Science Fiction (and Fantasy) on Television

External Links

There is no difficulty finding plenty of websites dedicated to the immensely popular Doctor Who.

Start with the Official Doctor Who Site at the BBC, where you can listen to new audio Doctor Who plays.

A Time Lord with a particular fondness for Earth. One of the longest running and most influential series ever made, (I've lost count of the number of American SciFi series that have used plots first used in Doctor Who). Longevity helped by the artifice of the "regeneration" of the Doctor into a completely new face and body. Despite its huge success, unceremoneously ditched by the BBC because they don't understand SciFi, albeit with one abortive attempt to regenerate it. As the 40th anniversary draws closer, there is hope yet that the series may yet be revived, but don't hold your breath.

Even thought the ignoramus Direcor General of the BBC (John Burt) who ditched the series has now gone, the current PTBs at the BBC are still terribly condescending and patronising towards Science Fiction, thus demonstrating their own ignorance. Five minute audio Doctor Who episodes are now available on the BBC website and although demand for this limited access was astronomical they still can't comprehend the international popularity of this series. It simply doesn't register that they have here a series, that if made properly with the sort of budget they use on their tedious "costume drama" romances, could be one of the most popular series in the world. The chances of these narrow minded people seeing the light any time soon are extremely slim. What a shame when some decades ago, the BBC was the leader of the world in creating Science Fiction.

So could Doctor Who arrive on television again? Well, maybe. We are encouraged by tinly little comments that are let slip by various people that negotiations are going on. And who would play the new Doctor. Well, while we would be quite happy to see Sylvester McCoy carry on to fill in that gap before Paul McGann did the fateful movie-length version, we think that Stephen Fry would make an excellent choice. He has portrayed the Doctor in a few of those audio versions and has not ruled out the possibility of doing a TV version. Come on BBC, how difficult can it really be to get one of the most popular TV series you've ever made back onto TV?

First Doctor - William Hartnell (1963-66)
Second Doctor - Patrick Troughton (1966-69)
Third Doctor - Jon Pertwee (1969-73)
Fourth Doctor - Tom Baker (1974-80)
Fifth Doctor - Peter Davison (1980-84)
Sixth Doctor - Colin Baker (1984-86)
Seventh Doctor - Sylvester McCoy (1986-96)
Eighth Doctor - Paul McGann (1996)

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