An Adventure in Space and Time

London, 1963. The BBC's new, flamboyant Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, is alerted to a crisis in scheduling: a 25-minute gap has opened between the daytime sports programming and the evening pop music show. He needs to find something that will retain the adult audience whilst warming up the kids for the evening's entertainment. He hits on the idea of a science fiction series that will educate, scare and entertain, in which characters travel to different worlds and times. The show will alternate between historical dramas set in the past and serials set on alien worlds or in the distant future.

To develop the project, Newman upsets the old guard at the BBC by bringing in the young, talented and notably female Verity Lambert to produce the show. The even younger Waris Hussein, the first BBC director of Indian descent, is assigned to helm the first episode. All they need is their star, and in the distinguished film actor William Hartnell, eager to escape being typecast in military roles, they may have found a very unconventional one.

An Adventure in Space and Time is a one-off TV drama about the creation of Doctor Who, the world's longest-running science fiction TV drama. Written by long-term Who writer Mark Gatiss (who has been writing in the Who universe in one format or another for over twenty years), it's a tribute to the programme and to the many people involved in its creation. Gatiss walks a fine line between over-lionising the programme in its early days and giving a warts and all account. Some of the more controversial elements (the outrageous sexism and racism that Lambert and Hussein respectively faced in the early days of the show) are present, but William Hartnell's contradictory prejudices - speaking dismissively of a Jewish crewmember but being extremely close to both Lambert and actress Carole Ann Ford, who were both also of that faith -aren't examined very far. However, Hartnell's irascibility and grumpiness are present and correct.

David Bradley, most recently seen in the most controversial TV episode of 2013 (on Game of Thrones), plays Hartnell with the required mix of irritability, charisma and sparkle. It's a difficult role to pull off, making Hartnell sympathetic without playing down his negative sides (though, as mentioned earlier, his prejudicial side is all but missing), but Bradley's performance is sublime. He doesn't sound much like Hartnell, but he commands the screen and the make-up and costuming give him an uncanny resemblance to the role he's playing. This is more impressive given that Hartnell was actually only 55 when cast as the Doctor, whilst Bradley is 71. Bradley's performance is faultlessly brilliant and easily worthy of awards.

Other castmembers are also excellent: Jessica Raine (recently seen on Doctor Who itself ) gives the role of Verity Lambert - one of British television's most famous and influential producers - the required mix of command and steel. Brian Cox brings all of his formidable presence and charisma to the role of Sydney Newman, the larger-than-life figure who dragged the BBC kicking and screaming into the 1960s, and his interactions with Raine are superb: seeing him admit he was wrong about opposing the introduction of the Daleks after they triple the show's ratings is a satisfying moment. Lesley Manville has a small but critical role as William Hartnell's wife Heather, whose well-judged interventions with the production crew allow them to spot his declining acting abilities in time to do something about it. In fact, of all the castmembers only Reece Shearsmith hits the wrong note as Patrick Troughton, Hartnell's successor, failing to evoke almost anything at all about the real-life figure. Fortunately, his appearance is extremely brief.

But where the drama really succeeds is in building a gripping story about the creation of a TV show and making what sound like dreary production meetings explode into life. There's a mild coating of social commentary on the mores and prejudices of the 1960s and the over-conservative nature of the BBC, but what really makes this tick is the unlikely story of how Doctor Who was created and brought to the screen. That it actually made it in the face of opposition from the serious BBC executives, an awful pilot episode (which had to be reshot) and the first episode tanking in the ratings due to the news of John F. Kennedy's assassination breaking just the day before is incredible. The fact it's survived for fifty years (a fact nodded at in a scene that could have been mawkish but manages to be appropriately touching instead) is even crazier.

An Adventure in Space and Time (*****) is a brilliantly-acted, superbly-written drama that features one of the strongest performances of the year with David Bradley in the central role. He is ably supported by a superb supporting cast and the whole thing acts as an appropriate tribute to the TV show it's celebrating. The TV movie is available now on DVD in the UK. Despite being shot and shown in HD, there is inexplicably no Blu-Ray release currently listed. Shamefully, there no American release currently listed either.

Doctor Who at 50: The Eleventh Doctor (2010-13)

Matt Smith (1982-  ) played the Eleventh Doctor in 44 episodes airing over three seasons and several specials. He also appeared in two episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures and voiced the Doctor in a series of computer games. He was 26 when he was cast in the role, making him the youngest actor to play the Doctor to date. During Smith's tenure the show achieved a major breakthrough in popularity in the United States.

The Eleventh Doctor (2010-13)

When David Tennant announced he was leaving Doctor Who in 2010, there were doubts about how someone could fill his shoes. Tennant had expanded upon and consolidated the success of Christopher Eccleston's season, winning significant critical and popular acclaim for his performance and elevating the show onto another level of success.

There was also a significant change behind the scenes: Russell T. Davies, who had masterminded the show's return in 2005, had departed and handed the reigns to incoming showrunner Steven Moffat, who had written several of the show's most popular episodes since its return. One of Moffat's first jobs was to cast the new Doctor and settled on Matt Smith.

Matt Smith was only 26 when he was cast, three years younger than Peter Davison had been when he started in the role. There was widespread scepticism over the decision, some believing that Smith was too young. However, others pointed to Smith's experience in television and on stage. He had played a lead role in BBC dramas based on Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart novels (appearing opposite Doctor Who star Billie Piper) for which he had received good reviews.

With a new Doctor also came a new companion, Amy Pond (played Karen Gillan), and a new 'reboot' of the series. Thanks to the presence of mysterious cracks in space and time, the events of the Eccleston/Tennant era seem to have been forgotten about (Pond has never heard of the Daleks, despite their very public two attacks on Earth in the previous seasons) or even erased, allowing Moffat to move forwards without getting tripped up in cumbersome continuity. It is notable that, with the exception of Rose in the 50th Anniversary Special, no contemporary Earth-based recurring characters from the Eccleston/Tennant era reappeared in the Smith one (not counting Sarah-Jane Smith in her own series).

Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) and Amy Pond (Karen Gillan). Appearing regularly across three seasons, they are the longest-running companions since the show's return in 2005.

Whilst each of Davies's seasons had revolved a recurring 'arc' element, Moffat took this to new extremes, with a much more involved storyline for each season and a more complicated over-arcing storyline taking in all of Smith's run. These arcs involved time travel, paradoxes and crossing timelines (something previously forbidden, but done much more readily during Smith's tenure). Whilst some applauded Moffat for using the show's time travel premise much more inventively than in the past, others criticised the storylines for being extremely confusing and also rather implausible. There was also criticism that characters Moffat had used once highly effectively - such as River Song and the Weeping Angels - had become watered down through over-use through multiple episodes. Attempts to freshen up the Daleks, by having them 'win' one episode and return in force rather than the scattered individuals encountered in the Davies era, were also generally unsuccessful, with criticisms of both the design of the new Daleks (forcing a backpedal to the previous design) and again their over-use removing their sense of menace.

A lot of these criticisms were resolved during Smith's final season when Amy Pond departed the show and a new companion, Clara Oswald (played by Jenna Louise Coleman) was introduced, along with a recurring band of the Doctor's allies based in Victorian London, the 'Paternoster Gang'. These elements re-focused the storyline on the Doctor's identity, a key theme in the run-up to the show's 50th anniversary in 2013.

However, the Matt Smith era did face one significant hurdle: the BBC's budget crisis. Due to the global economic crisis of 2008, the BBC faced significant budget cuts. Starting in 2010, these cuts were applied to Doctor Who. Initially these cuts forced a reduction in budget-per-episode, but by 2012 they had grown serious enough to start affecting the number-of-episodes per season. Rather than filming cut-down seasons, Moffat elected to extend the seventh season (of the 'new series') over two years instead, including a number of special episodes to appear afterwards to celebrate the 50th anniversary. The result is that in the last two years of Smith's run only (all of 2012 and 2013) only 16 episodes were made, compared to 27 in the previous two years. Fans were highly critical of this due to the fact that the show was still making the BBC immense amounts of money in overseas sales and merchandise. However, due to the way the BBC was structured, this money could not go back into Doctor Who by itself, but into the BBC's overall budget. How the budget will affect episodes going forwards remains to be seen.

Clara Oswald (Jenna Louise Coleman), Strax (Dan Starkey), the Doctor (Matt Smith), Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh) and Jenny Flint (Catrin Stewart) confront the Great Intelligence (Richard E. Grant) in The Name of the Doctor).

Also during the Matt Smith era, Doctor Who made significant inroads into SF fandom in the United States. Doctor Who had been a cult hit in the States since the late 1970s, when Tom Baker episodes were shown on various PBS stations, but the revived series had aired on SyFy and been quite badly treated. With the move to BBC America halfway through Tennant's run, the show suddenly got a lot more attention. Smith was the first Doctor to really embrace the American experience, visiting San Diego Comic-Con and having episodes filmed in the United States.

In 2013 Smith announced he was leaving the role of the Doctor. Despite a flurry of rumours that the next Doctor would be a woman, it was eventually announced that Peter Capaldi would be taking over the role, becoming the oldest actor to play the role since William Hartnell in 1963. He is due to take over from Matt Smith in the 2013 Christmas special, the 800th episode of the series.

Season 31/Series 5: 3/4/10-26/6/10 (13 episodes)

5.1: The Eleventh Hour ****

5.2: The Beast Below ***

5.3: Victory of the Daleks ***

5.4/5.5: The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone ***½

5.6: The Vampires of Venice ***

5.7: Amy's Choice ***

5.8/5.9: The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood (2 episodes) ***½

5.10: Vincent and the Doctor ****

5.11: The Lodger ***½

5.12/5.13: The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang ***

Season 32/Series 6: 25/12/10, 23/4/11-4/6/11, 27/8/11-1/10/11 (14 episodes)

6.X: A Christmas Carol (1 60-minute episode) ***

6.1/6.2: The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon **½

6.3: The Curse of the Black Spot **½

6.4: The Doctor's Wife *****

6.5/6.6: The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People **½

6.7: A Good Man Goes to War ***

6.8: Let's Kill Hitler **

6.9: Night Terrors ***

6.10: The Girl Who Waited ****

6.11: The God Complex ***

6.12: Closing Time ***

6.13: The Wedding of River Song **½

Season 33/Series 7: 25/12/11, 1/9/12-29/9/12, 25/12/12, 30/3/13-18/5/13, 23/11/13, 25/12/13 (17 episodes)

7.X: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe (1 60-minute episode) ***

7.1: Asylum of the Daleks ***½

7.2: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship ***

7.3: A Town Called Mercy ****

7.4: The Power of Three **½

7.5: The Angels Take Manhattan **½

7.6: The Snowmen ****

7.7: The Bells of Saint John ***

7.8: The Rings of Akhaten **

7.9: Cold War ****½

7.10: Hide ****

7.11: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS ***

7.12: The Crimson Horror ****

7.13: Nightmare in Silver ***

7.14: The Name of the Doctor ***½

7.15: The Day of the Doctor (1 90-minute episode)

7.16: 2013 Christmas Special (1 60-minute episode)

(7.15 and 7.16 are formally their own self-contained episodes, not part of Season 33/7 or the upcoming 34/8, but for simplicity's sake I have included them as part of that season)

The Eleventh Doctor will regenerate into his twelfth incarnation in the 2013 Christmas Special, under circumstances yet to be revealed.

The Eleventh Doctor's Companions and Allies

Amy Pond (Karen Gillan): Seasons 31-33 (5.1-7.5)

Rory Williams (Peter Darvill): Seasons 31-33 (5.1, 5.6-5.9, 5.12-7.5)

Clara Oswald (Jenna Louise Coleman): Season 33-  (7.1, 7.6-  )

Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh): Season 32- (6.7, 7.6, 7.12, 7.14)

Jenny Flint (Catrin Stewart): Season 32- (6.7, 7.6, 7.12, 7.14)

Strax (Dan Starkey): Season 32-  (6.7, 7.6, 7.12, 7.14)

Doctor Who at 50: The Tenth Doctor (2005-10)

David Tennant (1971-  ) played the Tenth Doctor in 47 episodes airing over three seasons and a subsequent series of special-length episodes. He appeared in more episodes than any Doctor since Peter Davison and had more screen-time in the role than any Doctor since Tom Baker. He also reprised the role in web minisodes and on The Sarah-Jane Adventures before returning in the 50th anniversary special. He had three long-running companions and a number of short-term ones and recurring allies. The Weeping Angels and River Song also debuted during his tenure.

The Tenth Doctor (2005-10)

Doctor Who had returned to BBC screens in March 2005 to huge ratings and critical acclaim. The BBC was pleased and commissioned two further seasons and a Christmas special in short order. However, Christopher Eccleston had announced that he was standing down at the Ninth Doctor before the season had even finished airing, prompting Russell T. Davies to have to quickly find a replacement. Whilst several actors were considering (including, according to rumour, Bill Nighy as an older Doctor) Davies's first choice was David Tennant, whom he had worked with on the ITV mini-series Casanova. Tennant, a fan of the show since childhood, did not formally audition and was instead offered the role off the cuff at a screening event. He said yes immediately.

Tennant's appearance came at the end of the finale to Eccleston's season, via a specially-filmed segment inserted into the episode months after the rest of it was shot. He then immediately began filming the 2005 Christmas special and the next season. To preserve continuity, Billie Piper continued in the role of Rose as his companion. Tennant was immediately popular, with fans and critics praising his enthusiastic and energetic performance which contrasted with Eccleston's more reserved and intense demeanour. During Tennant's first season the Cybermen also returned (for the first time since 1988's Silver Nemesis) and the season concluded with a monstrous three-way battle between humans, Daleks and Cybermen on Earth in the Torchwood Institute.

The success of the show led to the BBC requesting not just one but two spin-off shows. One would air at a later time than Doctor Who and would be darker, more adult and edgy. The other would be a children's programme. Davies had been working on an idea for an SF drama series when he was invited to take over Doctor Who, so combined this idea with Doctor Who's continuity to create Torchwood. This new series would see a secret organisation tackling alien threats to Earth whilst the Doctor was elsewhere. John Barrowman returned as Captain Jack Harkness (last seen in the final Eccleston story). The series aired for two full seasons before falling foul of reduced BBC budgets in the wake of the financial crisis: its third season, a mini-series called Children of Earth, aired to popular and critical acclaim in 2009. A fourth, Miracle Day, was a co-production with the American Starz network which aired in 2011 and was again a ratings smash, but the critical reception was more mixed. Since then the show has been on hiatus.

The Cybermen returned in Rise of the Cybermen, their first appearance for 18 years.

The second spin-off show was conceived whilst Davies was working on the second new season of Doctor Who. To complicate Rose Tyler's relationship with the Doctor, Davies wanted to bring back classic companion Sarah-Jane Smith (played by Elisabeth Sladen), who had travelled with the Third and Fourth Doctors from 1974 to 1976 as a way of demonstrating to Rose that she might not be anything special and would one day be left behind as well. Impressed by Sladen's enthusiasm and performance, not to mention the very positive fan reception to the news of her return, Davies proposed The Sarah-Jane Adventures, a new drama series for CBBC. This spin-off began airing in 2007 and finished in 2011 after five seasons, ended only by the sad news of Elisabeth Sladen's premature passing.

Back on the main show, Davies and Tennant proved a winning team. Through three full seasons of the show (from 2006 to 2008) they delivered both ratings success (frequently bringing in more than 10 million viewers per week, figures unseen since the 1970s and unheard of for a modern British drama) and critical respect, with episodes penned by Steven Moffat being particularly highly regarded. Blink, The Girl in the Fireplace and the Silence in the Library two-parter (which introduced the character of River Song) were all proclaimed as classics. The show also won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation for three out of the four years that the Tennant era was eligible. The show even finally succeeded in cracking America: SyFy dropped the show after two years, so it was transferred to BBC America. The BBC America network was rapidly gaining kudos and critical appeal and Doctor Who proved its ace calling card, delivering impressive viewers (compared to its subscription base).

Blink is the most critically highly-regarded episode since the show's return in 2005. It was written by Steven Moffat, introduced the Weeping Angels and won a Hugo Award.

After the fourth season since the show's return, it was decided to give Tennant a much-needed break. Instead of a full fifth season, a series of TV movies was commissioned. However, during the planning process both Tennant and Davies decided they wanted to leave the show. The TV movie format and the resulting greater budget allowed Davies to send Tennant out with a massive bang in a story that revisited the Time War and the Doctor's greatest enemy, the Master (now played by John Simm). Tennant spoke publicly of the difficulties of the decision and how he had wrestled with it, reflected in his final line as the Doctor: "I don't want to go!"

With the mutual departure of Tennant and Davies, Steven Moffat was appointed as showrunner. After a casting process, the role of the Doctor was given to Matt Smith. But Tennant's involvement was not over: three years later it was confirmed that Tennant and Billie Piper would return for the show's 50th anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor, to air on 23 November 2013.

Season 28/Series 2: 25/12/05, 15/4/06-8/7/06  (14 episodes)

2.X: The Christmas Invasion (1 60-minute episode) ***½

2.1: New Earth ***

2.2: Tooth and Claw ***½

2.3: School Reunion ***½

2.4: The Girl in the Fireplace ****½

2.5/2.6: Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel (2 episodes) ***

2.7: The Idiot's Lantern ***

2.8/2.9: The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit (2 episodes) ***½

2.10: Love and Monsters *

2.11: Fear Her *

2.12/2.13: Army of Ghosts/Doomsday (2 episodes) ***½

Season 29/Series 3: 15/12/06,  31/3/07-20/06/07 (14 episodes)

3.X: The Runaway Bride (1 60-minute episode) ***

3.1: Smith and Jones

3.2: The Shakespeare Code

3.3: Gridlock

3.4/3.5: Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks **½

3.6: The Lazarus Experiment

3.7: 42

3.8/3.9: Human Nature/The Family of Blood ****

3.10: Blink *****

3.11/3.12/3.13: Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords (3 episodes) ****

Season 30/Series 4: 25/12/07, 5/04/08-5/07/08, 25/12/08, 11/04/09, 15/11/09, 25/12/09, 1/1/10 (14 episodes, 5 TV movies)

4.X: Voyage of the Damned (1 60-minute episode) ***½

4.1: Partners in Crime

4.2: The Fires of Pompeii

4.3: Planet of the Ood

4.4/4.5: The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky (2 episodes)

4.6: The Doctor's Daughter

4.7: The Unicorn and the Wasp

4.9/4.10: Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead ***½

4.8: Midnight ***½

4.11: Turn Left ****

4.12/4.13: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End (2 episodes, second episode is 65 minutes) ***

4.14: The Next Doctor (1 60-minute episode) ***½

4.15: Planet of the Dead (1 60-minute episode) ***½

4.16: The Waters of Mars (1 60-minute episode) ***½

4.17/4.18: The End of Time (1 60-minute and 1 75-minute episode) ****

The Tenth Doctor regenerated at the end of The End of Time, having absorbed massive amounts of radiation in order to save the life of Wilfred Mott.

The Tenth Doctor's Companions and Recurring Allies

Rose Tyler (Billie Piper): Seasons 28, 30 (2.X-2.13, 4.11-4.13)

Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman): Seasons 29-30 (3.1-3.13, 4.4-4.5, 4.12-4.13, 4.18)

Donna Noble (Catherine Tate): Seasons 29-30  (3.X, 4.1-4.13)

Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke): Seasons 28, 30 (2.X, 2.3-2.6, 2.12-2.13, 4.12-4.13, 4.18

Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman): Seasons 29-30 (3.11-3.13, 4.12-4.13)

Wilfred Mott (Bernard Cribbins): Season 30 (4.1, 4.12-4.13, 4.17-4.18)

Sarah-Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen): Seasons 28, 30 (2.3, 4.12-4.13, 4.18)

DOCTOR WHO minisode answers question fans have been asking for seventeen years

The Night of the Doctor is a preview 'minisode' for the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special, Day of the Doctor. It sets up the episode nicely and features an event fans have been demanding to see for seventeen years, just to fill in one of the last remaining continuity gaps in the series.

Great stuff.

Doctor Who at 50: The Ninth Doctor (2005)

Christopher Eccleston (1964-  ) played the Ninth Doctor in 13 episodes airing over one season. He had three companions. His short tenure introduced the Face of Boe, the Slitheen and Captain Jack Harkness, as well as the concept of the Time War.

The Ninth Doctor (2005)

With Doctor Who confirmed to be returning to British television screens in 2005, Russell T. Davies began assembling a new production team and making decisions on casting and what villains should return. Early on Davies decided that the new series would pick up after the previous one, but with a fresh slate. Despite the actor being willing and popular with fans, it was decided not to retain Paul McGann and to avoid cumbersome exposition by not filming a regeneration scene. When considering a new lead actor, Davies's first choice was Christopher Eccleston, whom he had worked with on The Second Coming. Having enjoyed his previous work with Davies and excited by the scripts for Doctor Who, Eccleston agreed to take on the role.

Eccleston had built up a reputation as a serious and intense character actor. He had been particularly acclaimed for his roles in TV dramas such as Cracker and Our Friends in the North, as well as The Second Coming. Arguably, he was better-known than any previous actor who'd taken on the role of the Doctor (maybe barring Jon Pertwee). Unlike the previous Doctors, Eccleston's incarnation did not employ a flamboyant costume. However, the same mix of seriousness and whimsy was present.

For the first time in the show's history, the role of the companion was billed as the series lead alongside that of the Doctor.

Whilst Davies was keen for the new show to follow on from the original, he wanted to introduce an in-universe reason to separate the two out. He decided that a massive Time War had been fought in the interim between the Daleks and the Time Lords, of which the Doctor was one of the few survivors. Initially the Terry Nation Estate was unwilling to let the BBC re-use the Daleks, but intense negotiations resulted in permission being given late in the day; one script (which later became the episode Dalek) had two versions written, one featuring a Dalek and another a new alien. Davies decided that the new series would consist of stand-alone episodes and a couple of two-parters (so the classic Doctor Who cliffhanger could be retained), but it would also employ tighter, ongoing continuity as was fashionable in modern SF dramas. In this case, the Doctor would constantly encounter references to something called 'Bad Wolf' that would only be explained in the season finale. The series also employed an ongoing development of the relationship between the Doctor, his new companion Rose Tyler (played by ex-pop star Billie Piper) and her boyfriend and family back home.

The new season - officially the first season of a new series, but counted by many fans as Season 27 - debuted in March 2005. The first episode, Rose, picked up 10 million viewers and positive reviews. The thirteen-episode season was overall well-regarded, though criticisms were made of an occasionally juvenile tone, most notably with regards to the 'farting aliens', the Slitheen, and rapidly-dating references to contemporary British culture. The latter part of the season saw an upswing in quality, with the Doctor and Rose joined by a new companion, Captain Jack Harkness (played by John Barrowman) and confronting a resurgent force of Daleks in the two-part season finale.

The Daleks proved to be instrumental in the storyline for the new series.

Even before filming of the first season was complete, Christopher Eccleston decided to leave the role (despite early interviews suggesting he might stay for two or three years). He cited the show's filming schedule and workload (it took over six months to record the series, with the Doctor in a majority of scenes) as something he was uncomfortable with. Though sorry to see him go, Davies did take advantage of the fact to give the new viewers their very first regeneration scene. For the role of the Tenth Doctor, Davies again did not have to look very far. His mini-series Casanova had been in production simultaneously with Doctor Who and Davies had been very impressed by the performance of lead actor David Tennant, himself a keen Doctor Who fan. Tennant was offered the role during a press screening of Casanova and accepted. He quickly filmed an insert for the regeneration scene (which had been filmed months earlier) showing the completion of the transformation.

Despite the bump of Eccleston's relatively abrupt departure, Doctor Who's return was an unqualified success. Ratings hovered around the 10 million mark, an impressive feat for a drama show airing on Saturday evenings, and reviews were mostly solid. The show was showered with awards for that year, including two BAFTAs and three National Television Awards. However, the success was initially confined to Britain: the American Sci-Fi Channel showed the series a year after the original transmission, but it attracted little attention in the States at this stage.

Season 27/Series 1: 23/3/05-17/6/05 (13 episodes)

1.1: Rose ***

1.2: The End of the World ***½

1.3: The Unquiet Dead ***½

1.4/1.5: Aliens of London/World War Three (2 episodes) *½

1.6: Dalek ***

1.7: The Long Game ***

1.8: Father's Day ***

1.9/1.10: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances (2 episodes) ***½

1.11: Boom Town ***½

1.12/1.13: Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways (2 episodes) ***½

The Ninth Doctor regenerated at the end of The Parting of the Ways after absorbing the energies of the Time Vortex to save his companion, Rose.

The Ninth Doctor's Companions & Recurring Allies

Rose Tyler (Billie Piper): Season 27-  (1.1-  )

Adam Mitchell (Bruno Langley): Season 27 (1.6-1.7)

Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman): Season 27 (1.9-1.13)

Doctor Who at 50: The Wilderness Years

The 2003 animated story Scream of the Shalka, starring Richard E. Grant as the Doctor and Derek Jacobi as the Master, was the most notable project made between the TV movie and the new series.

The Doctor Who TV movie starring Paul McGann aired in May 1996, attracting little interest (and poor viewing figures) in the United States but scoring impressive viewing figures of over 9 million in the UK. The BBC responded positively to the news (most of those responsible for canning the show in 1989 having moved on) and there was a definite feeling that Doctor Who's return as a regular, on-going TV series was now inevitable. This was bolstered by a renewed interest in science fiction elsewhere: the BBC's SF sitcom Red Dwarf was also now one of the most popular shows made by the corporation, scoring viewing figures in 1997 and 1999 (for its seventh and eighth seasons) that would impress on BBC-1, let alone on the sister channel.

Despite this, it took a startling nine years - following the seven-year gap between the end of the classic series and the TV movie - before Doctor Who finally returned to the screens.

 Russell T. Davies

After Fox failed to pick up Doctor Who for a full season order, the production rights reverted to the BBC in 1997. In 1998 Mal Young, a fan of the show, took over as Head of Continuing Drama at the BBC. Peter Salmon, the Controller of BBC-1, was in agreement that the show should return and they worked on various ideas. They agreed that to bring the show back they would need a strong personality to work as executive producer and showrunner. Young recommended Russell T. Davies, an up-and-coming writer noted for his work on the ITV dramas The Grand and Touching Evil. He had also worked for the BBC earlier in the decade, working on the well-received children's dramas Century Falls and Dark Season (which featured the first screen appearance of Kate Winslet). Davies, an enormous fan of Doctor Who, was enthusiastic but also distracted by a series of new projects for ITV and Channel 4.

In February 1999 Davies's latest project, Queer as Folk, began airing on Channel 4. It was almost immediately a massive critical and commercial hit, and Davies became one of the UK's most in-demand writers. The BBC was keen to work with him and news of the Doctor Who discussions leaked, with a title of Doctor Who 2000 mooted for a relaunched version of the show. However, these plans were sabotaged by the BBC itself.

For almost twenty years, the BBC's commercial arm had been keen to make a big-budget Doctor Who feature film. Various discussions with American partners had come to nothing, with some deals being apparently discouraged by the ongoing status of the TV show. With the TV show off the air, BBC Enterprises had stepped up attempts to make a film and the success of the 1996 TV movie provided a springboard for some more substantial discussions. Getting wind of the proposed TV relaunch, BBC Enterprises themselves shut down the discussions on commercial grounds. Attempts to overcome the problems failed, and in 2000 Peter Salmon left the BBC, draining momentum from the project.

The Eighth Doctor Novels was the successor range to the Virgin New Adventures, eventually encompassing 73 novels published over eight years.

In the meantime, Doctor Who continued to flourish off-screen. The success of the New Adventures novels had inspired the BBC to take over the novel licence themselves and since 1997 had published a large number of books featuring the Eighth Doctor (despite his brief on-screen appearance, Paul McGann was still the 'current' Doctor) and previous incarnations. Despite a dearth of new TV material for more than a decade, Doctor Who Magazine continued to sell impressively. The arrival of the DVD format in 1998 provided the impetus for relaunching the Doctor Who video range on the new format. A company called Big Finish began producing full-cast audio dramas featuring both McGann and previous Doctors and companions. The show's 40th anniversary was also approaching, which would renew interest in the franchise.

Peter Salmon's successor at the BBC, Lorraine Heggessey, proved equally enthusiastic on bringing the programme back. Several further series proposals, one by another up-and-coming TV writer called Mark Gatiss, had stumbled on the rights issues. Heggessey, supported by Jane Tranter (the head of BBC Drama), finally overruled BBC Enterprises by pointing out that since a film version was not in serious development, there was no reason not to pursue the TV option. This was encouraged in July 2003 by the success of Scream of the Shalka, an original animated episode for the BBC website starring Richard E. Grant as the Doctor and Derek Jacobi as the Master.

Christopher Eccleston in Russell T. Davies's 2003 drama, The Second Coming.

BBC Enterprises relented and Heggessey called in Russell T. Davies for a meeting. Davies's star had risen yet further, having written a successful ITV drama-comedy called Bob and Rose and a controversial religious drama named The Second Coming, in which the son of God (played by Christopher Eccleston) returned to Earth. At the time of the meeting Davies was developing an ITV mini-series called Casanova, to star the then-unknown David Tennant.

On 26 September 2003, two months shy of the show's 40th anniversary, the BBC formally announced that Doctor Who would be returning as an original, ongoing TV series with 13 episodes to air in 2005. Davies would be the new executive producer and showrunner. The fandom greeted the news with cautious optimism.

Doctor Who at 50: The Eighth Doctor (1996, 2013)

Paul McGann (1959-  ) played the Eighth Doctor in just one 90-minute TV movie and a seven-minute 'webisode', making him the Doctor with the least number of on-screen appearances. However, he was regarded as the 'current' Doctor for the period 1996-05 and has also appeared in 66 audio dramas as the Eighth Doctor, the most recent in 2012.

The Eighth Doctor (1996)

When Doctor Who went off the air in 1989, officially it was on a longer-than-normal hiatus that would end once the BBC found an independent production partner to help shoulder the financial burden of making the show. Whilst discussions were held with UK partners, the BBC also spoke to American producers in the hope of making a big-budget show able to compete with the likes of Star Trek. In 1994 the BBC, Universal Pictures and an ex-pat British producer living in Los Angeles, Philip Segal,struck a deal for Segal to develop a script he could shop to American networks. John Leekley, an American studio writer working for Universal, was assigned to write the actual script.

The original plan had been for a complete reboot of the Doctor Who continuity, with the new series opening with an origin story for the Doctor. It was with this script that the first casting calls for the new Doctor were held. Despite the reboot concept, Segal was keen to retain a British actor in the title role. Rowan Atkinson and Derek Jacobi were considered for the role, whilst Jim Carrey's name was touted in the press (Carrey's movie career made this highly improbable as a realistic consideration, however). Also auditioning were two relatively unknown actors from Britain (at least in the USA), Mark McGann and his older brother, Paul. After some consideration, Paul McGann won the role.

CBS briefly considered the project, but it was eventually picked up by Fox. Fox, unexpectedly, proved keen on retaining the old show's continuity and also assigned a new writer, Matthew Jacobs. Jacobs had an interesting Who connection: his father Anthony had played Doc Holliday in the 1966 serial The Gunfighters and Matthew had visited the set as child. The script was completely re-tooled and now included an opening sequence in which Sylvester McCoy reprised his role as the Seventh Doctor (a BBC suggestion that Tom Baker - by far the best-known Doctor in the USA - be featured instead was firmly rejected by Segal). The Master returned as the main villain (Terry Nation was not keen to let the Daleks be used, although they are referenced), now played by well-known American actor Eric Roberts.

Paul McGann in recent publicity photos for the Doctor Who audio range.

The TV movie was broadcast in the UK and USA in May 1996. In the United States the reception was underwhelming, with disappointing viewing figures. The UK transmission was altogether more successful, with more than 9 million viewers tuning in (to the BBC's surprise). Critically, the production was criticised for being too 'Americanised' and Eric Roberts's performance as the Master was particularly savaged. The suggestion that the Doctor was half-human was also roundly condemned by the fandom (and later flatly rejected by the new series). However, the continuity nods to the UK series, the use of Sylvester McCoy, the set design of the TARDIS and, above everything else, Paul McGann's performance as the Doctor were all extremely well-received by the fans.

The transmission of the new TV movie, combined with the sad death of Third Doctor Jon Pertwee just a few days earlier, resulted in a resurgence of interest in Doctor Who. When Fox dropped plans for a follow-up series, the BBC began exploring options to remounting the series by themselves. Ultimately, this took a lot longer than they expected but did eventually result in the show returning to the screens in March 2005. Russell T. Davies, the producer who resurrected the show, chose not to retain McGann, instead preferring with a clean slate with a new Doctor.

Whilst he only appeared on-screen once, McGann remained (and remains) an enthusiastic supporter of the series and his role in it. From 1996 to 2012 he appeared in 66 audio dramas and radio plays for Big Finish and the BBC, whilst BBC Books published 73 novels in the Eighth Doctor Adventures range (which follows up Virgin Publishing's The New Adventures) between 1996 and 2005.

There is a notable continuity gap involving the Eighth Doctor: he is the only Doctor we have not seen regenerate on-screen (arguably excepting the Second/Third Doctor transition, though the immediate aftermath was depicted), nor the reasons for it given. Fan speculation is that it was the Eighth Doctor who fought in the Time War against the Daleks, and regenerated into the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) at its conclusion. However, the forthcoming 50th Anniversary special (which McGann will not appear in) will apparently reveal this was more complicated than previously thought.
 

The Eighth Doctor just before his regeneration into the 'War Doctor'.

Update: On 14 November 2013, the BBC released a special 'webisode' promoting the 50th anniversary special, Day of the Doctor. The webside unexpectedly featured the return of Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and depicted his regeneration into the unnumbered 'War Doctor' played by John Hurt.

The TV Movie: 12/05/96 (1 episode)

01X: The TV Movie (1 90-minute episode) ***½

50th Anniversary Special: 14/11/13 (1 webisode)

Web: Night of the Doctor (1 7-minute webisode) ****

The Eighth Doctor was severely wounded whilst on a spacecraft that crashed into the surface of Karn, a planet in the same system as Gallifrey. The Eighth would have died instantly, but his life was prolonged by the enigmatic Sisterhood of Karn, who allowed him to choose the form of his next regeneration. The Eighth Doctor decided that his decision to remain aloof from the nascent Time War had been wrong, and chose the form of a 'warrior'. He regenerated into this form, which is not formally counted as one of the 'Doctor's incarnations because of his warlike nature.

Preview of AN ADVENTURE IN SPACE AND TIME

The Radio Times has posted publicity pictures of An Adventure in Space and Time, a one-off TV drama about the commissioning and creation of Doctor Who in 1963. The drama stars David Bradley (Harry Potter, Game of Thrones) as William Hartnell (who played the First Doctor) and is currently expected to air on Friday, 22 November, the day before the show's 50th anniversary.

David Bradley as William Hartnell (the First Doctor) and Claudia Grant as Carole Ann Ford (Susan), on a faithful recreation of the original TARDIS set.

The drama also stars Jemma Power as Jacqueline Hill, Jamie Glover as William Russell, Claudia Grant as Carole Ann Ford, Sacha Dhawan as Waris Hussein, Jessica Raine as Verity Lambert, Sarah Winter as Delia Derbyshire, Nicholas Briggs as Peter Hawkins, and Brian Cox as Sydney Newman. The real William Russell and Carole Ann Ford also have cameo appearances, whilst Reece Shearsmith will play the then-future Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton (who was a friend and colleague of Hartnell's, and was recommended by Hartnell to be his replacement).

Nine missing episodes of DOCTOR WHO found and returned to the BBC

At a press conference earlier today, the BBC confirmed that nine previously-missing episodes of Doctor Who have been found and returned. The episodes will be available on iTunes from tomorrow. An embargo was put in place until midnight tonight, but The Northern Echo and everyone and their dog on Twitter have broken that already.

The Enemy of the World is notable for a dual performance by Patrick Troughton, who plays both the Doctor and the main villain of the serial, Salamander. It is noted as one of the late Troughton's favourite stories.

As related previously, the BBC destroyed numerous episodes of the series - and many others - in the 1970s to free up storage space and also for recycling purposes. Thanks to the diligence of Doctor Who fans and investigators, copies of more than forty destroyed episodes have been recovered from overseas broadcasters since then. However, as of yesterday 106 episodes officially remained missing, with 27 stories from the first six seasons affected and 10 stories completely missing.

This latest find consists of Episodes 2, 4, 5 and 6 of The Web of Fear and Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 of The Enemy of the World, the immediately preceding story. Both stories aired as part of Doctor Who's fifth season, airing in 1967-68, and both starred Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor. When combined with the episodes already in the archives, The Enemy of the World is now fully complete and The Web of Fear is only missing one episode (its third). The BBC has mounted a reconstruction of the missing episode using still photographs and the episode's soundtrack, which has survived.

The find is hugely significant: in the past 25 years, only eight episodes of Doctor Who have been recovered. The largest number recovered at once in that time was four, when Tomb of the Cybermen was fully recovered from Hong Kong in 1992.

The Web of Fear introduced the character of Colonel Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart, played by Nicholas Courtney. Later promoted to Brigadier and placed in command of UNIT, he would become Doctor Who's longest-running recurring character.

However, fans were hoping for a larger number: for almost three years now, rumours have circulated about a very large cache of episodes located in Africa, with the most frequently-bandied about number being an eyebrow-raising 90. Several news sites and forums have been chasing rumours ranging from the plausible (the BBC wanted to restore and check the episodes before releasing any news officially) to the highly ludicrous (the person holding the tapes refused to hand them over unless Steven Moffat, Doctor Who's controversial showrunner, is fired). The quotes produced by the Northern Echo from the press conference do not make reference to there being more episodes than these nine, but Tweets from those attending hint that further announcements may be to come.

For now, however, the official, confirmed news is that nine episodes of Doctor Who have been returned just in time for the 50th anniversary, leaving 97 unaccounted for. More to come when the BBC release their official statement in full at midnight GMT.

Update: The BBC have confirmed that the nine episodes (along with additional copies of two others that already existed in the BBC archives) were recovered from a TV station in Nigeria. The Enemy of the World will be released on DVD on 25 November, with The Web of Fear to follow early next year. The recovered episodes are also available immediately on iTunes. A clip from The Web of Fear follows:

Doctor Who at 50: The New Adventures

The first novel in the New Adventure range. This book was controversial on release for featuring more adult language and content (including sexual scenes) than was normally associated with Doctor Who.

Doctor Who and the medium of books have had a long history together. From 1973 onwards Target Books had published novelisations of almost all of the original Doctor Who serials, in many cases written by either the original writer or former script editor Terrance Dicks (who ended up writing almost half the range by himself). In an age without video or repeats, these novels helped budding Doctor Who fans catch up on earlier stories and become acquainted with the show's lengthy mythology.

However, the BBC had always been reluctant to allow the writers to pen original fiction. The closest they came was when they permitted the Target authors to adapt unproduced scripts from the TV show (most notably, the four stories from the 'original' Season 23 before it was transformed into The Trial of a Time Lord). In 1990, with the show off-air and with no return date set, the editor of the range, Peter Darvill-Evans, pursued the rights to write original fiction once again to fill in the gap and this time the answer was yes.


Doctor Who: The New Adventures launched in 1991 with a four-book series referred to as the Timewyrm arc. In this sequence, the Doctor does battle with a cybernetic villain known as Qataka. During their first battle, in ancient Mesopotamia (where the Doctor allies himself with the hero Gilgamesh), Qataka is absorbed into the TARDIS and starts taking it over. The Doctor flushes her (and the TARDIS secondary control room) into the Time Vortex, but this merely gives Qataka the power to travel through time and space. The 'Timewyrm', as she is now called, causes chaos on 20th Century Earth when she changes history so that the Nazis won WWII. Eventually, in Timewyrm: Revelation, the Doctor confronts and defeats the Timewyrm in a desperate, surreal battle within his own mind. This battle features elements such as an ordinary English building (in this case, a church) transported onto the surface of the Moon and a child in an astronaut's suit, elements that would recur in the post-2005 TV series. The writer of this particular novel was a newcomer named Paul Cornell. Cornell would become arguably the most popular author of the range for his unusual take on the character and was one of several writers to cross over to working on the new TV series.

The New Adventures series eventually incorporated sixty-one novels published over six years. Initially the series was split into story arcs. After the Timewyrm quartet was the Cat's Cradle trilogy, in which the TARDIS is destroyed but later restored by the Doctor, although suffering from extensive damage. The notion of what would happen if the TARDIS was destroyed was revisited several times in the later TV series. This trilogy also featured books written by former script-editor Andrew Cartmel and Marc Platt, who wrote the TV serial Ghost Light. Cartmel and editor Darvill-Evans agreed to continue the 'Cartmel Masterplan' from the last two seasons of the TV show and explain the Doctor's origins. This would be done slowly over the lifespan of the range.

After the Cat's Cradle series was a stand-alone novel, Nightshade, written by a new writer (and committed Doctor Who fan) named Mark Gatiss. Gatiss would both write and guest-star in the new series after it returned in 2005. Following this book was the Future History Cycle, featuring a series of novels set over the next thousand years or so of history. Amongst the most notable of this series was Love and War by Paul Cornell, in which Ace leaves and the Seventh Doctor recruits a new companion, archaeologist Bernice 'Benny' Summerfield. Another important novel is The Highest Science, written by Gareth Roberts who would also go on to work on the new TV series. This book also introduces the Chelonians, a new alien race of cybernetic tortoises (!) who would be mentioned in the new TV series.

Ace would return in Deceit and she and Bernice would both accompany the Doctor for many novels. Birthright and Iceberg would create a format that the new TV series would go on to employ, with the novels occurring simultaneously with one focusing on the Doctor and the other on what his companions were doing at the same time. Iceberg would also be notable in featuring the Cybermen in the first major appearance by a TV enemy race in the books (re-using the major TV races required the publishers to pay a licensing fee to the original creators, hence was mostly avoided to keep costs down). The next novel, Blood Heat, would feature the return of the Silurians and would be set in an alternate timeline where the Doctor and UNIT would be defeated during the events of The Silurians. The Ice Warriors would return in Legacy and Ace would leave - again and permanently as a regular character this time - in Set Piece. The novel Blood Harvest, written by Terrance Dicks, would see the Doctor's former Time Lady companion Romana rescued from E-space and returned to Gallifrey, where she would eventually become President of the High Council of Time Lords (something later declared canon by the producers of the new TV series; Romana was President when the Time War began, though not by its conclusion).

The thirty-eighth novel in the series was Human Nature, written by Paul Cornell. In this novel the Doctor becomes human and goes undercover at a boys' school in pre-WWI England. The novel would later be voted the best in the New Adventures range. In 2007 Cornell adapted the novel for television, becoming the episodes Human Nature and Family of Blood. This marked the first time a pre-existing Doctor Who story would be used as the basis for a new TV story and also increased the confusion over the issue of canon: did the re-use of the same story in a new medium mean that the 'book' version of the story never happened? The thorny issue of canon would re-emerge several times further down the road (see below).

In 1996 a New Adventure entitled Damaged Goods was published. Set on a contemporary London council estate, the book had a familiar name behind it: Russell T. Davies. Davies was becoming a famous TV writer in his own right for his TV series The Grand (not to mention his well-received children's drama Dark Season, which featured Kate Winslet in an early role), and three years down the road would pen the highly successful Queer as Folk. Davies was a huge Doctor Who fan, something he would work into his Queer as Folk scripts. Around the same time, a collection of Doctor Who short stories was published called Decalog 3: Consequences. One of the short stories in the collection was 'Continuity Errors', written by a certain Steven Moffat.

The Doctor Who: The New Adventures line came to an end in 1997 when the licence was revoked by the BBC, who wanted to publish Doctor Who fiction themselves in the wake of the success of the 1996 TV movie. The New Adventures now had to be ended in a way that would dovetail into the TV movie (which, despite some fan grumblings, the BBC regarded as canon). Marc Platt was called upon to conclude the 'Cartmel Masterplan' with the novel Lungbarrow. This novel finally gave an explanation for the origins of the Doctor and Time Lord society. It met with a somewhat mixed reception from fans (and its canonical status is disputed). The succeeding novel, The Dying Days, was set after the TV movie and thus is the only New Adventure to feature the Eighth Doctor. The Dying Days also marks the separation of the Doctor and Bernice Summerfield; Bernice had become so popular that she continued to star in a line of solo novels (simply entitled The New Adventures with no mention of Doctor Who on the covers, and only oblique references in the text) which eventually stretched to twenty-three volumes.

The Doctor Who: New Adventures lines was succeeded by the Eighth Doctor Adventures, published by the BBC themselves. Originally the BBC were not concerned about maintaining continuity with the New Adventures, but given that many of the same writers crossed over between the ranges, elements established in the New Adventures continued to be treated as canonical for the later books.

Human Nature is widely-regarded as the finest novel in the range and the only one to later be adapted for television.

Connections with the TV Series

There are significant connections linking the New Adventures line of novels with the 2005 revival of the TV series. These are:

• Shared writers. Mark Gatiss, Gareth Roberts, Paul Cornell, Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffatt would all write New Adventures novels or short stories in the related Decalog range before writing for the revived TV series. Most significantly, Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffatt would serve as showrunners on the revived series.
• Adaptations. The novel Human Nature would be adapted as the TV episodes Human Nature and The Family of Blood. The Highest Science was also likewise going to be adapted, but significant changes in writing saw it become Planet of the Dead with very few elements retained.
• References. The alien Chelonians, introduced in The Highest Science, would be namechecked in The Pandorica Opens. Romana escaping from E-space and becoming President of the High Council of Time Lords would also be canonised in Russell T. Davies's account of the Time War, Meet the Doctor, in the 2006 Doctor Who annual.
• Recurring thematic elements. In Timewyrm: Revelation an English church is transported onto the surface of the Moon; in the episode Smith and Jones, an English hospital suffers the same fate. The same novel also features a child in an astronaut's spacesuit 'killing' the Doctor, an element that recurs in the episodes The Impossible Astronaut and The Wedding of River Song. The novel Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible features the destruction of the TARDIS, this being reversed and immense problems from this event reverberating for some time. The same concept forms much of the underlying arc of the fifth season (thirty-first overall) of the revived series, culminating in The Big Bang.
• Direct character appearances. Professor Arthur Candy of Luna University, an expert on the Doctor, first appears in Moffat's story 'Continuity Errors' before returning in the (non-Doctor) New Adventure novel Oh No It Isn't! by Paul Cornell. He appears on-screen in the episode Let's Kill Hitler, meeting River Song.

These connections have led some fans and websites - most notably the TARDIS Data Core Wiki - to treat the New Adventures as fully canon to the TV series. However, their canonical status is disputed by both other elements and also the show's own continuity policies, which are somewhat vague.

The canonical fate of the Doctor's final companion from the original series, Ace, remains unclear.

Canonicity
The New Adventures, like most Doctor Who spin-offs, are of debatable (and believe me, people have debated it at exceptional length) canonicity. Unlike other franchises like Star Trek, where the spin-off media have always been ruled non-canon, or Star Wars, where it has always ruled as canon (so far, anyway), no official position has ever been adopted by the BBC with regards to Doctor Who's canon. With the original creators and producers having passed away, and with the show having a revolving door of writers and showrunners, it is unclear if there is any one person actually in a position to say whether something is canon or not. This issue has been exasperated by the Time War, which occurred between the 1996 TV movie and the 2005 revival, and has been said to have overwritten and changed history, so things that were once canon may no longer be so. Paul Cornell has used the example of the differing accounts of the fate of the Sun in the First Doctor story The Ark and the Ninth Doctor story The End of the World being down to the Time War.

This issue also seems to be confused by the fact that some of the New Adventures seem to have been de-canonised - the TV serial Human Nature/Family of Blood would seem to have rendered the novel Human Nature non-canon - whilst other elements originating in the spin-off stories, like Professor Candy and the Chelonians, have appeared in the new TV series.

A further complexity is the ultimate fate of Ace, the Seventh Doctor's final on-screen companion. In the novels Ace leaves the Doctor, returns to him after three years in deep space fighting Daleks and ultimately returns to Earth with a short-range time machine strapped to a motorbike, fighting threats to Earth. The comics, which have generally been regarded as less canonical than the novels, contradicted this by killing Ace off in a huge explosion. The Sarah Jane Adventures TV episode Death of the Doctor hints that Ace, under her real name of Dorothy, is running a charity on present-day Earth called 'A Charitable Earth' (A.C.E.), which may be compatible with the former outcome but not the latter. According to Russell T. Davies, he was going to explain this in a future episode of the spin-off series, but Elisabeth Sladen's death and the cancellation of the series made this impossible.

Different fans have developed different approaches as a result. Some hold the TV show and TV show alone as only being canon. The TV show can use the novels as inspiration at times, but the novels themselves are not explicitly canon until events from them are said to be so on TV. Other fans take the opposing view, ruling that both the novels and other media (such as the comic strips) are canon until the TV show contradicts them, thus ruling them non-canon. Other fans state that all Doctor Who stories are 'canon' regardless of origin or continuity errors, and instead may take place in alternate dimensions or realities to the core continuity of the TV series.

Others suggest just enjoying the show and not worrying about this stuff too much.

Lungbarrow is controversial for the amount of the Doctor's backstory that it revealed. Some felt that it destroyed too much of the Doctor's mystery, whilst others found it unsatisfying. It is unlikely that the backstory in Lungbarrow will be acknowledged in the new series.

The Cartmel Masterplan
When he became script-editor of Doctor Who in 1987, Andrew Cartmel decided to work in a long-running storyline which would gradually darken and complicate the Doctor's character before culminating in the revelation of his backstory and origins. Several writers hired by Cartmel, most notably Marc Platt and Ben Aaronovitch, helped work on this plan, although producer/showrunner John Nathan-Turner seems to have been more dubious. Nathan-Turner vetoed a Platt script for Season 26 which would have been set in the Doctor's ancestral home on Gallifrey as exposing too much of the mystery of the Doctor.

With the New Adventures novel range unfolding, range editors Peter Darvill-Evans and, later, Rebecca Levene, agreed to continue the storyline in the novels. Time's Crucible revealed that the Gallifreyans had suffered calamitous conflict between a religious sect led by a prophetess, the Pythia, and a sect devoted to science and reason, led by Rassilon (this sect eventually became the first Time Lords). During this conflict the Pythia cursed the Time Lords with the inability to reproduce naturally, forcing Rassilon to develop regeneration as a way of circumventing the curse.

In Lungbarrow it is revealed that the Time Lords used 'cosmic looms' to genetically create new Gallifreyans in the absence of biological reproduction. In an odd twist, the Doctor is revealed to have been the reincarnation of the 'Other', one of the Time Lord triumvirate (along with Rassilon and Omega) who created time travel technology. The nature of the Other was unknown (hence his name) but his influence on the Doctor led to the Doctor stealing a TARDIS and rescuing the Other's granddaughter, who later took the human name Susan, from the dawn of Gallifrey's past before going on the run.

This explanation was somewhat unsatisfactory, as it simply transferred the mystery of, "Who is the Doctor?" to "Who was the Other?", and seemed unnecessarily convoluted. The post-2005 TV series has noticeably ignored it, such as mentioning the Doctor's childhood and explicitly showing the Master as a child in the Sound of Drums story arc. The new series has also said that the Doctor has had children, apparently throwing the whole 'Pythia's curse' storyline out the window. However, some fans have worked on ways of reconciling these contradictions (and again suggesting that the Time War may be responsible).


List of Doctor Who: The New Adventures Novels

Timewyrm
NA01: Timeyrm: Genesys by John Peel (June 1991) ***
NA02: Timewyrm: Exodus by Terrance Dicks (August 1991) ****½
NA03: Timewyrm: Apocalypse by Nigel Robinson (October 1991) ***
NA04: Timewyrm: Revelation by Paul Cornell (December 1991) *****

Cat's Cradle
NA05: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible by Marc Platt (February 1992) ***½
NA06: Cat's Cradle: Warhead by Andrew Cartmel (April 1992) ****
NA07: Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark by Andrew Hunt (June 1992) ***

NA08: Nightshade by Mark Gatiss (August 1992) ****

The Future History Cycle
NA09: Love and War by Paul Cornell (October 1992) *****
NA10: Transit by Ben Aaronovitch (December 1992) ****
NA11: The Highest Science by Gareth Roberts (February 1993) ****½
NA12: The Pit by Neil Penswick (March 1993)
NA13: Deceit by Peter Darvill-Evans (April 1993) ****
NA14: Lucifer Rising by Jim Mortimore and Andy Lane (May 1993) ****½

NA15: White Darkness by David A. McIntee (June 1993)
NA16: Shadowmind by Christopher Bulis (July 1993)
NA17: Birthright by Nigel Robinson (August 1993) ****
NA18: Iceberg by David Banks (September 1993) ***½

The Alternate History Cycle
NA19: Blood Heat by Jim Mortimore (October 1993) ****
NA20: The Dimension Riders by Daniel Blythe (November 1993)
NA21: The Left-Handed Hummingbird by Kate Orman (December 1993)
NA22: Conundrum by Steve Lyons (January 1994)
NA23: No Future by Paul Cornell (February 1994)

NA24: Tragedy Day by Gareth Roberts (March 1994)
NA25: Legacy by Gary Russell (April 1994) ***½
NA26: Theatre of War by Justin Richards (May 1994)
NA27: All-Consuming Fire by Andy Lane (June 1994)
NA28: Blood Harvest by Terrance Dicks (July 1994)
NA29: Strange England by Simon Messingham (August 1994)
NA30: First Frontier by David A. McIntee (September 1994)
NA31: St. Anthony's Fire by Mark Gatiss (October 1994)
NA32: Falls the Shadow by Daniel O'Mahony (November 1994)
NA33: Parasite by Jim Mortimore (December 1994)
NA34: Warlock by Andrew Cartmel (January 1995)
NA35: Set Piece by Kate Orman (February 1995)
NA36: Infinite Requiem by Daniel Blythe (March 1995)
NA37: Sanctuary by David A. McIntee (April 1995)
NA38: Human Nature by Paul Cornell (May 1995)
NA39: Original Sin by Andy Lane (June 1995)
NA40: Sky Pirates! by Dave Stone (July 1995)
NA41: Zamper by Gareth Roberts (August 1995)
NA42: Toy Soldiers by Paul Leonard (September 1995)
NA43: Head Games by Steve Lyons (October 1995)
NA44: The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch (November 1995)
NA45: Shakedown by Terrance Dicks (December 1995)
NA46: Just War by Lance Parkin (January 1996)

The Psi-Powers Arc
NA47: Warchild by Andrew Cartmel (February 1996)
NA48: SLEEPY by Kate Orman (March 1996)
NA49: Death and Diplomacy by Dave Stone (April 1996)
NA50: Happy Endings by Paul Cornell (May 1996)
NA51: GodEngine by Craig Hinton (June 1996)
NA52: Christmas on a Rational Planet by Lawrence Miles (July 1996)
NA53: Return of the Living Dad by Kate Orman (August 1996)
NA54: The Death of Art by Simon Bucher-Jones (September 1996)
NA55: Damaged Goods by Russell T. Davies (October 1996)
NA56: So Vile a Sin by Ben Aaronovitch and Kate Orman (May 1997)


NA57: Bad Therapy by Matthew Jones (December 1996)
NA58: Eternity Weeps by Jim Mortimore (January 1997)
NA59: The Room With No Doors by Kate Orman (February 1997)
NA60: Lungbarrow by Marc Platt (March 1997)
NA61: The Dying Days by Lance Parkin (April 1997)

Actress Lisa Bowerman has played Bernice Summerfield in audio dramas since the late 1990s. Bernice is one of the most popular and successful Doctor Who companions despite never appearing on the TV series, although Bowerman had a role in the final serial of the classic series, Survival, in 1989.

List of The New Adventures Novels (featuring Bernice Summerfield)

BS01: Oh No It Isn't! by Paul Cornell (May 1997)
BS02: Dragons' Wrath by Justin Richards (June 1997)
BS03: Beyond the Sun by Matthew Jones (July 1997)
BS04: Ship of Fools by Dave Stone (August 1997)
BS05: Down by Lawrence Miles (September 1997)
BS06: Deadfall by Gary Russell (October 1997)
BS07: Ghost Devices by Simon Bucher-Jones (November 1997)
BS08: Mean Streets by Terrance Dicks (December 1997)
BS09: Tempest by Christopher Bulis (January 1998)
BS10: Walking to Babylon by Kate Orman (February 1998)
BS11: Oblivion by Dave Stone (March 1998)
BS12: The Medusa Effect by Justin Richards (April 1998)
BS13: Dry Pilgrimage by Paul Leonard and Nick Walters (May 1998)
BS14: The Sword of Forever by Jim Mortimore (June 1998)
BS15: Another Girl, Another Planet by Martin Day and Len Beech (August 1998)
BS16: Beige Planet Mars by Lance Parkin and Mark Clapham (October 1998)
BS17: Where Angels Fear by Rebecca Levene and Simon Winstone (December 1998)
BS18: The Mary-Sue Extrusion by Dave Stone (February 1999)
BS19: Dead Romance by Lawrence Miles (March 1999)
BS20: Tears of the Oracle by Justin Richards (June 1999)
BS21: Return to the Fractured Planet by Dave Stone (August 1999)
BS22: The Joy Device by Justin Richards (October 1999)
BS23: Twilight of the Gods by Mark Clapham and Jon de Burgh Miller (December 1999)


Companions
Dorothy 'Ace' McShane: NA01-09, 13-17, 19-35, 43, 50, 54, 60
Professor Bernice 'Benny' Summerfield: NA09-17, 19-50, 53, 56, 58, 61, BS01-23
Roz Forrester: NA39-56
Chris Cwej: NA39-60
Wolsey the Cat: NA38, 43, 61, BS01

Doctor Who at 50: The Seventh Doctor (1987-89/96)

Sylvester McCoy (1943-  ) played the Seventh Doctor in 42 episodes and 12 serials over three seasons, as well as reprising his role in the opening of the 1996 TV movie. He had two companions. Though he appeared in more episodes and serials than Colin Baker, he had slightly less screen-time (amounting to about an hour) as thirteen of Baker's episodes were double-length.

The Seventh Doctor (1987-89, 1996)

Doctor Who's twenty-fourth season began production under a cloud. Producer John Nathan-Turner (now in his eighth season in charge) had been refused permission to leave and was now essentially making the show against his will. He'd also been left with almost no time to prepare the season and wound up recruiting an actor best-known for his comedy skills, Sylvester McCoy (who was, amongst other things, known for putting live ferrets down his trousers), as the Doctor. He also recruited a new script editor, Andrew Cartmel, who was talented but inexperienced.

The twenty-fourth season was weak, uninspiring and tiresome. It was also - some say deliberately - aired directly against Coronation Street, the most popular evening soap opera (and TV show overall) on British television, which destroyed the show's ratings.

Despite these problems, there were signs of hope. Sylvester McCoy proved unexpectedly good in the role. Like Jon Pertwee before him, he saw the show as way of exercising his dramatic skills and forging a new career path (one which would, twenty-five years later, see him cast in Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies as Radagast the Brown). However, for his first season there was more of a comedic air to his character. Fans were also unhappy with the casting of former child actress Bonnie Langford, best-known as a dancer and for her work in musicals, as companion Mel, which also apparently led to more comedic elements at the expense of drama. This combination of factors made the twenty-fourth series seem rather silly and trite.

For the twenty-fifth season, which was also an important anniversary year, it was decided to dramatically retool the writing team. Younger and more dynamic writers like Ben Aaronovitch (who now writes the excellent Peter Grant series of fantastical detective novels) and Marc Platt were recruited and Andrew Cartmel unveiled his 'masterplan'. He wanted to delve into the very psyche and character of the Doctor as part of a plan to reveal the Doctor's true backstory and origins, which would be more complex than previously hinted. He also wanted to develop a far more complex relationship between the Doctor and his new companion Ace, played by Sophie Aldred.

Remembrance of the Daleks is one of the most action-packed stories in the history of the programme, featuring impressive Dalek-on-Dalek battles on the streets of 1963 London.

The fruits of this can be seen in the widely-acclaimed Remembrance of the Daleks, in which the Doctor manipulates events from behind the scenes to bring about the destruction of the Dalek homeworld, Skaro. It was a tremendously effective story, though also a very expensive one (the remainder of the season ended up looking cheaper than normal due to it). The remainder of the season was unremarkable, though Silver Nemesis (featuring an awful reappearance by the Cybermen) did hint at the Doctor's mysterious origins.

The twenty-sixth season was better still. The opening serial, Battlefield, was a bit of a throwaway romp though the return in force of UNIT and the Brigadier - who gets to save the world by destroying an evil demonic entity - was widely welcomed. Cartmel's plans to set the next serial on Gallifrey in the Doctor's family home was deemed a bit too much by Nathan-Turner, who wanted to preserve some more mystery about the Doctor, so it was shifted to a more generic 'haunted' house. Along with the following serial, The Curse of Fenric, these two serials featured the Doctor blatantly manipulating Ace for reasons that remain rather unclear on-screen.

The final serial of the twenty-sixth season, Survival, saw the return of the Master and was noted as a 'grittier' and more suburban take on the series, with much of the action taking place on a poor council estate in the London suburbs where racial tensions are running high. This hinted at a more realistic take on modern Britain which the show had previously shied away from (and would continue to be explored - in perhaps a less confrontational fashion - in the new series).

Towards the end of production on the season the team began making plans for the following, which would be McCoy's last. According to some reports, the team planned to reveal that the Doctor's manipulations of Ace had been tests to see if she was suitable to be trained as a Time Lord (confirming long-standing fan speculation that Time Lords could be recruited from other species, not just Gallifreyan). A new companion, a cat burglar, would be introduced and the Ice Warriors would return after a sixteen-year absence. The Doctor would regenerate in the final episode of the season. However, word came down that the BBC wanted to delay the twenty-seventh season longer than normal. In particular, the BBC were unhappy with their limited budget for the show (very visible compared to the glossy Star Trek: The Next Generation which had just launched in the USA) and wanted to find an independent production company to co-finance the series.

With no firm plans in place for a twenty-seventh season, the production team was broken up, though fortunately they had enough warning to record a new voiceover for the end of Survival which would provide the series with a more fitting ending if the hiatus went on for a long time. The production office was shut down in 1991, twenty-eight years after it opened, and the BBC would continually rebuff any enquiries into the future of the programme by saying it was pursuing the independent production angle. In 1993 the BBC aired a one-off, non-canonical special called Dimensions in Time for the thirtieth anniversary which reunited numerous Doctors, companions, monsters and villains on the set of EastEnders. It was panned, but nevertheless the public gave a warm reception to the various special programmes aired to celebrate the anniversary. Very healthy VHS sales and the continued popularity of Doctor Who Magazine showed that there was still an appetite for the show. The only question was when and how it would return.

"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea is asleep and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea is getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do."

Season 24: 7/9/87-7/12/87 (14 episodes)

7D: Time and the Rani (4 episodes) **

7E: Paradise Towers (4 episodes) **

7F: Delta and the Bannermen (3 episodes) **

7G: Dragonfire (3 episodes)

Season 25: 5/10/88-4/1/89 (14 episodes)

7H: Remembrance of the Daleks (4 episodes) ****½

7L: The Happiness Patrol (3 episodes) *

7K: Silver Nemesis (3 episodes) *

7J: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (4 episodes) ***

Season 26: 6/9/89-6/12/89 (14 episodes)

7N: Battlefield (4 episodes) ***½

7Q: Ghost Light (3 episodes) ***

7M: The Curse of Fenric (4 episodes) ****

7P: Survival (3 episodes) ***

The TV Movie: 12/05/96 (1 episode)

01X: The TV Movie (1 90-minute episode) ***½

The Seventh Doctor regenerated in the 1996 TV movie after being machine-gunned down by a gang in San Francisco.

The Seventh Doctor's Companions

Melanie Bush (Bonnie Langford): Season 24 (7D-7G)

Dorothy 'Ace' McShane (Sophie Aldred): Season 24-26 (7G-7P)