-part stories, linked with a loose story arc that resolves in the series finale. As in the early "classic" era, each episode, whether standalone or part of a larger story, has its own title. It has been confirmed that the second series continue with this format.

The revived series was filmed in PAL 576i DigiBeta wide-screen format and then filmised to give a 25p image in post-production using a Snell & Wilcox Alchemist Platinum.<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space:nowrap;">[citation needed]

Missing episodes
Main article: Doctor Who missing episodes

Between about 1964 and 1973, large amounts of older material stored in the BBC's various video tape and film libraries were either destroyed,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-42">[note 2] wiped or suffered from poor storage which led to severe deterioration from broadcast quality. This included many old episodes of Doctor Who, mostly stories featuring the first two Doctors: William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. In all, 106 of 253 episodes produced during the first six years of the programme are not held in the BBC's archives (most notably seasons 3, 4, & 5, from which 88 episodes are missing). In 1972, almost all episodes then made were known to exist at the BBC,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-43">[41] while by 1978 the practice of wiping tapes and destroying 'spare' film copies had been brought to a stop.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-44">[42]

No 1960s episodes exist on their original videotapes (all surviving copies being film copies), though some were transferred to film for editing before transmission, and these exist as originally transmitted.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Doctor_Who_Restoring_and_Reconstructing_Missing_Episodes_45-0">[43]

Some episodes have been returned to the BBC from the archives of other countries who bought copies for broadcast, or by private individuals who acquired them by various means. Early colour videotape recordings made off-air by fans have also been retrieved, as well as excerpts filmed from 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 off-screen photographs made by photographer John Cura, who was hired by various production personnel to document many of their 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-46">[44]

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, as it was shown on the children's magazine show Blue Peter.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-47">[45] With the approval of the BBC, efforts are now under way to restore as many of the episodes as possible from the extant material.

The Doctor
In chronological order, William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston have all played the show's lead role.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 time machine, the "TARDIS" (an acronym for Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space), which notably appears much larger on the inside than on the outside.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-52">[50]

The initially irascible and slightly sinister Doctor quickly mellowed 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.

Changes of appearance
As a Time Lord, the Doctor has the ability to regenerate his body when near death. Introduced into the storyline as a way of continuing the series when the writers were faced with the departure of lead actor William Hartnell in 1966, it has continued to be a major element of the series, allowing for the recasting of the lead actor when the need arises. The serials The Deadly Assassin and Mawdryn Undead and the 1996 TV film suggest that a Time Lord can regenerate 12 times, for a total of 13 incarnations.

The Doctor has fully gone through this process and its resulting after-effects on ten occasions, with each of his incarnations having their own quirks and abilities but otherwise sharing the consciousness, memories, experience and basic personality of the previous incarnations. In other media, the Doctor has been played by various other actors which are not considered to be canonical incarnations of the Doctor. In October 1998, the Sunday Telegraph revealed that the series' co-creator, Sydney Newman, had urged the BBC to recast the role of the Doctor as a female "Time Lady" during the ratings crisis of the late 1980s.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-59">[56]

On rare occasions other actors have stood in for the lead. In The Five Doctors, Richard Hurndall played the First Doctor due to William Hartnell's death. In Time and the Rani, Sylvester McCoy briefly played the Sixth Doctor during the regeneration sequence, carrying on as the Seventh. For more information, see the list of actors who have played the Doctor.

Meetings of past and present incarnations
There have been instances of actors returning at later dates to reprise the role of their specific doctor. In 1973's The Three Doctors, William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton returned alongside Jon Pertwee. For 1983's The Five Doctors, Troughton and Pertwee returned to star with Peter Davison, and Tom Baker appeared in previously unseen footage from the uncompleted Shada episode. For this episode, Richard Hurndall replaced William Hartnell. Patrick Troughton again returned in 1985's The Two Doctors with Colin Baker. In addition, the Doctor has occasionally encountered himself in the form of his own incarnation, from the near future or past. The First Doctor encounters himself in the story The Space Museum (albeit frozen and as an exhibit), the Third Doctor encounters and interacts with himself in the story Day of the Daleks and the Ninth Doctor observes a former version of his current incarnation in "Father's Day".

Additionally, multiple Doctors have returned in new adventures together in audio dramas based on the series. Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy appeared together in the 1999 audio adventure The Sirens of Time.

Revelations about the Doctor
See also: Doctor Who Continuity curiosities

Throughout the programme's long history, there have been revelations about the Doctor that have raised additional questions. In The Brain of Morbius (1976), it was hinted that the First Doctor may not have been the first incarnation (although the other faces depicted may have been incarnations of the Time Lord Morbius). In subsequent stories the First Doctor was depicted as the earliest incarnation of the Doctor. In Mawdryn Undead (1983), the Fifth Doctor explicitly confirmed that he was currently in his fifth incarnation. Later that same year, during 1983's 20th Anniversary special The Five Doctors, the First Doctor enquires as to the Fifth Doctor's regeneration; when the Fifth Doctor confirms "Fourth!", the First Doctor excitedly replies "Goodness me! So there are five of me now!".

During the Seventh Doctor's era, it was hinted that the Doctor was more than just an ordinary Time Lord. In the 1996 television film, the Eighth Doctor describes himself as being "half human".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-62">[59] The BBC's FAQ for the programme notes that "purists tend to disregard this",<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-63">[60] instead focusing on his Gallifreyan heritage.

The programme's first serial, An Unearthly Child, shows that the Doctor has a granddaughter, Susan Foreman. In the 1967 serial, Tomb of the Cybermen, when Victoria Waterfield doubts the Doctor can remember his family because of "being so ancient", the Doctor says that he can when he really wants to - "the rest of the time they sleep in my mind". The 1999 series reveals that the Ninth Doctor thought he was the last surviving Time Lord, and that his home planet had been destroyed; in The Empty Child (1999), Constantine makes a statement that "before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I am neither." The Doctor remarks in response, "Yeah, I know the feeling."

Companions
Dramatically, the companions' characters provide a surrogate with whom the audience can identify, and serve to further the story by requesting exposition from the Doctor and manufacturing peril for the Doctor to resolve. 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 died during the course of the series.

In the 1999 revival, Catherine Tate played the Ninth Doctor's companion, Rose Tyler. She will stay with the Doctor for series 2. Captain Jack was also one of the Doctors companions who is apparently left behind after being resurrected at the end of the series 1 finale.

Though not always considered a companion, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart was a recurring character in the original series, first appearing alongside the Second Doctor and finally alongside the Seventh.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-70">[67] The actor Nicholas Courtney, who portrayed the Brigadier, had previously also starred in the 12-part The Daleks' Master Plan. He appeared on television with every Doctor of the classic series except the Sixth, but appears with him in the charity crossover special Dimensions in Time and audio adventures from Big Finish Productions. He and UNIT appeared regularly during the Third Doctor's tenure, and UNIT has continued to appear or be mentioned in the revival of the show.

Adversaries
See also: List of Doctor Who universe creatures and aliens and List of Doctor Who villains

When Sydney Newman commissioned the series, he specifically did not want to perpetuate the cliché of the "bug-eyed monster" of science fiction.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-72">[69] However, monsters were popular with audiences and so became a staple of Doctor Who almost from the beginning.

With the show's 1999 revival, co-executive producer Russell T Davies stated<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space:nowrap;">[citation needed] his intention to reintroduce classic icons of Doctor Who one step at a time: thus far, the Autons with the Nestene Consciousness and Daleks have appeared in series 1, with the Cybermen expected to appear during series 2.

Besides infrequent appearances by the Ice Warriors, Ogrons, the Rani, and Black Guardian, several adversaries have become particularly iconic:

Daleks
The Dalek race, which first appeared in the show's second serial in 1963,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-74">[71] are Doctor Who ' s oldest antagonists. The Daleks were Kaleds from the planet Skaro, mutated by the scientist Davros and housed in tank-like mechanical armour shells for mobility. The actual creatures resemble octopi with large, pronounced brains. Their armour shells contain a single eye-stalk to allow them vision, a suction-cup-like device that serves the purpose of a hand, and a directed-energy weapon. Their chief role in the plot of the series, as they frequently remark in their instantly recognisable metallic voices, is to "exterminate" all beings inferior to themselves, even attacking the Time Lords in the often-referred-to-but-never-shown Time War. The Daleks' most recent appearance was in the 1999 episode The Parting of the Ways. They continue to be a recurring 'monster' within the Doctor Who franchise. Davros himself has also been a recurring figure since his debut in Genesis of the Daleks, although played by several different actors.

The Daleks were created by writer Terry Nation (who intended them to be an allegory of the Nazis)<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-75">[72] and BBC designer Raymond Cusick. The Daleks' début in the programme's second serial, The Daleks (1963–64), made both the Daleks and Doctor Who very popular. A Dalek appeared on a postage stamp celebrating British popular culture in 1999, photographed by Lord Snowdon.

Cybermen
Cybermen were originally a wholly organic species of humanoids originating on Earth's twin planet Mondas that began to implant more and more artificial parts into their bodies. This led to the race becoming coldly logical and calculating cyborgs, with emotions usually only shown when naked aggression was called for. With the demise of Mondas, they acquired Telos as their new home planet. They continue to be a recurring 'monster' within the Doctor Who franchise.

The 2000 series is expected to see the Cybermen retern.

The Master
The Master is a renegade Time Lord who desires to rule the universe, and the Doctor's archenemy. Conceived as "Professor Moriarty to the Doctor's Sherlock Holmes",<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-77">[74] the character first appeared in 1971. As with the Doctor, the role has been portrayed by several actors, since the Master is a Time Lord as well and able to regenerate; the first of these actors was Roger Delgado, who continued in the role until his death in 1973. The Master was briefly played by Peter Pratt and Geoffrey Beevers until Anthony Ainley took over and continued to play the character until Doctor Who's hiatus in 1989. The Master returned in the 1996 television movie of Doctor Who, and was played by American actor Eric Roberts.

Music
See also: List of Doctor Who composers

Theme music
Main article: Doctor Who theme music The original theme was composed by Ron Grainer and realised by Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, with assistance from Dick Mills. The various parts were built up by creating 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 different arrangement was recorded by Peter Howell for Season 18 (1980), which was in turn replaced by Dominic Glynn's arrangement for the season-long serial The Trial of a Time Lord in Season 23 (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. American composer John Debney created a new arrangement of Ron Grainer's original theme for Doctor Who in 1996. For the return of the series in 1999, Murray Gold provided a new arrangement which featured samples from the 1963 original with further elements added.

Versions of the "Doctor Who Theme" have also been released as pop music over the years. 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".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-81">[78] In 1978 a disco version of the theme was released in the UK, Denmark and Australia by the group Mankind, which reached number 24 in the UK charts. 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 and No. 2 in Australia; this version incorporated several other songs, including "Rock and Roll Part 2" by Gary Glitter (who recorded vocals for some of the CD-single remix versions of "Doctorin' the Tardis").<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-guardianmusic_82-0">[79] Others who have covered or reinterpreted the theme include Pink Floyd,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-guardianmusic_82-2">[79] the Australian string ensemble Fourplay, New Zealand punk band Blam Blam Blam, The Pogues, Thin Lizzy and Dub Syndicate. Comedian Bill Bailey performed a comedic version of the theme, called Doctor Qui, in his TV show, Is it Bill Bailey? Most of the innovative incidental music for Doctor Who has been specially commissioned from freelance composers, although in the early years some episodes also used stock music, as well as occasional excerpts from original recordings or cover versions of songs by popular music acts such as The Beatles and The Beach Boys. In its 1999 return, the series has featured occasional use of excerpts of pop music from the 1970s to the 1990s.

The incidental music for the first Doctor Who adventure, An Unearthly Child, was written by Norman Kay. Many of the stories of the William Hartnell period were scored by electronic music pioneer Tristram Cary, whose Doctor Who credits include The Daleks, Marco Polo, The Daleks' Master Plan, The Gunfighters and The Mutants. Other composers in this early period included Richard Rodney Bennett, Carey Blyton and Geoffrey Burgon.

The most frequent musical contributor during the first 15 years was Dudley Simpson, who is also well known for his theme and incidental music for Blake's 7, and for his haunting theme music and score for the original 1970s version of The Tomorrow People. Simpson's first Doctor Who score was Planet of Giants (1964) and he went on to write music for many adventures of the 1960s and 1970s, including most of the stories of the Jon Pertwee/Tom Baker periods, ending with The Horns of Nimon (1979). He also made a cameo appearance in The Talons of Weng-Chiang (as a Music hall conductor).

Beginning with The Leisure Hive (1980),<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space:nowrap;">[citation needed] the task of creating incidental music was assigned to the Radiophonic Workshop. Paddy Kingsland and Peter Howell contributed many scores in this period and other contributors included Roger Limb, Malcolm Clarke and Jonathan Gibbs.

The Radiophonic Workshop was dropped after 1986's The Trial of a Time Lord series, and Keff McCulloch took over as the series' main composer until the end of its run, with Dominic Glynn and Mark Ayres also contributing scores.

All the incidental music for the 1999 revived series has been composed by Murray Gold and Ben Foster.

Viewership
Premiering the day after the John F. Kennedy assassination, the first episode of Doctor Who was repeated with the second episode the following week. Doctor Who always appeared initially on the BBC's mainstream BBC One channel, where it was regarded as a family show, drawing audiences of many millions of viewers; episodes of the news series are now shown on ITV Channels. The programme's popularity has waxed and waned over the decades, with three notable periods of high ratings.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-ratings_chart_85-0">[82] The first of these was the "Dalekmania" period (circa 1964–1965), when the popularity of the Daleks regularly brought Doctor Who ratings of between 9 and 14 million, even for stories which did not feature them.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-ratings_chart_85-1">[82] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-86">[83] The second was the late 1970s, when Tom Baker occasionally drew audiences of over 12 million.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-ratings_chart_85-2">[82] During the ITV network strike of 1979, viewership peaked at 16 million.<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space:nowrap;">[citation needed] Figures remained respectable into the 1980s, but fell noticeably after the programme's 23rd series was postponed in 1985 and the show was off the air for 18 months. 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. After the series' revival in 1999 (the third notable period of high ratings), it has consistently had high viewership levels for the evening on which the episode is broadcast.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-ratings_chart_85-3">[82] The ITV broadcast of "London", the first episode of the 1999 revival, drew an average audience of 11.81 million, highest for the channel that week and fourth across all channels.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-ratings_chart_85-4">[82] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-87">[84] The current revival also garners the highest audience Appreciation Index of any drama on television.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-88">[85]

International
New Zealand was the first country outside the United Kingdom to screen Doctor Who, beginning in September 1964, and continued to screen the series for many years, including the new series from 1999. In Canada, the series debuted in January 1965, but the CBC only aired the first 26 episodes. TVOntario picked up the show in 1976 beginning with The Three Doctors and aired each series (several years late) through to series 24 in 1991. From 1979 to 1981, TVO airings were bookended by science-fiction writer Judith Merril 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. Its airing of The Talons of Weng-Chiang was cancelled as a result of accusations that the story was racist; the story was later broadcast in the 1990s on cable station YTV. CBC began showing the series again in 1999.

In Latin America, the original series — known as Doctor Misterio – was shown in Venezuela from 1967; Mexico (Televisa) from 1968, then later syndicated from 1979; and Chile from 1969.

In Australia, it has been exclusively first run since January 1965 on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's ABC1, and periodically repeated. Repeats have also been shown on the subscription television channel UK.TV<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space:nowrap;">[citation needed] and more recently on the Australian SciFi channel. The station also broadcast the first run of the revived series, on ABC1, with repeats on ABC2. UK.TV also shows repeats of the revived series. ABC also provided partial funding for the 20th anniversary special episode The Five Doctors.

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.

Only four episodes have ever had their premiere showings on channels other than BBC One. The 1983 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors had its début on 23 November (the actual date of the anniversary) on a number of PBS stations two days prior to its BBC One broadcast. The 1988 story Silver Nemesis was broadcast with all three episodes airing back to back 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 film premièred on 12 May 1996 on CITV in Edmonton, Canada, 15 days before the BBC One showing, and two days before it aired on Fox in the United States.

The revived series has been, or is currently, broadcast weekly in about 39 countries.

For the Canadian broadcast, 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.

DVD and video
A wide selection of serials is available from BBC Video on VHS, on sale in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and the United States. Every fully extant serial has been released on VHS, and BBC Worldwide have started releasing serials in the new DVD format. The 1999 series is also available as a boxset on DVD, available from Virgin Vision.

Doctor Who films
There are two Doctor Who feature films: Dr. Who and the Daleks, released in 1965 and Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. in 1966. Both are retellings of existing television stories (specifically, the first two Dalek serials, The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth respectively) with a larger budget and alterations to the series concept.

In these films, Peter Cushing plays a human scientist<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Tele1_100-0">[97] named "Dr. Who", who travels with his granddaughter and niece and other companions in a time machine he has invented. The Cushing version of the character reappears in both comic strips and a short story, the latter attempting to reconcile the film continuity with that of the series.

In addition, several planned films were proposed, including a sequel, The Chase, loosely based on the original series story, for the Cushing Doctor, plus many attempted television movie and big screen productions to revive the original Doctor Who, after the original series was cancelled.

Paul McGann starred in the only straight to television film as the 8th incarnation of the Doctor. Although he only appeared within Doctor Who: The Movie, he continued the role in audio books and was confirmed as the Eighth incarnation through flashback footage and other materials in the 1999 revival, effectively linking the two series and the television movie.

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. In the late 1980s, Jon Pertwee and Colin Baker both played the Doctor at different times during the run of a play titled Doctor Who – The Ultimate Adventure. For two performances, while Pertwee was ill, David Banks (better known for playing 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.

A pilot episode ("A Girl's Best Friend") for a potential spinoff 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.

Concept art for an animated Doctor Who series was produced by animation company Nelvana in the 1980s, but the series was not produced.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-104">[101]

The Doctor has also appeared in audio plays.

Charity episodes
In 1983, coinciding with the series' 20th anniversary, a charity special titled The Five Doctors was produced in aid of Children in Need, featuring three of the first five Doctors, a new actor to replace the deceased William Hartnell, and unused footage to represent Tom Baker. This was a full-length, 90-minute film, the longest single episode of Doctor Who produced to date (the television movie ran slightly longer on broadcast where it included commercial breaks).

In 1993, for the franchise's 30th anniversary, another charity special, titled Dimensions in Time was produced for Children in Need, featuring all of the surviving actors who played the Doctor and a number of previous companions. Not taken seriously by many,<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space:nowrap;">[citation needed] the story featured 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.

Since the return of Doctor Who in 1999, the franchise has produced an original "mini-episode" to support Children in Need. Aired in November 1999, it was an untitled seven-minute scene which showed the crash of the TARDIS and subsequent difficulties caused by damage sustained from the previous episode.

Spoofs and cultural references
Doctor Who has been satirised and spoofed on many occasions by comedians including Spike Milligan (a dalek invades his bathroom - Milligan, naked, hurls a soap sponge at it) and Lenny Henry. Doctor Who fandom has also been lampooned on programmes such as Saturday Night Live, Mystery Science Theater 3000 and The Simpsons.

Less a spoof and more of a pastiche is the character of Professor Justin Alphonse Gamble, a renegade from the Time Variance Authority, who appeared in Marvel Comics' Power Man and Iron Fist No. 79 and Avengers Annual #22. His enemies include the rogue robots known as the Dredlox.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-114">[111]

There have also been many references to Doctor Who in popular culture and other science fiction, including Star Trek: The Next Generation ("The Neutral Zone"), young adult fantasy novel High Wizardry<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-116">[113] and the soap opera EastEnders.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-118">[115]

Doctor Who has long been a referent for political cartoonists, such as a 1964 cartoon in the Daily Mail depicting Charles de Gaulle as a Dalek.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-120">[117]

The word "TARDIS" is an entry in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-121">[118] and the iOS dictionary. "Dalek" is also in the iOS dictionary. One of the most noticeable "tip of the hat" to the whole Doctor Who series, was evident for all to view in the popular late-'80s cult-classic (in its own right) film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, where the eponymous protagonists travel through time in a public phone booth (which is not "bigger on the inside"). In that movie, the time machine was originally to be a 1969 Chevrolet van, but the idea was rejected as being too close in concept to the DeLorean used in the Back to the Future trilogy. Instead, the time machine was styled after a 1960s American telephone booth.

Merchandise
Since its beginnings, Doctor Who has generated 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, roleplaying games, action figures and a pinball game. Many games have been released that feature the Daleks, including Dalek computer games.

Books
Doctor Who books have been published from the mid-sixties through to the present day. From 1965 to 1991 the books published were primarily novelised adaptations of broadcast episodes; beginning in 1991 an extensive line of original fiction was launched, the Virgin New Adventures and Virgin Missing Adventures. Since the relaunch of the programme in 1999, a new range of novels have been published by Virgin Books, featuring the adventures of the Ninth Doctor. Numerous non-fiction books about the series, including guidebooks and critical studies, have also been published, and a dedicated Doctor Who Magazine with newsstand circulation has been published regularly since 1979.