“Doctor Who,” a science fiction television show that originally began in the early 1960’s, is about “The Doctor,” an alien Time Lord who travels through time and space going on adventures with his various companions. The 2005 reboot of “Doctor Who,” lovingly called “NuWho” by fans, has just celebrated its 20th anniversary on March 26. “Doctor Who” continues to be the longest-running sci-fi show of all time according to Guinness World Records. While the show originally began in 1963 in black and white with an extremely limited budget given by the BBC, this run dubbed “Classic Who,” was cancelled in 1989.

The history of the reboot of “Doctor Who” is complicated by the 16-year gap between the original show and the reboot as well as by audio-dramas and other media influencing the show, and, most recently, concerns from fans for where “Doctor Who” is going.

Russell T. Davies, the showrunner and head writer for “Doctor Who” until his leave in 2010, originally pitched the reboot of the show as being extremely similar to the 1963 original but only keeping what he thought were the best elements of the show like the TARDIS, the time-travel vehicle the Doctor travels in, his tool called the Sonic Screwdriver, and The Doctor himself. Davies’ reboot succeeded because he moved the focus off of far-off planets and onto Earth and its humans. This is clear in the first episode, “Rose,” from 2005 which focuses on The Doctor’s new companion, Rose Tyler (Billie Piper). She is a 19-year-old British girl living in London, works in a retail store, and lives a working-class lifestyle with her single mom.

The first season of the show starred Christopher Eccleston playing The Doctor, the Ninth Doctor to be exact as he was the ninth actor to portray the character. Eccleston was a well-established actor before taking on the role of the Time Lord. Best known for his role in the TV show “Our Friends in the North” and in the film “Let Him Have It,” Eccleston had a lot of pressure to please fans as the new “Doctor Who.”

Eccleston made the role of The Doctor completely his own. The Ninth Doctor was gritty and angry but also witty and caring. He was full of himself and begrudgingly traveling with Rose at first but grew to love her. This was a near complete 180 from how the Doctor had been in the past and how he would be portrayed in the future.

Billie Piper, who was a very prominent British pop-star at the time, took on the role of Rose Tyler, being well-known for her song “Because We Want To,” which has more than seven million listens on Spotify currently, and “Day & Night,” with more than six and a half million listens on Spotify. While “Doctor Who” (2005) became a popular and successful reboot thanks in large part to co-star Billie Piper, some older fans who were used to companions like Jo Grant and Sarah Jane Smith from the Classic Who were less than enthused. Such fans were used to companions who were simply the Doctor’s “helpers.” Classic Who fans were upset when Rose Tyler and The Doctor had an overarching romance plot throughout the first two seasons. Despite this, Rose became an absolute fan favorite for first-time Whovians, a light-hearted name for fans of the show, and continuously tops the “Who is the Greatest Doctor Who Companion?” lists all over the internet.

Once season one of “Doctor Who” (2005) was over, a major change happened. Eccleston, after having problems on-set with Davies not dealing with misbehavior on-set, decided to end his time on “Doctor Who.” Because of this, Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor “regenerated,” a sequence in which one version of The Doctor dies and his body turns into that of the next actor. Scottish actor David Tennant became the Tenth Doctor.

The beloved Rose Tyler stayed through Tennant’s first season only being replaced in the first episode of season three, “Smith and Jones.” With the season two ending, two spin-off shows began, “Torchwood” and “The Sarah Jane Adventures.” These shows, while not being nearly as popular as “Doctor Who,” were well received by fans. “Torchwood,” an alien hunting show, took the darker themes of “Doctor Who,” like death and the end of the world, and brought it to the forefront of the show, attempting to cater to the older fans of “Doctor Who.”

“The Sarah Jane Adventures” focuses on the life of an old companion from Classic Who, the titular Sarah Jane Smith. This spin-off takes the light-hearted and family-focused themes of “Doctor Who” and makes them the main focus of the episodes.

After Tennant’s third season ended with three one-hour long specials due to writer’s strikes and production pauses, he decided to pass the role onto someone new, Matt Smith. With Tennant’s leaving, Davies also decided his time with “Doctor Who” was done for now and handed the series over to the heavily-involved writer Steven Moffatt. The first episode of season five, “The Eleventh Hour” launched the Moffatt era of “Doctor Who” with a new Doctor, companion, and showrunner.

While Tennant’s era was extremely popular, Smith’s era as the Eleventh Doctor is when the show gained popularity in the U.S. and tends to be the most recognizable era. During this era all was well with the cast, crew, and fanbase; the quality of the stories was good and the ratings were positive. This was until Moffatt decided that after seven years it was time to leave when the Twelfth Doctor, Peter Capaldi, left at the end of season 11. Moffatt then handed the show over to one of his main writers, Chris Chibnall.

Before taking over the main “Doctor Who” production, Chibnall helped spearhead the creation of the 2007 spin-off “Torchwood” and generally did a wonderful job with it. He also worked heavily on a murder-mystery show starring David Tennant called “Broadchurch,” which is well-loved. But once Chibnall took over the main “Doctor Who” plot and began producing the Thirteenth Doctor’s episodes, something just wasn’t working for many fans.

Starring Jodie Whitaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, the plots felt empty somehow, despite her Doctor having three companions for most of her run. Her portrayal of The Doctor was full of whimsy and focused on the fun parts of the character that Smith had highlighted so well eight years before. Whitaker was never given a fair chance at a good run because her writers let her down. Not to mention the fact that nearing the end of Chibnall’s time running “Doctor Who,” he decided to make massive changes to the “Doctor Who” canon, including re-destroying The Doctor’s home planet Gallifrey, destroying half of the universe off-camera, and deciding that The Doctor isn’t a Time Lord but an unknown alien species and lived their life as a spy before becoming The Doctor. None of these changes were welcomed by the fans of the show, and they continue to be hated and rejected in current seasons as well.

Despite her best efforts, Whitaker could not overcome poor writing, resulting in some of the worst ratings of the show.

Some fans thought that Chibnall might cause the final end of “Doctor Who” after nearly 60 years, with season 13 being shorter than all other seasons. Perhaps in an effort to bring back fans, producers revealed Tennant’s temporary return to the role as the Fourteenth Doctor. He only stayed for the three “60th Anniversary” specials in 2023, ending the third episode with him regenerating into Ncuti Gatwa’s brand-new Fifteenth Doctor.

The “Doctor Who” that was dubbed “NuWho” came to a quiet end with Whitaker, but the show itself continues now on DisneyPlus under the Bad Wolf production company and Russell T. Davies returned to the showrunner and head writer roles that he once held. The season called “Series 1” by fans, restarting the count after the last 13 seasons from 2005 to 2022, was met with mixed reviews as it is only eight sub-par episodes. The 2024 Christmas special “Joy to the World” gained positive reviews from fans and increased the hope of a much better season two.

Series two starring Gatwa will begin airing on DisneyPlus and BBC iPlayer on April 12.

Doctor Who Charity Auction
From Feb. 11 to 20 a Doctor Who auction for charity was being run featuring beloved props from “Doctor Who” (2005) like the Eleventh Doctor’s (Matt Smith) iconic bow-tie, half of a “dalek” costume, and several full alien costumes including a full size Weeping Angel. All of the props came from the NuWho series of “Doctor Who” from 2005 to 2022.

The auction was raising money “to benefit BBC Children in Need” as stated on the auction website. BBC Children in Need is an annual event hosted by the BBC featuring artists, skits with famous actors and actresses, and extra content for popular shows to draw viewers in. “Doctor Who” has worked with the charity for decades. The pairing goes back as far as 1983 where, during the Classic Who era, the feature-length special “The Five Doctors”. Which was released in celebration of the show’s 20th anniversary and featured the first five iterations of The Doctor.

Previously, exclusive “Doctor Who” content was released for BBC Children in Need in 1998 and 2003, after 2005, the collaboration between the two became a regular affair. In 2005, BBC Children in Need featured a mini-episode of “Doctor Who” placed just after Eccleston’s regeneration into Tennant’s Doctor. This was the first content seen of Tennant in this role other than the minute or so at the end of Eccleston’s last episode. “Doctor Who” continues to produce content specifically for the annual event even as recently as 2024 which showed a preview for the unreleased Christmas special, “Joy to the World.”

The highest selling item was a screen-matched full Dalek costume that sold for £16,380, or just over $21,000. Coming in just under that was a full Mondasian Cyberman costume which sold for £15,120, or just over $19,500. Based on the final bid numbers alone, the auction earned £419,675, or just over $540,000.

Top-rated “Doctor Who” Episodes:
Season 3: Episode 10 - Blink.
Rated at a 9.8/10 on IMDb this episode is raved about as the best episode in all of “Doctor Who” history and it doesn’t even focus on the Doctor himself. This episode introduces one of the most iconic “Doctor Who” aliens, the Weeping Angels, who look like statues and can only move when no one is looking at them. The episode follows Sally Sparrow, a girl who loses her best friend to one of these angels and her fight against them. This episode is often used as a “jumping in” point for new viewers to see if they’d like the show or not.

Season 9: Episode 11 - Heaven Sent.
Rated at a 9.6/10 on IMDb this episode, starring the Twelfth Doctor, is the second in a three-part series of episodes following the Doctor’s trial on his home planet of Gallifrey. This episode really highlights the persistence of the Doctor which is a key characteristic for the Twelfth Doctor specifically.
To enjoy it as much as possible a first-time viewer should go into it almost completely blind.

Season 4: Episode 9 - Forest of the Dead.
Rated at a 9.4/10 on IMDb this episode is the second part of a two-part story focusing on an abandoned alien library which used to be the largest library in the universe. The Doctor and his companion Donna encounter aliens that hide within the library itself. This episode also introduces an extremely important character in future episodes, River Song.

Worst-rated “Doctor Who” Episodes:
Season 12: Episode 3 - Orphan 55.
Rated a 4.2/10 on IMDb this episode focuses on the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions accidentally get transported to a “relaxation spa” that is actually being attacked by aliens. The reason this episode is so low-rated is because there’s a theme near the end of the episode about the environmental destruction of the Earth that feels extremely tone-deaf and poorly written.

Season 11: Episode 4 - Arachnids in the UK.
Rated a 5.1/10 on IMDb this episode also stars the Thirteenth Doctor and is about giant spiders that are invading London. The reason this episode is so hated is the mischaracterization of the Doctor by the writer of the episode. This being one of the Thirteenth Doctor’s first episodes it was a bad omen that her fourth episode so poorly showed the Doctor’s character.

Season 11: Episode 5 - The Tsuranga Conundrum.
Rated at a 5.1/10 this episode comes right after season 11’s “Arachnids in the UK” and suffers from a different problem from the previous episode. This episode characterizes the Doctor well but the alien antagonist is uninteresting and annoying. This episode is maybe one of the most boring episodes of the entire series.