The return of the Christmas Doctor
Doctor, Who?
Christmas is all about traditions.
You don’t have to be a hardcore Whovian to be excited by the return of the Doctor Who Christmas special, which aired its first Christmas special in 6 years on Christmas Day (2017 was the last time a Christmas special was aired, before producers switched to a New Years’ Day special, 2019-22)
The sci-fi classic about a time travelling alien has been produced and broadcast by the BBC for 60 years, which means there are plenty of stats about the world’s favourite Time Lord¹
For those of you who haven’t watched Doctor Who, they are the Doctor. They travels through space and time. They are from the planet Gallifrey in the Constellation of Kasterborous. They’re thousands² of years old and they’re going to save your life, again and again
Please note, this article may contain some spoilers for those who haven’t watched any of the three recent specials with David Tenant, or this year’s Christmas Special
Did you ever watch the Classic Era of Doctor Who?
16 different actors have played the Doctor over the last sixty years, 7 of whom are considered part of the Classic Era between 1963 and 1989³
One of the great powers of The Doctor is that he can regenerate into a new form to prevent death. And this allowed the BBC to swap out actors when the series needs a re-boot
First there was William Hartnell, one of the grumpier adaptions of the role, who starred for 134 episodes across 3 seasons (1963–66). However, you’re not able to watch all of his episodes on-demand
In the first six years of the show, 253 episodes were produced, covering the tenures of Hartnell and the Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, but a number of them were removed from the BBC Archives due to budget cuts. Today, 97 episodes are still lost and cannot be watched by modern audiences
The Classic Era actors who had the longest spell in the lead role:
- Tom Baker starred as the Doctor for 7 seasons and 172 episodes (more than any other), plus had consistently had the best viewing numbers of any Doctor, achieving over 10 million viewers on average in his first three seasons
- John Pertwee was in the leading role for 5 seasons, or 131 episodes
- Troughton managed to pip Pertwee to 132 episodes, albeit over just 3 seasons
And what about the Modern Doctor(s)?
After a 16 year hiatus, Christopher Ecclestone starred in the 2005 reboot of the show
After a single series with Ecclestone, the Doctor entered what is known by some as its most popular period (others may consider this claim to be controversial) with David Tennant becoming the 10th Doctor
Tennant played in 42 episodes during his 3 seasons, plus a further 8 specials between 2005–10 and 3 specials in 2023 where he returned (confusingly as the 14th Doctor) to play the role again alongside Catherine Tate as his companion, Donna Noble
He’s played The Doctor more frequently than any other modern day Doctor, and starred in the role for a comparable number of minutes relative to Troughton and Pertwee (modern episodes lasted 44 minutes on average vs. only 23 in the classic era)
On top of this, Tennant achieved one of the highest viewing numbers for his 2007 Christmas special, Voyage of the Damned, with 13.1 million people tuning in. Only four episodes have ever had more viewers, all in the Classic era:
- William Hartnell’s “The Web Planet” (13.5 million views in 1965)
- Tom Baker’s “The Ark In Space” (13.6 million views in 1975)
- Tom Baker’s “Destiny of the Daleks” (14.4 million views) and “City of Death” (16.1 million), both in 1979
Who’s your favourite Doctor Who villain?
There have been over 400 monsters / villains / aliens in Doctor Who, although some of them have been more popular than others:
- The Daleks are the most common (and in some ways, popular) villain, appearing in the 2nd ever episode of the show and in c. 120 episodes since⁴
- Next up is The Master, the Doctor’s Time Lord archenemy (or are they⁵), who has appeared in 108 episodes across 41 ‘serials’ (or collections of episodes). Like the Doctor, The Master is able to regenerate meaning that the role has been played by 9 different people
- Then there’s the Cybermen, who first starred in 1966. They’ve actually appeared in more “stories” than The Master, even though this is only across 70 episodes
While plenty of new monsters and enemies have been created during the modern era, very few have stuck around. So far, one of the monsters that have had the biggest impact is the Weeping Angels. Since first appearing in “Blink”, the 2007 classic, they’ve come back to appear in 13 episodes
So what’s next for Doctor Who?
Not only does the show have a new lead in the role, Ncuti Gatwa, but they also have a new budget
Previous Modern Era episodes had a typical budget of between £1 million and £3.5 million, but this has been increased to £11.5 million per episode for Gatwa’s first season, airing in May 2024. This will be followed by a second 2025 episode, both of which will have 8 episodes
And there are rumours that there will be a number of spin-offs, recreating the “Whoniverse” the front runner Russell T. Davies created during his original spell in charge. Previously, there were 8official spin-offs:
- Doctor Who Confidential (2005–2011)
- Torchwood (2006–2011)
- Totally Doctor Who (2006–2007)
- Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–2011)
- Dreamland (2008)
- Sarah Jane’s Alien Files (2010)
- K-9 (2009–2010)
- Class (2016)
So far, two new spin-off have premiered, ‘Tales of the TARDIS’ and ‘Doctor Who Unleashed’, and its expected that there’d be more announced soon. Watch this space (and time)!
Note¹: spoilers… (they may not be Time Lord, as we found out in the recent divisive ‘Timeless Child’ arc.)
Note²: Their exact age is unknown. They were 906 when they regenerated into the 11th Doctor, but then they claimed to be 1103 years old during the Series 6 premier. Since then, they’ve protected the planet Trenzalore with the church of the Papal mainframe for multiple generations and was stuck in a confession dial for billions of years. So yeah…who knows?
Note³: this includes John Hurt as the War Doctor (who only starred in one episode during the 50th anniversary special), and Jo Martin who played the Fugitive Doctor alongside Jodie Whitaker’s 13th Doctor. This doesn’t include the many versions of the Doctor seen during The Timeless Child flashback (obviously!). The 7 Classic Era Doctors doesn’t include Paul McGann, who stared in a Doctor Who movie in 1996 and a mini-episode called ‘The Night of the Doctor’ during the 50th anniversary
Note⁴: my best count is that they’ve been in 118 episodes but it’s hard to go through all episodes precisely
Note⁵: Extract from Series 9 Episode 1 — ‘The Magician’s Apprentice’:
The Doctor: Davros is my archenemy. Why would I want to talk to him?
The Master: No, wait, hang on a minute, Davros is your archenemy now?
The Doctor: Hush!
The Master: I’ll scratch his eye out!
Check out more GoodStats about TV:
- I’m a Celeb returns to the Jungle; Here’s some stats on who’s got out of there
- The BBC — a timeless British institution…but can it get back with the times?
- Cus reading this article is whaaat? FUN-DA-MEN-TAL!
Source: Doctor Who Companion; The Guardian; Wikipedia Daleks; Wikipedia Classic Era; Wikipedia Modern Era; Screen Rant; Wikipedia Master; Gizmodo; Wikipedia Spin-offs; My Boyfriend
