Hot Trends: Why Doctor Who Has Lasted Fifty Years

(Image Credit: BBC)

On November 23rd, 2013, the BBC is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who - its seminal science fiction TV series about an alien known as the Doctor who travels throughout all of time and space in his spaceship, the TARDIS, which looks remarkably like a 1960s-era British police box.

Once upon a time, Doctor Who was actually missing from TV. The show ran continuously from 1963, but was cancelled in 1989. There was an ill-fated attempt to revive the series in 1996 with a TV movie, but that, too failed. Like the Doctor himself, though, the show proved resilient, finally beginning anew in 2005.

The rebooted series has proved to be a remarkable success - it's still going strong, and also managed to accomplish what the "classic" Doctor Who series never did - building a huge fanbase in America. It's currently the number one show on BBC America, and its viewership is growing.

"As I was driving in L.A. once, I saw a huge billboard of the Doctor shown from behind in silhouette, with just a small 'Doctor Who' written in the corner. It's a testatment to how aggressive the marketing for the rebooted show is that they expect audiences to know who the Doctor is."

Those words were spoken to me by Dr. Piers Britton of the University of Redlands in California. Dr. Britton is a native of the U.K., and in addition to his usual courses in art history, he's currently teaching a class on Doctor Who this semester in celebration of the 50th anniversary. He's also written a book called TARDISbound, which examines the Doctor as he's appeared in various media incarnations, including novels, TV, audiobooks, and comics.

And in that study, how does he explain the longevity of the character?

"The character is helped because he can be played by a limitless number of actors. The longevity of the character is assured because it thrives on the basis of character, even as popular culture changes. That idea of change - being able to reinvent itself - is central to Doctor Who."

Dael Kingsmill, who has a video series on Greek Mythology on Felicia Day's 'Geek and Sundry' YouTube channel, agrees with this assessment.

"Like The Doctor, the show is able to constantly reinvent itself and become the ultimate survivor. It's not constrained by time, or genre, or even cast, so it never gets old, but at the same time, it manages to hold onto that quirky quality which we all know and love."

One of the reasons why Doctor Who has been so successful, and what differentiates it from more traditional sci-fi fare like Star Trek, is that the Doctor always travels with one or more companions. There have been dozens of companions, but most of them are humans from the present time of the Doctor.

"Part of the show's appeal is that the Doctor travels with people that you might know," Dr. Britton told me. "An access point through contemporary world is part of its appeal."

One interesting thing about the show, Dr. Britton notes, is that the way the companion is used by the show changed remarkably after the 2005 resurrection.

"In the Classic series, companions were there as audience surrogates. What we have now, though, are characters who are the driving element in the narrative. We engage with because they're fascinating in and of themselves."

Neil McNeil, who also has a video series on Geek and Sundry, also credits companions for the show's longevity.

"I think the series has gone on for so long because it's a new take on the fairytale genre, something that people can picture themselves being a part of. The show examines human existence while still bringing viewers to fantastic, faraway places they never could have imagined." Another aspect of the show that may turn out to be a surprising aspect of its appeal to audiences is its quintessential British-ness.

"All of us who grew up with Doctor Who are in some way influenced by it. It's unavoidable. Doctor Who is part of the grain of British culture, and my world is better for it," science fiction and comics writer Warren Ellis told me.

Dr. Britton concurs with this idea. "Even we did science fiction, it never looked like Doctor Who. That's because it's so strange and odd from the start. After we started to get American imports like Star Trek, for a long time the oddity tickled the British fancy. The eccentric English-ness of it is also part of its popularity."

That eccentricity extends to the Doctor himself, who Dr. Britton describes as a "wonderfully enthusiastic amateur who'll fix things in unforeseeable ways. Doctor Who is about someone who improvises at the spur of the moment in both funny and infuriating ways. And his child-like enthusiasm is matched by an adult cunning."

Perhaps the best way to explain the appeal of Doctor Who, though, comes from The Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson. In a 2011 episode that featured a guest appearance by the actor currently playing the Doctor, Matt Smith, Ferguson wrote a song celebrating Doctor Who, in which he said that "It's all about the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism."

As a long-time fan of the show myself, I think that sums it up best. Follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Read my Forbes blog here.