COLEGIUL NAIONAL MIHAI EMINESCU

BUCURETI, 2014










LUCRARE DE ATESTARE A
COMPETENELOR LINGVISTICE
LA LIMBA ENGLEZ

STUDENT: PROFESOR COORDONATOR:
MATEI ANAMARIA POPESCU ELENA LUCIA









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Table of contents


Introduction ................................................................................................................... 2
Chapter 1. General facts .......................................................................................... 3
Chapter 2. The Doctor and his origins ............................................................. 5
2.1 Time Lords ......................................................................................................... 5
2.2 Gallifrey ................................................................................................................. 6
2.3 The Doctor ............................................................................................................ 7
Chapter 3. Companions ........................................................................................... 8
3.1 The TARDIS .......................................................................................................... 9
Chapter 4.Enemies ................................................................................................... 10
Chapter 5.Spin-offs .................................................................................................. 12
Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 13
Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 14








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Introduction



The reason I have chosen this subject is my fascination regarding Doctor Who. It is my
favorite show; I watched both the classic series and the new series and read most of the
books. And I can also say it has influenced my life for the better and helped me get through
some tough times.
It contains everything you could ever want in a show: action, comedy, romance, mystery
and drama. The plot is so phenomenal and compelling and no other sci-fi can compare to it
and its not just my opinion, it is very hard for a show to continue for 50 years and just reach
its peak in popularity. The setting can be anywhere in space and time, with any type of plot or
outcome; you can hate an episode, or a particular actor's interpretation of the Doctor, but
there is always the possibility for something better because the show is always changing.
The show centres on a time traveller called "the Doctor", who comes from a human-like
race of beings known as Time Lords. He travels through time and space in a time machine he
calls the TARDIS. This ship - which looks like a small, London police box on the outside - has
nearly infinite dimensions on the inside.











3

1. General facts


(Picture 1: One of the Doctor Who logos with the shows initials shaped like a TARDIS)

Doctor Who is both a television show and a global multimedia franchise created and managed by
the BBC. Doctor Who is currently BBC Worldwides biggest selling TV show around the world.
When the series was first created by Head of Drama at the BBC, Sydney Newman, it was
developed to engage the entire family on Saturday nights after the football. The shows aim was to
inform and educate children about science and history, using time travel and historical figures like
Marco Polo.
In order to accommodate cast changes, the narrative allows the Doctor to regenerate into an
essentially new person on occasion. The cast is rounded out by one or more "companions", often
females. On average, the main cast completely changes once every three or four years a
significant factor in the longevity of the programme.
The regeneration effect, used for when one Doctor changes into the next one, was created at the
end of the first series by accident. A faulty mixing desk allowed the image of William Hartnell (the first
Doctor) to be overexposed almost to white so that Patrick Troughton (the second Doctor) could be put
in his place before the effect faded again.
It has had two some argue three major production periods. The original run of the
programme was from 1963 to 1989, and is often called the "classic series" or "classic Doctor Who".
A failed revival, in the form of a Universal-BBC co-production, came in 1996 but the resulting one-
off television movie is often considered a part of the classic series. The current form of the programme



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sometimes called the "new series" has been produced by BBC Wales and aired on BBC One
since 2005.
In 26 years, between 1963-1989, Doctor Who only won two awards, a Royal Television Society
award and a Writer's Guild of Great Britain award. However, the newly-revived series from 2005
onwards has received great recognition from critics and the public all over the world, winning over 120
awards, and being nominated for 230, including Baftas and NTAs.
One of the most impressive feats achieved by the show is being listed in the Guinness World
Records as the "longest running science fiction television show in the world" (with 798 episodes as of
the 18th May 2013), and as the "world's most successful science fiction series", based on
broadcast ratings, and sales.
Though the classic series is fondly remembered by fans of a certain age, the new series has been
far more consistently popular with the British public, and is usually the highest-rated scripted drama
outside of perennially popular soap operas in the weeks that it is on the air.
In the 1960s and 1970s the BBC would routinely destroy TV tapes rather than archiving them. The
transmission tapes of 253 Doctor Who episodes were destroyed, as it was thought they had no future
value. To this day, 97 of them are still missing; however copies are being found and recovered from
all over the world.


(Picture 2: Doctor Who current logo shown in the starting sequence)


Although Doctor Who originated as a television programme, it has become much more than that.
Over the decades, Doctor Who has appeared on stage, screen, and radio, and in a variety of novels,
comics, full-cast audio adventures, webcasts and video games.



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2. The Doctor and his origins

The Doctor is a Time Lord, who was born and raised on the planet Gallifrey. In the beginning of
the show he left his home planet to experience the secrets of the universe thus violating the non-
interference policy set by the Time Lords that states that they should only observe the events of the
Universe and never interfere. This led to a tense relationship between the Doctor and the rest of his
race. Eventually he stood trial for this crime. His punishment was a forced regeneration, exile to Earth
in the 20th century, and the loss of his knowledge of how to control the TARDIS.
In the new series of the show, the planet Gallifrey and its inhabitants were wiped out in a great
intergalactic war and the Doctor, devastated, spent most of his time on his second home planet,
Earth.
2.1 Gallifrey
Gallifrey was the home world of the Time Lords; it is believed to have been destroyed in the Last
Great Time War. The literal translation of Gallifrey was "They that walk in the shadows".
The planet was located in the
constellation of Kasterborous; several
accounts placed it more or less at the
centre of its galaxy.
It was several times larger than Earth or
any other planet in her native solar
system, proving that Gallifrey was huge
compared to other planets.
Gallifrey was in a binary star system. The second star seemed to rise in the south in the morning,
making the mountains glow. From the planet's surface, it boasted an orange sky, snow-capped
mountains, fields of red grass, and trees with silver leaves. These reflected the morning sunlight,
making it look like the forests were on fire. There were also green forests, golden fields and red
deserts, but overall it seems to have been a much drier world than Earth.
Major settlements: The Capitol (sometimes also called "Gallifrey" or "the Citadel") was Gallifrey's
largest city, the home of most of the Time Lords, Arcadia and Olyesti.

(Picture 3: Fan representation of The Capitol)




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2.2 The Time Lords

The Time Lords (sometimes called the Lords of Time or, rarely, Chronarchs) were the exclusive
rulers of the planet Gallifrey, and thus also Gallifreyan.
The Gallifreyans had one of the oldest and mightiest civilisations in the universe, the Time Lords,
held absolute power for ten million years until the Last Great Time War.
The Time Lords were led by the High Council. The Council consisted of the Lord or Lady
President, the Lord or Lady Chancellor, the Castellan and Lords Cardinal. The Lord President was the
most powerful member of the Council and had near absolute authority, and used a link to the Matrix, a
vast computer network containing the knowledge and experiences of all past generations of Time
Lords, to set Time Lord law and remain alert to potential threats from lesser civilisations.
A Gallifreyan ninety years old might still be considered a "kid, but after the age of two hundred
years they wouldn't be seen as young. It is said that Time Lords could live around ten thousand years
before regenerating. Time Lords had a limited regenerative cycle of twelve regenerations, similar to
the twelve hours on a clock, consisting of thirteen incarnations, after which they would suffer
permanent death.
Culture
Gallifreyan paintings were unique in that they were in 3D, as they acted as snapshots of a single
moment in time. This meant that they could be used as rudimentary time travel, by freezing a person
inside a painting and then letting them out at the required point in time.
One of the major institutions of the Time Lords was the Time Lord Academy. Children began
instruction at the Time Lord Academy, at the age of 8, in a special ceremony. The Gallifreyans would
be forced to look into the Untempered Schism, which showed the entirety of the Time Vortex and the
power that the Time Lords had.
Science and technology
The Time Lords were superlatively advanced in mathematics, biology, xenobiology, chemistry,
physics and technology. Their weapons and defence technology, however, lagged behind some other
races and species. The most characteristic technology used by the Time Lords was their time travel
technology of the TARDISes.
They had the capability to control and use the power of stars. The Tenth Doctor went so far as to
claim that the Time Lords "invented" black holes.



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2.3. The Doctor

The Doctor, a renegade Time Lord, has become the universe's "greatest defender", having saved
the cosmos thousands of times throughout his long life, becoming a great legend across the whole
universe.
Although Time Lords look human, they are aliens, and they have quite a few physical differences:
the Doctor has two hearts, a "respiratory bypass system" that allows him to go without air for much
longer than a human, an internal body temperature of 15-16C, and the ability to absorb, withstand,
and expel large amounts of certain types of radiation.
Doctor Who? As the very title of the show suggest the Doctors name is a mystery throughout the
show as he goes by various aliases. The most important of them is of course, The Doctor. The
Eleventh Doctor told his companion that his real name was not so important, since he specifically
chose in its place the title of "Doctor", "like a promise you make.
The Doctor's true name remained unknown to all but a very few individuals, such as Samantha
Jones, River, possibly Clara Oswald and The Master and maybe the other time lords.
Through the power of regeneration, the Doctor's personality and outer form changed greatly over
time, although all his incarnations were essentially the same person. The Doctor was known to have
regenerated on at least twelve occasions. Each of the Doctors regeneration was played by a different
actor: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Sylvester
McCoy, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant and Matt Smith.

(Picture 4: Special 50th anniversary poster featuring all the Doctors)



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3. Companions

Companions were the Doctor's closest friends. Such people knew the Doctor's "secret": that he
was a non-human who travelled in time and space. They often directly saved his life or provided him
with a perspective that prevented him from abusing his Time Lord powers.
Generally the Doctor travelled with humans, mainly from the 20th and 21st centuries. His fondness
for humans was one of the reasons he was exiled to Earth by the Time Lords. Amongst his human
companions, he tended to prefer young women. Notable examples of female companions are: Sarah
Jane, Rose Tyler, Amy Pond, Martha Jones and Donna Noble.
Because female humans were, statistically, the most common sort of companion, male human
companions were exceptional. Some of the most important are: Ian Chesterton (one of the first
companions), Jamie McCrimmon and Rory.
Despite a statistical preference for humans, the Doctor had non-human companions or at the very
least, companions who were not from Earth or descended from its people, like Leela. On at least two
occasions he travelled with members of his own species: his granddaughter and Romana. Artificial
life-forms sometimes travelled with the Doctor, as well. Clearly, K9 was the Doctor's most-beloved
robotic companion, given the number of models the Doctor built.

(Picture 5: The four New Who female companions)



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3.1 The TARDIS

The Doctor's TARDIS sometimes called
the Ship by the First Doctor, then the Box,
and most often known simply as the TARDIS
was the Doctor's primary means of
transport. It was capable of travelling through
space and time; it is also bigger on the inside
than on the outside. The acronym stands for
Time and Relative Dimension in Space. The
Doctor voyaged in his vessel from the Big
Bang to the end of the universe in the year
100 trillion.
Despite being a machine, the TARDIS was
sentient and developed a personality and the
Doctor considers "her" to be one of his most
trusted companions.
(Picture 6: The TARDIS)
The craft was prone to a number of technical faults, ranging from depleted resources or
malfunctioning controls to a simple inability to arrive at the proper time or location. However, because
the TARDIS was a living being, these "faults" may instead have been at least partially attributed to the
manifestation of the Ship's free will.
Why is it shaped like a police box? The Doctor's TARDIS has a broken "Chameleon circuit"
which is supposed to enable it to disguise itself to blend into any environment. For example in ancient
Rome, it might look like a Roman pillar or statue from the outside. However in the first ever episode
An Unearthly Child, we discover that the circuit is broken and the TARDIS is stuck in the shape of a
police box.
The TARDIS has become such an iconic shape in British culture that it is currently the intellectual
property of the BBC rather than its actual makers, the Metropolitan Police Service. It has become so
popular that a celestial object was named after it, Asteroid 3325, a main belt asteroid discovered in
1984. The word TARDIS has also made the Oxford English Dictionary with the meanings: 1. Time
machine. 2. A building or container that is larger inside than it appears to be from outside.




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4. Enemies

The Doctor regularly faces all kinds of aliens and enemies, whom he prefers to outwit rather than
use violence against. Throughout its run, the show has always been notable for producing some of
the most inventive and frightening monsters and villains ever shown on the small screen.
The Doctor and his companions have fought and encountered around 400 unique
monsters/aliens/villains throughout the series, including The Daleks, The Cybermen, Weeping Angels
and Ood.
1. The Daleks
First appearing in 1963 with the catchphrase "EXTERMINATE", the
Daleks are considered one of the Doctor's most fearsome foes. They
were even voted as the "greatest monsters in the galaxy" in 2010 by
readers of the Science Fiction magazine SFX.
Daleks were the armoured, mutated descendants of the Kaleds of
the planet Skaro. They fought the Time Lords in the Last Great Time
War, ending in the near-total destruction of both races. Intensely
xenophobic and bent on universal domination, the Daleks were hated
and feared throughout time and space.
The Daleks creator, Terry Nation, originally based the Daleks on the Nazis, citing them as the
unhearing, unthinking, blanked-out face of authority that will destroy you because it wants to destroy
you.
2. The Master
Originally called Koschei and known by many other temporary aliases was a renegade
Time Lord and the Doctor's arch-nemesis.
The Master was the polar opposite of the Doctor in almost every respect. Though he retained a
brilliant Time Lord mind and all of the Doctor's wit and cunning, he possessed two fatal character
flaws - he was arrogant and exceptionally vain, which invariably led to his downfall. However, it was
also revealed that the Master hadn't always been like this: he and the Doctor were once good friends
as children on Gallifrey, but the Doctor thinks that staring into the Time Vortex as an eight-year old
child drove him insane and caused his personality to change.
(Picture 7: A Dalek)



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3. The Cybermen
Cybermen were a "race" of cybernetically augmented humanoids. They varied greatly in design,
with different factions throughout time and space. The two major groups, from which all other known
versions derived, were the Mondasian Cybermen, which originated on the planet Mondas Earth's
twin planet and the Cybermen created by Cybus Industries, which originated on Earth.
Despite the different origins, there were similarities between both groups of Cybermen. For the
most part, they lacked individuality or names. Cybermen had no emotions and viewed them as a
weakness. They frequently attempted to physically and mentally re-engineer humans and other
humanoids into Cybermen, via a process called "cyber-conversion" or "upgrading".

4. The Weeping Angels
The Weeping Angels were a species of quantum-locked humanoids, so called because their
unique nature necessitated that they often covered their faces with their hands to prevent trapping
each other in petrified form for eternity by looking at one another. They were known for being
murderous psychopaths; eradicating their victims "mercifully" by dropping them into the past and
letting them live out their full lives, just in a different time period. This, in turn, allowed them to live off
the remaining time energy of the victim's life.

5. The Silents
The Silents are a terrifying race who invaded Earth at an undetermined point in our history.
They have powers of telepathy and can kill using a deadly discharge from their hands. But every
Silent has a far scarier ability: if you see one of them you won't know you've spotted it as Silents
somehow edits themselves from an observer's memory. Glimpse one of these creatures and you may
feel slightly unsettled the moment it's out of view, but you won't remember anything about it. If and
when you next see a Silent you may have a flashback to your first encounter, but again, when the
Silent is out of view your mind will not recall ever seeing the alien.





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5. Spin-offs

Doctor Who spin-offs can be separated into two distinct categories: officially licensed BBC
productions and other productions (not licensed by the BBC). For the former there are only three
examples: K9 and Company, Torchwood, and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
1. K9 and company was a proposed television series in the early 1980s. It was intended as a
spinoff of Doctor Who. Ultimately only a single pilot episode was produced. It aired on BBC1 as a
holiday special in 1981. The Doctor Who franchise would not attempt another TV spinoff until
Torchwood in 2006.
2. Torchwood is set in contemporary Cardiff and follows the Welsh branch of a semi-covert
agency called the Torchwood Institute, which investigates extraterrestrial incidents on Earth and
scavenges alien technology for its own use. As established in the Doctor Who episodes Tooth and
Claw and Army of Ghosts, the Institute had been formed by Queen Victoria following an incident
involving the Tenth Doctor, ostensibly to protect the British Empire from aliens and other creatures
as well as from the Doctor himself.
Torchwood is aimed at an older audience. Over its run, the show explored a number of themes,
prominent among these were existentialism, gay and bisexual relationships and explorations of
human corruptibility.
3. The Sarah Jane Adventures is a British science fiction television programme, produced by
BBC Cymru Wales for CBBC, created by Russell T Davies and starring Elisabeth Sladen. The show
focuses on the adventures of Sarah Jane Smith, a middle-aged investigative journalist who, in her
youth, had numerous adventures across time and space. She was assisted by teenagers from her
neighbourhood who unknowingly involve themselves in her life, such as Maria Jackson, Clyde
Langer, and Rani Chandra. Also, through her adventures, Sarah Jane entered motherhood by
adopting former alien-created tools, such as her son Luke Smith and daughter Sky Smith. She was
assisted in knowledge of alien life and technology by her super-computer, Mr Smith and robot dog K9
Mark IV.
The show ended when Elisabeth Sladen died because no parties to the production of the series
wished to continue without her.



13

Conclusion

















14

Bibliography

Clayton Hickman, The Brilliant Book Of Doctor Who 2012, 2012.
Clayton Hickman, The Brilliant Book Of Doctor Who 2011, 2011.
Doctor Who Magazines 471, 470, 2014
http://tardis.wikia.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who
http://www.bbc.co.uk