Why Doctor Who still seems fresh 50 years on

But Newman saw the possibilities in sci-fi, a genre that can function as “a marvellous way – and a safe way – of saying nasty things about our own society”. His vision prevailed, and on Saturday 23 November, 1963, Radio Times quietly alerted its readers to the debut of Doctor Who at 5:15 pm, wedged between Grandstand and Juke Box Jury.

Fifty years later, the Doctor is still going strong. Despite a 17-year hiatus from TV, he’s been endlessly saving the world via audio adventures, in comics and in novels. In addition to fan magazines, cyberspace is awash with websites and forums devoted to the man from Gallifrey.

Today’s Doctor is cuddly, bouncy Matt Smith – who’s 30 but looks considerably younger. It’s a far cry from the description unearthed in the BBC’s archives describing the Doctor as: “A frail old man lost in space and time. . . he is suspicious and capable of sudden malignance; he seems to have some undefined enemy; he is searching for something as well as fleeing from something.”

Renew-ability is the secret of the Doctor’s success, argues Kim Newman, author of Doctor Who, written for the British Film Institute’s TV Classics Series. “The BBC was pushed into a corner when the first Doctor, William Hartnell, became too ill to continue. Somebody – nobody quite knows who – said, ‘We have said that he’s an alien. We have never said that he couldn’t fall down one week and wake up and be a different actor’.” The only constant is the space and time-spanningTardis, he notes. “Therefore it’s a show unlike any other, that can literally replace itself completely.”

In a conference call to the co-curators of the BFI’s year-long Doctor Who at 50 programme, Dick Fiddy and Justin Johnson, Fiddy says: “That brilliant idea of regeneration actually became the heart and soul of the show. It explains his longevity, and clears the path for the great actors of their generation to step in.”

Professor James R Chapman, author of Inside the Tardis: The Worlds of Doctor Who (IB Tauris, 2012), says: “The show’s in a constant state of renewal. There’s flexibility in the format. Who can do space exploration, but it can also do historical stories, contemporary stories, invasion narratives, satire and comedy. That means it’s never going to run out of ideas.”

What makes Doctor Who so quintessentially British? Everyone I consult cites the Doctor’s eccentricity as a big factor, which may explain why, according to Newman, “Every time they change the actor someone says, ‘Couldn’t it be a woman? Couldn’t it be a black actor?’ Nobody ever says, ‘Couldn’t he not be British?’ ”

Fiddy says: “[Britishness is] written in the blood of the series. If you look at American scifi shows, very often these people are working for the government. The Doctor is a maverick, he’s an outsider – he’s not even human! He’s very much a bumbler, an eccentric, based on previous incarnations like Quatermass, or the mad professor figure in movies. It is a character that the British public readily identify with. And there’s an inbuilt irony and humour, which is pitched at the family audience. The closest you get is the modern-day films of Pixar, that work on so many levels that adults can appreciate.”

Johnson adds: “If you think about the moral codes the Doctor encapsulates – he’s not violent, he’s very much about trying to negotiate his way out of things. He tries to affect situations’ outcomes in a non-violent, positive way using logic and his brain power.”

“It was made at the moment in Britain when television is on the cusp of displacing cinema as the foremost mass entertainment medium,” says Chapman. “Doctor Who was shown early on Saturday evenings, so it was something the family sat down and watched together – and this was deliberate. The documents say they wanted to create a ‘loyalty series’ with characters that will appeal to men, to women and to people of different ages. And in the 1960s it ran almost all year round.

“Also, when Doctor Who started, Britain is still a country obsessed with World War Two. It’s tied into this historical idea of Britain as a bulwark against tyranny, oppression, dictatorship and so on. I think Doctor Who is also defining itself as being not like American science fiction shows. Partly out of necessity – the BBC doesn’t have the resources to compete with the production values. But what it can do is quirky, originality, eccentricity. The Doctor ties into that right from the start, that idea of a more cerebral kind of hero.”

Newman says: “[The Doctor does] all the stuff heroes are supposed to do, but he’s an odd character. In most TV shows the lead was a handsome and likeable young person. The Doctor was an ill-mannered, not very nice old man, so he was ambiguous. He’s become much more heroic, but he’s still eccentric, more of a cross between an action hero and wise mentor figure. It’s all to do with being an example. The arc is always with the sidekicks, they’re the people who have to overcome their fears and grow and learn and do the stuff people do in stories.”

Newman recalls being terrified by the Doctor’s adversaries. “Some shows imprinted on me and lingered – things I had nightmares about. But no matter how scary it was, people still watched. I suspect all over the country kids would be visibly terrified, and concerned parents would say, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t watch it,’ but that was worse! Somehow then you’d be out of the loop. Doctor Who was really good at having actors who can register terror. I think some of the older shows work because they were impregnated with the atmosphere of fear. This changed about ten or 12 years into the run, when they consciously toned that down.”

Finally, the theme of time travel gives old episodes added resonance, argues Fiddy. “It means the show can survive the test of time because it’s about time, in many ways. When you see them in contemporary 1970s Britain now, that almost looks like it’s a trip back in time. So it works as a reflection of its own idea.”

So what can fans expect this year? We hear the Doctor will visit ancient Egypt, battle Cybermen and Ice Warriors, ride submarines and visit the heart of the Tardis. Guest stars include Warwick Davis, Richard E Grant, Celia Imrie, Tamzin Outhwaite, Jessica Raine, Dougray Scott, and, Diana Rigg with her daughter, Rachel Stirling. Writers include Mark Gatiss, Neil Gaiman, Neil Cross, Stephen Thomson and, of course, showrunner Steven Moffat.

In addition, Gatiss has written An Adventure in Space and Time, a 90-minute drama looking at the men and women who brought the show into our homes. The actual 50th anniversary special –  directed by Nick Hurran – is being shot in 3D, and will be shown in cinemas as well as on BBC1. All we know about the story is that Matt Smith says he “read the script and clapped at the end. It’s epic and vast and fans won’t be disappointed.” The juiciest hint came from Moffat, who promised: “The Doctor’s big secret will be revealed.” All of a sudden November seems a long way away!

• Doctor Who: The Bells of St John begins on BBC1 on Saturday at 6:15pm.