You can keep your Don Drapers and your Walter Whites — for some of us (more than 77 million worldwide) there’s one character who stands head and shoulders above all others as TV’s most indelible icon.
And yet, on his show’s 50th anniversary, we still don’t know the guy’s name.
“In a world where very little is a surprise, and everything is viewed with cynicism, ‘Doctor Who’ is a genuine rarity,” British columnist Caitlin Moran has said of the UK’s long-running science fiction show. “It is, despite being about a 900-year-old man with two hearts and a space-time taxi made of wood, still one of our very best projections of how to be human.”
That man, know only as “the Doctor,” is an alien from the planet Gallifrey, who travels through time and space in his time machine, which resembles a vintage blue British police box that’s — in one of the show’s running jokes — notably “bigger on the inside.” He generally travels with a human or two in tow, and most of his adventures see him solving intergalactic conflicts armed only with his wits and his one tool, a sonic screwdriver.
As another fan, late-night host Craig Ferguson, summarized it — or, to be exact, sang it — “One thing is consistent, and this is why the show is so beloved by geeks and nerds: It’s all about the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism.”
Ferguson and Moran are among the masses who’ll be breathlessly awaiting Saturday, when the beloved BBC program will broadcast an epic celebration of the show’s half-century anniversary. The special episode, titled “The Day of the Doctor,” airs exactly 50 years to the day when the first-ever “Doctor Who” premiered in 1963. It will be simulcast in more than 75 countries; its East Coast airtime, according to BBC America’s Web site, is 2:50 p.m, with a rebroadcast at 7.
Information about “The Day of the Doctor” has been scant, but a trailer has been posted on the Web, as well as some photos.
The plot, which seems to concern London’s National Gallery, is said to take place in both 2013 and 1562, with an appearance by Queen Elizabeth I. It will, atypically, include at least three versions of the Doctor, whose alien biology sees him “regenerating” into different actors periodically. In addition to Matt Smith as the present, 11th incarnation of the Doctor, fan favorite David Tennant will reprise his role as the 10th, and veteran actor John Hurt will appear as a newly arrived incarnation of the character as well.
The 50th anniversary episode will also mark the first time “Doctor Who” — which, in its early days, was famous for dime-store-quality special effects — has been shot and shown in 3-D, and linked to a special screening which will allow fans to watch the episode in theaters the following Monday.
Current showrunner Steven Moffat told the BBC he aimed to commemorate the show’s vast history without having the episode seem, well, dusty and historical. “That can seem like a headstone,” he said, “like a retrospective. That’s the worst. I wanted it to be the first step on the new journey; the 50th anniversary show that guarantees the hundredth.”
To that end, he turned the episode’s focus someplace it doesn’t generally go: onto the Doctor himself. “We very rarely do that,” he said. “It’s usually about the people he meets, or the companions who travel with him.
“So now and then you go for a story that absolutely defines him, and redefines him,” Moffat said. “I thought, what if this was the most important thing that ever happened to the Doctor?”
The question of what that might be is driving fans crazy. A prevailing theory posits Hurt as the version of the Doctor who’s responsible for the darkest event in his past: The long-ago genocide of his people, the Time Lords, as well as their nemeses, the Daleks (kind of like a Nazi crossed with a wastebasket), in a planetary war.
The Post went to an inside source to get details: Arthur Darvill, who starred on the show from 2010 to 2012 as Rory, a traveling companion to Smith’s Doctor. “I’m quite excited for it!” he says of the upcoming show.
But Darvill, who’s now starring in “Once” on Broadway, swears to The Post that not only doesn’t he have a surprise cameo in the episode, which is expected to be cluttered with them, but he is unaware of any show details. “No one’s told me anything,” he says. “Which is really good of them!”
He describes his country’s reverence for the Doctor as putting him “up there with James Bond.” The dashing time traveler is actually “a good ambassador for Britishness,” Darvill says. “He embodies a lot of our best qualities. He can be very silly, very dramatic, bumbling and clumsy. But he has a good heart.”
For his part, Moffat is hoping to not only satisfy the longtime fans but possibly even snag fresh ones. “I want this to be a show that new viewers would see and say, ‘You know, it’s time I started watching ‘Doctor Who.’ That’s what I’d like.”
“Doctor Who” for dummies
New to “Doctor Who”? Here’s what you need to know to jump into “The Day of the Doctor” cold.
- His name’s not Doctor Who. It’s just “the Doctor.” Almost no one knows what his name is, why it’s such a secret or what will happen if it’s revealed (though, the show suggests, bad things might).
- He travels in a time machine called a TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space). It looks like an old phone booth from London. It can go anywhere in time and space.
- He comes from a planet called Gallifrey, inhabited by a now-extinct race of aliens called the Time Lords, killed in a war with the Daleks. It is suggested that the Doctor, the only one to have survived, is responsible for all of their deaths.
- He has several nemeses: the Daleks, the Cybermen and a renegade Time Lord from his home planet known only as the Master.
- The Doctor regenerates from time to time. There have been eleven Doctors since the show began in 1963.
- He likes to have traveling companions with him in the TARDIS. They are usually beautiful young women (though the relationship is not sexualized). His current companion is Clara (Jenna Coleman).