If you’ve visited the Google home page today or caught any number of entertainment news pieces on what today is, you might have an idea what I’ve been doing with most of my day today and my evening yesterday. Today is the 50th anniversary of the BBC television show Doctor Who. Like many other Americans I discovered the show on PBS in the late ’70s while Tom Baker played the 4th Doctor. If you’re not familiar with how that works, the conceit invented by the show’s runners when the first actor to play the part needed to be replaced for health reasons was that the alien race the Doctor belongs to, the Time Lords, can regenerate into a new body rather than die. At one point it was mentioned that the Time Lords could regenerate up to 12 times. How could they possibly need to use that wonderful trick more times than that?
Well, they’ve hit the limit whether anyone thought it would happen or not. The show ran continuously on the BBC from 1963 to 1989, using 7 of those regenerations. In 1996 the new Fox Network did a not very well disguised pilot as a TV movie, creating an 8th Doctor in the form of Paul McGann with the action set in San Francisco instead of an alien world or a location in Great Britain. It failed, though many fans still have a fondness for McGann.
In 2005 came the return of Doctor Who to the BBC. It was a rebirth more than a reimagining. The new showrunners were people who truly loved the show and while bringing modern sensibilities to it and better effects than the BBC was ever willing to provide the budget for before. I consider the acting, writing and direction to be some of the best on current television. Enough other people agree with me to have won the show 6 Hugo Awards for short form dramatic presentation. Another plus for me is that I consider the music created for this incarnation of the show by Murray Gold to be absolutely amazing. At some point soon with the departure of Matt Smith, the current Doctor, it turns out that they’re quite likely going to exceed that 12 regeneration “limit” as Peter Capaldi takes on the role after this year’s Christmas episode.
Tonight was the special episode created for the anniversary and I loved it. Last night was a movie about the show’s creation in 1963 and it was enjoyable as well, though not as much as the show tonight. If you haven’t seen Doctor Who before I highly recommend it. If you don’t have cable or satellite with BBC America it’s available on Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu Plus.