Doctor Who

Doctor Who is now in its eleventh incarnation with Matt Smith now playing the pragmatic Doctor. Dr Who (produced by the BBC) is the longest-running science fiction television show in the world and also the "most successful" science fiction series of all time. It is renowned for its imaginative stories and creative budget special effects. The first run of the program was in 1963 and it screened until 1989 when the show was cancelled only to return in 2005 after an unsuccessful television film in 1996.

The Doctor has been played, so far, by eleven different actors. The programme rapidly became a national institution in the United Kingdom, with a large following among the general viewing audience. Many renowned actors asked for or were offered and accepted guest starring roles in various stories. The program was controversial and was often criticised as to its suitability for children. However the more this happened the more popular it became for kids. In the program Terror of the Autons, images of murderous plastic dolls, daffodils killing unsuspecting victims and blank-featured policemen marked the apex of the show's ability to frighten children. The other notable moment in that decade included the Doctor apparently being drowned by Chancellor Goth in The Deadly Assassin. Following a survey carried our by the BBC it was reported that Doctor Who was the most violent of all children's programmes... but that didn't stop it going on to be a world-wide success story.

Dr Who

The Doctor travels through time in an old blue police box called the TARDIS (an acronym for Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space), which normally appears from the exterior to be a blue 1950s British police box. With his companions, he explores time and space, faces a variety of foes and saves civilizations, helping people and righting wrongs. This in itself is dimensionally transcendental because it is much larger on the inside than it appears from the outside. This is often referred to as "Time Lord Physics". Because of a malfunction of its chameleon circuit, which normally allows it to disguise itself in a form befitting its surroundings, it is stuck in the shape of a 1960s-style British police box after having disguised itself as one in 1963 London.

As a Time Lord, the Doctor can regenerate his body after a near death experience and this is used to blend one series into another when a change of Doctor is required. It is said that a Doctor can only do this twelve times (for a total of thirteen Doctors) but one Time Lord has managed to circumvent this. With each reincarnation the Doctor is usually accompanied by a new set of up to three companions - the most memorable of which was K-9, the Doctors robotic dog.

The main players

	The Doctor, in his eleventh incarnation, is an excited explorer of the universe, with a keen intelligence that means he often notices what everyone else has missed. He can turn in a moment from being interested in the largest of things to being fascinated by the tiniest of things. But his excitement sometimes results in him tripping over himself and walking into things. He enjoys anything that's different and interesting, and as always he has a powerful sense of right and wrong and a determination to do what's right. He gets on well with children. He prefers to call Amy 'Pond'. His dress sense might be a bit... odd. But he knows that bowties are cool..
	Amy Pond, the young Scottish woman from the English village of Leadworth first met her 'raggedy Doctor' when she was a little girl and had to wait fourteen years before he finally returned and took her off in the TARDIS. She was brought up by her aunt, without a Mum and Dad. She's very brave, bold and decisive, always ready to confront the problem or force the Doctor to tell her what he's up to. To the Doctor's surprise, she can sometimes see what's going on more clearly than he does. She wants to see the universe before, perhaps, getting back home in time for her wedding day. But that crack in her wall may turn out to be something she can never quite escape.
	The TARDIS, or Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, is the Doctor's vehicle and home that can take him to any place and any time. Having had the interior of its control room destroyed when the Doctor regenerated, it reconfigured its appearance and now features a clicking date display, a new central time rotor and typewriters and taps for controls, which suits the Eleventh Doctor's style. It's even given him a port for his Sonic Screwdriver. The Doctor treats the TARDIS like an old friend, calling it 'dear' or 'old girl'. It's bigger on the inside than the outside and its swimming pool may now be in its library. Or somewhere else: it'll turn up.

The Doctor does not have many friends... In fact there are many, many, many times more people/races/things out to kill him than befriend him.

Monsters are popular with audiences and so became a staple of Doctor Who almost from the beginning. Over the series' initial 26-year run, notable adversaries include the Autons, the Sontarans, the Cybermen the Silurians and Sea Devils, the Ice Warriors, the Yeti, the Rani, and Davros, creator of the Daleks.

Some of the key monsters are explored below...

The main monsters

	The Cybermen were originally human beings, but gradually they replaced their weak mortal flesh with metal and plastic. In the process they lost their compassion, along with all other emotions. Originally from Mondas, Earth's twin planet, the Cybermen were thought to have died out in our universe. But when the Doctor visited a parallel world, he found they'd been created again there, by the insane genius John Lumic. These Cybermen sought to 'delete' all who stand in their way, and could electrocute with their touch. The Cybermen voyaged across the Void to invade our Earth, in the past as well as the present, building apelike Cybershade creatures to serve them and launching their ultimate weapon, the giant Cyberking. The last time the Doctor encountered them en masse, he hurled them back into the Void. But can the Cybermen ever be truly defeated?
	The Daleks were created by the Kaled scientist, Davros as travel machines. He had deduced that the years of radiation and chemical poisoning from an ongoing war would lead his race to mutate into immobile organisms. The Dalek travel machines would house these creatures and allow the Kaleds to survive. However, in the course of his experiments, Davros deliberately removed what he considered to be debilitating emotions from the mutants and a force of evil was spawned! The Daleks were born without any ability to feel compassion or pity and were motivated only by hate, fear and an implacable belief that they were the superior creatures in the Universe. Read more about Daleks
	The Silurians (Homo reptilia) were Earth's first intelligent inhabitants, cold-blood reptilians with a lifespan of over three centuries who developed a civilisation at least 300 million years before human beings evolved. Silurian astronomers predicated the arrival of a minor planet would devastate Earth, and so the species went into hibernation, with one genetic line being left as caretakers while the others slept. Time hid their cities underground, while the minor planet became Earth's moon. Advanced Silurian technology includes germ warfare, mutated dinosaurs, electromagnetic barriers, heat rays, laser scalpels, bioprogrammed materials, fluid controls and disc transports that use geothermal currents and gravity bubbles to move underground.
	Details regarding the Doctor's earliest encounter with the Entity are sparse but it's clear he was forced to imprison the creature as it was devouring its way through the universe. And so the Entity was trapped like a Genie in a bottle, until one day, Amy Pond broke the bottle and released it... The Entity feeds on time energy from the past and can therefore make its victim cease to exist. The Doctor's dilemma was simple: he was reluctant to keep the Entity imprisoned but could not risk it consuming innocent people. He therefore unleashed the Entity on four-dimensional void creatures known as the Chronomites. The Entity could feed on their past, only to see them circle back in time unharmed. Of course, the potential flaw in the Doctor's actions is that it leaves the Entity at liberty...
	There really are vampires: the Doctor's met them. But the vampires of Venice are something else: sea-dwelling refugees from the destroyed world of Saturnyne. The true form of such creatures is a dark, leathery beast, something like a shark. They hide that body beneath a perception filter that manipulates the brainwaves of whoever's looking at them. Which means that sometimes you won't see them in mirrors. But a human's sense of self preservation means they're always aware of the fangs. In their natural form these vicious predators live underwater. To continue their species the disguised survivors of Saturnyne drank from their female human victims until all the liquid had been removed from them. Then they replaced that liquid with their own blood. Gradually, the alien blood changed the victim into one of the aliens, ready to mate with the male aliens, hiding and feeding in the Venetian canals.

Dr Who links

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