Portal:Doctor Who

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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, follows the adventures of the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being from a humanoid species known as Time Lords. The Doctor travels through space and time using a time travelling spaceship called the TARDIS, which has an exterior that resembles a British police box. The Doctor encounters various civilisations, which he seeks to protect by outwitting foes and solving crises. The Doctor usually travels with a companion.

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 woven into the story via the plot device of regeneration. When a Time Lord is fatally injured or weakened by old age, their cells regenerate into a new body; while they retain their memories, their personality changes. The different portrayals function as distinct stages within a single, continuous narrative. Due to time travel, these different incarnations occasionally cross paths.

A British popular culture staple with a global cult following, the show has shaped generations of British television professionals. 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...)

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"Space Babies" is the first episode of the fourteenth series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. It was written by Russell T Davies and directed by Julie Anne Robinson. The episode was released alongside the next episode, "The Devil's Chord", on BBC iPlayer in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2024 and in the United States on Disney+ on 10 May 2024. A broadcast on BBC One followed later in the evening on 11 May.

The episode, which takes place immediately after the events of "The Church on Ruby Road", follows an alien time traveller known as the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and his companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), as they travel to a space station and discover a baby farm. Together, they learn that the babies are under threat by a creature dubbed "the Bogeyman". (Full article...)
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"Legend of the Sea Devils" is the second and penultimate of three special episodes that followed the thirteenth series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. The episode was first broadcast on 17 April 2022 as an Easter Sunday special. It was written by Ella Road and Chris Chibnall and directed by Haolu Wang.

In the episode, the Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) and her two companions, Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill) and Dan Lewis (John Bishop), set out to find the hidden treasure of the Flor de la Mar. However, they end up in the wrong time period and team up with Madam Ching (guest star Crystal Yu) as they battle the Sea Devils for an important gem. (Full article...)
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Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday

Ruby Sunday is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, portrayed by Millie Gibson. She was created by Russell T Davies for the show's fourteenth series, starting with the Christmas special, "The Church on Ruby Road" (2023), Ruby serves as the companion to the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa), an incarnation of the alien time traveller known as the Doctor. Ruby is a foundling, left on the doorstep of a church by her mother as a baby, with her mother's identity being unknown. After an encounter with the Doctor, the pair travel through time and space in multiple episodes, all while Ruby attempts to discover the identity of her birth mother. This eventually culminates in the two-part finale of the season, "The Legend of Ruby Sunday" and "Empire of Death" (both 2024), in which Ruby discovers the identity of her birth mother as Louise Miller (Faye McKeever), an ordinary woman, and the two reunite. Ruby departs to spend time with her family.

Gibson was cast as Ruby in 2022. She characterised Ruby as being a positive, selfless character, who had a strong bond with the Doctor. Her arc of finding out the identity of her mother was inspired by the Star Wars film series character Rey, a character believed to be a nobody until she was revealed to be a descendent of the character Emperor Palpatine. Davies wanted to subvert the trope of a character secretly being "special", or having important parentage, and thus made Ruby and her mother normal people. (Full article...)
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"Eve of the Daleks" is the first of three special episodes that followed the thirteenth series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. The episode was first broadcast on BBC One on 1 January 2022 as Doctor Who's annual holiday special. It was written by Chris Chibnall, and directed by Annetta Laufer. It is the third and final part of a loose trilogy that developed in previous festive specials.

In the episode, the Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) and her two companions, Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill) and Dan Lewis (John Bishop), get trapped in a time loop on New Year's Eve. Once there, they find Sarah and Nick (guest stars Aisling Bea and Adjani Salmon) and the five are repeatedly chased by a Dalek. (Full article...)
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City of Death is the second serial of the seventeenth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was produced by the BBC and first broadcast in four weekly parts between 29 September 1979 and 20 October 1979 on BBC1. The serial was written by "David Agnew" – a pseudonym for the combined work of David Fisher, Douglas Adams, and Graham Williams – and directed by Michael Hayes.

City of Death features the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and his companion Romana (Lalla Ward). Set primarily in present day Paris, the plot concerns a scheme by Count Scarlioni (Julian Glover), in reality an alien called Scaroth, to steal the Mona Lisa to finance experiments in time travel in the hope of averting the accident that killed the remainder of his race four hundred million years previously, which began the existence of life on the planet as well. (Full article...)
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An Adventure in Space and Time is a 2013 British biographical television film directed by Terry McDonough and written by Mark Gatiss. Starring David Bradley, Jessica Raine, Sacha Dhawan, Lesley Manville and Brian Cox, it was produced to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.

The film dramatises the development and early years of Doctor Who from 1963 to 1966, with emphasis on the series' original lead actor William Hartnell (Bradley). Raine, Dhawan and Cox respectively portray producer Verity Lambert, director Waris Hussein and co-creator Sydney Newman. Gatiss pitched the project as early as 2003 for Doctor Who's 40th anniversary. The production, which shot from February to March 2013, recreated elements from the series' history in many of the actual locations depicted in the film. It was the final drama to be recorded at the BBC Television Centre before its closure. (Full article...)
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"Something Borrowed" is the ninth episode of the second series of the British science-fiction television series Torchwood. It was first broadcast on BBC Three on 5 March 2008 and repeated on BBC Two one week later. The episode was written by Phil Ford of Coronation Street fame, directed by Ashley Way and produced by Richard Stokes. The episode featured the five initial series regulars John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, Naoko Mori and Gareth David Lloyd plus recurring actor Kai Owen in a central role.

The episode centres on the marriage of the alien hunter Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) to the transport manager Rhys Williams (Kai Owen). The wedding is complicated by Gwen's sudden impregnation by an alien, though she resolves to see the day through. When the nuptials are interrupted by an attack from the biological mother of the alien fetus (played successively by Collette Brown, Nerys Hughes and John Barrowman), Rhys, Gwen, and Gwen's teammates at Torchwood must neutralise the threat. Gwen and Rhys ultimately marry, and the wedding guests have their memories wiped. (Full article...)
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An Ood on display at the Doctor Who Experience in 2014.

The Ood are an alien species from the long-running science fiction series Doctor Who. In the series' narrative, they are a peaceful race who have been enslaved by humans in the far future. The Ood are a telepathic species; however, humans—particularly the company Ood Operations—inhibited their telepathic communications, essentially lobotomising the Ood. During the course of the series, the Doctor encounters the Ood and later helps to free them from slavery.

Created by Russell T. Davies, the Ood's original purpose was to fulfill the role of a "servant race" in the 2006 episodes "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit", after plans to use the Slitheen in that role fell through. Davies and the production team felt there was more room to explore the Ood's history in the show's universe, and due to both that and a highly positive public reception of the Ood, they were brought back for the 2008 episode "Planet of the Ood". (Full article...)
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"The Almost People" is the sixth episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was first broadcast on BBC One on 28 May 2011. It is the second episode of a two-part story written by Matthew Graham and directed by Julian Simpson which began with "The Rebel Flesh".

Following from "The Rebel Flesh", alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) and his companions Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) are on an acid-pumping factory on a remote island in the 22nd century where the crew of the factory create "Gangers", the Flesh duplicates they control. However, a solar storm has caused the Gangers to become sentient, and the Doctor must prevent a war breaking out between the humans and Gangers. (Full article...)
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"The Long Game" is the seventh episode of the first series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who that was first broadcast on 7 May 2005 on BBC One. It was written by executive producer Russell T Davies and directed by Brian Grant.

In the episode, the alien time traveller the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and his companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), having been joined by near-future genius Adam Mitchell (Bruno Langley), land on Satellite 5 in the year 200,000. Satellite 5 is a space station that broadcasts news across the entire human empire. However, the Doctor notices that the station is suspicious: there are no aliens, and those who are promoted to Floor 500 seem to disappear. The Doctor and Rose discover that the Editor (Simon Pegg) and an alien are controlling the rest of humanity by way of the press. Meanwhile, Adam makes a mistake that forces the Doctor and Rose to take him home. (Full article...)
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"The Rings of Akhaten" is the seventh episode of the seventh series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first broadcast on BBC One on 6 April 2013. It was written by Neil Cross and directed by Farren Blackburn.

In the episode, alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) takes his new companion Clara Oswald (Jenna-Louise Coleman) to the Rings of Akhaten, where several planetoids in a ring system are orbiting a larger planet. They attend a religious festival where the young Queen of Years, Merry Gejelh (Emilia Jones), is about to be sacrificed to the parasite of Akhaten. (Full article...)
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The Silurians and Sea Devils are two fictional related ancient species created by Malcolm Hulke for the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The Silurians are a race of scientifically advanced reptilian humanoids from the dawn of man which first appeared in Doctor Who in Hulke's 1970 serial Doctor Who and the Silurians. The Sea Devils are similar to the Silurians, but hail from the oceans and are aquatic, having debuted in the serial The Sea Devils (1972). Both species then reappeared in the 1984 serial Warriors of the Deep, which was the final appearance of both races prior to the show's cancellation in 1989. Following the show's revival in 2005, heavily redesigned Silurians were reintroduced to the series in 2010, and have recurred frequently since then. The Sea Devils were reintroduced with their designs mostly unchanged in 2022, and played a major role in the 2025 spin-off series The War Between the Land and the Sea.

Working under producer Terrance Dicks, Hulke came up with the idea of the Silurians to accommodate the show's need for more imaginative science fiction storylines during a period when its title character, the Doctor, was confined to present-day Earth. The Sea Devils were made out of a desire to bring the Silurian concept back. The further re-appearance of the pair in Warriors of the Deep was done out of a desire to bring back more antagonists following the series' twentieth anniversary. The species' redesign and re-appearance in the revived era was done to bring out the humanity in the species and allow the actors' performances to shine through, with a desire to update the Silurians to modern-day standards and expand on the concepts introduced in their original serials. Conversely, the Sea Devils' return did its best to stay as loyal to the original design of the creatures as possible. (Full article...)
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"Twice Upon a Time" is a special episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, broadcast on BBC One on 25 December 2017 as the programme's thirteenth Christmas special. The episode was written by Steven Moffat and directed by Rachel Talalay. It features the final regular appearance of Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor, the first official appearance of Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, and also stars David Bradley as the First Doctor. Pearl Mackie stars as the Twelfth Doctor's former companion Bill Potts, while his other companions make guest appearances – Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald and Matt Lucas as Nardole. Mark Gatiss plays a First World War British army captain who is revealed to be a family member of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

The episode is a continuation of "The Doctor Falls", and takes place during the final serial of the First Doctor, The Tenth Planet (1966); footage from The Tenth Planet is used in the special. "Twice Upon a Time" is Capaldi's fourth and final Christmas special as the Twelfth Doctor, and was the last Doctor Who story to be written and produced by Moffat while he was the show's executive producer and chief writer. After the special's broadcast, Moffat was succeeded as executive producer and showrunner by Chris Chibnall. (Full article...)
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Attack of the Cybermen is the first serial of the 22nd season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in two weekly parts on 5 and 12 January 1985. It was credited to the pseudonymous author "Paula Moore"; the level of contributions made by Paula Woolsey, Eric Saward and Ian Levine have been disputed. It is the second and final serial to be directed by Matthew Robinson.

Set in London in 1985 and the planet Telos in the future, in the serial the Cybermen intend to change the course of history by destroying Earth with Halley's Comet in 1985, which would prevent the destruction of the Cybermen's original home planet Mondas. (Full article...)
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"The End of the World" is the second episode of the first series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. Written by executive producer Russell T Davies and directed by Euros Lyn, the episode was first broadcast on BBC One on 2 April 2005 and was seen by approximately 7.97 million viewers in the United Kingdom.

In the episode, the alien time traveller the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) takes his new companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) five billion years into the future, where many rich alien delegates have gathered on a space station called Platform One to watch the Sun expand into a red giant and destroy the Earth. However, the human guest Lady Cassandra (Zoë Wanamaker) is plotting to profit from the event by fabricating a hostage situation. (Full article...)

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The Power of the Daleks is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from November 5 to December 10, 1966. It is Patrick Troughton's first full story as the Doctor.

The serial begins with companions Ben and Polly being suspicious of the newly regenerated Doctor. The Doctor brings the TARDIS to the colony of Vulcan where he learns, to his horror, that a scientist has recovered three inert Dalek bodies from a crash and has reactivated them to serve the colony.

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... that the Doctor Who episode "The Devil's Chord" references the events of an episode that aired more than sixty years before?
... that the rewrites to The Massacre were so extensive that the original writer briefly asked for his name to be removed?
... that the 2024 Doctor Who episode "Dot and Bubble" was first conceptualized in 2009?
... that a popular romantic pairing from Doctor Who was later adapted into the show at the suggestion of lead actress Jodie Whittaker?
... that "Mission to the Unknown" is the only Doctor Who serial not to feature the Doctor at all?
... that Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi was a fan of the series as a child?

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“

Emotions! Love, pride, hate, fear! Have you no emotions, sir?

”

— First Doctor, talking to a Cyberman, The Tenth Planet

“

I love a Happy Medium

”

— Ninth Doctor, The Unquiet Dead

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**Recent scheduled 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 [1]
February 2022	Second volume of the Big Finish audio play The Lone Centurion [2]
May 2022	Series 2 of the audio play Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures

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More did you know?

... that the TARDIS's Fast Return Switch featured in the Doctor Who serial The Edge of Destruction appeared to have a label written in felt-tip pen?
... that the antagonists of the indie horror video game Five Nights at Freddy's drew comparisons to Chuck E. Cheese's and Weeping Angels (pictured)?
... that one critic wrote that he had banned his children from watching Doctor Who due to the ending of the first episode of The Dalek Invasion of Earth?

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