Science fiction first appeared in television programming in the late 1930s, during what is called the Golden Age of Science Fiction . Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary world not limited by the constraints of reality.
150-573: Doctor Who is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman , C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson , depicts the adventures of an extraterrestrial being called the Doctor , part of a humanoid species called Time Lords . The Doctor travels in the universe and in time using a time travelling spaceship called the TARDIS , which externally appears as
300-689: A backdoor pilot in the form of a television film titled Doctor Who . The series was relaunched in 2005 and was produced in-house by BBC Wales in Cardiff . Since 2023, the show has been co-produced by Bad Wolf and BBC Studios Productions in Cardiff. Doctor Who has spawned numerous spin-offs as part of the Whoniverse , including comic books, films, novels and audio dramas, and the television series Torchwood (2006–2011), The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–2011), K9 (2009–2010), Class (2016), Tales of
450-575: A cloaking mechanism (later referred to as the "chameleon circuit") was devised to explain this. In the first episode, An Unearthly Child (1963), the TARDIS is first seen hidden in a London scrapyard in 1963, and after travelling back in time (" The Cave of Skulls ") to the Paleolithic era , the police box exterior persists. In a subsequent story, The Time Meddler (1965), the First Doctor explains that
600-526: A flash memory drive for Apple MacBook which it claims is "bigger on the inside". They also claim native integration with Apple's Time Machine backup software . The European Space Agency has sent 3,000 tardigrades ("water bears") into orbit on the outside of a rocket; 32% survived. The experiment was named Tardigrades in Space, or Tardis. Cultural references to the TARDIS are many and varied. In music, The KLF (performing as "The Timelords") released
750-410: A time machine that travels by materialising into, and dematerialising out of, the time vortex. The TARDIS has a vast interior but appears smaller on the outside, and is equipped with a " chameleon circuit " intended to make the machine take on the appearance of local objects as a disguise. Because of a malfunction, the Doctor's TARDIS remains fixed as a blue British police box . Across time and space,
900-641: A "perception filter" that causes people to ignore it, thinking that it is normal. In another episode, it also has a function called the Hostile Action Displacement System (H.A.D.S), which makes it teleport away if it senses danger and will not return until after the danger is dealt with. In the 60th anniversary special " The Giggle ", the Fifteenth Doctor created a copy of TARDIS for the Fourteenth Doctor . Responding to speculation that
1050-507: A "renewal", and the Second Doctor underwent a "change of appearance". The device has allowed for the recasting of the actor various times in the show's history, as well as the depiction of alternative Doctors either from the Doctor's relative past or future. The serials The Deadly Assassin (1976) and Mawdryn Undead (1983) established that a Time Lord can only regenerate 12 times, for a total of 13 incarnations. This line became stuck in
1200-399: A 1971 interview Wilson claimed to have named the series, and when this claim was put to Newman he did not dispute it. Writer Anthony Coburn , story editor David Whitaker and initial producer Verity Lambert also heavily contributed to the development of the series. On 31 July 1963, Whitaker commissioned Terry Nation to write a story under the title The Mutants . As originally written,
1350-405: A British police box . While travelling, the Doctor works to save lives and liberate oppressed peoples by combating foes . The Doctor often travels with companions . Beginning with William Hartnell , fourteen actors have headlined the series as the Doctor; as of 2024, Ncuti Gatwa leads the series as the Fifteenth Doctor . The transition from one actor to another is written into the plot of
1500-493: A Nigerian television relay station in Jos . Six of the eleven films discovered were the six-part serial The Enemy of the World (1968), from which all but the third episode had been missing. The remaining films were from another six-part serial, The Web of Fear (1968), and included the previously missing episodes 2, 4, 5 and 6. Episode 3 of The Web of Fear is still missing. The Doctor
1650-456: A Time Lord who goes by the name of the Doctor . TARDISes are built with a "chameleon circuit", a type of camouflage technology that changes the exterior form of the ship to blend into the environment of whatever time or place it lands in. The Doctor's TARDIS always resembles a 1960s London police box , an object that was very common in Britain at the time of the show's first broadcast. Owing to
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#17328371210081800-532: A challenge to find missing Doctor Who episodes with the promise of a full-scale Dalek model as a reward. In December 2011, it was announced that part 3 of Galaxy 4 (1965) and part 2 of The Underwater Menace (1967) had been returned to the BBC by a fan who had purchased them in the mid-1980s without realising that the BBC did not hold copies of them. On 10 October 2013, the BBC announced that films of eleven episodes, including nine missing episodes, had been found in
1950-449: 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 (also known as The Mutants ). The serial introduced the eponymous aliens that would become the series' most popular monsters, dubbed "Dalekmania", and was responsible for the BBC's first merchandising boom. We had to rely on
2100-523: A diagram of the TARDIS in her attic, as shown in The Sarah Jane Adventures episode " Invasion of the Bane " (2007). In the two-part serial The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith (2008), Sarah Jane becomes trapped in 1951 and briefly mistakes an actual police public call box for the Doctor's TARDIS (the moment is even heralded by the Doctor's musical cue, frequently used in the revived series). It makes
2250-541: A disembodied brain falling to the floor in The Brain of Morbius and the Doctor apparently being drowned by a villain in The Deadly Assassin (both 1976). Mary Whitehouse's complaint about the latter incident prompted a change in BBC policy towards the series, with much tighter controls imposed on the production team, and the series' next producer, Graham Williams , was under a directive to take out "anything graphic in
2400-528: A female superhero, wears traditional folkloric clothes and tries to save traditional elements of Dutch society against the factory owners. Italian TV shows include A come Andromeda (1972) which was a remake of 1962 BBC serial, A for Andromeda (from the novels of Hoyle and Elliott), Geminus (1968), Il segno del comando (1971), Gamma (1974) and La traccia verde (1975). French series are Highlander: The Series , French science-fiction/fantasy television series (both co-produced with Canada) and
2550-627: A full appearance in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith (2009), in which the Doctor briefly welcomes Sarah Jane's three adolescent companions into the control room. It then serves as a backdrop for the farewell scene between Sarah Jane and the Tenth Doctor, which echoed nearly word-for-word her final exchange with the Fourth Doctor aboard the TARDIS in 1976. It reappears in Death of the Doctor (2010), where it
2700-449: A group of Dutch space explorers and their adventures, De duivelsgrot (The devil's cave), broadcast from 1963 to 1964, about a scientist who finds the map of a cave that leads to the center of the Earth and Treinreis naar de Toekomst (Train journey to the future) about two young children who are taken to the future by robots who try to recreate humanity, but are unable to give the cloned humans
2850-417: A large, invisible air bubble around its exterior that allows occupants to survive in an area that lacks oxygen as long as they are close to it and in one episode, it can create a bridge tunnel that occupants can use to cross over to out-of-reach areas such as another ship. The TARDIS is also shown to be strong enough to tow other ships and planets and can even withstand black holes. It is also able to generate
3000-453: A level not seen since the height of "Dalekmania" a decade earlier. After seven years in the role, Baker was replaced by Peter Davison in 1981, and Colin Baker replaced Davison in 1984. In 1985, the channel's controller Michael Grade cancelled the upcoming twenty-third season, forcing the series into an eighteen-month hiatus. In 1986, the series was recommissioned on the condition that Baker left
3150-599: A malfunction in the chameleon circuit after the events of the first episode of the show, An Unearthly Child , the Doctor's TARDIS is stuck in the same disguise for a long period. The Doctor has attempted to repair the chameleon circuit, unsuccessfully in Logopolis (1981) and with only temporary success in Attack of the Cybermen (1985). In the 2005 television story " Boom Town ", the Doctor reveals that he has stopped trying to repair
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#17328371210083300-626: A man who becomes trapped in a telephone booth, while passersby seem unable to help him, won the 1973 International Emmy Award for Fiction. The series Plutón B.R.B. Nero (2008) was a brutal SF comedy by Álex de la Iglesia , in the line of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , Red Dwarf , or Doctor Who , with 26 episodes of 35 minutes. Other series of the 2010s were Los protegidos (2010-2012), El barco (2011-2013), and El internado (2007-2010), all three inspired by North American productions, with minor SF elements. The latest success
3450-482: A more compassionate figure and was eventually revealed to be a Time Lord , whose race are from the planet Gallifrey , which the Doctor fled by stealing the TARDIS. Producers introduced the concept of regeneration to permit the recasting of the main character. This was prompted by the poor health of the original star, William Hartnell . The term "regeneration" was not conceived until the Doctor's third on-screen regeneration; Hartnell's Doctor merely described undergoing
3600-401: A move to a more steampunk -inspired set design, which later influenced the set design in the revived series from 2005 onwards . The production team conceived of the TARDIS travelling by dematerialising at one point and rematerialising elsewhere, although sometimes in the series it is shown also to be capable of conventional space travel. In the 2006 Christmas special, " The Runaway Bride ",
3750-411: A new source of income for actors, who began to charge money for autographs that they had previously been doing for free. This became significant enough that lesser-known actors would come to conventions without requesting any appearance fee, simply to be allowed to sell their own autographs (commonly on publicity photos). Today most events with actor appearances are organized by commercial promoters, though
3900-636: A novelty pop single in 1988 entitled " Doctorin' the Tardis ". The record reached number one in the UK Singles Chart and had chart success worldwide. It was a reworking of several songs (principally Gary Glitter 's " Rock and Roll Part 2 ", The Sweet 's " Block Buster! " and the Doctor Who theme music ) with lyrics referencing Doctor Who , specifically the TARDIS. In 2007, the British rock band Radiohead included
4050-464: A number of fan-run conventions still exist, such as Toronto Trek and Shore Leave . The 1985 series Robotech is most often credited as the catalyst for the Western interest in anime. The series inspired a few fanzines such as Protoculture Addicts and Animag both of which in turn promoted interest in the wide world of anime in general. Anime's first notable appearance at SF or comic book conventions
4200-428: A number of smaller fiction/fantasy television series, including Tang in 1971, about a secret organization that attempts to control the world with a new super weapon, "Les atomistes" and 1970 miniseries "La brigade des maléfices". Another French-produced science fiction series was the new age animated series Il était une fois... l'espace (English: Once upon a time...space ). Anime-influenced animation includes
4350-402: A police-box-shaped bottle for a TARDIS bubble bath. The 1993 VHS release of The Trial of a Time Lord was contained in a special-edition tin shaped like the TARDIS. With the 2005 series revival, a variety of TARDIS-shaped merchandise has been produced, including a TARDIS coin box, TARDIS figure toy set, a TARDIS that detects the ring signal from a mobile phone and flashes when an incoming call
4500-626: A poorer place without Doctor Who ". On 4 August 2013, a live programme titled Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor was broadcast on BBC One, during which the actor who was going to play the Twelfth Doctor was revealed. The live show was watched by an average of 6.27 million in the UK, and was also simulcast in the United States, Canada and Australia. Doctor Who originally ran for 26 seasons on BBC One, from 23 November 1963 until 6 December 1989. During
4650-414: A real [police box]. The phone's just a dummy, and the windows are the wrong size." The TARDIS console room was designed for the first episode by set designer Peter Brachacki and was unusually large for a BBC production of this time. It was noted for its innovative, gleaming white "futuristic" appearance. Like the police box prop, the set design of the TARDIS interior has evolved over the years. From
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4800-715: A science fiction television series based upon Zoran Živković's story, winner of a World Fantasy Award . Návštěvníci (The Visitors) was a Czechoslovak (and Federal German, Swiss and French) TV series produced in 1981 to 1983. The family show aired in a larger number of European countries. For a list of notable science fiction series and programs on television, see: List of science fiction television programs . People who have influenced science fiction on television include: [REDACTED] Media related to Science fiction television programmes at Wikimedia Commons TARDIS The TARDIS ( / ˈ t ɑːr d ɪ s / ; acronym for "Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space")
4950-407: A sense, virtually all animated series allow characters and objects to perform in unrealistic ways, so they are almost all considered to fit within the broadest category of speculative fiction (in the context of awards, criticism, marketing, etc.) The artistic affinity of animation to comic books has led to a large amount of superhero -themed animation, much of this adapted from comics series, while
5100-400: A series of French-Japanese cartoons / anime , including such titles as Ulysses 31 (1981), The Mysterious Cities of Gold (1982), and Ōban Star-Racers (2006). The first Spanish SF series was Diego Valor , a 22 episode TV adaption of a radio show hero of the same name based on Dan Dare , aired weekly between 1958 and 1959. Nothing was survived of this series, not a single still; it
5250-505: A single narrative. The time-travelling nature of the plot means that different incarnations of the Doctor occasionally meet. In 2017, Jodie Whittaker , as the Thirteenth Doctor , became the first woman to be cast in the lead role. The series is a significant part of popular culture in Britain and elsewhere; it has gained a cult following . It has influenced generations of British television professionals, many of whom grew up watching
5400-456: A soul. All three of these television series were aimed mostly at children. Later television series were Professor Vreemdeling (1977) about a strange professor who wants to make plants speak and Zeeuws Meisje [ nl ] (1997) a nationalistic post-apocalyptic series where the Netherlands has been built full of housing and the highways are filled with traffic jams. The protagonist,
5550-502: A stop. No 1960s episodes exist on their original videotapes (all surviving prints being film transfers), though some were transferred to film for editing before transmission and exist in their broadcast form. Some episodes have been returned to the BBC from the archives of other countries that bought prints 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
5700-530: A time rotor. The presence of a physically larger space contained within the police box is explained as "dimensionally transcendental", with the interior being a whole separate dimension containing an infinite number of rooms, corridors and storage spaces, all of which can change their appearance and configuration. The TARDIS also allows the Doctor and others to communicate with people who speak languages other than their own, as well as turn all written languages to English. The "translation circuit" (occasionally called
5850-462: A wide array of software. Models have been an essential tool in science fiction television since the beginning, when Buck Rogers took flight in spark-scattering spaceships wheeling across a matte backdrop sky. The original Star Trek required a staggering array of models; the USS Enterprise had to be built in several different scales for different needs. Models fell out of use in filming in
6000-499: Is El ministerio del tiempo ( The ministry of time ), premiered on February 24, 2015 on TVE 's main channel La 1 . The series follows the exploits of a patrol of the fictional Ministry of Time, which deals with incidents caused by time travel. It has garnered several national prizes in 2015, like the Ondas Prize , and has a thick following on-line, called los ministéricos . Serbia produced The Collector ( Sakupljač ),
6150-430: Is a fictional hybrid of a time machine and spacecraft that appears in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its various spin-offs. While a TARDIS is capable of disguising itself, the exterior appearance of the Doctor's TARDIS typically mimics a police box , an obsolete type of telephone kiosk that was once commonly seen on streets in Britain in the 1940s and 50s. Paradoxically, its interior
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6300-614: Is detected, TARDIS-shaped wardrobes and DVD cabinets, and a USB hub in the shape of the TARDIS. The complete 2005 season DVD box set, released in November 2005, was issued in packaging that resembled the TARDIS. One of the original-model TARDISes used in the television series' production in the 1970s was sold at auction in December 2005 for £ 10,800. In 1996 the BBC applied to the UK Intellectual Property Office to register
6450-536: Is like comparing Monopoly with the property market in London: both are fantasies, but one is meant to be taken seriously." 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 policemen marked the apex of the series' ability to frighten children. Other notable moments in that decade include
6600-438: Is not known if the show was even recorded or just a live broadcast. The 60s were dominated by Chicho Ibáñez Serrador and Narciso Ibáñez Menta , who adapted SF works from Golden Age authors and others to a series titled Mañana puede ser verdad . Only 11 episodes were filmed. The 70s saw three important television films, Los pajaritos (1974), La Gioconda está triste (1977), and La cabina (1972), this last one, about
6750-475: Is shown as being much larger than its exterior, commonly described as being "bigger on the inside". Due to the significance of Doctor Who in popular British culture , the shape of the police box is now more strongly associated with the TARDIS than its real-world inspiration. The name and design of the TARDIS is a registered trademark of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), although
6900-513: Is situated at a rift of temporal energy, the Doctor often appears on Roald Dahl Plass directly above it in order to recharge the TARDIS. In the episode, Jack Harkness hears the tell-tale sound of the engines, smiles and afterwards is nowhere to be found; the scene picks up in the cold open of the Doctor Who episode " Utopia " (2007) in which Jack runs to and holds onto the TARDIS just before it disappears. Former companion Sarah Jane Smith has
7050-525: Is stolen by the Shansheeth who try to use it as an immortality machine, and transports Sarah Jane, Jo Grant and their adolescent companions ( Rani Chandra , Clyde Langer and Santiago Jones ). The TARDIS appears in the two film productions, Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966). In both films the Doctor, played by Peter Cushing , is an eccentric scientist who invented
7200-628: The Daily Telegraph in 2009, the revival of Doctor Who had consistently received high ratings, both in number of viewers and as measured by the Appreciation Index . In 2007, Caitlin Moran , television reviewer for The Times , wrote that Doctor Who is "quintessential to being British". According to Steven Moffat , the American film director Steven Spielberg has commented that "the world would be
7350-508: The Asgard characters are puppets in scenes where they are sitting, standing, or lying down. In Mystery Science Theater 3000 , the characters of Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo , two of the show's main (and most iconic) characters, are puppets constructed from random household items. As animation is completely free of the constraints of gravity, momentum, and physical reality, it is an ideal technique for science fiction and fantasy on television. In
7500-513: The Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Later series made in the 1960s included The Interpretaris (1966) Vega 4 (1967), and Phoenix Five (1970). The country's best known Science Fiction series was Farscape ; an American co-production, it ran from 1999 to 2003. A significant proportion of Australian produced Science Fiction programmes are made for the teens/young Adults market, including The Girl from Tomorrow ,
7650-477: The BBC Radiophonic Workshop by sound technician Brian Hodgson by recording on tape the sound of his mother's house key scraping up and down the strings of an old piano . Hodgson then re-recorded the sound by changing the tape speed up and down and splicing the altered sounds together. When employed in the series, the sound is usually synchronised with the flashing light on top of the police box, or
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#17328371210087800-499: 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 Wilson, it was immediately rejected as the programme was not permitted to contain any " bug-eyed monsters ". According to Lambert, "We didn't have a lot of choice—we only had the Dalek serial to go ... We had a bit of
7950-482: 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 . With the approval of the BBC, efforts are now underway to restore as many of the episodes as possible from the extant material. "Official" reconstructions have also been released by
8100-531: The Fox Network in 1996, as an international co-production between Fox, Universal Pictures , the BBC and BBC Worldwide . Starring Paul McGann as the Doctor, the film was successful in the UK (with 9.1 million viewers), but 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. In September 2003, BBC Television announced
8250-579: The Metropolitan Police Authority filed an objection to the trademark claim; but in 2002, the Patent Office ruled in favour of the BBC. The 21st-century revival of the programme became the centrepiece of BBC One's Saturday schedule and "defined the channel". Many renowned actors have made guest-starring appearances in various stories including Kylie Minogue , Sir Ian McKellen , and Andrew Garfield among others. According to an article in
8400-521: The Monty Python comedy troupe opened their reunion show, Monty Python Live (Mostly) , with a trademark animation featuring the Tardis – dubbed the "retardis" – flying through space before the Pythons came on stage. In film, the TARDIS makes a cameo appearance in a number of productions, including Iron Sky (2012) and The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019). The TARDIS has also featured within
8550-667: The Somerton area of Newport in South Wales is known as the Somerton TARDIS . An asteroid discovered in 1984 by astronomer Brian A. Skiff was named 3325 TARDIS on account of its cuboid appearance. A number of geological features on Charon , the largest moon of the dwarf planet Pluto , have been named after mythological or fictional vessels, and one is named the Tardis Chasma . A data storage manufacturer called tarDISK markets
8700-717: The Super Robots such as Mitsuteru Yokoyama 's Tetsujin 28-go ( Gigantor ) and Go Nagai 's Mazinger Z , and the Real Robots such as Yoshiyuki Tomino 's Gundam series and Shōji Kawamori 's Macross series. Other primary aspects of Japanese science fiction television are the superhero tokusatsu (a term literally meaning special effects ) series, pioneered by programs such as Moonlight Mask and Planet Prince . The suitmation technique has been used in long running franchises include Eiji Tsuburaya 's Ultra Series , Shotaro Ishinomori 's Kamen Rider Series , and
8850-610: The Super Sentai Series. In addition, several dramas utilize science fiction elements as framing devices, but are not labeled as "tokusatsu" as they do not utilize actors in full body suits and other special effects. Among the notable German language productions are: Danish television broadcast the children's TV-series Crash in 1984 about a boy who finds out that his room is a space ship. Early Dutch television series were Morgen gebeurt het [ nl ] (Tomorrow it will happen), broadcast from 1957 to 1959, about
9000-633: The "translation matrix") was first explored in The Masque of Mandragora (1976), as the Doctor explained to his companion, Sarah Jane , "Well, I've taken you to some strange places before and you've never asked how you understood the local language. It's a Time Lord's gift I allow you to share. But tonight, when you asked me how you understood Italian, I realised your mind had been taken over." The translation circuit has also been explored in comparison with real-world machine translation, with researchers Mark Halley and Lynne Bowker concluding that "when it comes to
9150-503: The 1920s by the Scottish architect Gilbert Mackenzie Trench . The idea for the police-box disguise came from a BBC staff writer, Anthony Coburn , who rewrote the programme's first episode from a draft by C. E. Webber . While there is no known precedent for this notion, a November 1960 episode of the popular radio comedy show Beyond Our Ken included a sketch featuring a time machine described as "a tall telephone box". The concept of
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#17328371210089300-580: The 1950s". Doctor Who , which launched in 1963 and ran until 1989, then was revived in 2005, was listed in the Guinness World Records in 2006 as the longest-running science fiction television show in the world and as the "most successful" science fiction series of all time. Other cult British series in the science fiction genre include The Tomorrow People , Space: 1999 , Blake's 7 , Star Cops and Red Dwarf . Science fiction in Canada
9450-472: The 1965 serial The Time Meddler introduced the plural in the television series – although the script had it as singular, actor Maureen O'Brien changed it to "Dimensions". Both continued to be used during the classic series; in " Rose " (2005), the Ninth Doctor uses the singular (although this was a decision of actor Christopher Eccleston — the line was plural in the script for the episode). The acronym
9600-453: The 1970s. No other show attracted a large organized following until the 1990s, when Babylon 5 attracted both Star Trek fans and a large number of literary SF fans who previously had not been involved in media fandom. Other series began to attract a growing number of followers. The British series, Doctor Who , has similarly attracted a devoted following. In the late 1990s, a market for celebrity autographs emerged on eBay , which created
9750-472: The 1990s as CGI became more affordable and practical, but even today, designers sometimes construct scale models which are then digitized for use in animation software. Models of characters are puppets . Gerry Anderson created a series of shows using puppets living in a universe of models and miniature sets, notably Thunderbirds . ALF depicted an alien living in a family, while Farscape included two puppets as regular characters. In Stargate SG-1 ,
9900-413: The 45-minute run time; notably, the episodes " Journey's End " from 2008 and " The Eleventh Hour " from 2010 were longer than an hour. 883 Doctor Who instalments have been televised since 1963, ranging between 25-minute episodes (the most common format for the classic era), 45/50-minute episodes (for Resurrection of the Daleks in the 1984 series, a single season in 1985, and the most common format for
10050-403: The BBC explored an independent production company to relaunch the series. Philip Segal , a British expatriate who worked for Columbia Pictures ' television arm in the United States, had approached the BBC as early as July 1989, while the 26th season was still in production. Segal's negotiations eventually led to a Doctor Who television film as a pilot for an American series, broadcast on
10200-742: The BBC on VHS, on MP3 CD-ROM , and as special features on DVD. The BBC, in conjunction with animation studio Cosgrove Hall , reconstructed the missing episodes 1 and 4 of The Invasion (1968), using remastered audio tracks and the comprehensive stage notes for the original filming, for the serial's DVD release in November 2006. The missing episodes of The Reign of Terror were animated by animation company Theta-Sigma, in collaboration with Big Finish , and became available for purchase in May 2013 through Amazon.com. Subsequent animations made in 2013 include The Tenth Planet , The Ice Warriors (1967) and The Moonbase (1967). In April 2006, Blue Peter launched
10350-517: The Christmas 1963 edition of Radio Times , which refers to "the space-time ship Tardis ". In the fictional universe of the Doctor Who television show, TARDISes are space- and time-travel vehicles of the Time Lords , beings from the planet Gallifrey . Although many TARDISes exist and are sometimes seen on-screen, the television show mainly features a single TARDIS used by the show's protagonist ,
10500-418: The Doctor remarks that for a spaceship, the TARDIS does remarkably little flying. The ability to travel simply by fading into and out of different locations became one of the trademarks of the show, allowing for a great deal of versatility in setting and storytelling without a large expense in special effects. The distinctive accompanying sound effect – a cyclic wheezing, groaning noise – was originally created in
10650-486: The Doctor's many incarnations often find events that pique their curiosity, and try to prevent evil forces from harming innocent people or changing history, using only ingenuity and minimal resources, such as the versatile sonic screwdriver . The Doctor rarely travels alone and is often joined by one or more companions on these adventures; these companions are usually humans, owing to the Doctor's fascination with planet Earth , which also leads to frequent collaborations with
10800-470: The Fifteenth Doctor's TARDIS was a "new" one, Russell T Davies said that it is, in fact, the original. When Doctor Who was being developed in 1963 the production staff discussed what the Doctor's time machine would look like. To keep the design within budget it was decided to make the outside resemble a police telephone box , a common piece of street furniture that had originally been designed in
10950-584: The TARDIS (2023–2024), and the upcoming The War Between the Land and the Sea . It has been the subject of many parodies and references in popular culture . Doctor Who follows the adventures of the title character, a rogue Time Lord with somewhat unknown origins who goes by the name " the Doctor ". The Doctor fled Gallifrey , the planet of the Time Lords, in a stolen TARDIS ("Time and Relative Dimension(s) in Space"),
11100-601: The TARDIS as a trademark . This was challenged by the Metropolitan Police , who felt that they owned the rights to the police box image. However, the Patent Office found that there was no evidence that the Metropolitan Police – or any other police force – had ever registered the image as a trademark. In addition, the BBC had been selling merchandise based on the image for over three decades without complaint by
11250-516: The TARDIS himself. As one of the most recognisable images connected with Doctor Who , the TARDIS has appeared on numerous items of merchandise associated with the programme. TARDIS scale models of various sizes have been manufactured to accompany other Doctor Who dolls and action figures, some with sound effects included. Fan-built full-size models of the police box are also common. There have been TARDIS-shaped video games, play tents for children, toy boxes, cookie jars, book ends, key chains, and even
11400-411: The TARDIS police box props used in the series have changed many times, as a result of damage and the requirements of the show, and none of the BBC props has been a faithful replica of the original MacKenzie Trench model. Numerous details have been altered over time, including the shape of the roof, the signage, the shade of blue paint, the presence of a St John Ambulance emblem and the overall height of
11550-576: The TARDIS should automatically adopt a disguise, such as a howdah (a carrier on the back of an Indian elephant in the Indian Mutiny ) or a rock on a beach. Accounts differ as to the origin of the police box prop. While the BBC asserts that it was constructed specially for Doctor Who , it has been claimed that the box was a reused prop from the BBC television police dramas Z-Cars or Dixon of Dock Green (a claim later repeated by Doctor Who producer Steven Moffat ). The dimensions and colour of
11700-513: The TARDIS, issued on Niue Island in the South Pacific Ocean by the Perth Mint to mark the 50th anniversary of the Doctor Who television show; and Tardis Environmental, a British sewage company, in reference to the similarity of their portable toilets to a police box. "Tardis" has also become a slang term used in the British real estate industry, to suggest that a house or apartment
11850-448: The basic concept of a series, influencing all the artistic choices. By the late 1990s, improved technology and more training and cross-training within the industry made all of these techniques easier to use, so that directors of individual episodes could make decisions to use one or more methods, so such artistic choices no longer needed to be baked into the series concept. Special effects (or "SPFX") have been an essential tool throughout
12000-401: The best known outside Doctor Who itself, due to the popularity of his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy works. The serial format changed for the 2005 revival , with what was now called a series usually consisting of thirteen 45-minute, self-contained episodes (60 minutes with adverts, on overseas commercial channels) and an extended 60-minute episode broadcast on Christmas Day. This system
12150-407: The box. The original prop remained in use for around 13 years until it collapsed – reportedly on Elisabeth Sladen 's head. A new prop was introduced for The Masque of Mandragora in 1976, and there have been at least six versions in total. The evolution of the prop design was referenced on-screen in the episode " Blink " (2007), when the character Detective Inspector Shipton says the TARDIS "isn't
12300-449: The central console and to the layout, but the overall concept remained constant. In Season 14 (1976–77), a dark wood-panelled "Control Room Number 2" was briefly used for a few episodes, but the white console room set was reinstated in Season 15 , due to damage to the set. After the cancellation of the television show, a radically redesigned TARDIS set was used in the 1996 TV movie , heralding
12450-507: The character in " The Power of the Doctor " on 23 October 2022, she regenerated into a form portrayed by David Tennant , who was confirmed to be the Fourteenth Doctor and the first actor to play two incarnations, having previously played the Tenth Doctor . In the same year, Ncuti Gatwa was revealed to be portraying the Fifteenth Doctor , making him the first black actor to headline the series. In addition to those actors who have headlined
12600-417: The circuit as he has become fond of its appearance. The other TARDISes that appear in the series have chameleon circuits that are fully functional. While the exterior is of limited size, the TARDIS is famously "bigger on the inside". Behind the police box doors lies a large control room, at the centre of which is a console for operating the TARDIS. In the middle of the console is a moving tubular device called
12750-587: The darker sides of the Doctor's nature, somewhere between the twelfth and final incarnation.The most recent example is when Richard E. Grant , who previously portrayed an alternate version of the Doctor known as the Shalka Doctor in the animated series Scream of the Shalka (2003), appeared as a hologram of a past Doctor in " Rogue " (2024). Science fiction television series The need to portray imaginary settings or characters with properties and abilities beyond
12900-400: The depiction of violence". John Nathan-Turner produced the series during the 1980s and said in the documentary More Than Thirty Years in the TARDIS that he looked forward to Whitehouse's comments because the ratings of the series would increase soon after she had made them. Nathan-Turner also got into trouble with BBC executives over the violence he allowed to be depicted for season 22 of
13050-468: The design was originally created by the Metropolitan Police Service . TARDIS is an acronym of "Time And Relative Dimension in Space". The word "Dimension" is alternatively rendered in the plural. The first story, An Unearthly Child (1963), used the singular "Dimension". The 1964 novelisation Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks used "Dimensions" for the first time and
13200-529: The development of the Massive software application permits producers to include hordes of non-human characters to storm a city or space station. The robotic Cylons in the new version of Battlestar Galactica are usually animated characters, while the Asgard in Stargate SG-1 are animated when they are shown walking around or more than one is on screen at once. In general, science fiction series are subject to
13350-466: The domestic television market, most Canadian productions involve partnerships with production studios based in the United States and Europe. However, in recent years, new partnership arrangements are allowing Canadian investors a growing share of control of projects produced in Canada and elsewhere. Australia's first locally produced Science Fiction series was The Stranger (1964–65) produced and screened by
13500-546: The earliest forms of media fandom was Star Trek fandom . Fans of the series became known to each other through the science fiction fandom . In 1968, NBC decided to cancel Star Trek . Bjo Trimble wrote letters to contacts in the National Fantasy Fan Foundation, asking people to organize their local friends to write to the network to demand the show remain on the air. Network executives were overwhelmed by an unprecedented wave of correspondence, and they kept
13650-532: The fade-in and fade-out effects of a TARDIS. Writer Patrick Ness has described the ship's distinctive dematerialisation noise as "a kind of haunted grinding sound", while the Doctor Who Magazine comic strips traditionally use the onomatopoeic phrase "vworp vworp vworp". The sound of the Doctor's TARDIS featured in the final scene of the Torchwood episode " End of Days " (2007). As Torchwood Three's hub
13800-451: The first decade of the 21st century, changes in provincial tax legislation prompted many production companies to move from Toronto to Vancouver . Recent popular series produced in Vancouver include The Dead Zone , Smallville , Andromeda , Stargate Atlantis , Stargate Universe , The 4400 , Sanctuary and the reimagined Battlestar Galactica . Because of the small size of
13950-417: The first two Doctors: William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton . In all, 97 of 253 episodes produced during the programme's first six years are not held in the BBC's archives (most notably seasons 3, 4, and 5, from which 79 episodes are missing). In 1972, almost all episodes then made were known to exist at the BBC, while by 1978 the practice of wiping tapes and destroying "spare" film copies had been brought to
14100-582: The gameplay of a number of popular video games , including Lego Dimensions and Fortnite: Battle Royale . To promote the Barbie film released in July 2023, a pink TARDIS was unveiled next to Tower Bridge in London on 11 July, as Ncuti Gatwa would appear in both Barbie as a Ken and in Doctor Who as the Fifteenth Doctor . Other references to the TARDIS have included a $ 2 silver commemorative coin depicting
14250-479: The history of science fiction on television: small explosives to simulate the effects of various rayguns , squibs of blood and gruesome prosthetics to simulate the monsters and victims in horror series, and the wire-flying entrances and exits of George Reeves as Superman . The broad term "special effects" includes all the techniques here, but more commonly there are two categories of effects. Visual effects ("VFX") involve photographic or digital manipulation of
14400-609: The idea of casting a woman as the Doctor had been suggested by the show's writers several times, including by Newman in 1986 and Davies in 2008, until 2017, all official depictions were played by men. Jodie Whittaker took over the role as the Thirteenth Doctor at the end of the 2017 Christmas special and is the first woman to be cast as the character. The show introduced the Time Lords' ability to change sex on regeneration in earlier episodes, first in dialogue, then with Michelle Gomez 's version of The Master and T'Nia Miller 's version of The General. Upon Whittaker's final appearance as
14550-512: The impossible characters and settings allowed in animation made this a preferred medium for both fantasy and for series aimed at young audiences. Originally, animation was all hand-drawn by artists, though in the 1980s, beginning with Captain Power , computers began to automate the task of creating repeated images; by the 1990s, hand-drawn animation became defunct. In recent years as technology has improved, this has become more common, notably since
14700-435: The in-house production of a new series, after several years of attempts by BBC Worldwide to find backing for a feature film version. The 2005 revival of Doctor Who is a direct plot continuation of the original 1963–1989 series and the 1996 television film. The executive producers of the new incarnation of the series were Queer as Folk writer Russell T Davies and BBC Cymru Wales head of drama Julie Gardner . From 2005,
14850-414: The inception of the show in 1963 up until the end of the " classic series " in 1989, the design of the TARDIS console room remained largely unchanged from Brachacki's original set, a brightly lit white chamber, lined with a pattern of roundels on the walls and with a central hexagonal console which contained a cylindrical "time rotor" that moved when the TARDIS was in transit. Numerous alterations were made to
15000-507: The international military task force UNIT when Earth is threatened. The Doctor is centuries old and, as a Time Lord, has the ability to regenerate when there is mortal damage to their body. The Doctor's various incarnations have gained numerous recurring enemies during their travels, including the Daleks , their creator Davros , the Cybermen , and the renegade Time Lord the Master . Doctor Who
15150-500: The long-running Mr. Squiggle , Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left , Ocean Girl , Crash Zone , Watch This Space and Spellbinder . Other series like Time Trax , Roar , and Space: Above and Beyond were filmed in Australia, but used mostly US crew and actors. Japan has a long history of producing science fiction series for television. Some of the most famous are anime such as Osamu Tezuka 's Astro Boy ,
15300-413: The majority of science fiction media fandom has been represented by males of all ages and for most of its modern existence, a fairly diverse racial demographic. The most highly publicized demographic for science fiction fans is the male adolescent; roughly the same demographic for American comic books . Female fans, while always present, were far fewer in number and less conspicuously present in fandom. With
15450-403: 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, and the individual parts were assigned episode numbers. Of the programme's many writers , Robert Holmes was the most prolific, while Douglas Adams became
15600-509: The new Doctor. Smith decided to leave the role of the Doctor in 2013, the 50th anniversary year. He was replaced by Peter Capaldi . In January 2016, Moffat announced that he would step down after the 2017 finale , to be replaced by Chris Chibnall in 2018. Jodie Whittaker , the first female Doctor, appeared in three series, the last of which was shortened due to the COVID-19 pandemic . Both Whittaker and Chibnall announced that they would depart
15750-536: The onscreen image, usually done in post-production . Mechanical or physical effects involve props, pyrotechnics, and other physical methods used during principal photography itself. Some effects involved a combination of techniques; a ray gun might require a pyrotechnic during filming, and then an optical glowing line added to the film image in post-production. Stunts are another important category of physical effects. In general, all kinds of special effects must be carefully planned during pre-production . Babylon 5
15900-454: 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. Some notable exceptions were: The Daleks' Master Plan , which aired twelve episodes (plus an earlier one-episode teaser, " Mission to the Unknown ", featuring none of the regular cast); almost an entire season of seven-episode serials (season 7);
16050-604: The point that in 1991 the Museum of the Moving Image in London named its exhibition celebrating the programme Behind the Sofa . The electronic theme music too was perceived as eerie, novel, and frightening at the time. A 2012 article placed this childhood juxtaposition of fear and thrill "at the center of many people's relationship with the series", and a 2011 online vote at Digital Spy deemed
16200-531: The police. The Patent Office issued a ruling in favour of the BBC in 2002. The word TARDIS is listed in the Oxford English Dictionary . A number of legacy police boxes are still standing on streets around the United Kingdom. Although now no longer used for their original function, many have been repurposed as coffee kiosks, and are often affectionately referred to as TARDISes. A police box in
16350-416: The programme for 26 seasons, broadcast on BBC One . Due to his increasingly poor health, William Hartnell , first actor to play the Doctor, was succeeded by Patrick Troughton in 1966. In 1970, Jon Pertwee replaced Troughton and the series began production in colour. In 1974, Tom Baker was cast as the Doctor. His eccentric personality became hugely popular, with viewing figures for the series returning to
16500-567: The public consciousness despite not often being repeated and was recognised by producers of the show as a plot obstacle for when the show finally had to regenerate the Doctor a thirteenth time. The episode " The Time of the Doctor " (2013) depicted the Doctor acquiring a new cycle of regenerations, starting from the Twelfth Doctor , due to the Eleventh Doctor being the product of the Doctor's twelfth regeneration from his original set. Although
16650-484: The reach of current reality obliges producers to make extensive use of specialized techniques of television production. Through most of the 20th century, many of these techniques were expensive and involved a small number of dedicated craft practitioners, while the reusability of props, models, effects, or animation techniques made it easier to keep using them. The combination of high initial cost and lower maintenance cost pushed producers into building these techniques into
16800-510: The revival era since 2005), two feature-length productions (1983's " The Five Doctors " and the 1996 television film ), twelve Christmas specials (most of approximately 60 minutes' duration, one of 72 minutes), and four additional specials ranging from 60 to 75 minutes in 2009, 2010, and 2013. Four mini-episodes, running about eight minutes each, were also produced for the 1993, 2005, and 2007 Children in Need charity appeals, while another mini-episode
16950-404: The rising popularity of fanfiction , a large majority of which is categorized as slash fanfiction . Female fans comprise the majority of fanfiction writers. U.S. television science fiction has produced Lost In Space , Star Trek , The Twilight Zone , and The X-Files , among others. British television science fiction began in 1938 when the broadcast medium was in its infancy with
17100-424: The rising popularity of fanzines, female fans became increasingly vocal. Starting in the 2000s (decade), genre series began to offer more prominent female characters. Many series featured women as the main characters with males as supporting characters. True Blood is an example. Also, such shows premises moved away from heroic action-adventure and focused more on characters and their relationships. This has caused
17250-419: The role of the Doctor, which was recast to Sylvester McCoy in 1987. Falling viewing numbers, a decline in the public perception of the series and a less-prominent transmission slot saw production ended in 1989 by Peter Cregeen , the BBC's new head of series. Although it was effectively cancelled , the BBC repeatedly affirmed over several years that the series would return. While in-house production concluded,
17400-483: The room to watch the remainder of it. The Economist presented "hiding behind the sofa whenever the Daleks appear" as a British cultural institution on a par with Bovril and tea-time . Paul Parsons, author of The Science of Doctor Who , explains the appeal of hiding behind the sofa as the activation of the fear response in the amygdala in conjunction with reassurances of safety from the brain's frontal lobe . The phrase retains this association with Doctor Who , to
17550-403: The same financial constraints as other television shows. However, high production costs increase the financial risk, while limited audiences further complicate the business case for continuing production. Star Trek was the first television series to cost more than $ 100,000 per episode, while Star Trek: The Next Generation was the first to cost more than $ 1 million per episode. One of
17700-524: The science of translation technology, Doctor Who gets it wrong more often than it gets it right. However, perhaps we can forgive the artistic license if we recognise that, as in other science fiction works, the presentation of some type of ubiquitous translation tool is necessary to explain to the audience how people from other countries, time periods, and even other worlds, can understand each other and indeed appear to speak (mostly) flawless English." The TARDIS also has other special abilities: it can produce
17850-402: The series "never had a more implacable foe than Mary Whitehouse". A BBC audience research survey conducted in 1972 found that, by their own definition of violence ("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 the drama programmes the corporation produced at
18000-505: The series after a series of specials in 2022. Davies returned as showrunner from the 60th anniversary specials , twelve years after he had left the series previously. Bad Wolf co-produces the series in partnership with BBC Studios Productions . Bad Wolf's involvement sees Gardner return to the series alongside Davies and Jane Tranter , who recommissioned the series in 2005. The programme has been sold to many other countries worldwide ( see § Viewership ). It has been claimed that
18150-433: The series in 1985, which was publicly criticised by controller Michael Grade and given as one of his reasons for suspending the series for 18 months. The phrase "hiding behind the sofa " (or "watching from behind the sofa") entered British pop culture , signifying the stereotypical but apocryphal early-series behaviour of children who wanted to avoid seeing frightening parts of a television programme while remaining in
18300-452: The series switched from a multi-camera to a single-camera setup. Starring Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, Doctor Who returned with the episode "Rose" on BBC One on 26 March 2005, after a 16-year hiatus of in-house production. Eccleston left after one series and was replaced by David Tennant . Davies left the production team in 2009. Steven Moffat , a writer under Davies, was announced as his successor, along with Matt Smith as
18450-448: The series the "scariest TV show of all time". The image of the TARDIS has become firmly linked to the series in the public's consciousness; BBC scriptwriter Anthony Coburn , who lived in the resort of Herne Bay, Kent , was one of the people who conceived the idea of a police box as a time machine. In 1996, the BBC applied for a trademark to use the TARDIS' blue police box design in merchandising associated with Doctor Who . In 1998,
18600-417: The series with the concept of regeneration into a new incarnation , a plot device in which, when a Time Lord is fatally injured, their cells regenerate and they are reincarnated, into a different body with mannerisms and behaviour, but the same memories, explaining each actor's distinct portrayal, as they all represent different stages in the life of the Doctor and, together, they form a single lifetime with
18750-508: The series, others have portrayed versions of the Doctor in guest roles. Notably, in 2013, John Hurt guest-starred as a hitherto unknown incarnation of the Doctor known as the War Doctor in the run-up to the show's 50th-anniversary special " The Day of the Doctor ". He is shown in mini-episode " The Night of the Doctor " retroactively inserted into the show's fictional chronology between McGann's and Eccleston's Doctors, although his introduction
18900-455: The series. Fans of the series are sometimes referred to as Whovians . The series has been listed in Guinness World Records as the longest-running science-fiction television series in the world, as well as the "most successful" science-fiction series of all time, based on its overall broadcast ratings, DVD and book sales. The series originally ran from 1963 to 1989. There was an unsuccessful attempt to revive regular production in 1996 with
19050-482: The show on the air. Although the series continued to receive low ratings and was canceled a year later, the enduring popularity of the series resulted in Paramount creating a set of movies, and then a new series Star Trek: The Next Generation , which by the early 1990s had become one of the most popular dramas on American television. Star Trek fans continued to grow in number, and first began organizing conventions in
19200-457: The song "Up on the Ladder" on their album In Rainbows which begins with the line "I'm stuck in the TARDIS". In 2001, Turner Prize -winning artist Mark Wallinger created a piece or artwork entitled Time and Relative Dimensions in Space that is structurally a police box shape faced with mirrors. The BBC website describes it as "recent proof of [the TARDIS'] enduring legacy". In July 2014,
19350-512: The story because there was little we could do with the effects. Star Wars in a way was the turning point. Once Star Wars had happened, Doctor Who effectively was out of date from that moment on really, judged by that level of technological expertise. — Philip Hinchcliffe , producer of Doctor Who from 1974 to 1977, on why the "classic series" eventually fell behind other science fiction in production values and reputation, leading to its cancellation The BBC drama department produced
19500-436: The television screen onto 8 mm cine film and clips that were shown on other programmes. Audio versions of all lost episodes exist from home viewers who made tape recordings of the show. Short clips from every story with the exception of Marco Polo (1964), " Mission to the Unknown " (1965) and The Massacre (1966) also exist. In addition to these, there are off-screen photographs made by photographer John Cura , who
19650-483: The ten-episode serial The War Games ; and The Trial of a Time Lord , which ran for fourteen episodes (albeit divided into three production codes and four narrative segments) during season 23 . Occasionally, serials were loosely connected by a story line, such as season 8 focusing on the Doctor battling a rogue Time Lord called the Master , season 16 's quest for the Key to Time , season 18 's journey through E-Space and
19800-536: The terms of a deal between BBC Worldwide and SMG Pictures in China, the company has first right of refusal on the purchase for the Chinese market of future series of the programme until and including Series 15. Between 1967 and 1978, large amounts of older material stored in the BBC's various video tape and film libraries was either destroyed or wiped . This included many early episodes of Doctor Who , those stories featuring
19950-414: The theme of entropy, and season 20 's Black Guardian trilogy. The programme was intended to be educational and for family viewing on the early Saturday evening schedule. It initially alternated stories set in the past, which taught younger audience members about history, and with those in the future or outer space, focusing on science. This was also reflected in the Doctor's original companions, one of whom
20100-504: The time. The same report found that 3% of the surveyed audience believed the series was "very unsuitable" for family viewing. 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,
20250-455: The transmission of a partial adaptation of Karel Čapek 's play R.U.R. . Despite an occasionally chequered history, programmes in the genre have been produced by both the BBC and the largest commercial channel, ITV . Nigel Kneale 's The Quatermass Experiment (1953) and its sequels have been called "one of BBC Television's earliest audience successes" and Kneale became "one of the most influential television and film writers to emerge in
20400-409: 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; in fact, it went out after a delay of eighty seconds. The BBC believed that coverage of the assassination, as well as a series of power blackouts across the country, had caused many viewers to miss this introduction to a new series, and it
20550-488: Was a science teacher and another a history teacher. However, science fiction stories came to dominate the programme, and the history-oriented episodes, 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 England. The early stories were serialised in nature, with
20700-454: Was broadcast again on 30 November 1963, just before episode two. The programme soon became a national institution in the United Kingdom, with a large following among the general viewing audience. The show received controversy over the suitability of the series for children. Morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse repeatedly complained to the BBC over what she saw as the programme's violent, frightening and gory content. According to Radio Times ,
20850-436: Was explained in the first episode of the show, An Unearthly Child (1963), in which the Doctor's granddaughter Susan claims to have made it up herself. Despite this, the term is used commonly by other Time Lords to refer to both the Doctor's and their own time ships. Generally, "TARDIS" is written in all uppercase letters , but may also be written in title case as "Tardis". The word "Tardis" first appeared in print in
21000-399: Was filmed in 1080i for HDTV and broadcast simultaneously on BBC One and BBC HD . To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the show, a special 3D episode, " The Day of the Doctor ", was broadcast in 2013. In March 2013, it was announced that Tennant and Piper would be returning and that the episode would have a limited cinematic release worldwide. In June 2017, it was announced that due to
21150-466: 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. The BBC has tolerated these amateur reconstructions, provided they are not sold for profit and are distributed as low-quality 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
21300-588: Was in the form of video showings of popular anime, untranslated and often low quality VHS bootlegs. Starting in the 1990s, anime fans began organizing conventions. These quickly grew to sizes much larger than other science fiction and media conventions in the same communities; many cities now have anime conventions attracting five to ten thousand attendees. Many anime conventions are a hybrid between non-profit and commercial events, with volunteer organizers handling large revenue streams and dealing with commercial suppliers and professional marketing campaigns. For decades,
21450-486: Was initially shrouded in mystery. In the programme's early days, the character 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 in Space), which notably appears much larger on the inside than on the outside. The initially irascible and slightly sinister Doctor quickly mellowed into
21600-493: Was originally intended to appeal to a family audience as an educational programme using time travel as a means to explore scientific ideas and famous moments in history. The programme first appeared on the BBC Television Service at 17:16:20 GMT on 23 November 1963; this was eighty seconds later than the scheduled programme time, because of announcements concerning the previous day's assassination of John F. Kennedy . It
21750-608: Was produced by the CBC as early as the 1950s. In the 1970s, CTV produced The Starlost . In the 1980s, Canadian animation studios including Nelvana , began producing a growing proportion of the world market in animation. In the 1990s, Canada became an important player in live action speculative fiction on television, with dozens of series like Forever Knight , Robocop , and most notably The X-Files and Stargate SG-1 . Many series have been produced for youth and children's markets, including Deepwater Black and MythQuest . In
21900-546: Was produced in 2008 for a Doctor Who –themed edition of The Proms . The 1993 two-part story, entitled Dimensions in Time , was made in collaboration with the cast of the BBC soap-opera EastEnders and was filmed partly on the EastEnders set. A two-part mini-episode was also produced for the 2011 edition of Comic Relief . Starting with the 2009 special " Planet of the Dead ", the series
22050-434: Was shortened to twelve episodes and one Christmas special following the revival's eighth series , and ten episodes from the eleventh series . Each series includes standalone and multiple episodic stories, often linked with a loose story arc resolved in the series finale. As in the early "classic" era, each episode has its own title, whether stand-alone or part of a larger story. Occasionally, regular-series episodes will exceed
22200-401: Was the first series to use computer-generated imagery , or "CGI", for all exterior space scenes, even those with characters in space suits. The technology has made this more practical, so that today models are rarely used. In the 1990s, CGI required expensive processors and customized applications, but by the 2000s (decade), computing power has pushed capabilities down to personal laptops running
22350-438: Was to be a regular weekly programme, each episode 25 minutes of transmission length. Discussions and plans for the programme had been in progress for a year. The head of drama 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 ; in
22500-633: Was written so as not to disturb the established numerical naming of the Doctors. The show later introduced another such unknown past Doctor with Jo Martin 's recurring portrayal of the Fugitive Doctor , beginning with " Fugitive of the Judoon " (2020). An example from the classic series comes from The Trial of a Time Lord (1986), in which Michael Jayston 's character the Valeyard is described as an amalgamation of
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