Doctor Who: A journey through time and space

by Grace Ribeiro

I myself am a massive Doctor Who fan and even when some of the storylines are slightly questionable, the majority of the episodes are amazing. The show started all the way back in 1963 with William Hartnell executing the role of the First Doctor before regenerating 7 more times into the famous faces of: Patrick Troughton (1966), Jon Pertwee (1970), Tom Baker (1974), Peter Davidson (1981), Colin Baker (1984), Sylvester McCoy (1987, 1996), and Paul McGann (1996, 2013) until the show was cancelled in December 1989. The show was later revived in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston taking his place as the Ninth Doctor. The revival was later nicknamed “New Who” to separate it from the 1963 version as it had a whole new audience to entice.

Each of the acclaimed actors brings a different character to life when they take over the role of the Doctor. This is then mixed with their relationship with their companion(s) that travel with them in the Tardis, a blue police box with a broken chameleon circuit. New Who brought: Christopher Eccleston (2005), David Tennant (2005), Matt Smith (2013), Peter Capaldi (2013), and Jodie Whittaker (2017) to take over the role as the show moves into series 13 of the revival.

Moving on to New Who companions, David Tennant had the most, the top 3 out of the 8 acclaimed companions of his are: Rose Tyler (who was also with Eccleston), Donna Noble, and Martha Jones. Tyler was strong and had a unique relationship with the Doctor, Noble was sassy, confident and used her time with the Doctor to understand her own self worth, and Jones was exceptional, as well as being the only person (as of then) who left the Tardis on her own. One of my favourite companions will forever be Amelia Pond as we are first introduced to her as a child in Matt Smith’s first episode. Her character is brave, loyal and fit well with Smith’s version of the Doctor as a whole.

River Song, played by Alex Kingston, had the most complicated timeline throughout New Who. The flirty, fun, and highly intelligent character as an excessive amount of chemistry with Smith’s Eleventh Doctor. It is later revealed that Song is actually the daughter of Amy and Rory and has means of time traveling just like the Doctor.

One of my all time favourite episodes would be the 50th Anniversary Special “The Day Of The Doctor” which includes both Tennant and Smith’s incarnations of the Doctor as well as John Hurt taking his role as the War Doctor. The episode combined well known faces with the Who such as Billie Piper, who originally played Rose Tyler, becoming a character known as the Moment. A close second to this episode would be one from season 3 named “Blink” where we are first introduced to the Weeping Angels and the one-off character Sally Sparrow played by Carey Mulligan. Although we don’t see much of the Tenth Doctor or his companion of the time Martha Jones, the episode is still in itself - iconic.

Doctor Who will forever be one of my favorite television shows that I can rewatch time and time again!