As the 10th Doctor (I think) was dying/regenerating he yelled out that he did NOT want to go/die! But when it's time to die we all die.
'Doctor Who' fans gather for 50th-anniversary telecast
ELIZABETH ROBERTSON / Staff Photographer
In Haddonfield, Kayleigh Middleton of Blairstown, N.J., and Brandon Clauser of West Deptford.
As the gold cardboard creature came into view, patrons in the British Chip Shop in Haddonfield on Saturday afternoon clapped and cheered. "Awesome," one said. They were particularly excited about the villain's authentic plunger and whisk-like ray gun.
Michele Hill, 14, had to take her handmade costume off to fit through the door to the event she and dozens of others were so excited about: a watch party for the 50th-anniversary episode of the British sci-fi TV seriesDoctor Who.
The series about a space- and time-traveling humanoid alien started in 1963 and has since amassed a dedicated worldwide fan base of Whovians. The anniversary episode was telecast simultaneously across the globe Saturday.
Part of the show's longevity is due to the ability of its main character, the Doctor, to regenerate as a different person each time he is near death. The current season is his 11th incarnation, and fans all have their favorites. The changes keep the show fresh, they said.
Two venues owned by the same family hosted viewing parties in the area Saturday. The Victoria Freehouse in Philadelphia drew close to 100 people, with some sitting on the floor, staff said. About 40 people watched in Haddonfield. "It just seemed like a no-brainer to take advantage of the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who," said Gary Coleman, 60, owner of the British Chip Shop.
Hill's costume was a Dalek, one of the show's most famous recurring villains. Several fans took pictures of her outfit, which she made for Halloween using online blueprints. Hill just started watching the series in August.
She watches with her mother, Carol, and father, Paul, at home in Somerdale. Paul grew up in England watching Doctor Who in black and white with his father. Its appeal to Americans, an audience typically enamored of wild special effects, is "peculiar to the British," he said. He lovingly called the show "amateurish," but also "cutting-edge in some ways."
A hush came over the restaurant as the episode started. Fans, some of whom brought copies of props from the show, screamed, laughed, clapped, and cried over the next hour.
A group of friends in their 20s, most in character, had been at the Chip Shop since before it opened at 11 a.m. The six met at an anime convention a few years ago and bonded over their love of the show. They have been on several Doctor Who panels at conventions in the area.
After the episode, when the clapping had died down, Ben LeClair, 27, of Saylorsburg, Pa., turned to the person next to him.
"You OK?" he asked Micaela Joyce, 26, of Voorhees, who had tears in her eyes. "You almost fell out of your chair several times."
mbond@philly.com
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'Dr. Who' celebrates 50 years in BBC blowout
Tom Baker, who starred as the Fourth Doctor from June 1974 to March 1981, probably was the most favorite of the original Doctors for American audiences when the show aired on various PBS affiliates around the country. (Photo Credit: © BBC)
Who is the Doctor, that singular TV character whose show, Doctor Who, has invited that question again and again for half a century?
He's a madman in a blue box. A powerful, time-traveling alien from the planet Gallifrey with superhuman intelligence, he's been to the furthest corners of the universe, from creation to the moment of annihilation.
He's old, more than 900 years, and instead of dying, he regenerates into a new and different version of himself, allowing a slew of actors to play him over the years. (The 11th iteration of the Doctor, played by Matt Smith, will bow out this Christmas, to be replaced next year by Peter Capaldi.)
But the Doctor also is an utter goofball who refers to epochal philosophical and scientific problems as "wibbly wobbly timey-wimey stuff" and who travels in a spaceship that's actually sentient - it's powered by an exquisitely loving spirit - but that looks like a blue wooden police phonebox from 1960s Britain. (Its auto-camouflage system is broken.)
Cited in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running sci-fi TV show in history, Doctor Who entered our galaxy on Britain's BBC on Nov. 23, 1963. It celebrates its 50th anniversary with a weeklong series of special programming on BBC America, culminating on Saturday with "Day of the Doctor," an explosive new episode that will be shown simultaneously in 80 countries. (It'll be shown on BBC America at 2:50 p.m. and repeat in prime time at 7 p.m.)
One of the most elusive and compelling characters in pop culture, the Doctor is a time traveler who eschews his own people, the all-powerful Time Lords, to help humans realize their potential for discovering truth and achieving peaceful coexistence.
"He's a superintelligent alien with two hearts who can live for centuries and who can travel anywhere, yet who returns again and again to be with people from the Earth," said "Day of the Doctor" producer Marcus Wilson in a phone chat.
He comes here, to us, to save us again and again - using not his muscles but his mind.
"He's a superhero who always believes that violence is a last and a futile resort," Wilson said. He won't punch or shoot people. He outthinks them, said Courtland Lewis, coeditor, with Paula Smithka, of Doctor Who and Philosophy: Bigger on the Inside, a collection released last winter of essays about the series.
"Who is the Doctor? What he's really about is right and wrong," said Lewis, who teaches philosophy and religion at Owensboro Community & Technical College in western Kentucky. "He is here to fight against what is wrong or unjust, and that is not always another alien or an evil creature. Sometimes it is our own ignorance and our own willingness to deceive ourselves."
Conceived by the BBC as an educational family program, the first season of Doctor Who starred William Hartnell as an avuncular Doctor who shepherded his human companions - the Doctor always recruits one or more - through various adventures that challenge and enrich their scientific and historical knowledge.
The show gained a cult following in the United States in the late 1970s and 1980s, when various PBS affiliates began airing a popular cycle of stories that starred Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor.
It began losing viewership, partly due to its low-tech special effects and talky format, and it was canceled in 1989. Producers tried and failed to resuscitate the show with a TV movie in 1996.
It returned in 2005 under the leadership of writer-producer Russell T. Davies, with a series of brilliant young actors - Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, and Smith - who played the Doctor as a more daring, dashing hero. Slicker, quicker, and with gorgeous special effects and impressive production values, the series has reignited interest with a new generation. It currently is shown in 200 territories worldwide.
"It's super-smooth and with really great visuals. And it's exciting watching Eccleston and Tennant. They make me feel like I'm 13 again," said lifelong fan and Doctor Who expert Adam Rogers, who writes for Wired magazine.
"But what sold it is the fact that they had developed a character who was recognizable to fans, but who also is modernized. . . . Oh, I'm just such a mushy fan of the franchise, I'm just glad it's on again."
TELEVISION
Doctor Who,"The Day of the Doctor"
Saturday at 2:50 p.m.
and 7 p.m. on BBC America.
The episode will be preceded all week by Doctor Who special TV and Web programming.
www.bbcamerica.com/
doctor-who/
tirdad@phillynews.com
215-854-2736
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