To sci-fi fans: The Doctor's back

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Publication: Naperville Sun
Date: 2006-03-21
Author: Tim West
Page:
Language: English

For the first time in many years on Friday, a TARDIS landed in our family room.

Well, it did stay inside the television set, but it got there piloted by a traveler through time and space known as the Doctor.

Since 1963 when the British science fiction series "Dr. Who" debuted on BBC TV, up until 1989 when it finally ended -- or as it turned out merely took a 16-year break -- eight actors had played the peripatetic doctor and the series had become a long-running fan favorite.

The TARDIS, which stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, looks like a flying British police call box -- with the relative dimension being that it is much larger inside than it appears from the outside.

In the technologically weird confines of the TARDIS, the Doctor roams the galaxy, more often than not accompanied by an attractive female.

He's a Time Lord, from the planet Gallifrey, and he travels back and forth in time, often ending up on earth battling some alien creature or another in order to save the universe. His most well-known adversaries are the Daleks, creatures that sort of resemble metal pepper grinders whose goal is to subdue everything that is not a Dalek.

Over the years, the series cleverly changed the lead actor by having the doctor "die" and be regenerated as the new actor. Thus William Hartnell, the first doctor, gave way to Patrick Troughton, then to Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann.

And in 2005, the series was brought back again in Britain, this time with Christopher Eccleston playing the Doctor.

As is generally the case with British television, it takes a good year, or more, for a show to reach our shores. Last Friday on the SciFi channel, the series of 13 episodes that were made starring Eccleston began.

Two episodes were shown Friday night and if these two are going to be typical of the Eccleston series, Dr. Who has gone a long distance from the light entertainment it once was (though the Pertwee and Baker years were grim every so often) to an edgier, darker program more in keeping with modern British television.

Friday, I found myself clicking back and forth between the NCAA Tournament and the first two adventures of the latest Doctor.

While researching aspects of the series on the Internet, I learned that Eccleston only did 13 episodes, or one year's worth.

The new and tenth doctor -- maybe we should call him the new, new doctor -- is David Tennant. Presumably we'll see the next 13 episodes in 2007.

The revived "Dr. Who" has been a big hit in Britain, so it'll be interesting to see how it does here. When it was on WTTW in years past, it generated a large cult following in the Chicago area, complete with Midwest fan conventions. Perhaps the new "Dr. Who" will do likewise for SciFi.

Caption: Billie Piper as Rose Tyler and Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor in the new version of "Dr. Who," released last year by BBC TV in Great Britain and debuting in the United States last Friday on the SciFi cable channel.

To sci-fi fans: The Doctor's back

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