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{{Analysis}}{{work}}
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== Significant characters and concepts ==
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==== Regeneration ====
{{quote|''"So, you're my replacements, hm? A dandy and a clown!"''|The First Doctor, "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S10
One of the key abilities of the Doctor, which has helped the show's longevity to a huge degree, is his ability to "regenerate." When faced with imminent death, he transforms into a basically different person, with an entirely new appearance and altered
The tone surrounding regenerations has changed over the years. Early regenerations were [[Early Installment Weirdness|treated as a mere change in appearance]]. For example, when the Second Doctor was forcibly regenerated into the Third, his main concern was his new appearance. Newer episodes treat regeneration more like an actual death. The Tenth Doctor says that when he regenerates, it feels like he dies and a new man takes his place.
The Doctor has been played by eleven different actors in the TV series to date.
The "current" Doctor, the eleventh incarnation, is played by [[Matt Smith]]. This form's persona is of an eccentric scatter-brained old professor in a young man's body.
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==== The sonic screwdriver ====
First used by the Second Doctor in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S5
=== The TARDIS ===
{{quote|''Have you ever thought what it's like, to be wanderers in the fourth dimension?''|'''The First Doctor''', ''An Unearthly Child''}}
Stands for ''Time And Relative Dimension In Space'' (but not {{
It's [[Bigger on the Inside]] (to this day, nobody knows exactly ''how'' big other than "ridiculously huge") and has the exterior appearance (because the chameleon circuit broke in the first episode) of a [[wikipedia:Police box|police box]].<ref>The Doctor's tried to fix it [[Doctor Who/Recap/S18
=== Companions ===
{{quote|''"[[The Watson|Doctor, what is it?]]"''}}
The Doctor is rarely alone in his travels. For the purposes of [[Exposition]] and for [[Audience Surrogate|someone the audience can identify with]], he has had a large number of companions (''mostly'' non-romantic, though Fanfic disagrees). In the show's very early days, he just traveled with his granddaughter and two of her high school
Companions are predominantly human, [[Parent Service|young, female, and attractive]]. In the early episodes there would also be a companion who was young, male, and heroic. Sometimes they are humanoid aliens, or, famously, a robot dog. They have joined and left the TARDIS for various reasons. The Doctor reserves the right to kick a companion out of the TARDIS for bad behaviour (''The Long Game'' is the only episode in which he has done it so far), or to take on a new companion even over the objections of present companions. Classic Series companions tended to have few or no ties to their homes (and often lose such ties, like in ''The Evil of the Daleks''),
It's most common for the Doctor to have one companion along at a time, though periods with two (standard formula for the First and Second Doctors, and briefly the Fourth Doctor) or even three companions (Susan, Barbara and Ian - or Nyssa, Tegan and Adric) are not unknown. Older Doctors usually referred to their companions as "friends" or "assistants"; Recent Doctors, in a bit of [[Ascended Fanon]], tend to use "companion".
Female companions are stereotyped in pop culture memory as [[
See also : [[Doctor Who/Characters|List of characters.]]
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Secret (or, in some stories, not-so-secret) organizations designed to kick alien ass and/or aid the Doctor. UNIT, a Unified (originally United Nations) Intelligence Taskforce that deals specifically with alien or superscientific threats, was introduced in 1968. Torchwood, an organisation funded by the British royalty (as opposed to the government) with the specific aim of arming [[The British Empire]] with alien technology, was introduced in the 2005 Christmas special, ten months before the [[Darker and Edgier]] [[Torchwood|spinoff series]].
The Doctor detests Torchwood on general principle (the feeling is
== The Evolving Show ==
First, a quick note: Classic Who tends to be referred to by ''serial'', not by episode. A serial is a multi-episode story. For most of the show's
The 14-episode The Trial of a Time Lord arc was officially split into 4 stories, however all 14 episodes carried the single title, and "Part 10" , "Part 13", etc.
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The above number 224 does not include the 2 Comic Relief mini-episodes aired in March 2011, the Children in Need episodes aired in 2005 and 2007, and the mini-episode produced for the 2009 Doctor Who at the Proms concert special, or ''Shada''. If you count ''Shada'' and ''Trial of a Time Lord'' as four, this makes 228. The mini episodes are rarely counted - if spinoffs are including, that's probably the only time you'll see them.
Those aspects of the show that would normally be set by the series
=== Children's or Family Show ===
''Technically'', the BBC classify (and have always classified) ''Doctor Who'' as a drama series, created under the aegis of BBC Drama, rather than a children's series under the aegis of the BBC Children's department. The Beeb has no such thing as a "Family Show" department.
That said, of the most controversial discussions in fandom is whether ''Doctor Who'' is a (to quote a line from a newspaper article which used to explain the show's appeal on the blurbs of the [[
''Doctor Who'' was originally intended to be an educational show explaining science and history to children in an entertaining science-fiction context (this is why two of the first three companions were a science teacher and a history teacher). However, the popularity of the outer-space romps and outlandish aliens (particularly the Daleks) eventually shifted the series' emphasis from education to adventure. The TARDIS' police box appearance was, apparently, a matter of budget. Just as the ''[[Star Trek]]'' transporters papered over the ''Enterprise'''s budgetary inability to send shuttles, the TARDIS' supposed shape-shifting circuit was jammed from the outset to avoid having to create a new TARDIS prop for each episode. The First Doctor acts as if this is the first time it's happened: "It's still a police box! Why hasn't it changed? Dear dear, how very disturbing."
Since the beginning, the show has had a high number of [[Family-Unfriendly Death|deaths which are unpleasant in many cases]] (the show has been mild on blood since it returned). However, sometimes the level of violence and gore can be downright brutal, ranging from stabbing to graphic dismemberments, impalements, blood squibs and implied decapitation. The show occasionally features difficult subject matter such as implied rape, racial hatred, genocide, drug use and very discreet references to child molestation.
== Missing Episodes ==
In [[The Sixties]] and [[The Seventies]], [[The BBC|BBC]] policy was to junk or overwrite the media of television programs that had already aired<ref>Yes, this was short-sighted, but give them a bit of a break--the tapes they used were ''very'' expensive, and they didn't view such ephemera as having lasting cultural value, and there was no such thing as a "home video" secondary market. In addition, union performance contracts of the day only allowed for so many broadcasts of a programme.
[[wikipedia:Ian Levine#Missing episodes|A life-size Dalek is being offered]] for anyone who can find a missing episode.
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There is also a lot of material on episodes that weren't made (such as the original Season 23, which would have included the return of the Celestial Toymaker, the Autons, and the Ice Warriors), some of which has been used by [[Big Finish]], a production company that since 1999 has produced more than 100 BBC-licensed and sanctioned ''Doctor Who'' audio dramas featuring original cast members.
In 2006, the BBC and animation studio Cosgrove Hall released an animated reconstruction of Parts 1 and 4 of Patrick Troughton serial "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S6
== Theme Tune ==
No discussion of the show is complete without mentioning its [[Theme Tune]], which has a number of variations (as do the logos and [[Title Sequence
The original theme recording was used, with various edits and mixes, until 1980, when a totally [[Evolving Music|new recording]] was made by Radiophonic Workshop member Peter Howell. Subsequent remixes were provided by Dominic Glynn, Keff McCulloch and John Debney (Debney arranged the theme for the American TV movie). All of the themes since the show returned have been arranged by Murray Gold, with the first (Series 1-3) remixing the original recording with orchestral and electronic embellishments, and was extended for the start of Series 2 to include a tribute to the 'Middle Eight' section of the original theme. Another version was recorded for Series 4, this one with more of a rock-n-roll feel (electric guitar, bass and drumkit). This theme was remixed for the the four specials that transitioned from Ten to Eleven with an orchestral backing. There's a rather different one for Series 5, featuring electronic instruments in a more central position as well as a strong brass sound at the beginning.
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== Spin-offs ==
Along with countless books and semi-canonical audio/video releases, the show has three official television spin-offs: [[Darker and Edgier]] ''[[Torchwood]]'' ([[Everyone Is Bi|bisexual]] alien hunters [[Aliens in Cardiff|in Cardiff]]); the (somewhat) [[Lighter and Softer]] ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'' (beloved ex-companion and a handful of [[You Meddling Kids|Meddling Kids]] fight aliens in London); and ''[[
== Expanded Universe ==
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== The pop culture impact ==
It has to be remembered that, during its most successful periods, the show has had a ''huge'' UK level of popularity, well above stereotypical "cult TV" or SF genre audiences. Current audience figures are regularly about 7 to 8 million an episode (with about 10 million for Christmas specials), often putting it within the top twenty or even ten broadcasts of the week, equivalent in US terms to something like 40 million viewers based on proportion of the population- some episodes from the classic series have clocked more than that, with "City of Death" getting an average of 14.5 million, although [[ITV]] was suffering from a strike at the time, and there were only three channels back then. It is beaten consistently in the UK only by [[Talent Show
The show, because of its heyday in the seventies and eighties, has resulted in children growing up and starting careers ''[[Promoted Fanboy|for the sole purpose of working on the show]]'': [[Russell T. Davies]] started his screenwriting career with a (failed) submission to the BBC; [[David Tennant]] has confessed that the show got him into acting; and [[Steven Moffat]] has joked that he applied to be the executive producer when he was seven. Other people on the show also work [[So My Kids Can Watch|so their kids can see their parents]] in something that's not inappropriate, such as [[John Simm]], known more for gritty dramas before taking the role of the Master.<ref>Try not to think too hard about the fact that the apparently 'family-appropriate' role is a ''genocidal psychopath''</ref>
The Daleks themselves are the show's most famous villains and instantly recognizable to any Briton. There was a major bout of "Dalekmania" in 1964-65, which nearly resulted in a Dalek-themed US produced show.
Unfortunately, in the United States, the show isn't as widely popular and is often considered the [[Sci Fi Ghetto|territory of nerds]] and [[PBS|public television]]. The 1996 movie was partially an attempt to gain enough American recognition to warrant an American co-produced revival of the series (which failed). Since its revival in 2005, the show ''has'' been acknowledged by the mainstream television press as among the best shows on television, and pulls consistently high ratings for a basic (when it was on [[
[[This Very Wiki]] is proof of how much of a phenomenon the series has become - we have a page for guessing if characters are members of the Doctor's race.
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