Dr. Who: A Long Running Classic

There are few television series that can boast they’ve changed their primary actor ten times, have gone through twenty-six distinct seasons and survived through five decades. Dr. Who has met all of those criteria and seeks to add to it.

For those of you of you unaware of Dr. Who, shame on you. Dr. Who is a British science fiction show based around the adventures of a character simply called “The Doctor”. He is of an alien race called Time Lords and travels through space and time aboard his time ship the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space). Due to a malfunctioning chameleon circuit his ship is stuck in the form of a police telephone box from the mid 20th century (where I assume Bill and Ted got their idea from). As small as his time ship may appear on the outside it is actually an extra-dimensional space that is much bigger on the inside than it is outside.

The Doctor himself is an enigmatic character and in twenty-six seasons you never really learn much about his past, but you learn plenty about who he is. As a Time Lord he has a way of cheating death and basically reincarnating himself into different forms. With each form he takes there are slight personality differences, even though he possesses the same memories. The main trait of the doctor is one that is hard to find in most heroic characters, pacifism. The Doctor refuses to take life save for the most dire of circumstances. He thinks his way around problems rather than shooting his way through them. In fact he is rarely ever seen with a weapon, just his trusty “sonic-screwdriver”.

Dr. Who is truly a spectacular series, still innovative after so long, but with a rich history behind it. Many films, shows and books have been written with ideas from this one show. A classic that still runs new episodes to this day. Check out BBC or the Sci-Fi channel and enjoy a true science fiction classic.

Ian MacKechnie

images from http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/