Exploring the Universe with the Ninth and Tenth Doctors (Paid Content by BBC)

The TARDIS returns!

We’re celebrating the return of Doctor Who (Sundays on BBC AMERICA) with a rundown of what makes Doctor Who the world’s longest-running sci-fi series and a unique, ever-evolving franchise with generations of fans. Whether you’re a passionate fan or a total beginner, BBC’s new DVD collections, featuring some of the most popular Doctors, will inspire you to join this epic adventure through time and space.

Doctor Who first hit television screens in 1963,  captivating audiences with its sci-fi story of a powerful “Time Lord”—that’s the Doctor, to us humans—who travels space and time, fighting the forces of evil. The original series ran for a whopping 27 seasons, ending in 1989. In 2005, the modern series picked up where the original had left off, exciting long-term fans and a new generation alike. This month, Jodie Whittaker appeared as the Thirteenth Doctor in the show’s newest season. Passionate, hopeful, and full of energy, the Thirteenth Doctor has just started exploring galaxies and sorting out fair play throughout the universe.

Long-standing fans of the series know that looking back at past incarnations of the Doctor can sometimes feel like watching a different show entirely. Fortunately, all the Doctor’s adventures have common threads. Let’s look at a few of them now, courtesy of the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Tenth Doctor (David Tennant).

Regeneration

The Doctor, despite looking extremely human, is an alien with two hearts — specifically, a Time Lord from the far-off planet Gallifrey. Time Lords get a lot of perks, but high on the list is “regeneration” – the ability to transform into a completely new physical form.

While some Time Lords may have personal preferences or consistent physical elements, like tattoos that they carry across their different bodies, there’s no actual limit to what a Time Lord can look like when they regenerate. 

With a change of body, though, comes a change in personality. Take, for example, the transformation from the Ninth Doctor to the Tenth Doctor. Prior to regenerating, the Doctor was sometimes gruff, melancholy, and darkly sarcastic. One regeneration later, he’s more youthful and energetic. But even with changes in personality and appearance, the Doctor is always the Doctor: same history, same memories, same values.

Regenerations can be emotional. Getting to know and love a certain Doctor means eventually having to say goodbye to them, but it also means the introduction of a new, mesmerizing Doctor to champion. This moment from The Parting of the Ways shows the first-ever regeneration in the show’s modern run, and it’s still as emotional as ever.

The TARDIS

A TARDIS, which stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space, is the preferred method of travel for Time Lords. The Doctor’s time and space ship has all sorts of amazing abilities. It — or sometimes “she” — is bigger on the inside, meaning the Doctor can tool around in an enormous spacecraft and still park it anywhere. The TARDIS is sentient, and has an emotional link with the Doctor, which guides a lot of their travels, and  it often has very strong opinions about destinations and traveling companions.

The TARIDS has a built-in “chameleon circuit,” which allows the ship to take on an outer form that blends into its surroundings so a Time Lord may travel through space and time without drawing attention. However, the chameleon circuit on the Doctor’s TARDIS broke, leaving the ship stuck looking like a 1960s police box. Decades ago this wasn’t much of an issue, as the small emergency police phone booths were fairly common around England, but nowadays, and on alien worlds, the iconic form of the TARDIS stands out prominently.

The TARDIS also has a very special sound. A bit like an old car, a bit like a dryer, but actually made by running house keys over piano wire, the take-off and landing noise of the TARDIS has become one of the show’s most comforting, hopeful sounds. It means home, it means safety, and it means a hero has arrived.

That first moment encountering the TARDIS can be a shocking one, though. Take Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), companion to the Tenth Doctor, who needed convincing that the TARDIS was just as amazing as the Doctor claimed. In this clip from the episode “Smith and Jones,” the Doctor obliges, showing her firsthand its time-travel abilities.

The Sonic Screwdriver

The Doctor’s trusty all-purpose tool was first introduced in 1968, and has taken almost as many forms as the Doctor over the decades. Sonic devices are fairly standard for Time Lords: throughout Doctor Who and its spinoffs, we’ve also seen sonic pens, sonic lipstick, and sonic sunglasses.

So what does the sonic screwdriver do? In the world of the show, it emits resonant frequencies to affect matter around it. In more recent years, it’s also gained the ability to collect, analyze, and transmit data. The only thing it can’t do, despite the Doctor’s best efforts, is work on wood.

How each Doctor treats their sonic is as varied as their personalities. The Thirteenth Doctor takes pride in her creation, which is made of hardy Sheffield steel. At other times, the Doctor has treated the sonic as a delicate scientific instrument or waved it around like a magic wand.

The Ninth Doctor got some pushback from fellow time traveler Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) in this clip from “The Empty Child,” though. The 51st-century adventurer wasn’t particularly impressed with the Doctor’s lo-fi alien tech.    

Monsters

You can’t be an alien hero without alien enemies. When Doctor Who first premiered in the 1960s, there was a “no bug-eyed monsters” policy. Fortunately for lovers of sci-fi and fantasy, the show now offers viewers a wide array of otherworldly beasties, humanoid and otherwise. The Doctor Who Rogues Gallery is enormous, featuring a variety of alien races. There are Cybermen, humans from the Earth-like planet Mondas who were converted into emotionless machines. There are Sontarans, cloned soldiers who look a bit like potatoes. And then there are the Daleks: mutants encased in their own personal tanks, whose only goal is to “exterminate” their enemies and become the universe’s supreme race.

The Ninth Doctor episode “Dalek” famously and fantastically revisited Doctor Who’s very first alien enemy, placing the Doctor opposite a single representative of the species. A deadly and largely merciless foe, it only takes one look at a Dalek in action for a new viewer to know what they’re capable of.

Finding The Look

It’s time to come back around to regeneration, but this time on the other side of it: accessorizing.

The Doctor’s choice of attire post-regeneration is always a big deal. The outfit, will be their “uniform” throughout most of their run, and will reflect that particular Doctor’s personality. The Thirteenth Doctor’s colorful ensemble fits her fun-loving, hopeful personality, where the Ninth Doctor’s leather jacket echoes his gruff exterior.

When a new Doctor makes his—or, finally, her!–first appearance on the show, the audience knows to watch for a big reveal: a new outfit, of course. The reveal of the new Doctor’s clothing marks the moment when he or she has figured out how to represent themselves to the world—and, of course, the show’s audience. No matter how cool, funny, brave, or adventurous the Doctor has been up to that point, this often feels like the moment where each incarnation truly arrives.

For the first regeneration of the modern series, the Tenth Doctor even got a new theme, played while choosing his outfit. This clip from “The Christmas Invasion” features the Doctor sorting through the TARDIS’s many available clothes and finally landing on his iconic suit and sneakers, all to the tune of a track appropriately called “Song for Ten.”

Whether facing down the universe’s last Dalek or a Stenza hunter, the Doctor is always the Doctor. And if you love Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor and David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor can reveal more of the world of Doctor Who.

Next up we’ll explore iconic moments from Matt Smith’s run as the Eleventh Doctor!

To own the Doctor Who DVD Collections click here and enter code 5OFFWHO10 for $5 off The Christopher Eccleston & David Tennant Collection on Amazon.

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