It is not easy to talk about a series that has accumulated 60 years of life.
More years than most viewers have been on this planet.
The first episode of
Doctor Who
was broadcast on the BBC on November 23, 1963. It is true that the series was interrupted between 1989 and 2005, but 39 seasons allow the number of episodes to reach almost 900, although close than a hundred have been lost, for the unfortunate reason that the BBC did not preserve the programs it recorded in the sixties.
And if one looks at six decades of broadcasting, a great advantage shines: one can find anniversaries for all tastes.
Each fan can choose the one he prefers.
So, as the series returned after 16 years of silence on March 26, 2005, you can shout: “The first broadcast of the new
Doctor Who
turns 19!”
Such narrative vastness can scare the uninitiated, and no wonder.
But, although
Doctor Who
(in Spain, several seasons are available on Prime Video; the latest specials can be seen on Disney+ and the next season will premiere on May 10)
be a series that talks about power, love, death and the weight of the passage of time, at its core it is an entertainment product, a crazy and festive science fiction story, in which monsters, aliens, explosions and action.
Thinking about it better, that is its key, the perfect, absolute symbiosis of both intentions.
Therefore, there can be no problem in letting yourself go and not paying attention to all your nooks and crannies, appointments and inbreeding.
This Doctor has been played by 12 actors and one actress, with the addition of John Hurt as a parallel Doctor and the imminent arrival of a new performer in a new season.
Now... Who is it?
What makes it unrepeatable?
The Doctor is The Doctor.
And that is his name.
That's enough.
He is the last survivor of the Time Lords, natives of the planet Gallifrey, and although he is not immortal in the strict sense, for narrative praxis he is counted as such.
For centuries he has traveled through time and space.
Yes, he's an old-fashioned knight errant, and he deals with all kinds of misfortunes, including the end of the Universe, which he's already witnessed more than once.
Ah, but the most important thing is that, from time to time, he regenerates and changes his physique (his memories, knowledge and experiences remain), an amazing script trick that makes the Doctor much more than one and three, makes him one and infinite, that the plethora of faces that embody it can reach the extinction of Humanity itself.
Peter Capaldi, the Twelfth Doctor, exiting his ship, the TARDIS
The Doctor never travels alone, he always does so with one or more companions, which causes his partners to vary and the plots to expand beyond words.
And as a strict Brit, he travels in a telephone booth from the sixties.
Yes, a spaceship that is only discovered as such upon entering it and that makes it possible for each person who enters that sanctuary to launch one of the emblems of the series, the surprised statement “it is bigger on the inside!”
The legendary TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) combines the five dimensions: width, height, depth, time and space.
In 2005, after 16 years of absence after the end of the classic stage with the first eight doctors, the creative genius of Russell T. Davies, creator of emblems such as
Years and Years
and
Queer as Folk,
resurrected this television icon.
With the presence of the great Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor, perhaps the most austere of all, the so-called “Modern Stage” of the series began, which remains alive to this day.
With changes in
showrunner
included, the Doctors would arrive, played by David Tennant (the most outgoing and witty, but with a strong dark side), Matt Smith (the most endearing), Peter Capaldi (who contributed his Scottish accent) and Jodie Whitaker (so intelligent as well as verbose).
A woman?
Yeah!
Can't the Doctor be all of Humanity?
Withaker has been the thirteenth Doctor since 2018 for three seasons.
And after the three special episodes in which David Tennant has returned to the series, the fifteenth Doctor is black and wears the face of Ncuti Gatwa, an actor who is also openly
queer.
As already noted, opportunities continue to celebrate more anniversaries, as timeless as the character.
On October 7, 2024, the Doctor's first regeneration as a woman will be celebrated and when the new season with Gatwa at the helm premieres, this May 10, one more date can be added.
More information
'Doctor Who': all aliens are white men
It is true that all these considerations may be trivial for die-hard fans of the series.
And they are.
But they could serve as an incentive for anyone looking for the first time at a series as full of tenderness as it is darkness, action as it is reflection.
A universe in which to penetrate with open senses, with the eyes of the spectator that one was many years ago, when television was a wonderful box full of worlds.
Whoever wants to assume such a fascination can turn to some episodes that will inevitably captivate them.
And which can be accessed without too much prior narrative knowledge.
Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt, three Doctors reunited in the 'Doctor Who' episode titled 'The Day of the Doctor'. Adrian Rogers
This is the case of the tenth episode of the fifth season of the new stage,
Vincent and the Doctor,
in which the character meets Vincent Van Gogh and which represents one of the greatest releases of television emotion in recent decades.
Also the last chapter of the seventh season,
The Name of The Doctor,
a sum of adventures and intimacy that shed darkness on the Doctor and light on his companion Clara, the unforgettable “impossible girl”, who died and was resurrected hundreds of times to help. to the hero.
Also, going back a little, the tenth episode of the third season,
P,
a horror story that hundreds of films of the genre would already like for themselves, in which the character faces some chilling angelic statues that move when they are not look.
Or the eleventh installment of the ninth season,
Heaven Sent,
a claustrophobic story in which the Doctor moves through an empty castle from which it is impossible to leave, a conceptual artifice worthy of the best science fiction.
And, finally, a monumental milestone like
The Day of the Doctor
,
with which the series celebrated its 50th anniversary, an installment broadcast on November 23, 2013 with Steven Moffat as
showrunner,
the man who took
Doctor Who
to some of its sublime levels, although also the most controversial.
A huge episode that brought together three Doctors, the tenth (David Tennant), the eleventh (Matt Smith) and a parallel Doctor, the War Doctor (John Hurt), in addition to showing the twelfth (Peter Capaldi) in a brief cameo. .
It is episodes like
The Day of the Doctor
that sustain the fans' love for a series that is as bold as it is, at times, megalomaniacal, but that also knows how to play with lightness and fun.
Indeed,
Doctor Who
is many series in one.
Like the Doctor himself, a hundred, a thousand, millions of times I relive.
It is the imagination itself.
And, therefore, it is a good part of life itself.
Because, as Truffaut stated, “life was the screen.”
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