Biographic - Sunday October 5, 2014 Comic Strip Licensing and Permissions

Transcript

The August debut of the current season of "Doctor Who," with Peter Capaldi taking over the lead role, helped give BBC America its highest-ever Saturday evenings ratings. The longest-running sci-fi tv show in the world, "Doctor Who" first hit tv screens in Britain on November 23, 1963. The show follows the adventures of a time lord who roams through time and space in the tardis, a spacecraft disgused as an old-fashioned London police box. (Tardis is an acronym for time and relative dimension in space.) the original series was so low-budget that when the script called for six daleks, the evil aliens in tanklike machines that are The Doctor's greatest foes, the producers had to pad the numbers by pasting photos onto two cardboard cutouts. William Hartnell was the first actor to portray The Doctor when he left the series in 1966. The producers hit upon a novel way to introduce his replacement. They decided that time lords have the ability to regenerate, thus allowing them to incorporate the introduction of Patrick Throughton into the storyline. A succession of actors have since taken on the role. The mid-1960s also saw The Doctor on the big screen, with veteran horror star Peter Cushing in the title role. "Doctor Who" became a cult favorite on North American TV in the mid 1970s. The lead was played by Jon Pertwee and then Tom Baker. They were followed by Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, who was the incumbent when the show went on hiatus in 1989. The show returned briefly in the mid-199s with Paul McGann as The Doctor. It was reprised in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston, star of such movies as "Elizabeth" and "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," as the ninth Doctor, before David Tennant enjoyed a five-year stint in the role. He was followed by Matt Smith. "Doctor Who" has now been seen in more than 40 countries around the world and is a jewel in the crown of BBC America. The latest offering stars Peter Capaldi, who will be famiiar to British tv afficionados for his work in the likes of "The Thick of It," "The Hour" and "The Three Musketeers" as the 12th tv incarnation of the galaxy-surfint time lord.

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