What Is Doctor Who?
What is the series Doctor Who?
Who is the Doctor?
Why is the series called Doctor Who if that is not his name?
What is a Timelord?
What is regeneration?
What is a TARDIS?
What are the Doctor Who movies starring Peter Cushing?
What is K-9 and Company?
What is the "Dimensions in Time" 30th Anniversary Special?
The Present and Future of Doctor Who
Is Doctor Who still on the air?
What were circumstances of the cancellation?
What about Doctor Who on the radio?
What are the "New Adventures" book series?
What are the "Missing Adventures" book series?
What is the fox television movie Doctor Who?
The "Lost" Doctor Who Episodes
What are the "missing" or "lost" episodes?
What are the "missing novelizations?"
What are the "missing episodes" that I see as novelizations?
What is "Shada?"
Miscellaneous
Who is this female Doctor?
If you have any other questions that you want to ask, e-mail me and I will be happy to answer them on later updates of this page.
This FAQ information was taken from the Dark Dimension homepage; the Discontinuity Guide by Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping; The Time-Travelers' Guide by Peter Haining; and various other sources.
On November 23, 1963, Sidney Newman and a number of other talented writers spawned one of the greatest television shows ever. In fact, Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction show, dwarfing shows such as Star Trek with a whopping 26 years of continuous episode production. The show was an immediate hit in Britain, and was soon bought by various Public Television stations in America a few years later. In America, too, the appeal was great, and Doctor Who cults sprang up all over the country. The show features a mysterious character called the Doctor who, with the help of some companions he picks up along the way, travels through time and space battling evil and making a better future (and past) for all of us.
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Who is the Doctor?
The main character of the television show Doctor Who goes by the name of the Doctor. He is from the race of the Timelords, of the Pryodian group. He stole a TARDIS and fled his home planet when he was disgusted at their refusal to use their powers to better the universe.
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Why is the series called Doctor Who if that is not his name?
The Doctor's name was never given during the twenty-six years of broadcasting. The Doctor did, however, go by a number of aliases. In "The War Machines," both WOTAN and the professor call the Doctor "Doctor Who (although this was acknowledged as a mistake by the writing staff)." The Doctor calls himself "Doctor Von Wer" ("Highlanders") and signs his name as "Dr. W ("The Underwater Menace")." Ian and Barbara know the Doctor as "Doctor I.M. Foreman (An Unearly Child")". While exiled to Earth, the Doctor went by the name "Doctor John Smith." The Doctor's nickname at the Academy on Gallifrey was "Theta Sigma ("The Armageddon Factor" and The Happiness Patrol)." In "Battlefield", the Doctor is acknowledged as "Merlin," although this is in the future and an alternative dimension. So, we remain unenlightened on the true identity of the Doctor, and after being told his name is "the Doctor," we can only ask, "Doctor Who?"
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What is a Timelord?
The Timelords (the female version being "Timelady") are extremely advanced beings who live on the planet Gallifrey. Timelords possess the technology to travel through time and space. For eons, they used this power to interfere in the affairs of other worlds, encouraging the developmment of Minyans ("Underworld"). The Timelords gave the Minyans their technology to regenerate. The Minyans forced the Timelords off their planet and went to war with them. After that, the Timelords vowed never to interfere with the affairs of other planets. They only watch as time progresses and thwart attempts at interference.
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What is regeneration?
Timelords can regenerate their bodies, that is change their bodies into new ones, with a new face, new body, and even a new attitude. Some Timelords can regenerate whenever they will it, and they can even control what they look like. But the less experienced Timelords regenerate when their bodies age and collapse, or when they are near fatally hurt. Timelords can only regenerate twelve times, thus possessing a total of thirteen different bodies, or regenerations. Even though the race has this extraordinary ability, they can still die. If a Timelords is fatally wounded, such as a gunshot to a heart or vaporization, they die. When a Timelord runs out of regenerations, he too dies.
Many people may wonder how an idea as creative as this came into being. In 1966, the man who played the Doctor, William Hartnell, decided to leave the program (due to disputed reasons; some say it was illness, others a contract dispute). The writers were not prepared to abandon such a sucessful show, thus they devised a way for the Doctor to regenerate into an entirely new person. The role of the Doctor was taken over by Patrick Troughton, and the series continued.
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What is a TARDIS?
TARDIS's are Timelord's time machines. TARDIS's stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. They can travel through time and space. TARDIS's are bigger on the inside than on the out because the inside exists within a different dimension. More advanced TARDIS's have a "chameleon circuit" which allows them to change shape to fit in with their surrounding. The Doctor's TARDIS has this capability, but the circuit is broken; it is stuck permanently in the shape of a police box. The Doctor's TARDIS is a Mark 39.
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What are the Doctor Who movies starring Peter Cushing?
After the series Doctor Who became a hit in the mid-1960's, BBC decided to produce Doctor Who movies. The first movie Doctor Who and the Daleks (based on the series show of the same name) starred Peter Cushing as the grandfather of Susan and Barbara and Ian and Barbara's boyfriend. The Doctor was an inventor who built the TARDIS and accidentally took them back in time. The second movie, Doctor Who and the Daleks' Invasion of Earth 2150 AD (based on the "Daleks' Invasion of Earth") replaces the Doctor's old companions with his neice, Louise and the police officer Tom Campbell. Most dedicated Doctor Who viewers do not receive Peter Cushing as a regeneration of the Doctor and do not consider the movies as part of the Doctor Who universe.
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What is K-9 and Company?
In 1981, the pilot "A Girl's Best Friend" was broadcast for a prospective show called K-9 and Company involving the Doctor's companion Sarah Jane Smith and his delightful little robot dog K-9. The Doctor sends K-9 to Sarah Jane Smith as a present, and together they unearth the terrible secret of a small town in the British countryside. The pilot was not received well enough to become a new series and is the only episode from K-9 and Company. Thus, the pilot itself is often referred to as "K-9 and Company" although that is not its proper name.
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What is the "Dimensions in Time" 30th Anniversary Special?
In 1993, Doctor Who put on a special show with the proceeds benefitting the Children In Need, a charity benefitting disadvantaged children in the United Kingdom.The show was broadcast in place of the soap opera Eastenders, and various characters from the soap opera made brief appearances in the special. The anniversary special featured the evil Timelady the Rani who was trying to capture the Doctor's companion, Romana, for her evil scheme. The show was broadcast in 3-D.
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What are the "missing" or "lost" episodes?
During the early seventies, many Doctor Who episodes were destroyed by BBC. At the time, this seemed to be a logical solution to reduce the amount of space taken up in the BBC storehouses. At the time, there was no such thing as a video cassette, and BBC could not make enough profit from showing reruns on television to justify the storage costs. Most of the episodes destroyed were from the Hartnell-Troughton era. But recently, certain episodes have been resurfacing themselves all over the world, and ones believed to be destroyed were actually preserved elsewhere.
| Episode Title | Parts Missing | Author | Story Code |
| Marco Polo | All | John Lucarotti | D |
| The Reign of Terror | 4-5 | Dennis Spooner | H |
| The Crusades | 1, 2, 4 | David Whitaker | P |
| Galaxy Four | All | William Emms | T |
| Mission to the Unknown | All | Terry Nation | T/A |
| The Myth Makers | All | Donald Cotton | U |
| The Dalek Masterplan | 1-4, 6-9, 11-12 | Terry Nation & Dennis Spooner | V |
| The Massacre | All | John Lucarotti | W |
| The Celestial Toymaker | 1-3 | Brian Hayles | Y |
| The Savages | All | Ian Stuart Black | AA |
| The Smugglers | All | Brian Hayles | CC |
| The Tenth Planet | 4 | Kit Pedler | DD |
| Power of the Daleks | All | David Whitaker | EE |
| The Highlanders | All | Gerry Davis & Elwyn Jones | FF |
| The Underwater Menace | 1, 2, 4 | Geoffrey Orme | GG |
| The Moonbase | 1, 3 | Kit Pedler | HH |
| The Macra Terror | All | Ian Stuart Black | JJ |
| The Faceless Ones | 2, 4-6 | David Ellis & Malcolme Hulke | KK |
| Evil of the Daleks | 1, 3-7 | David Whitaker | LL |
| The Abominable Snowmen | 1, 3-6 | Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln | MM |
| The Ice Warriors | 2, 3 | Brian Hayles | OO |
| The Enemy of the World | 1, 2, 4-6 | David Whitaker | PP |
| The Web of Fear | 2-6 | Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln | QQ |
| Fury from the Deep | All | Victor Pemberton | RR |
| The Wheel in Space | 1, 2, 4, 5 | David Whitaker | SS |
| The Invasion | 1, 4 | Derrick Sherwin | VV |
| The Space Pirates | 1, 3-6 | Robert Holmes | YY |
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Is Doctor Who still on the air?
No, the last episode of Doctor Who, "Survival," was shown on December 6, 1989. While there was no official cancellation, no new episodes have been made and BBC regards the show as ended. For more information, see Cancellation. But after much demand, on May 14, 1996, fox revived Doctor Who as a TV movie, which could possibly have been bought as a weekly show on fox. But the movie did not receive high enough ratings and Doctor Who now only is shown on those of us lucky enough to have a Public Broadcasting Station to carry it.
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What were the circumstances of the cancellation?
After Season 22, the first season that Colin Baker played the Doctor, the show was not receiving high enough ratings. Thus the people at BBC placed the show on an 18 month hiatus, to use the £2 million budget of Doctor Who for other drama projects and to consider the future of the show. The show returned with the miniseries known as "The Trial of a Time Lord." The episodes revived the viewers' interest in the show with its many mysteries. But to the shock of viewers, Colin Baker anounced that he would no longer play the Doctor. The new Doctor would be played by the little-known Sylvester McCoy. But Doctor Who could not maintain high enough ratings to compete with other prime-time shows and it was again placed on hiatus. And it never returned to the air.
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What about Doctor Who on the radio?
The first appearances of Doctor Who on the radio were in parodies. Professor Prune and the Electric Time Trousers starred current Doctor Patrick Troughton as Proffessor Prune, who was travelling the Universe searching for a pair of dimensionally transcendental time trousers (bigger on the inside than out). Next came John Lloyd's sketch outlining the ultimate weapon against the Daleks: stairs. In 1976, the Fourth Doctor and Sarah appeared in an educational program as the Doctor and his companion traveled back to the creation of Earth and watched as it evolved. In 1985, the Sixth Doctor and Peri appeared in the hour-long drama, Slipback. It was split up into six, ten minute segments with a cliff-hanger at the end of each and was broadcast at irregular times to keep the listener tuned in. In 1993, The Paradise of Death was broadcast, starring the Third Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and the Brigadier. It consisted of five half-hour episodes which were released on audio tapes.
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What are the "New Adventures" book series?
The seventh Doctor lives on in a series of books chronloging his journeys after the end of the television show. It is published by Virgin books, and a new episode is released every month. Many of the books are linked together in a series. Many people dislike them because they seem to reject the mystery and fantasy of Doctor Who to appeal to all science fiction fans. It appears that Virgin books liscence for publishing these books will be repealed, and the book series might be taken over by another publisher.
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What are the "Missing Adventures" book series?
Due to the immense popularity of the first six Doctors, new books involving them and their companions from the TV show are being released. The stories are ones that happened between each episode of the televised show. Of course, the seventh Doctor is not left out of these stories; he has his own series of books called the "New Adventures."
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What is the fox television movie Doctor Who?
On May 14, 1996, Doctor Who was reborn as TV movie on Fox, officially titled Doctor Who: The Enemy Within. On a mission to Gallifrey, to carry the Master's remains there, the TARDIS fails and the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) makes an emergency landing on Earth in December 1999. Stepping outside, the Doctor is immediately shot by a Chinese gang. He is rushed to the hospital, and the doctors there pump him full of medicine. The Doctor could have survived the bullet wounds, but the alien medicine "kills him." The body of the Doctor is taken to the morgue, where he regenerates into a confused Paul McGann. Meanwhile, the Master's remains break free of their container and takes control of one of the hospital staff, played by Eric Roberts. The Master plans open the Eye of Harmony (the black hole that powers every TARDIS) to make the Doctor look into it. If he does this, the Master can steal the Doctor's body and his TARDIS. Unfortunately, opening the Eye of Harmony will destroy the Earth. The Doctor has to regain his memory, and stop the Master before the coming of the year 2000 with the fate of the universe on the line.
This movie was a pilot movie for a potential weekly TV series on Fox. Unfortunately, the movie did not receive high enough ratings, and there will be no series. If you wish to voice your opinion about this, please, go to the site dedicated to Saving Doctor Who.
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What are the missing novelizations?
Between the years of 1973 and 1991, W.H. Allen and Target Books books published a series of 155 books that were novelizations of the episodes of the television series. A few of the episodes were never novelized due to disputes with the original authors of the stories.
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What are the "Missing Episodes" that I see as novelizations?
During Season 22, Doctor Who was temporarily put on hiatus (for more see Cancellation). Stories that were supposed to be aired during this time were never aired. These stories were published as books. The episodes are as follows:
| Title | Author | ISBN # |
| The Nightmare Fair | Graham Williams | 0 426 20334 8 |
| Mission to Magnus | Philip Martin | 0 426 20347 X |
| The Ultimate Evil | Wally K. Daly | 0 426 20338 0 |
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What is "Shada?"
"Shada" was the name of a six-part episode from Tom Baker's era. Most of the scenes were shot on location in Oxford, England, but a strike by the BBC personell prevented the completion of the filming. The show was never aired. But after much effort from the fans, BBC released "Shada" on videotape with new special effects and the gaps in the storyline filled in by Tom Baker himself.
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Who is this female Doctor?
In the 1980's, Ryan K. Johnson produced four movies with a female Doctor (also called a Doctrix). They were:
Doctor Who: The Wrath of Eukor (1984) 30 minutes
Doctor Who: Visions of Utomu (1986) 32 minutes
Pentagon West (1987) 28 minutes
Doctor Who: Broken Doors (1988) 20 minutes
It appears that you can still get copies of the movies directly from Mr. Johnson by sending him a blank VHS tape and $2 for return postage to:
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