A is for Aliens
Whether created using make-up, CGI effects or a pot of green paint and a sheet of bubble wrap, these terrifying creatures are at the heart of the show. Sydney Newman, who came up with the original idea for the series, was initially adamant that he didn’t want any “bug-eyed monsters”, but the success of the Daleks rapidly changed his mind.
B is for Bafta
… and Best Drama and Best Actor and Best Actress. Since returning in 2005, the show’s stars and creators have scarcely had time to do any filming between picking up Baftas, National Television Awards and the like. Good thing the Tardis has plenty of storage space.
C is for Companions
The Doctor’s loyal assistants, whose duties usually consist of running, screaming, getting kidnapped and providing a sounding board for technobabble-based exposition. They have also provided an emotional anchor for the recent series (and an excuse to set stories on Earth).
D is for Doctor
The star of the show, a two-hearted, time-travelling hero who’s approaching his 1,000th birthday. He’s the last of his kind, after his people – from whom he absconded as a young tearaway – were killed in the Time War.
E is for Exterminate!
War-cry of the Daleks, the Doctor’s pepper-pot-shaped nemeses, created by lunatic geneticist Davros. Mastery of the ability to climb stairs (via nifty hovering capability) means that the only thing still keeping them from universal domination is the fact that they’ve been exterminated themselves. Or at least, so it seems…
F is for Fear Factor
Famously, Doctor Who has never been afraid to send its younger viewers scurrying behind the sofa – indeed, Mary Whitehouse labelled Tom Baker’s storylines “teatime brutality for tots”, winning an apology from the BBC and an enforced lightening of the tone. What she’d make of modern terrors like the Weeping Angels or Vashta Nerada is anyone’s guess…
G is for Gallifrey
The Doctor’s home planet, presumed destroyed in a war between his people, the Time Lords, and the Daleks. Reappeared this Christmas in David Tennant’s last adventure, when it was revealed that they had become such a threat to the universe that the Doctor had been forced to eliminate both sides.
H is for Hartnell, William
The first Doctor, who lasted for three years from 1963 before being replaced by Patrick Troughton (1966-6). Followed by Jon Pertwee (1970-4), Tom Baker (1974-81), Peter Davison (1981-4), Colin Baker (1984-6), Sylvester McCoy (1987-9), Paul McGann (in a one-off Anglo-US co-production in 1996, in which the Doctor shocked fans by kissing his companion), Christopher Eccleston (2005), David Tennant (2005-10) and now Matt Smith.
I is for Invaders
If there was an award for most-invaded planet in the universe, Earth would be an absolute shoo-in. Strangely, however, the various alien races never seem to bump into one another – apart from the fan-pleasing encounter between the Daleks and Cybermen in 2006 (winner by knockout: the Daleks).
J is for John Smith
The Doctor’s most common pseudonym (others include “Dr Caligari” and “Doktor von Wer”, the German for “Doctor of Who”). The character’s true name is unknown, although his nickname at school was “Theta Sigma”, which is presumably Gallifreyan for “speccy git”.
K is for K-9
The Doctor’s robotic pet, who made his first appearance in 1977. Frequently damaged in his master’s service, K-9 – now on his fourth incarnation – has been passed on to former companion Sarah Jane Smith, to help out on her CBBC series (and also appears in an Australian-made, non-BBC spin-off).
Was originally to be called FIDO, for “Phenomenal [sic] Indication Data Observation”.
L is for Lost Episodes
Until 1978, the BBC routinely deleted old episodes of its series to reuse the tapes. As a result, more than 100 Doctor Who episodes (and many more from other programmes) are missing, although the audio and various photographs remain.
M is for Master
The Moriarty to the Doctor’s Holmes: a fellow Time Lord with a neat line in beards, sinister plots and megalomaniac laughter. As played by John Simm in the new series, was briefly elected Prime Minister, with backing from Ann Widdecombe and others; plan to murder the Cabinet, US president and much of humanity wasn’t mentioned in his manifesto.
N is for Newman, Sydney
Canadian television executive who, as head of BBC drama, needed to come up with a show to fill a Saturday evening gap between Grandstand and Juke Box Jury, and decided on a science-fiction drama about a strange old man who lived in a police box. The first episode, in 1963, got off to a shaky start, partly because it aired the day after Kennedy’s assassination.
O is for Oooh-wee-oooh…
The famous Doctor Who theme tune, composed by Ron Grainer with electronic arrangement by Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Combined with Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll (Part Two) in the novelty single Doctorin’ the Tardis, which reached No?1 in June 1988.
P is for Parallel Universes
Home to zeppelins, Cybermen and – since a few years ago – Rose Tyler (played by Billie Piper), the Doctor’s closest companion, who was granted a happily ever after in the form of a part-human clone of the Doctor, grown from David Tennant’s hand.
Q is for Quarries
One of the great mysteries of the universe is why so many alien worlds visited by the first seven Doctors resembled disused gravel pits outside the M25. Of course, that changed when the series was brought back – as it was filmed in Wales, the gravel pits were nearer Cardiff.
R is for Regeneration
Both the method by which the Doctor can change from actor to actor after receiving a fatal injury (up to a theoretical maximum of 13 incarnations) and an apt metaphor for the show’s astonishing recent resurrection after it was cancelled in the Eighties.
S is for Spin-Offs
Doctor Who has always been a cash cow, spawning books, a long-running magazine and two movies featuring Peter Cushing as the Doctor. However, since its revival it has become perhaps the BBC’s most profitable brand, with a host of toys, comics, books and other merchandise, as well as companion series Torchwood (starring John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, an immortal, 51st-century “omnisexual”) and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
T is for Tardis
The Doctor’s time-travelling abode, which stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space and is, of course, bigger on the inside than the outside. Stuck in the form of a blue police box after the “chameleon circuit” broke, although some secretly suspect the Doctor prefers it that way.
U is for UNIT
The Unified Intelligence Taskforce deals with tackling alien activity on Earth, which during the Seventies mostly took place in Britain, for budgetary reasons.
V is for Vworp! Vworp!
The wheezing, groaning sound of the Tardis as it materialises on another planet. The original effect came from sampling a front-door key being scraped up and down a length of piano wire.
W is for Writers
The tribe of creatures that have done more to ruin the Doctor’s life than all his enemies put together. Distinguished members include Douglas Adams, Terry Nation, creator of the Daleks, Russell T Davies, who oversaw the Doctor’s return in 2005, and Steven Moffat, Davies’s replacement as creative supremo and the man responsible for many of the new series’ best episodes.
X is for Xoanon
A schizophrenic supercomputer that mostly serves to illustrate the writers’ penchant for silly names. Other examples include the Moxx of Balhoon, Zodin the Terrible and the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius.
Y is for Youth Appeal
The actor playing the new Doctor, Matt Smith, is the youngest ever, at the age of just 27, while his micro-skirted companion Amy Pond is played by 22-year-old Karen Gillen. Scenes of the Doctor swigging alcopops and asking the Daleks what new bands they’re into have apparently been left on the cutting-room floor.
Z is for Z-Neutrino Energy
Recently used by Davros and the Daleks to make off with Planet Earth and use it as part of a giant machine to destroy the universe. Don’t bother looking for it in your physics textbook.
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