An Introduction to Doctor Who
Hello!
It’s been a while, so this time it’s a TV series!
Doctor Who is a series from the BBC, Britain’s national broadcaster.
It isn’t particularly well known in Japan, but in its home country and around the world it’s a monster of a show.
Even Stephen Hawking, the famous physicist, was apparently a fan!
NHK aired two seasons of it over here at one point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX-E8F6y814
As the clip above makes clear, this is full-blooded sci-fi. Monsters, aliens, all of it.
The Doctor has a time machine, and he travels everywhere: the Second World War, Earth five billion years from now, Earth billions of years in the past, other planets entirely.
The way the stories and the characters are built is unlike anything from Japan or America, and it feels fresh.
The history runs deep — it’s been on the air since 1963. I wasn’t even born lol
Then in 2005 came a new series. It connects to the old run, but it’s essentially a rebuild.
One season is 13 episodes, incidentally.
Half of what an American show does lol
The new series is the one I’ll be writing about.
Contents
Who is the Doctor?
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http://www.mesecina.sakura.ne.jp/doctorwho/dwphotos/11thdoctor.jpg
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These four men are all the same person.
He’s an alien, a Time Lord — the race with the most advanced technology in the universe.
When a Time Lord’s body reaches its limit, he regenerates and resets it.
His appearance changes, and so does his whole personality, and that’s a big part of the fun!
Several thousand years old.
His home world is Gallifrey, a planet with a hugely advanced civilisation, and it was destroyed in a conflict called the Time War.
Which makes him the last one left.
That air of melancholy about him is just wonderful.
The four above are completely different characters, but the flashes of cruelty and the homesickness run right through all of them. Amazing actors, amazing writing, so much flavour to chew on — one of my favourite things about the show lol
As for the Doctor’s weapon, he uses the sonic screwdriver below.
Its one function is “it can open anything”. A universal screwdriver, in other words.
Most of the time he fights by improvising with it — opening doors, closing doors, cracking codes lol
Sounds feeble, but in the hands of a genius like the Doctor it shows what it can really do.
As for what the Doctor is actually after… nothing much, maybe?
If pushed, turning up whenever Earth is in trouble and saving the world.
Mostly, though, he’s off travelling the universe in his time machine, the TARDIS.
What is a companion?
Companions are the ones who travel with the Doctor — the heroines, essentially.
Almost every time they have two things in common: “a woman” and “from Earth”.
They stay for somewhere between one and three seasons, and then something makes it impossible for them to carry on. The parting, the Doctor’s grief, the new companion arriving — that whole cycle is the real pleasure of the show.
Rose Tyler
https://imagineimmortality.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/rosetyler.jpg
She’s there from the first season of the new series and leaves for a certain reason, and she’s still a hugely popular character today.
Doctor Who runs to ten seasons, and yet her name still keeps turning up here and there.
There are lines that quietly suggest she was the woman the Doctor truly loved, which is lovely.
Clara Oswald
http://polentaski.c.blog.so-net.ne.jp/_images/blog/_107/polentaski/m_Clara-Oswald-Jenna-Louise-Coleman-doctor-who-companion.png
Appears in seasons 7, 8 and 9.
Personally I like her about as much as Rose.
A slightly crazy girl.
There are plenty of others, but these two are the only ones covered here.
The enemies
Daleks
One of the most terrifying species in the whole show.
Key features
- A metal body that nothing half-hearted can break (the creature itself is inside, piloting it)
- There are billions of them
- A laser beam that absolutely WILL kill you
- Catchphrase: “Exterminate!!!!”
- Their goal is the extinction of everything in the universe that isn’t them
An enemy introduced later in the new series, built around the Japanese playground game daruma-san ga koronda — red light, green light.
Key features
- A species that has existed since the birth of the universe
- While anyone is looking at them they turn to stone and no attack touches them
- They can only move, at incredible speed, when nobody is looking
- Which is why they’re said to have the strongest defence there is
- A touch from one sends you into the past
- Anyone sent back has no way of returning to the present, so they’re also called the deadliest assassins going
- Since they basically can’t be beaten, the Doctor and company always escape them without blinking
So there it is.
There’s plenty more to write about what makes it great, and about favourite episodes, and it’s all coming.
Anyone curious should go straight to Hulu!! Every episode is on there!! lol
