General Franchise Overview

A deck by Celeste Iyer · 5 cards

Essential background on the history and cultural impact of the long-running series.

Doctor Who series 1

The first series of the 2005 revival of the British science fiction programme Doctor Who, and the twenty-seventh season overall, began on 26 March 2005 with the episode "Rose". This marked the end of the programme's 16-year absence from episodic television following its cancellation in 1989, and the first new televised Doctor Who story since the broadcast of the television movie starring Paul McGann in 1996. The finale episode, "The Parting of the Ways", was broadcast on 18 June 2005. The show was revived by longtime Doctor Who fan Russell T Davies, who had been lobbying the BBC since the late 1990s to bring the show back. The first series comprised thirteen episodes, eight of which Davies wrote. Davies, Julie Gardner, and Mal Young served as executive producers, Phil Collinson as producer.

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson, follows the adventures of the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being from a humanoid species known as Time Lords. The Doctor travels through space and time using a time travelling spaceship called the TARDIS, which has an exterior that resembles a British police box. The Doctor encounters various civilisations, which he seeks to protect by outwitting foes and solving crises. The Doctor usually travels with a companion.

Whoniverse

The Whoniverse is a British media franchise and shared universe consisting of the BBC television series Doctor Who, its spin-offs, and other associated media. The shared universe nature was established by crossing over common plot elements, settings, cast, and characters, usually deriving from the main programme.

TARDIS

The TARDIS (; acronym for "Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space") is a fictional hybrid of a time machine and spacecraft that has, since 1963, appeared in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its various spin-offs. While a TARDIS is capable of disguising itself, the exterior appearance of the Doctor's TARDIS typically mimics a police box, an obsolete type of telephone kiosk that was once commonly seen on streets in Britain in the 1940s and 50s. Its interior is shown as being much larger than its exterior, commonly described as being "bigger on the inside". Due to the significance of Doctor Who in popular British culture, the shape of the police box is now more strongly associated with the TARDIS than its real-world inspiration. The name and design of the TARDIS is a registered trademark of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), although the design was originally created by the Metropolitan Police Service.

History of Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television series, produced and broadcast by the BBC on the BBC TV channel from 1963 to 1964, and on BBC1 from 1964 to 1989 and 2005 to 2025. A one-off television film, co-produced with Universal Pictures, was broadcast on the Fox network in the United States in 1996.