The Doctor Who Portal
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterrestrial being called the Doctor, part of a humanoid species called Time Lords. The Doctor travels in the universe and in time using a time travelling spaceship called the TARDIS, which externally appears as a British police box. While travelling, the Doctor works to save lives and liberate oppressed peoples by combating foes. The Doctor usually travels with companions.
Beginning with William Hartnell, fourteen actors have headlined the series as the Doctor; the most recent being Ncuti Gatwa, who portrayed the Fifteenth Doctor from 2023 to 2025. The transition between actors is written into the plot of the series with the concept of regeneration into a new incarnation, a plot device in which, when a Time Lord is fatally injured or weakened from old age, their cells regenerate and they are reincarnated into a different body with new mannerisms and behaviour but the same memories. This explains each actor's distinct portrayal, as they all represent different stages in the Doctor's life and, together, form a single lifetime with a single narrative. The time-travelling nature of the plot means that different incarnations of the Doctor occasionally meet. The Doctor can change ethnic appearance or gender; in 2017, Jodie Whittaker became the first woman cast in the lead role, and in 2023, Gatwa became the first black actor to lead the series. The different incarnations wear distinctive costumes; designers include Alexandra Tynan and Barbara Lane.
The series is a significant part of British popular culture and has gained a cult following overseas. It has influenced generations of British television professionals, many of whom grew up watching the series. Fans of the series are sometimes referred to as Whovians. The series has been listed in Guinness World Records as the longest-running science-fiction television series in the world, as well as the "most successful" science-fiction series of all time, based on its overall broadcast ratings, DVD and book sales. (Full article...)
Recognized quality articles
"A Town Called Mercy" is the third episode of the seventh series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, transmitted on BBC One in the United Kingdom on 15 September 2012. It was written by Toby Whithouse and directed by Saul Metzstein.
The episode featured alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) and his companions Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) visiting the Wild West, where they encounter a town which is cut off from the rest of the frontier until they hand over Kahler-Jex, an alien doctor, to a cyborg called the Gunslinger. However, the Gunslinger is a product of experiments by Jex to win a civil war on his planet, and the Doctor is unsure of what is the right thing to do. (Full article...)- Esther Drummond, portrayed by Alexa Havins, is a fictional character in the BBC television programme Torchwood, a spin-off from the long-running series Doctor Who. Havins is one of several American actors to join Torchwood in its fourth series, Torchwood: Miracle Day, which was co-produced by Torchwood's original British network BBC One and the American television network Starz. The character appears in every episode of the fourth series in addition to a prequel novel, The Men Who Sold the World.
Within the series narrative, Esther is a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) watch analyst who becomes aware of the defunct British Torchwood Institute on "Miracle Day", when it is discovered that no one can die. Alongside her CIA colleague Rex Matheson she joins forces with the last two remaining Torchwood agents to investigate the phenomenon. Esther's standing as a desk-bound computer and technology expert puts her in contrast with the tougher and more action-orientated characters in the series. By the Miracle Day finale, Esther has become a more competent field agent, but is murdered by the group's enemies in an attempt to stop them progressing with their mission. (Full article...) - "The Husbands of River Song" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. First broadcast on BBC One on 25 December 2015, it is the eleventh Christmas special since the show's revival in 2005. It was written by Steven Moffat and directed by Douglas Mackinnon. The episode marks the return of Alex Kingston as River Song, making her first appearance alongside Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor and her last on-screen appearance to date. This also features the first appearance of Nardole, who would become a companion starting from the next episode.
In the episode, the alien time traveller known as the Doctor encounters River Song on the colony of Mendorax Dellora in 5343, with one of her husbands, Hydroflax (Greg Davies), who has an invaluable diamond lodged in his brain. Outsmarting Hydroflax and his worshippers, the Doctor and River have a date at the Singing Towers of Darillium, which the Doctor knows will be the last meeting before her death. (Full article...) 
A Yeti as pictured during the filming of The Abominable Snowmen (1967)
The Yeti are fictional robots from the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. They were originally created by writers Henry Lincoln and Mervyn Haisman and first appeared in the 1967 serial The Abominable Snowmen. The Yeti resemble the cryptozoological creatures also called the Yeti. In the series' fictional universe, these robot Yeti serve the Great Intelligence, a formless entity with mysterious origins, and are used by the Intelligence to aid in its invasions. Following this debut appearance, the Yeti only had one other major appearance: in the 1968 serial The Web of Fear, which depicted the Yeti being used by the Intelligence in its attempt to subjugate London using the London Underground.
The concept of the Yeti arose as a result of a discussion between then-lead actor Patrick Troughton, Lincoln, and Haisman, and soon was pitched to the show's production office. The serial, The Abominable Snowmen, was chosen out of a desire for more on-location shooting, necessitated by the serial's script; it was also chosen because the production team needed a replacement for the Daleks, another popular antagonist that had recently been written out of the series. Producer Peter Bryant, predicting the Yeti would be a success with audiences, commissioned another serial featuring the Yeti to follow shortly after their debut. Disagreements arose between Lincoln and Haisman with the BBC in 1968 over the company's handling of another of the pair's creations for the series, leading to the writers' departure from the series and the retirement of the Yeti as antagonists in the main series apart from small cameos. The Yeti have recurred in spin-off media, including the 1995 direct-to-video film Downtime. (Full article...)- The Space Museum is the seventh serial of the second season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Written by Glyn Jones and directed by Mervyn Pinfield, it was broadcast on BBC1 in four weekly parts from 24 April to 15 May 1965. In the serial, the First Doctor (William Hartnell) and his travelling companions Ian Chesterton (William Russell), Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), and Vicki (Maureen O'Brien) arrive in a Space Museum on the planet Xeros, where they seek to change their fate after seeing themselves turned into museum exhibits in the future. They also become entangled in a conflict between the militaristic Moroks who run the museum, and the servile indigenous Xerons who work for them.
Jones was not familiar with the show or science fiction when asked to develop the storyline. Story editor Dennis Spooner edited out much of the humour from the original script as he felt that it was more intellectual; Jones was unhappy with the changes. Pinfield and the production crew hoped that The Space Museum could be made cheaply to offset more expensive serials, using a small cast and limited sets. Pinfield also used stock music recordings for the incidental score. The Space Museum received mixed reviews, with praise directed at its opening episode and the performances of Hartnell and O'Brien, but criticism of the remaining episodes, the formulaic nature of the story, and the performances of the supporting cast. The story was later novelised and released on VHS and DVD. (Full article...) - Belinda Chandra is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, portrayed by Varada Sethu. The character was created by Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies. In the show's fifteenth series, Belinda serves as the companion to the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa), an incarnation of the alien time traveller known as the Doctor. Debuting in the 2025 episode "The Robot Revolution", Belinda is initially kidnapped by robots from another planet, and after the Doctor saves her, the pair find they cannot return to her home time period on Earth. She travels with the Doctor to use a device called the Vindicator in order to return home. She eventually returns home but is trapped within a heteronormative alternate reality created by the Doctor's enemy The Rani, in which Belinda has had a daughter named Poppy with the Doctor. After Poppy is removed from the timeline alongside the reality, the Doctor restores Poppy to the timeline as Belinda's daughter, and she remains on Earth to care for her.
Sethu had previously portrayed the character Mundy Flynn in the 2024 episode "Boom". Davies was impressed with Sethu's performance and after discussion with the production team, she was offered the role of Belinda without needing to audition. Unlike other companions in the series, Belinda was portrayed as someone who did not want to partake in the Doctor's adventures and wishes to return home, providing friction between the two characters. (Full article...) - The twelfth series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who premiered on 1 January 2020 and aired until 1 March 2020. It is the second series to be led by Chris Chibnall as head writer and executive producer, alongside executive producer Matt Strevens, the twelfth to air after the programme's revival in 2005, and the thirty-eighth season overall. The twelfth series was broadcast on Sundays, except for the premiere episode, continuing the trend from the eleventh series. Prior to the eleventh series, regular episodes of the revived era were commonly broadcast on Saturdays. The series was followed by the 2021 New Year's Day special, "Revolution of the Daleks".
Jodie Whittaker returns for her second series as the Thirteenth Doctor, an incarnation of the Doctor, an alien Time Lord who travels through time and space in her TARDIS, which appears from the outside to be an old fashioned British police box. It also stars Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole and Mandip Gill as the Doctor's travelling companions, playing Graham O'Brien, Ryan Sinclair and Yasmin Khan, respectively. The series follows the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions, who meet a new incarnation of the Master, the destruction of Gallifrey, the return of Jack Harkness, the appearance of an unknown incarnation of the Doctor, the Cybermen, and the secret of the "Timeless Child". (Full article...) - The Web of Fear is the fifth serial of the fifth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first broadcast in six weekly parts from 3 February to 9 March 1968. Written by writers Henry Lincoln and Mervyn Haisman, the serial is a sequel to 1967 serial The Abominable Snowmen. The plot concerns the incorporeal Great Intelligence and its robotic Yeti minions invading the London Underground in order to lead the time travelling Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) into a trap where it can drain the Doctor's mind of its knowledge. The Web of Fear marks the first appearance of Nicholas Courtney as Colonel Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, who would serve as a major recurring character in the series going forward.
The serial was commissioned as a result of then story editor Peter Bryant being highly pleased with The Abominable Snowmen, additionally wanting to feature the Yeti more due to a desire to include more "monsters" in the series. Haisman and Lincoln decided to set the story in the London Underground, wanting the serial's events to be close to home for viewers. The Yeti were redesigned after their appearance in the prior serial, giving the creatures a "rougher" appearance. Due to difficulties in scheduling the Underground for filming, the Underground was reconstructed as a set at BBC studios, where most of the serial's filming took place. (Full article...) 
A hostile Weeping Angel as displayed in 2008
The Weeping Angels are a race of fictional predatory alien creatures from the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The Weeping Angels are "quantum-locked", meaning they can only move when unobserved. Weeping Angels feast by touching a victim; the victim is sent back in time, and the Angel feeds on the resulting time energy from the time travel caused. The Weeping Angels were introduced in the 2007 episode "Blink" and became recurring characters across a variety of Doctor Who media. These later episodes expand the Angels' list of abilities, which include the ability for an image of an Angel to become another Weeping Angel, the ability to turn other statues into Weeping Angels, and the ability to kill others by touching them twice.
The Angels were created by writer Steven Moffat. Moffat was inspired by a variety of sources, including an encounter with a statue in a graveyard, which had mysteriously disappeared when he returned to view it at a later date. The Weeping Angels are portrayed by actresses, who portray the Angels physically, with freeze frames being used to make the Angels appear entirely still in the final product. The Weeping Angels were planned to act as the overarching, main antagonists of the spin-off series Class; however, due to the series's cancellation, this never came to fruition. (Full article...)- Harriet Jones is a fictional character played by Penelope Wilton in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Having worked previously with lead writer and executive producer Russell T Davies, Wilton was keen to involve herself with his 2005 revival of Doctor Who after he sought to cast her. Jones is introduced in the two-part story "Aliens of London" and "World War Three" as a Member of Parliament who aids the Ninth Doctor against an alien invasion of London. The episode establishes a running joke associated with the character which would see her frequently introduce herself by holding up her ID and stating her name and position; in subsequent episodes this was usually met with the response "Yes, I/we know who you are," even occurring with the Daleks and the Sycorax.
Wilton returned for the series' 2005 Christmas special as Davies wanted to include a familiar character whose presence would ease the transition following a change in the series' lead actor. Despite her character having been introduced as fair-minded and hard-working, Harriet is depicted as an uncompromising Prime Minister, which led to comparisons to real-life politicians. Response to the character's political decisions prompted mixed commentary from the media; some reviewers felt that the character had acted unreasonably whilst others sympathised with her actions and felt her scripted political demise was unjust. (Full article...) - "Gridlock" is the third episode of the third series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast on BBC One on 14 April 2007. It was written by Russell T Davies and directed by Richard Clark.
The episode is set five billion years in the future on the planet New Earth, one of the many planets humanity had settled on. In the episode, alien time traveller The Doctor (David Tennant) and his new travelling companion Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) discover the remainder of humanity on the planet live in perpetual gridlock within the Motorway, a highway system beneath the city state of New New York. When Martha is kidnapped, the Doctor races to find her before she enters the dangerous "fast lane". (Full article...) - "The Pandorica Opens" is the twelfth episode of the fifth series of British science fiction television programme Doctor Who, first broadcast on 19 June 2010 on BBC One. It is the first in a two-part finale; the second part, "The Big Bang", aired on 26 June. The episode was written by head writer and executive producer Steven Moffat and directed by Toby Haynes.
In the episode, the time-travelling archaeologist River Song (Alex Kingston) summons alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) and his companion Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) to Roman Britain in 102 AD, where underneath Stonehenge lies a fabled prison called the Pandorica that legend tells holds the most fearsome being in the whole universe. However, it is discovered that the Doctor has been put in a trap by an alliance of his greatest enemies to save the universe from cracks in time that were caused by the Doctor's space-time vessel the TARDIS. Amy's fiancé, Rory (Arthur Darvill), who had previously been erased from existence from one of the cracks in the universe, makes a return, though he is revealed to be an Auton duplicate outfitted with his consciousness. (Full article...) - "Lux" is the second episode of the fifteenth series of the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who. It was written by Russell T Davies, the Doctor Who showrunner, from a concept first developed over two decades prior, and directed by Amanda Brotchie. In the episode, the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and his companion, Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu), land in 1952 Miami, Florida, while trying to make their way back to 2025. After doing so, they discover a mysterious cinema where fifteen people have disappeared. The pair stay to investigate and ultimately confront an animated god, Lux (voiced by Alan Cumming), who traps them in film.
"Lux" is unusual for the programme in that it features a mixed live-action and animated format. Filming for the episode took place in Penarth, Cardiff and at Wolf Studios Wales in January 2024. Some voice-over work took place internationally in New York City in June. Animation and other post-production work continued later into the year, with some tasks still being completed as late as September. (Full article...) - "73 Yards" is the fourth episode of the fourteenth series of the science fiction television series Doctor Who. The episode was first released in the United Kingdom on BBC iPlayer on 25 May 2024 and was broadcast on BBC One the same night. It was released simultaneously on Disney+ in the United States on 24 May. The episode was written by Russell T Davies and directed by Dylan Holmes Williams.
In the episode, the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) suddenly vanishes from a clifftop in Wales after breaking a fairy circle. His companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), searches for him whilst being followed by a mysterious woman who is always 73 yards away from her. Described by Davies as folk horror, "73 Yards" was the first episode of the fourteenth series to be filmed, with shooting taking place in various locations around Wales in late 2022 and early 2023. (Full article...) - "The Curse of the Black Spot" is the third episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Written by Stephen Thompson, and directed by Jeremy Webb, the episode was first broadcast on 7 May 2011 on BBC One in the United Kingdom and on BBC America in the United States.
In the episode, the alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) and his companions Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) land on board a pirate ship in the 17th century. The ship's crew is terrorised by a Siren-like creature. After receiving an injury, however minor, a black spot appears on their palms and then the creature apparently disintegrates them. (Full article...)
Selected story
The Reign of Terror is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from August 8 to September 12, 1964. The story was set in France during the period of the French Revolution known as the Reign of Terror.
The TARDIS sets down in a wood near Paris in the year 1794: the height of the Reign of Terror of the first French Revolution. It is not a safe period for travellers without papers, as plots and spies abound and the four travellers are soon dragged into spy rings and escape chains in a city gripped by fear and mistrust. But who can be trusted in a country in turmoil?
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Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that three-quarters of Doctor Who's longest story are missing?
- ... that "The Interstellar Song Contest" featured the return of a Doctor Who character last seen more than 30 years earlier?
- ... that "The Well" is a sequel to a 17-year-old Doctor Who episode?
- ... that working broadcast journalists were used as extras for the portions of the Doctor Who episode "73 Yards" that were filmed at the BBC Cymru Wales New Broadcasting House?
- ... that a popular romantic pairing from Doctor Who was later adapted into the show at the suggestion of lead actress Jodie Whittaker?
- ... that the Doctor Who episode "The Devil's Chord" references the events of an episode that aired more than sixty years before?
Selected quote
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| — Third Doctor and Jo Grant, The Three Doctors | ||
Events
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 29 August 2022 | Another SMTV Live crossover episode |
| 1 January 2022 | 2022 specials |
| December 2021 | Big Finish audio play The Year of Martha Jones |
| February 2022 | Second volume of the Big Finish audio play The Lone Centurion |
| May 2022 | Series 2 of the audio play Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures |
More did you know?
- ... that Rose is the first new episode of Doctor Who to be shown since 1996?
- ... that a rough cut of "Deep Breath", the first episode of the eighth series of Doctor Who, was leaked online six weeks before the episode was due to air?
- ... that the designs for the Doctor Who serial The Sensorites were inspired by Antoni Gaudí's design of the Sagrada Família (pictured) in Barcelona, which has no right angles?
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