Editing Doctor Who (section)

==The Show==
Doctor Who is the oldest sci-fi series in the history of television that still gets new episodes on a regular basis. It started in 1963 and ran until 1989 where it was cancelled due to studio politics and stiff competition from other series like ''Coronation Street''. It attempted a restart with a 1996 movie, but a full reboot was conditional on American audiences tuning in and since only pointdexters watching PBS had heard of it the project died. The show finally started again in 2005 and lasted another twenty years, though it's in limbo now as the BBC hasn't officially cancelled or renewed it. Throughout this history, the show has maintained the same canon-less continuity, thanks to the fact that the main protagonist Doctor Who (aka The Doctor) is from an alien species capable of "regeneration" to escape death, whether from violence or old age. This rejuvenates and replaces all the cells in their body, effectively changing their appearance and somewhat their mannerisms and personality (because it also changes the brain). In this way, the series has been able to continue (mostly) uninterrupted by simply having the Doctor regenerate whenever his actor quit, without resorting to "remakes" or "reimaginings" or "spinoffs" like Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica. Any continuity errors (of which there are many) can be brushed off as side effects of the Doctor or one of his enemies changing time.

There were a couple of unsuccessful attempts at making spinoffs (One during the original run and one more recently, both based on the rather twee K-9 the tin dog), and three more successful, the recent Torchwood (on "indefinite hiatus" since 2012), Sarah Jane Adventures (cancelled during its fifth year due to the death of the lead actress), Class (ended after one season) and the upcoming The War Between. The Sarah Jane Adventures depict the adventures and encounters with alien life that the ex-companion of the 3rd and 4th Doctor goes through with her alien-made son and his friends. Torchwood is Doctor Who with a large dose of grimderp and forced raunchiness (Children of Earth is considered the point where it becomes watchable unironically), along with a literally immortal lead character with a Charisma score so high that Alpenhorn-mancers turn gay for him within a sixteen-mile radius. Everyone is gay for Captain Jack Harkness. He even has a [[Harkness_Test|sexuality test]] named after him. Class depicts what happens when the Doctor sets one of his long plans in motion, and then fucks off for a good while, letting all hell break loose in the meantime. The War Between comes out in the end of 2025 and will feature the classic Sea Devils returning, complete with UNIT trying to prevent another global war.

The main show is heavily episodic, with the Doctor travelling through time and space in the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension(s) in Space) and landing in different historical periods on Earth and elsewhere in the universe, often when there is some sort of trouble or disturbance nearby. The Doctor protects the flow of history <strike>except when you piss the Doctor off</strike>, preventing paradoxes and manipulations and attempts to stop evil and violence everywhere. This gains him the enmity of his own race, the Gallifreyan Time Lords who have pledged to use their time-travelling technology only to observe but not interfere. Even so, they often ask the Doctor to act on their behalf. The Time Lords got a bit shit towards the end of the original run, and were unceremoniously killed off en masse during the gap between the original and new runs in an offscreen "Time War" with their arch-enemies the Daleks, being locked in a pocket timeline for good measure. As of the new revival series, there has been the theme of a season-long arc within the episodes, which usually takes the shape of a recurring phrase or item, which is resolved in the two-part finale at the end of the season.

The show has become iconic in British culture and science fiction fandom around the world for many reasons:

*Having been around for fucking ever. Even if you were born during the window when Dr Who was not being made, the chances are you remember it from re-runs or carefully archived bootlegged copies made by [[Neckbeard|that one uncle you had]]. On the brighter side, there were hundreds of really good tie-in books and audio dramas (and a few films).
*Not only has it been around for fucking ever, but we also don't even have all the episodes. Of the 253 episodes of the first six seasons, 97 are lost for all time because the BBC didn't think the content was worth saving long term (also because the BBC archives had a nasty habit of bursting into flames before digital archiving became the norm).
*Cheesy low budgeted effects and monsters which gave the show a special charm.
*It is largely easy-going, tongue-in-cheek and comical but frequently turns dark (especially in the reboot) and has had a political agenda ('''''especially''''' in the reboot) almost from day one.  
*Doctor Who is something of a variety show of up and coming writers. Terry Nation (creator of Blake's 7) wrote ten stories for Doctor Who, including the now-legendary ''The Daleks''. Douglas Adams was credited with writing one but actually wrote a couple more uncredited and contributed to MANY others during the 4th Doctor. More recent guest writers include Neil Cross (Luther), Neil Gaiman (Coraline), and Mark Gatiss (Sherlock). 
*Comical yet fearsome enemies like the Daleks (Genocidal mutant squid [[Nazi]] pepper-pots with death rays and the best E-VIL VOI-CES E-VER while exterminating FUCKING EVERYTHING), Sontarans (Huge domed heads, eyebrows and foreheads of a 4e [[Tiefling]]-basically Mr Potato Head), Autons (Shop Dummies of Death), Weeping Angels (''"Don't blink. Blink and you're dead."'') and memorable "supervillain" antagonists like The Master, a rival Time Lord, and the ever-wrinkly Davros.
*Hiding behind the sofa from the aforementioned Daleks was such a common event in the lives of several decades of children that the phrase "Hiding behind the sofa" has entered [[Britfag]] slang as a slightly tongue-in-cheek way of saying "Scared shitless".
*Various toys, gadgets and gags the Doctor uses, including a 'Sonic Screwdriver' (a lazy but cool plot device) and the use of Jelly Babies candy to distract or bribe people.
*The theme tune. You know it, you love it. Yes, you do, stop lying.
*Not being your average Science-Fiction story. While many normal Space Opera-style Sci-Fi stories are samey and bland, Doctor Who has practically every kind of adventure imaginable taking place. From dinosaurs on a spaceship to gas-masked zombies (who are creepy as all Hell) to literally going to hell, ''Doctor Who'' has it all. If not, then the spin-offs have done it.
**Adding to this is the writers' consistent refusal to resort to violence as an easy out for its conflicts. The Doctor almost never solves problems by raw force, and is always willing to bury a hatchet against all but his most bitter enemies (the Daleks and the Master being the only beings he carries a true grudge against).
*For being a thorn in the side of Mary Whitehouse for the entirety of their parallel existence because of how scary it got in the mid-70s.