Dr Who

Being one of the most famous science fiction television series in the United Kingdom, Dr Who has, with other series such as Star Trek and Stargate SG-1, contributed to the expansion of the genre. The growing popularity of science fiction gave birth to current series like Buffy the vampire slayer and to great movies such as Star Wars, which everybody knows.

The series was created in 1963 by Sydney Newman, C.E. Webber and Donald Wilson. It consists of 724 episodes of 25 to 45 minutes. The series lasted 26 years (so it ended in 1989...) but since 2005 it has been successfully relaunched on the BBC.

Dr Who is a mysterious character also called a “Time Lord”. He is an alien coming with his companions from the planet Gallifrey in order to solve all kinds of problems on earth. A special feature of the series is the fact that, the character of Dr Who being immortal thanks to his capacity of regeneration, he has been played by various actors who were physically different. Since the actors are not immortal, 10 of them have played the role succesively. The very first was William Hartnell and the current actor is David Tennant.

Of course Dr Who does not travel by car but with his “TARDIS” (Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space). This machine has the particularity of changing its shape according to the environment. After its landing in London in 1963, it changed into a police box and because of some technical problems it has had to keep this appearance ever since.

The popularity of Dr Who comes from the fact that this series is a pioneer of the genre using the very first kind of special effects and electronic music. The series is also mentioned in the Guinness Book of World Records, which is due to the fact that it is, according to Wikipedia, “the longest-running science fiction television series in the world”.

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Mary and Marie-Eve