Happy Birthday, Doctor!
 

Fifty years today The Doctor first stepped onto British tv screens. Accompanied by his otherworldly granddaughter, Susan, the cantankerous, untrustworthy explorer and scientist began a journey that is still going on today.

From Hartnell:



To Matt Smith:

(contains spoilers for Name of the Doctor if you havent seen it)




And Peter Capaldi still to come:




Just to throw some additional context in here: that last video where Capaldi is named and introduced as the 12th Doctor should give some sense of the level of attention this gets in the UK.

As Smith recently said: if you find someone in the Uk who hasn't watched Doctor Who, ten to a penny they can still tell you what a Dalek is.

Fifty years and stronger than ever. Even in the 'wilderness years' when it was off the tv, novels and comic books were being written (much like with Star Trek and other sci-fi franchises) and it spawned a whole fan-led audio craze, which became a booming professional audio mini-industry, with some of those people going on to bring the show back the tv screen. And in the 1990s an ill-fated tv movie made sure there was at least one tv outing for the Doctor during the 1990s.

Every decade from the 1960s to the present is represented. Fifty years, 11 Doctors, many companionas, countless producers, writers, directors, actors... yet, no matter how much he changes, the core of the Doctor remains constant.

Happy Birthday, Doctor!

Tonight me and Keryx will at 9:00 PM be watching the Doctor.
http://www.wptschedule.org/episodes/...-Called-Mercy/

And an ironing board ;)

Clara Oswald.

Oh, yes.

Yeah. I'm liking Clara more and more.

Also: the anniversary webisode (thanks Henry for bringing that to my attention!) that showed McGann's Doctor regenerating was bloody brilliant.

All in all I've been very pleased with the anniversary year. The Day of the Doctor was probably the best multi-Doctor story yet. Moffat pulled it out the bag and no mistake. The pressure must have been immense. Trying to do justice to the classic Doctors and the new, without the whole thing disintegrating.

Happy Birthday, Doctor!
 

Funny, whenever I see "Doctor!" written out, Katherine Jenkins comes to mind. She delivered that line well.

This is brilliant.