Doctor Who
Authors: Alan Kistler
DOCTOR
WHO
A HISTORY
Alan Kistler
LYONS PRESS
Guilford, Connecticut
An imprint of Globe Pequot Press
Copyright © 2013 by Alan Kistler
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.
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Lyons Press is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press.
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Doctor Who
and the TARDIS are registered trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation, Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, W1AÂ 1AA, United Kingdom.
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Photos on pp. 44, 77, 186, 241, and 256 courtesy of Alan Kistler.
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Project editor: Lynn Zelem
Layout: Joanna Beyer
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kistler, Alan.
Doctor Who : a history / Alan Kistler.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-4930-0015-9
1. Doctor Who (Television program : 1963-1989) 2. Doctor Who
(Television program : 2005- ) I. Title.
PN1992.77.D6273K58 2013
791.45'72âdc23
2013027420
To my grandparents Alan and Marie, who always encouraged me to look behind the scenes of stories I enjoyed. To the Doctor Who Restoration Team. To all those strange and creative minds, crewmembers, and artists who have contributed over the years to this paradoxical hero and made it possible for all of us to join in fantastic journeys across the multiverse and imagination. To my friends who asked why I didn't write this years ago, you're all too kind.
CONTENTS
Sidebar: The Hero with No Name
12
The Journalist, the Warrior, the Lady of Time
16
High Camp and Time's Champion
18
The Many Lives of the Eighth Doctor
Sidebar: New TARDIS, New Screwdriver
Sidebar: The New Age of Spin-offs
THE DOCTORS
“I've come to help. I'm the Doctor.”
âNinth Doctor, from “Dalek” (2005)
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Even if you're new to
Doctor Who,
you likely know that the titular character isn't just recast from time to time but changes within the story itself through a process called regeneration. This transformation alters the brain cells to some degree, giving each version of the Doctor his own traits, mannerisms, and preferences. Many people (including some characters within the show) refer to the different incarnations as “First Doctor,” “Second Doctor,” and so on. All of the Doctors are actually the same person, thanks to the hero's memory remaining (mostly) intact despite the outward changes. The Nurture part of the equation remains constant, while Nature shifts.
Unlike other franchises that recast the hero, characters in the story realize a change has happened. The Doctor sometimes jokes about being a “different man” in his past, but refers to the memories and actions of previous incarnations as his own, saying at times that what really changes is not who he is but his point of view. For instance, the Tenth Doctor said he fought in the Last Great Time War rather than saying “another version of me fought in the war.”
Throughout this book, we will be referring to the various Doctors and the actors who've played the role. To make things easy, here's a quick rundown of the people who've played the part officially. We'll discuss unofficial Doctors portrayed by Peter Cushing, Richard E. Grant, and others later. Feel free to check back as you read through; no one has to know.
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Classic
Doctor Who
(1963â1989)
William Hartnell,
First Doctor
b. January 8, 1908, d. April 23, 1975
first appearance: November 23, 1963, age fifty-five
final regular episode: October 29, 1966, age fifty-eight
Patrick Troughton,
Second Doctor
b. March 25, 1920, d. March 28, 1987
first appearance: October 29, 1966, age forty-six
final regular episode: June 21, 1969, age forty-nine
Jon Pertwee,
Third Doctor
b. July 7, 1919, d. May 20, 1996
first appearance: January 3, 1970, age fifty
final regular episode: June 8, 1974, age fifty-five
Tom Baker,
Fourth Doctor
b. January 20, 1934
first appearance: June 8, 1974, age forty
final regular episode: March 21, 1981, age forty-seven
Peter Davison,
Fifth Doctor
b. April 13, 1951Â
first appearance: March 21, 1981, age twenty-nine
final regular episode: March 16, 1984, age thirty-two
Colin Baker,
Sixth Doctor
b. June 8, 1943
first appearance: March 16, 1984, age forty
final regular episode: December 6, 1986, age forty-three
Sylvester McCoy,
Seventh Doctor
b. August 20, 1943
first appearance: September 7, 1987, age forty-four
final regular episode: December 6, 1989, age forty-six
Paul McGann,
Eighth Doctor
b. November 14, 1959
on-screen appearance as the Doctor: May 14, 1996, age thirty-six
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Modern
Doctor Who
(2005âpresent)
Christopher Eccleston,
Ninth Doctor
b. February 16, 1964
first appearance: March 26, 2005, age forty-one
final regular episode: June 18, 2005, age forty-one
David Tennant,
Tenth Doctor
b. April 18, 1971
first appearance: June 18, 2005, age thirty-four
final regular episode: January 1, 2010, age thirty-eight
Matt Smith,
Eleventh Doctor
b. October 28, 1982
first appearance: January 1, 2010, age twenty-seven
final regular episode: December 25, 2013, age thirty-one
Peter Capaldi,
Twelfth Doctor
b. April 14, 1958
first appearance: December 25, 2013, age fifty-five
Peter Capaldi,
Twelfth Doctor
b. April 14, 1958
first appearance: December 25, 2013, age fifty-five
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Some fans have wondered if there might be other incarnations not seen on screen. Was there a Doctor before William Hartnell? The transformations from Second to Third and from Eighth to Ninth weren't shown, so might there have been extra incarnations in between? The program itself has dismissed these ideas. In the TV story “The Three Doctors” in 1973, the Time Lords refer to Hartnell's incarnation as the original. In the TV special “The Five Doctors” in 1983, the Fifth Doctor says he's regenerated four times. David Tennant's adventures “Human Nature” and “The Next Doctor” have him look over images of only nine previous incarnations. And in Matt Smith's episodes “The Lodger” and “The Name of the Doctor,” he is called the Eleventh Doctor.
INTRODUCTION
“There's
a blue box. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It can go anywhere in time and space, sometimes even where it's meant to go. When it turns up, there's this bloke in it called the Doctor. And there will be stuff wrong and he will do his best to sort it out. And he will probably succeed because he's awesome.”
âNeil Gaiman, WonderCon 2011
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Musings on the possibility of time travel and visiting other worlds litter the annals of human culture. Many ancient mythologies have stories about a person catapulted into the future, often as a result of long sleep or visiting a strange realm where time passes more quickly than on Earth. But for centuries, no stories depicted a future era or any people or artifacts that might come from the future into the present. Cultures took it for granted that they couldn't know what lay ahead, while some societies even considered predicting the future to be taboo since only God could know such things (though some did speculate about the politics and social realities ahead).
But attitudes change. In 1733, seven years after Jonathan Swift wrote
Gulliver's Travels,
Samuel Madden penned “Memoirs of the Twentieth Century,” a fictional letter supposedly written in 1997 and given to him by his time-traveling guardian angel. In 1843, one of the most famous time-travel stories appeared:
A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens. The main character Scrooge not only could move forward and backward through time, but he also changed his own future after learning where it led. Other tales of interest include:
1848:
Edgar Allan Poe's essay “Eureka: A Prose Poem” appears, adapted from a lecture he gave on his own beliefs concerning the nature of the universe. Poorly received, the piece muses on the possible formation of new and parallel universes, which becomes a focus for scientists and writers to come. It also includes ideas that presage the structure of the atom, the Theory of Relativity, and the Big Bang Theory, concepts not accepted by the scientific community until eighty-three years later in 1931.
1871:
Lewis Carroll's
Through the Looking-Glass,
in which Alice discovers that everyday objects can possess secret doorways to other worlds, an idea echoed by C. S. Lewis in his 1950 novel about four siblings and a special piece of furniture.
1888:
H. G. Wells publishes “The Chronic Argonauts,” in which a scientist time travels thanks to technology rather than spirits, hoping to find a new era to call home. Seven years later, Wells develops this idea further in the novel
The Time Machine.
1941:
Robert Heinlein's short story ““âAnd He Built a Crooked Houseâ”” in the magazine
Astounding Science Fiction,
in which an architect builds a tesseract house, containing an internal space several times larger than what its outside dimensions should hold.
1942:
Henry Kuttner's short story “Time Locker,” featuring a container that seems bigger inside and acts as a doorway into the future, altering the dimensions of whatever enters it.
1953:
BBC's
The Quartermass Experiment
is the first original science fiction television series written for an adult audience. The hero Bernard Quartermass is an idealistic and highly moral scientific pioneer who defends Earth from alien threats. Some consider him to be the first original hero of British television.
1955:
Poul Anderson's story “Time Patrol,” depicting a group of trained professionals who safeguard history from being altered by conquerors and time terrorists. Sequel short stories followed that year, all of them collected in the 1960 book
Guardians of Time.
Then, in 1963, Sydney Newman, Verity Lambert, and others brought forth a television program featuring a strange alien and his seemingly ordinary wooden box that could take you to any world you could imagine at any point in history or the future.
Doctor Who
premiered on November 23, 1963, the day after the death of C. S. Lewis and the assassination of President Kennedy. It was designed as a science fiction adventure series that also had some educational value for children. The original plan was to broadcast it for a full year. Instead, the show lasted for twenty-six years, ending in 1989 after transmitting 159 television stories divided among 695 episodes and one television special. The program spawned numerous tie-in materials, such as: novels published
by Target, Telos, and Virgin; comics published by Marvel and IDW; magazines, including
Doctor Who Magazine
; BBC radio shows; toys and games; spin-off series, plural; and two theatrical films.
Who is the Doctor? He is a somewhat reckless scientist from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous, a member of the Time Lords, who act as custodians over reality. One day, he turned his back on his people and left in an old time-travel capsule (a “TARDIS”) that he stole from a repair shop, leading to many adventures with many traveling companions. Several times during the classic program, the Doctor clashed with the Time Lords, who saw him as a barely tolerable renegade, despite his heroics.
After the classic program's cancellation, a TV movie was made in 1996 for the Fox network here in America, in hopes of igniting a new television series. It didn't, but the movie demonstrated that there was still great interest in the franchise, leading to new novels from BBC Books as well as original audio plays from Big Finish Productions that continue to this day, with actors from the classic program reprising their old roles in brand new adventures.
Doctor Who
finally returned to BBC One in 2005, thanks to the efforts of BBC One Controller Lorraine Heggessey, BBC Wales Head of Drama Julie Gardner, and new show runner Russell T. Davies. Unlike
Battlestar Galactica
in 2003,
Batman Begins
in 2005, or
Casino Royale
in 2006, this wasn't a reboot of the franchise but a continuation. In the new program, the Ninth Doctor reveals he is now the last Time Lord, as his people were wiped out during the Last Great Time War. Despite the tragedies and losses he's suffered, he continues to travel through reality with various companions, acting as our teacher, hero, judge, and friend.
Since its return,
Doctor Who
has become a major institution in British television and a notable success in other countries, including America in particular. It has launched multiple spin-off series, video games, interactive episodes, animated specials, and even major orchestra concerts celebrating the music of the program.
Doctor Who
has won five consecutive awards at the National Television Awards from 2005 to 2010 and received the 2006 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award for best drama series.
What were the initial ideas for who the Doctor is? How did each incarnation of the Doctor develop his personality? What ideas were thrown out? How much was planned, and how much was improvised? This book explains not only how the franchise came to be but also why it matters so much to so many people.
So here's to another fifty years of the mysterious Doctor, a benevolent madman in a blue box who believes in the strength of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism.