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Doctor Who Thread

Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker

 
For those who didn't see it on Starz and have BBCAmerica:

Breaking News - "Torchwood: Miracle Day" Comes to BBC America | TheFutonCritic.com

"Torchwood" Miracle Day: The New World (TV Episode 2011) - IMDb

"TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY" COMES TO BBC AMERICA

"Doctor Who" spin-off makes its cable television debut

Marathon of "Torchwood" Season Two and "Torchwood: Children of Earth" kicks things off Friday, September 13

New York - August 12, 2013 - Members of the Torchwood team have fought aliens, cyborgs and time travelers, but now they face their biggest threat - humanity. Team leader and Doctor Who companion, Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman, Arrow) and former Torchwood agent Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles, Doctor Who) are joined by newcomers Rex Matheson, (Mekhi Phifer, Divergent) and Esther Drummond (Alexa Havins, Grey's Anatomy), when the supernatural miniseries, Torchwood: Miracle Day, makes its cable television premiere on BBC AMERICA Saturday, September 14 at 9pm ET/PT. Leading up to the premiere, BBC AMERICA will air a marathon of Torchwood season two and Torchwood: Children of the Earth beginning Friday, September 13, 11:00pm ET/PT.
 
Kate O'Mara wants 'Doctor Who' return: 'I'll still wear tight leather' - Doctor Who News - TV - Digital Spy

Kate O'Mara wants 'Doctor Who' return: 'I'll still wear tight leather'

Doctor Who star Kate O'Mara has revealed that she is keen to return as the Rani.

O'Mara played the glamorous villainess in two 1980s Doctor Who adventures, and told Digital Spy that she would love to play the part again.

I would love to come back," said the actress, who was promoting her upcoming event An Evening with Kate O'Mara, where she will look back on her career.

"I have white hair now, but a lot of it, and I'm still very glamorous and so I won't disappoint, I hope! I'll still be wearing the tight leather trousers and high-heel boots, regardless of what age! That's what the fans are expecting, so that's what you've got to give them."

74-year-old O'Mara also claimed that older viewers can't "engage with" or "identify with" a lot of today's youth-oriented programming.

"I'm a much older woman and there's a huge population of older people who, if they're watching television, they can't watch Hollyoaks.

"If you put a much older woman in Doctor Who, they can identify with it. I think it's quite an interesting concept and if you remember things like Grimm's Fairytales, the older woman is often the villainess, often the terrifying figure - why I do not know, but often she is. I think it's an idea to be exploited."

An Evening with Kate O'Mara takes place on Saturday, October 19 at 7pm at The Misty Moon Gallery, Ladywell Tavern, 80 Ladywell Road, SE13 7HS.

Kate will also attend the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary celebration at London's Excel in November.

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'Doctor Who' missing episodes found, BBC confirms - Doctor Who News - TV - Digital Spy

'Doctor Who' missing episodes found, BBC confirms

The BBC has confirmed rumors that a batch of missing Doctor Who episodes have been found.

Reports circulated earlier this week that a number of 'lost' episodes from the BBC sci-fi drama starring William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton had been discovered.

A report on BBC News has now confirmed the find, with "a number of early episodes" apparently having been recovered.

A total of 106 episodes of Doctor Who first aired in the 1960s are currently missing, with the transmission tapes having been wiped after initial airings.

A number of episodes previously thought lost have been recovered over the years via foreign broadcasters, who still possessed film transfers of the original recordings.

Further details pertaining to the newly discovered episodes are yet to be confirmed. It is currently unknown which episodes have been recovered and how many the BBC now possesses in total.

Doctor Who began in 1963, with November 23 this year marking the show's 50th anniversary. The BBC previously announced a slate of celebratory programming to mark the milestone.
 
And the Recovered DOCTOR WHO Episodes Are… ? Nerdist

And the Recovered DOCTOR WHO Episodes Are?

As was bandied about here and elsewhere, it seems the general wisdom surrounding the recovered Doctor Who episodes is true: two Patrick Troughton stories, ?The Enemy of the World? and ?The Web of Fear,? both from Season 5, have been recovered almost in their entirety. I say ?almost,? because Part 3 of ?Web of Fear? is still missing. However, that?s nine episodes in total. In the past 25 years, only eight individual episodes had been recovered, and this new find brings the Troughton missing episodes from 62 to 53 and the overall total from 106 to 97. And best of all: You can download these stories RIGHT NOW on iTunes for $9.99 each! GO DO IT YOU FOOLS! ?Enemy of the World? is here and ?The Web of Fear? is here.

The news was (FINALLY) confirmed at a Missing Episodes event in London today in which Phillip Morris confirmed that his company, Television International Enterprises Archive, discovered a veritable treasure trove of old BBC television film canisters, meant to be destroyed decades ago, in a warehouse in Nigeria. At the event, Mr. Morris said, ?I remember wiping the dust off the masking tape on the canisters and my heart missed a beat as I saw the words Doctor Who. When I read the story code, I realized I?d found something pretty special.? You can read about everything via Doctor Who Magazine?s website.

BBC Worldwide?s spokesperson, Fiona Eastwood, confirmed that they have remastered the episodes for near-immediate distribution, via digital means, so fans can celebrate the 50th with new classic stories. Using telesnaps (archive photos taken of the episode as it aired) from Episode 3, as well as off-air audio, BBC Worldwide has been able to re-create the episode to make ?The Web of Fear,? the story that introduced the fan-favorite character Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney), flow when watched in its entirety.

?The Enemy of the World? is significant in that Patrick Troughton played a dual role as both the Doctor and Salamander, an evil dictator who bears a striking resemblance to our favorite Time Lord. We?d only been able to see the third episode of ?Enemy of the World? up to now, and it?s widely regarded as the most boring of the whole serial.

There is every indication that more episodes could be found by Morris and TIEA so fans now have even more reason to hope for the future. For now, though, we have to be content with getting to see two stories we?ve likely only ever heard before featuring the Doctor who got hurt the most by the junking policy.

 
DOCTOR WHO: A Companion’s Companion – Season 20 ? Nerdist

DOCTOR WHO: A Companion?s Companion ? Season 20

by Kyle Anderson on October 14, 2013

In 1983, a wholly unprecedented thing happened: Doctor Who reached its 20th season. 20 years! That?s insane. A show that premiered the day after Kennedy was killed was now around into the Reagan and Thatcher administrations. It?s nutty. In some ways, it had changed drastically since those early days, and in some ways hardly at all. As ?83 began, the program had just seen the first season with its first new Doctor since 1974, and it once again became required viewing. As it was now on twice a week on Mondays and Tuesdays, the fact that ratings improved when Peter Davison took over was a testament to how well the audience deals with change and embraces new things, despite having loved the past.

To mark two decades on the air, producer John Nathan-Turner, ever the fan of publicity and gimmickry, decided each story of Season 20 should have a returning villain or threat, though that was really only superficial. No Daleks or Cybermen were seen this year, but it did have the return of a few one-off baddies and one who never seemed to go away in the ?80s. It did manage to do one of the most atypical and altogether fantastic stories of the entire era, if not the entire show in total, and the year was capped off with a special that was definitely a tribute to the fans. It was a banner year.

Season 20 ? 3 January 1983 ? 16 March 1983 (plus a one-off special in November)

JNT was a huge fan of taking the show on location outside of the UK, possibly just so he could get a paid holiday out of it, and for Season 20?s first story, Arc of Infinity by Johnny Byrne, the producer decided they should give Amsterdam a try, for seemingly no narrative reason. On Gallifrey, a traitorous Time Lord helps an anti-matter being known as The Renegade by giving it bio-data which allows it access to the Doctor?s TARDIS, and then the Doctor himself. Nyssa, now his only companion, helps him to recover; however, the Renegade is shielded by the Arc of Infinity and they aren?t able to track him. The Doctor decides to go to Gallifrey and track down the supplier of his bio-data, but the Time Lord council has decided that the Renegade is too powerful and the Doctor must be destroyed to prevent the anti-matter monster from bonding with him again. Despite protestations from Nyssa, and the Doctor?s firm belief that his bio-data was tampered with, the sentence is carried out. Not really, though. His mind is placed in the Matrix, and his body is held for safe keeping.

On Earth, in Amsterdam, the Doctor?s former companion, Tegan (Goddammit!), is looking for her cousin, who has disappeared. She meets up with a friend of the cousin and they go to the last place he was seen, the Frankendael Mansion. Unfortunately (and incredibly conveniently), the Renegade?s base of operations just happens to be at the mansionm=, and he scans Tegan and learns that she knows the Doctor. He uses her as bait, the Doctor is restored, there?s treachery on Gallifrey, the Doctor and Nyssa go to Amsterdam to save Tegan, and the Renegade is revealed to be? Omega, the first Time Lord and pioneer of time travel, who was last seen in ?The Three Doctors? ten years earlier. He becomes corporeal and looks like the Doctor, there?s a chase, everything works out, and Tegan returns to the crew.

There is an interesting and possibly even compelling story hidden beneath all the ancillary crap in ?Arc of Infinity.? It?s just very busy, and things don?t follow properly or are based too much on coincidence. There?s really no reason for Tegan to come back, but there was really no reason for her to have left in the first place, so it?s all meaningless. I really wish there were just some Doctor and Nyssa episodes, because their dynamic is really fun and interesting, and Nyssa?s actually capable and doesn?t whine, which is maybe the best attribute of any companion. Amsterdam is a pretty town, but there?s no known reason for them to be there. Interesting, though, is that Colin Baker, who would become the Sixth Doctor, played the Time Lord guard captain Maxil in this story. See, so there is precedent for actors already having been on the show becoming the Doctor.

For the next returning-villain story, Christopher Bailey was brought back to write the sequel to his trippy and controversial ?Kinda,? giving us the next chapter about the Mara, Snakedance. Arriving on the planet Manussa, Tegan gets overwhelmed by nightmares/visions about the Mara, the snake-like entity that possessed her the previous year. The Doctor believes the being is trying to reassert itself in Tegan?s brain, and so they go to seek out the cause of it, but Tegan gets scared and runs away in the marketplace of Manussa, giving the Mara the opportunity to take full control. On Manussa, there is to be an annual celebration of the 500 years since the Mara was banished. Bad timing, guys. The festivities are to be overseen by Lon (Martin Clunes), the lazy and spoiled son of the Federator. The Doctor realizes that the two crystals used in the ceremony will allow the Mara to transubstantiate itself from Tegan?s mind into corporeal form again. However, getting Lon or chief archaeologist Ambril to believe him proves a fool?s errand, and everyone just thinks he?s a nutter.

Tegan/Mara makes contact with Lon and puts him also under her control. The Doctor goes into the desert to confab with Dojjen, the old hermit who apparently knows about this kind of thing, and then he goes back and stops the Mara just as she becomes a different-looking snake than she was the last time. And Tegan?s okay again.

I don?t like this story nearly as much as ?Kinda,? and I think it has to do with the fact that this time, Bailey was given more parameters for writing a more straightforward story. ?Kinda? is very bizarre, but ?Snakedance? is much more restricted and thus a bit more pedestrian for my liking. However, it?s still a good story, and I especially love the way in which the Doctor is flatly not believed by anyone. In reality, if some guy just charged into a place and started saying ?A bad thing?s about to happen, if you listen to me it won?t,? you?d think he?s an insane person. The Doctor?s far too used to being taken immediately as an authority figure and the Fifth Doctor is the best at not being believed and getting irritated by it. Janet Fielding also gives possibly her best performance when she?s under the Mara?s control.

Next, we begin what is called ?The Black Guardian Trilogy,? because it is three stories that see the return of the Black Guardian (Valentine Dyall), an all-powerful and evil being that hates the Doctor after meddling with the Key to Time. They also introduce and form a series about an alien boy named Turlough (Mark Strickson), who is trapped on Earth and is tasked by the Black Guardian into killing the Doctor, but eventually eschews this obligation and joins up with the Doctor, though Tegan never really trusts him. The three stories that make up this saga are very different from each other, and the first and third of these are my favorites of the year, while the one in the middle is boring and dumb.

We begin with Peter Grimwade?s Mawdryn Undead, in which we?re introduced to Turlough as he causes trouble at the boys? school at which he?s stuck, and the math teacher, the now-retired Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney), who thinks something fishy?s going on. The Black Guardian appears to Turlough and says that if he kills the Doctor, he can leave his exile on Earth. Meanwhile, the Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa aboard the TARDIS get caught in a ?time ellipse? due to a passing Starliner. They get onboard to find it deserted save for Turlough, who?s been transported there by the Black Guardian. The Doctor finds a transmat, which is holding them there, and travels with Turlough to the other end, which happens to be Earth in 1983. Meanwhile Nyssa and Tegan aboard the TARDIS get flung to Earth, 1977. In both cases, the duos run into the Brigadier, who is the Doctor?s only link to his companions in the past. Nyssa and Tegan find an alien in a capsule like that which the Doctor traveled in, and immediately believes it to be the Doctor, despite his brain falling out of the top of his head.

This alien turns out to be Mawdryn, a member of a dying race of once-immortal people. They want the Doctor to siphon off his remaining regenerations to allow them to live again, which he almost grants them as a way of helping his friends escape. Everybody ends up aboard the Starliner, even the Brigadier from both ?77 and ?83, and they need to be kept apart because if they meet, and touch one another, they will trigger the fabled Blinovitch Limitation Effect, which is a time paradox that results when someone physically crosses their own time stream, though it?s sort of ignored later. I rather like ?Mawdryn Undead,? despite a fair amount of preposterousness and goofiness. (Why would Tegan and Nyssa immediately think the Doctor had regenerated into something weird and zombie-looking?) Still, the presence of the Brigadier will always warm me to a story, and I like the timey-wimey aspect of it, with the Doctor and his companions separated by a few years but being in the same place for clues to be found.

With Turlough now on board the TARDIS, we go into Stephen Gallagher?s Terminus, which is a pretty appropriate name, given how kind of interminable it is. They all go to a ship that is heading for a space station at the very center of the universe, which has been hit by a horrible plague. Nyssa gets infected by it. There are guards and a dog-like creature called a Garm. The station?s jettisoning of an unstable fuel canister started ?The Big Bang,? and it?s preparing to do it a second time to probably destroy everything. That?s bad. Nyssa gets cured, the Second Big Bang doesn?t happen, and everybody?s ready to leave but Nyssa, for some reason, wants to stay behind so she can help the sufferers of the disease. Noble goal. I don?t like this story and it?s sad that Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) was made to leave the show. She?s easily the best of the Fifth Doctor?s companions, but since she never really argued with anyone, they deemed her boring and wrote her out. So, now we?re left with Turlough and Tegan.

However, I ADORE the final story in the Black Guardian Trilogy ? Enlightenment, by Barbara Clegg. Wanna hear something shocking, baffling, aggravating, and true? Barbara Clegg is the very first woman to write a Doctor Who story. (In 1966, Lesley Scott was credited as having co-written her husband Paul Erickson?s script for ?The Ark,? though she actually did no writing of it.) Not only that, but ?Enlightenment? was also directed by Fiona Cumming, who had directed a few stories already, including ?Castrovalva? and ?Snakedance,? making this story the only one in the history of the program to have been written and directed by women.

?Enlightenment? sees the TARDIS land aboard what seems to be a racing yacht from the Edwardian era. There?s a crew in barracks and rather strange aristocratic officers running things. When the crew go up on deck, though, they put on strange pseudo-diving suits which don?t seem to make sense. It?s soon discovered that they aren?t at sea, but in space, and that this ship is one of several, each from a different era of Earth history, competing in an interstellar race for ?enlightenment,? the prize to end all prizes. The officers are part of a race called Eternals who exist outside time and space, who are all seeing and all knowing, but entirely lack imagination of their own and have to use humans (or ?ephemerals?) to amuse themselves. The ship?s second in command, Marriner, begins to creepily fawn over Tegan, which is off-putting, to say the least.

One of the other ships is a typical pirate vessel (with the Jolly Roger and all of that), led by the aptly named Captain Wrack (Lynda Baron). She is really eating up the whole pirate thing and is actually using jewels she gives to her competition to focus energy to make the ships explode. This power, it turns out, is given to her by the Black Guardian, who has grown tired of Turlough?s growing reticence to killing the Doctor. Eventually, the Black Guardian and the White Guardian (Cyril Luckham) sit across from each other with the orb of enlightenment between them, as the winner of the race, the Doctor, comes to claim his prize. He defers his winnings to Turlough for his heroism and Turlough hurls it at the Black Guardian, causing the old bird-headed bad guy to burst into flames. You see, enlightenment wasn?t the gem; enlightenment was the choice.

There is nothing I don?t love about this story. The concept and characters are so rich and interesting, it?s really a wonder the Eternals never returned to the TV show. The direction is nothing short of fantastic, as Cumming actually *gasp* uses darker lighting to convey mood instead of the usual harsh studio lights making everything sort of fluorescent. The sets, particularly the interior of the yacht, are gorgeous and actually make it seem like we?re aboard a ship as opposed to just being on a soundstage. I?ve watched this story probably four or five times and never seem to tire of it. Everyone should go watch it right now.

But, remember the rule for Davison that the second to last story is the best and the final one is crappy, so we finish off the season with another Terrence Dudley two-parter, The King?s Demons. The Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough land in 1215 England, where the Court of King John has come to a castle to extort taxes. The King?s champion is just about to joust the lord?s champion when the TARDIS arrives. The Doctor quickly surmises that this person isn?t and cannot be King John as at that moment; King John was in London taking the Crusader?s Oath. The Lord?s cousin arrives and confirms this, as he?s just come from London and the ?King??s champion is revealed to be? The Master. Yay. The Master is using a shape-shifting robot named Kamelion to impersonate the king to stop, of all things, the Magna Carta from becoming a thing. Rather a trivial Master plan, don?t you think? At the end of the story, the Doctor takes Kamelion aboard the TARDIS as a companion, though that doesn?t quite happen.

King's Demons This is an example of a story that looks great, given the costumes and location shooting at a real castle, but is absolutely ridiculous. The Kamelion robot was this highly-articulate thing JNT had seen somewhere and wanted to use in the program. However, the inventor-operator died and so nobody really knew how to use him. Hence, useless robot that just sits around and causes issues because of its pre-programmed dialogue. Why they didn?t just have him in human form all the time and cast an actor to play the robot is beyond me, but JNT was nothing if not gimmick-obsessed.

So that ended the season proper, but months later, in November of 1983, the 20th Anniversary special, The Five Doctors, written by the legendary Terrance Dicks, aired. It saw the return of Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee to the show. Tom Baker wanted nothing to do with it and William Hartnell had died, so another actor, Richard Hurndall, was hired to portray the First Doctor. It had a Dalek, Cybermen, the Master, a Raston Warrior Robot, and another traitorous Time Lord behind the whole thing. The Doctors all convene at the Temple of Rassilon where the secret to immortality is held. Nicholas Courtney, Carol Anne Ford, and Elisabeth Sladen all returned as companions and there were appearances by Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury, Caroline John, Richard Franklin, and even K-9 as well. It?s a story that is a whole lot of fun to watch but doesn?t really make sense if you try to look at it as a piece of proper science fiction. It?s an anniversary story and a damned fun one at that.

The 20th season of Doctor Who was memorable but not as full of greatness as it might have been. In fact, it was after this that Peter Davison told JNT that he would only do one more season, after receiving advice from Patrick Troughton that three years is probably the right amount. What would we see from the Fifth Doctor for his final year? Well, you can bet it?s a fantastic penultimate story and a garbage final one. It?s just the way these things work.
 
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DOCTOR WHO 50th Anniversary Special Promotional Photos ? Nerdist

DOCTOR WHO 50th Anniversary Special Promotional Photos

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With the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary special, ?The Day of the Doctor,? just about six weeks away, we?ve still yet to have a trailer or any clips or anything. We?ve had a poster, sure, and there were even some set photos during filming, but that were about it. Until now. BBC America has just released these snazzy new promotional stills from the special. They still tell us absolutely nothing and don?t depict anything we didn?t already know, but any new stuff is good stuff. There are six pictures which you can see.
?The Day of the Doctor? airs on Saturday, November 23rd, 2013, simulcast worldwide, on BBC America here in the States. Check your local listings because I can?t be bothered. I?m too busy trying to figure out what number Hurt is.
 
11 things we loved in the Doctor Who 50 year trailer | Articles | Doctor Who

We hope you?ve seen the 50 year trailer for The Day of the Doctor (if not, watch the trailer now!) and enjoyed it as much as we did. Because it was crammed full of ?blink and you?ll miss it? moments (and we?ve warned you about blinking before), here are 11 things we really loved seeing in this celebration of 50 years of adventures:

1. Tiny Yeti
A topical one, considering the recent return of The Web of Fear (1968), the little Yeti sculptures act as a homing device for their larger, more terrifying counterparts. To anyone who finds one of these, our best advice would be to get rid of it quick!

2. Clockwork droids
Hanging next to the Yeti is the mask from one of the SS Madame de Pompadour?s single-minded clockwork robots, who spent years opening time windows into the life of the real Madame de Pompadour, in an effort to harvest her for parts (The Girl in the Fireplace, 2006). Other masks seen nearby include the mask of the Brethren from The Masque of Mandragora (1976), and the golden head of one of the Santa ?Pilot Fish? from The Christmas Invasion (2005).

3. Fob watch
Or is it a Time Lord Chameleon Arch? The fob watch was a device used by both the Doctor and the Master to rewrite their biology and disguise themselves as humans. The watch carries a perception filter, so the carrier is often unaware of its true importance (Human Nature, The Family of Blood, Utopia, 2007)

4. The Key To Time
Glimpsed through the legs of the unfortunate extermination victim, is the brightly coloured tracer wand, given to the Doctor by the White Guardian to aid him in his search for the Key To Time. Next to the wand and key is the robot parrot Polyphase Avatron, owned by the captain of The Pirate Planet (1978), and encountered while the Doctor and Romana were finding the second segment of the Key.

5. Dalek saucers
?Rebels of London, come out of your hiding places. The Daleks offer you life!? These saucers were last seen (will be seen?) blasting London to the ground, around the year 2150, when the Daleks invade the Earth (The Dalek Invasion of Earth, 1964)

6. TARDIS key
In several of its guises. The ?silver spade? key shown here, was first seen in the Third Doctor?s final season in 1974, and was used sporadically up until Doctor Who: The Movie in 1996. The more standard-looking key has also been used numerous times ? most notably glowing in the Doctor?s hand to show that the TARDIS had finished repairing itself (The Eleventh Hour, 2010).

7. The Empress of the Racnoss
The multi-legged villainess of 2006?s Christmas special The Runaway Bride, the Empress of the Racnoss, is seen scuttling behind the Eighth Doctor and an Ood. She was last seen being flushed into her own pit to the centre of the Earth, like a spider down a plughole.

8. Bessie
Favourite of the Third Doctor, Bessie was an Edwardian roadster, that the Doctor had extensively modified. Customisations include an anti-theft device that sticks the thief to the car, remote control operation and massive acceleration, combined with safe breaking, so as not to harm the occupants. He was seen driving it when Clara was scattered into the Doctor?s timestream in The Name of the Doctor (2013).

9. The Shard
Location for the climactic events of this year?s The Bells of Saint John, London?s tallest skyscraper the Shard appears in the trail, not far from San Francisco?s Golden Gate Bridge ? a nod to the location of Doctor Who: The Movie (1996) perhaps?

10. Laser Screwdriver
HERE COME THE DRUMS! The Master trumped the Doctor with his laser screwdriver in The Sound of Drums / The Last of the Time Lords (2007), when it was seen to age the Doctor hundreds of years.

11. 17162311
That number. It had us foxed for a bit (to the point where we wondered if it spelled something when viewed upside-down). And then we realised: it?s the time and date of broadcast for the first episode of Doctor Who. According to the official paperwork, An Unearthly Child episode one, began transmission on the BBC at 17.16 and 20 seconds, on November 23, 1963. And that, after all, is why we?re still here?
 
DOCTOR WHO: A Companion’s Companion – Season 26 ? Nerdist

DOCTOR WHO: A Companion?s Companion ? Season 26
After several seasons of meh-to-cruddy writing and production, Doctor Who was finally starting to pick up some narrative and thematic traction again in Season 25. Script Editor Andrew Cartmel was focusing evermore on the Doctor?s mysterious past and place as the galactic chess master, which star Sylvester McCoy more than ate up. With the inclusion of companion Ace (Sophie Aldred), the series had one of its deepest secondary characters ever and one whose past and future would be explored fully in the next season. Too bad it was the show?s last.
 
DOCTOR WHO: A Companion’s Companion – Series 1 ? Nerdist

DOCTOR WHO: A Companion?s Companion ? Series 1

After another 8 years of no televised Doctor Who, but heaps and gobs of Eighth Doctor novels and Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Doctor audio plays, it came time for a return. In 2003, the show?s 40th anniversary, a Flash-animated web series called ?Scream of the Shalka? was produced. However, the thunder from this was completely stolen, because it was also announced that a proper live-action series would be returning to BBC One, headed up by Queer as Folk and Casanova creator Russell T. Davies, who had also been a long-time fan and had written for the Virgin New Adventures novel range.

Since the show had been off the air since 1989, save for that one 90-minute period in May of 1996, it was deemed pertinent by BBC Wales? Commissioner of Drama Jane Tranter and producers Davies, Julie Gardner, and Phil Collinson to have an established, name actor in the lead role, since they weren?t sure how the larger public would react. They decided upon character actor Christopher Eccleston, who had worked with Davies before and had been the writer?s first choice for a role in Queer as Folk.

The companion, a formerly thankless role, really, would now be coming to the forefront, as would their family and relationships. Davies was key in turning the show into more of a character-based adventure drama than a strictly sci-fi play, the way the classic series had largely been. Ace?s turn in the last two seasons of the old show, as well as Dr. Grace Halloway in the TV movie, must surely have influenced Davies in the creation of Rose Tyler, a 19-year-old shopgirl from London with a flirty mom and a dumb boyfriend.

To play this part, Davies cast pop star Billie Piper, which at the time must have felt a bit like stunt casting, or at least trying to appeal to the younger audiences with a known personality. I had no idea who she was, so it didn?t do anything for me but upon retrospect. It is largely through Rose that the story of the first series of the rebooted Doctor Who played out, and it?s much easier for the audience to side with someone they already like.

Now, whether it was always intended for Eccleston to do just one series of the show or not is debatable, but what is known is that he was not pleased with the first batch of filming, which it has to be said produced possibly the worst episodes of the series. And, it?s also sad that the night of the premiere in 2005 came with the announcement that the actor wouldn?t return after this series.

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The Day of the Doctor - OFFICIAL trailer - Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special #SaveTheDay - BBC

 
The Day of the Doctor: The Second TV Trailer - Doctor Who 50th Anniversary - BBC One

 
Full DOCTOR WHO 50th Anniversary Week Schedule on BBC America ? Nerdist

Full DOCTOR WHO 50th Anniversary Week Schedule on BBC America

Everybody?s gearing up for the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, which is now a scant two weeks away, but BBC America wants you to know that ?The Day of the Doctor? won?t be the only bit of Time Lord entertainment that week ? not by a long shot. The cable network is actually devoting just about its entire week?s worth of programming from Monday, November 18th, through Sunday, November 24th to The Doctor. That, traditionally-non-sports fans, is 7 days of Doctor Who, and a lot of it is brand new! Let?s do the rundown, shall we?

Monday November 18th
A marathon of The Doctors Revisited specials from the First Doctor through the Tenth Doctor. 9:00am-9:00pm ET

The U.S. premiere of Doctor Who: Tales from the TARDIS, in which stars and staff from over the course of 50 years speak about their time on the show and their experiences journeying through the cosmos. Will include Matt Smith, David Tennant, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Jenna Coleman, Karen Gillan, Freema Agyeman, William Russell, and Steven Moffat. 9:00pm-10:00pm ET

The U.S. premiere of The Science of Doctor Who with Brian Cox. Not the actor Brian Cox, who will be in An Adventure in Space and Time, mind you, but Professor Brian Cox. Just think of it as ?Dr. Brain Cox.? He?ll take you through the conceptual science behind the amazing things the Doctor does. Likely he will also tell you none of it is possible in real life, but that?s the fun of imagination.

Tuesday November 19th
The Ninth Doctor Marathon. 10:00am-11:00pm ET

Wednesday November 20th
The Tenth Doctor Marathon. 2:00am-11:00pm ET

Thursday November 21st
The Eleventh Doctor Marathon Part I. 9:00am-11:00pm ET

Friday November 22nd
The Eleventh Doctor Marathon Part II. 9:00am-8:00pm ET

The U.S. Premiere of Doctor Who Explained which was shown in Asia a few months back and is basically a starter kit for people not familiar with the show, exploring the history and cultural impact. All the same bods talk as the last one. 8:00pm-9:00pm ET

The U.S. Premiere of An Adventure in Space and Time, the docudrama following the creation and shooting of Doctor Who in the early-?60s through the William Hartnell days. 9:00pm ET

An-Adventure-Bradley-small1.jpg


Saturday November 23rd
The Eleventh Doctor Marathon Part III. 1:00am-2:00pm ET

Global Simulcast of Doctor Who ? ?The Day of the Doctor.? This is the big one, kiddos! The Eleventh and Tenth Doctors team up with whichever Doctor John Hurt turns out to be to do something that will tear apart the fabric of what we all thought we knew about the character we?ve loved for so long. Matt Smith, David Tennant, and Jenna Coleman, with Billie Piper and John Hurt. It?ll be awesome, no doubt about it. Commercial free. 2:50pm ET

Encore Presentation of Doctor Who ? ?The Day of the Doctor.? Not simulcast and with commercials, probably. This will have exclusive interviews with Smith and Tennant during the broadcast and will be followed by the premiere of the new fantasy program Atlantis. 7:00pm ET.

The U.S. premiere of The Graham Norton Show episode featuring both Matt Smith and David Tennant. 10:00pm ET

Sunday November 24th
The Matt Smith Countdown. The Top 11 Eleventh Doctor episodes as voted on by YOU, or at least people like you. 9:00am-8:00pm ET

Premiere of the Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited special featuring the Eleventh Doctor. Cast, crew, and celebrity fans discuss the Eleventh Doctor and his time aboard the TARDIS, which will nearly be at an end by that time. 8:00pm-10:30pm ET

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And there you have it! Literally, if you turn on BBC America that week, there?ll be Doctor Who stuff to watch. I hope you?re excited because I sure as hell am. And be sure to use the hashtag #SaveTheDay. The Doctor said to do that.

 
DOCTOR WHO: A Companion’s Companion – Series 2 ? Nerdist

DOCTOR WHO: A Companion?s Companion ? Series 2

Doctor Who comes back to television screens for the first time in essentially 16 years and for 13 weeks, it?s a hit again. Then, BOOM! The lead actor turns into a different guy at the end. Whether or not people were pleased about Christopher Eccleston leaving and David Tennant taking his place, the change forced new viewers to deal with the idea of regeneration right away. And, lucky for viewers, there was a chance to get used to this new weirdo with admittedly excellent hair in the form of a Christmas special, which would become a staple of Doctor Who since the return. Some are Christmassier than others, but few have as much to do narratively than The Christmas Invasion.

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An Adventure in Space and Time: The Trailer - Doctor Who 50th Anniversary - BBC Two

 
DOCTOR WHO: A Companion’s Companion – Series 5 ? Nerdist

DOCTOR WHO: A Companion?s Companion ? Series 5

When it was announced in 2009 that Matt Smith (then 27) would be taking over for David Tennant on Doctor Who, everybody went? ?Who?? After all, he was so young and we hadn?t seen him in too much, so that seemed a fairly reasonable thing to say. Mind you, people said the same thing when a certain Tom Baker took over in 1974. The first thing we saw of Smith as the Eleventh Doctor was his comedic turn at the tail end of the otherwise atrocious ?The End of Time,? but that wasn?t enough to truly let us know anything. And with Steven Moffat taking over as head writer, we really didn?t know anything of the kind of show Doctor Who was regenerating into. But we soon would.

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The Last Day: A mini-episode - The Day of the Doctor prequel - Doctor Who - BBC

 
The Day of the Doctor: A Preview - BBC Children in Need: 2013 - BBC

 
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