Just a warning, Doctor Who is a long and complicated show, so this series of posts will be long and complicated. Enjoy!
How do I even begin to explain The Doctor…? Oh! I know! I’ll just let him!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRSFwMqKIu8
In case you were too lazy to watch the (30 second .____.) video, I took the liberty of copying and pasting the words from the video description.
–
The Doctor: Right then, follow me.
Random Guy: Hang on a minute. Who put you in charge, and who the hell are you anyway?
The Doctor: I’m the Doctor. I’m a Time Lord. I’m from the planet Gallifrey in the Constellation of Kasterborous. I’m 903 years old and I’m the man who is gonna save your lives and all 6 billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that?
Random Guy: No.
The Doctor: In that case, allons-y.
–
So to put it simply, The Doctor is an alien that travels time and space saving people.
This is The Doctor in his first ‘regeneration'(I’ll get back to that) played be William Hartnell(1):
In 1963, back in the times of black-and-white television, this man became the first ever Doctor. He was pretty good too, since the show has been going on for 50 years. Well like all good things, William Hartnell had to go. But the show must go on! So somewhere in the United Kingdom, writers were faced with a problem, “How can we continue this show without the star?” And they found the solution. Regeneration. Since this show is about an alien, there was pretty much an infinite number of solutions, and so they made it that whenever a Timelord is fatally wounded(A.K.A. the actor playing The Doctor is 1. quitting 2. getting fired or 3. aging) instead of dying, the Timelord takes a new form. This new form is different in every way. A brand new person. The only similarity is the memories, who he is, who he was, what he has done, what he has felt, he knows it all. However, even though he knows all of these things about his past selves, it doesn’t mean he feels the same way as he did when he did or felt those things. So far there have been 11 regenerations.
If you are confused because I suck at explaining things or just want to read it for fun, here is a wikipedia page about it.(Gasp! wikipedia isn’t trustworthy though! Calm your peaches, I read it and it’s fine.) P.s. it might have spoilers.
Okay, so after William Hartnell had to leave and regeneration was introduced, next came Patrick Troughton(2):
Then John Pertwee(3):
Tom Baker(4):
Peter Davison(5):
Keep him in mind for later. (He and David Tennant(10) have a very intertwined story!
Colin Baker(6):
Sylvester McCoy(7):
Paul McGann(8):
After Paul McGann, Doctor Who took sort of.. a break. Well, a 9 year break. After going strong from 1963 to 1996 what do you expect from them? Luckily for us, in 2005, they brought it back due to popular demand. Also, since it was 2005, the show was able to have decent special effects and a regular TV schedule. This new version is referred to as “New Who”.(Because we are clever) To kick things off, the BBC hired the 9th Doctor, Christopher Eccleston(9):
Next came, you guessed it, David Tennant(10):
And as promised, here is the story between David Tennant and Peter Davison.
As a kid, David Tennant watched Doctor Who, he watched Peter Davison as The Doctor to be exact. Watching Davison make him want to become The Doctor one day. And guess what? He did. ALSO, David Tennant is married to Peter Davison’s daughter, Georgia Moffett, who also guest starred in an episode of Doctor Who as Jenny, The Doctor’s daughter. The moral of this story is, if you are a massive fan of someone, you will grow up to be them and marry their daughter.
This is her:
Finally, right now The Doctor is played by Matt Smith(11):
Now that you know about The Doctor and all of his regenerations, I can go into the TARDIS, companions, and other aliens, but seeing as it took this long for me to explain The Doctor, that will have to wait for another post.(I might actually post it tonight, but I’m not sure yet.)
