Doctor Who
British cult TV documentary produced by the BBC and funded by the London Tourist Board. It follows a now famous presentational format, in which the presenter, referred to as "The Doctor", covers such diverse topics as history, physics, warfare, cookery and art, with the aid of an assistant (usually young, female and attractive, although this is the exception rather than the rule.
What marks the style of Doctor Who out from other documentaries such as Horizon, The Day Today and Newsround Review is that the educational nature of the program is carefully disguised behind a spurious plot regarding aliens, time travel, and such like. This allows it to appeal to a wide range of viewers, especially children, whilst simultaneously providing an accessible narrative to important academic topics. See the plot summaries below for details.
The overarching plotline describes the Doctor as a Lord of some description (from fan speculation, probably an inherited title) from a far-off planet known as Galloway. The show is able to visit numerous locations and stage historic reenactments courtesy of a convenient plot device known as the Tardis - a "time machine" which can also move around in space.
The Doctor
The Doctor presents the programme in an unconventional indirect narrative fashion, talking to his assistant rather than the viewer, when explaining the issues under discussion. When the first actor to play the Doctor passed away in an accident with a wheelie-bin, the casting director took the brave decision of replacing him with a lookalike in the hope that the audience wouldn't notice. Unfortunately the casting director was blind. Viewers have come to expect that the Doctor changes height, hair colour, build, wardrobe, gender and general physical appearance from time to time as part of the programme's charm.
The following actors have played The Doctor:
- The First Doctor: William Shatner
- The Second Doctor: Patrick Stewart
- The Third Doctor: John Inman
- The Fourth Doctor: Tom Jones
- The Fifth Doctor: Dolly Parton
- The Sixth Doctor: The Undertaker
- The Seventh Doctor: Sylvester the Cat
- The Eighth Doctor: Craig McLachlan
- The Ninth Doctor: Christopher Reeve
- The Tenth Doctor: David Duchovny (filming in progress)
The Tardis
The Tardis allows the series to explore historical events without breaking the narrative - the Doctor simply enters the time machine and emerges at a different point in history. "Tardis" is an acronym for "Thus Another Relocation Dilemma Is Solved", the words uttered by the series' producer when the device was first conceived.
The Tardis takes the form of a blue Police Call Box, an old form of concealment used by police officers. For example, in surveillance operations, a Police Box was often deployed outside the building under surveillance to allow police officers to stay within close proximity to the suspects without arousing suspicion. Unfortunately these boxes became a thing of the past when officers began using them for other private matters, such as solicitation... the public came to associate the blue boxes with immoral acts and they were all taken away and burnt in 1941.
This did not concern the producers of Doctor Who, who adopted one of the few surviving boxes as "the Tardis". Recently, however, the BBC lost a court battle with the musician Sting, who owns the trademark on the word "police", over the use of the Police Box, which also falls under his ownership. The 28th series of Doctor Who, currently in pre-production, is rumoured to use a Portaloo instead, rechristened "the Turdis".
Selected Plot Summaries
Season 12, Episode 2: The Invasion of Doom
In this episode, the Doctor, played by Tom Jones, uses the purchase of a new scarf from Harrods as a convenient excuse to explain Fourier Synthesis to the unsuspecting viewer. When his assistant reccommends that they use the Tardis to return to an earler time and get the scarf cheaper by reverse-inflation, her suggestion is shunned with a detailed description of the EPR Paradox and its connections to Stochastic Hydrodynamics. Instead they travel to 11th century London and engage in a discourse on moral philosophy with Edward the Confessor. A brief alien invasion is thwarted by the cunning use of Oleum (with accompanying dialogue on the industrial process of Sulphiric Acid manufacture), and the Doctor wins the day by convincing Harald Hardraada that Odin was gay.
Season 27, Episode 1: Message in a Klein Bottle
The Doctor, played by the recently deceased Christopher Reeve, travels to London in the year 1965 to meet famed philosopher Gay Search and discuss the impact of feminism upon the moleskin industry. This is interrupted by a mob of angry clothes shop dummies, who attack with laser beams. After a brief exploration of the principles of quantum optics (cunningly linked back to the laser issue) the Doctor elects to travel to the year 2005 and tour the city in an attempt to get as many landmarks within camerashot as possible. Here he meets Thora, an precocious mathematician played by Billie Piper, who helps him to defeat the ghost of Gauss by integrating him over a non-Euclidian manifold.