Doctor Who: How the Timelords influence has transcended the Tardis
As Doctor Who enters its Diamond Month, we look at its extraordinary impact off-screen.
November 23rd 1963, the world mourns president Kennedy. BBC Television Centre stands tall, a coliseum of creativity. Within its walls, BBC head of drama, Sydney Newman, and the BBC’s first ever female producer, Verity Lambert, watch their new show eclipsed by the JFK coverage. “You are not to do anymore than these four episodes,” ordered Donald Baverstock, controller of BBC television.
Eight hundred and seventy-one episodes and 15 Doctors later, Doctor Who is the longest-running sci-fi TV series in the world. While it’s impressive that the Guinness World Records regards it as “the most successful” series of the sci-fi genre, and that it’s responsible for the largest simulcast of a television drama to mark its 50th anniversary, the truth is, none of this would have been achievable without its symbiotic relationship with its fans. So much so that in Doctor Who Magazine (DWM), showrunner Russell T. Davies credited lifelong Whovian Emily Cook as inspiring his, David Tennant’s, and Catherine Tate’s return for the 60th anniversary.
Like the Doctor with his companion, DWM, the longest-running TV-tie magazine, has been a mainstay in Emily’s life. Growing up, she’d pour over Andrew Pixley, writer of DWM Archive, blissfully unaware that a chance meeting in India, aged 22, where she was running a fundraising event for her charity “Khushi Feet”, would culminate in her working on Doctor Who and in media eight years later.
“We [Khushi Feet] recruited this Bollywood dancer [for the fundraising event], got chatting, and found out his partner worked at DWM,” she said. Before long, Emily was interviewing childhood heroes Tom Baker and David Tennant; she also recalled getting the “biggest hug” from Jodie Whittaker on set. “The magazine means the world to me; it helped me grow,” she described gleefully.
However, a tweet during lockdown changed her life forever. “I just tweeted wanting to see if anyone wanted to watch The Day of the Doctor at the same time, on the same day, but it became this massive thing,” she explained. In fact, #DoctorWho trended one in the UK and three globally, with former showrunner Steven Moffat joining Twitter and even scripting a brand-new introductory scene. A further 18 tweetalongs followed, where fans globally watched episodes while simultaneously communicating with Twitter hashtags, with stars like Matt Smith getting involved. “Someone got in touch about how they met their now-husband through the tweetalongs,” she described in disbelief.
Throughout “Doctor Who: Lockdown!”, Russell encouraged Emily to explore TV, and following an opportunity that emerged from the project, with screenwriter Peter Harness, she’s recently script edited for Apple TV’s Constellation.
“I can’t imagine my life without Doctor Who; lots of my friends have come from it, and it’s a huge part of my career,” Emily said. “I live with Miriam Margolyes; I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Doctor Who, and now she’s in Doctor Who; it never goes away,” she added.
William Carlisle, better known as YouTuber Mr. Tardis, is also freelance in the media industry. “I owe my current freelance career to Doctor Who,” he said: “Watching [Doctor Who] Confidential, I knew I wanted to be in the creative industry. I wanted to be an actor; Christopher Ecclestone was a massive inspiration; I grew up, then wanted to be behind the scenes.” One morning, when working for BBC Breakfast, Ecclestone came in. Before he left, Carlisle told him: “I grew up watching you in Doctor Who; it’s one of the reasons I wanted to work in the TV industry. He said, ‘Welcome to TV’ and offered me his hand to shake.”
Mr. Tardis has 35k subscribers, with his most popular video having been viewed 283k times. But for Carlisle, these pale in comparison to the “sense of community” and “found family”. “So much of the groundwork was done before I was a fan; it’s a privilege to be a part of this community,” he said, referring to the Wilderness years (1989-2005), when Doctor Who was off-air, and fans battled to keep it alive.
For YouTuber Tharries, who has cerebral palsy, it’s the Doctor solving situations through “intellect” and “wit”, which is incredibly personal to him. “When I was younger, I couldn’t do much physically, so it was important for me to see a character that resolved conflict not through physical action but through words and diplomacy,” he said.
The BBC’s latest Diversity and Inclusion plan targets 12% of their workforce to represent those with disabilities, having achieved their 2020 target of 8%. Ruth Madeley, who has Spina bifida, and Bernard Cribbins, who was a wheelchair user, will feature in Doctor Who later this month, their inclusions a childhood dream for Tharries. “I remember thinking as a kid, would I ever be able to get onto the Tardis with my chair? So that was a childhood image coming to life,” he explained.
The Doctors travelled from the dawn of time to the year 4bn, but it’s here on earth that their impact has been extraordinary.
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