Doctor Who celebrates 50 years
Longest running science fiction TV show airs Anniversary Special today.
The Day of the Doctor is the latest in a grand tradition of multi-Doctor specials. PHOTOS: FILE
Doctor Who is turning 50. So what do you get a time-travelling, galaxy-hopping humanoid alien who has everything?
Plenty of space on the airwaves.
Whovians across the globe are gearing up for ‘The Day of the Doctor,’ the 75-minute anniversary episode that will be broadcast simultaneously on television and screened in movie theatres in 84 countries today. BBC will air the special, in both 2D and 3D, 50 years to the night of the very first episode — An Unearthly Child, starring William Hartnell as the very first Time Lord. “I think Doctor Who was born to be in 3D on some level,” says Matt Smith. “There’s loads of things that are going to look great in 3D. Dangling down on Trafalgar Square will work really well, and David [Tennant] has a fantastic entrance.”
One of the secrets of the show’s longevity is that the Doctor can regenerate into a new body when the old one wears out, so the show can outlive any individual star. Since Hartnell, the world has seen 11 incarnations of the Doctor, with actor Peter Capaldi primed to take on the 12th incarnation this Christmas.
To mark this historic event, the engineers at Google London added the Doctor’s spacecraft the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space) to Google Street View this summer, to the delight of fans everywhere. The anticipation for the Anniversary Special has been building up to a fever pitch since the official announcement that 10th Doctor and fan favourite David Tennant will be returning alongside current Doctor Matt Smith. The episode will also see the return of Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler, one of the most beloved companions the doctor has ever had. The trailer offers fans their first glimpse of the ‘Time War,’ and the episode promises to finally give fans the story behind the revelation of John Hurt as another incarnation of the Doctor, a twist that was revealed in the final seconds of the Series 7 season finale of the BBC show.
On Friday, Google unveiled its most elaborate doodle yet to commemorate the character, who is considered a ‘national institution’ in the UK, according to The Guardian, and has a cult following amongst children and adults worldwide. The ‘Whodle’ was created in the wake of a petition, signed by over 4,000 fans, asking Google to do a doodle for the show’s 50th Anniversary. The Google Doodle has players trying to rescue the six GOOGLE letters from classic Doctor Who villains, such as the Daleks and the Cybermen. Each ‘life’ you’re given in the game represents an incarnation of the Doctor.
Showrunner Steven Moffat, who also has BBC’s monster hit Sherlock under his belt, promises the the Anniversary Special will be a celebration of the legend of the iconic character and that nothing is ever going to be the same again. “I think I was the person who appallingly introduced the word “game-changing” into Doctor Who,” says Moffat. “It’s a terrible expression; I wish I’d never said it. But yes, we’re going to make a change. It’s going to have an effect. You don’t very often do that with a character in a long-running series, but I think after 50 years, you can maybe take the risk. It’s going to have an effect on him. This is the one day he really remembers and says 'that’s the day everything changed.’ Doctor Who is rarely about him. This one is.”
Published in The Express Tribune, November 23rd, 2013.
Plenty of space on the airwaves.
Whovians across the globe are gearing up for ‘The Day of the Doctor,’ the 75-minute anniversary episode that will be broadcast simultaneously on television and screened in movie theatres in 84 countries today. BBC will air the special, in both 2D and 3D, 50 years to the night of the very first episode — An Unearthly Child, starring William Hartnell as the very first Time Lord. “I think Doctor Who was born to be in 3D on some level,” says Matt Smith. “There’s loads of things that are going to look great in 3D. Dangling down on Trafalgar Square will work really well, and David [Tennant] has a fantastic entrance.”
One of the secrets of the show’s longevity is that the Doctor can regenerate into a new body when the old one wears out, so the show can outlive any individual star. Since Hartnell, the world has seen 11 incarnations of the Doctor, with actor Peter Capaldi primed to take on the 12th incarnation this Christmas.
To mark this historic event, the engineers at Google London added the Doctor’s spacecraft the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space) to Google Street View this summer, to the delight of fans everywhere. The anticipation for the Anniversary Special has been building up to a fever pitch since the official announcement that 10th Doctor and fan favourite David Tennant will be returning alongside current Doctor Matt Smith. The episode will also see the return of Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler, one of the most beloved companions the doctor has ever had. The trailer offers fans their first glimpse of the ‘Time War,’ and the episode promises to finally give fans the story behind the revelation of John Hurt as another incarnation of the Doctor, a twist that was revealed in the final seconds of the Series 7 season finale of the BBC show.
On Friday, Google unveiled its most elaborate doodle yet to commemorate the character, who is considered a ‘national institution’ in the UK, according to The Guardian, and has a cult following amongst children and adults worldwide. The ‘Whodle’ was created in the wake of a petition, signed by over 4,000 fans, asking Google to do a doodle for the show’s 50th Anniversary. The Google Doodle has players trying to rescue the six GOOGLE letters from classic Doctor Who villains, such as the Daleks and the Cybermen. Each ‘life’ you’re given in the game represents an incarnation of the Doctor.
Showrunner Steven Moffat, who also has BBC’s monster hit Sherlock under his belt, promises the the Anniversary Special will be a celebration of the legend of the iconic character and that nothing is ever going to be the same again. “I think I was the person who appallingly introduced the word “game-changing” into Doctor Who,” says Moffat. “It’s a terrible expression; I wish I’d never said it. But yes, we’re going to make a change. It’s going to have an effect. You don’t very often do that with a character in a long-running series, but I think after 50 years, you can maybe take the risk. It’s going to have an effect on him. This is the one day he really remembers and says 'that’s the day everything changed.’ Doctor Who is rarely about him. This one is.”
Published in The Express Tribune, November 23rd, 2013.