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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

Int roduct ion...................................................................................................................2

Chapter 1. General facts..........................................................................................3

Chapter 2. The Doctor and his origin s.............................................................5

2.1 Time Lords .........................................................................................................5

2.2 Gallifrey .................................................................................................................6

2.3 The Doctor ............................................................................................................7

Chapter 3. Companion s...........................................................................................8

3.1 The TARDIS ..........................................................................................................9

Chapter 4.Enem ies...................................................................................................10

Chapter 5.Spin -offs..................................................................................................12

Conclusion...................................................................................................................13

Bibl iography................................................................................................................14


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Introduction

The reason I have chosen this subject is m y fascinat ion regarding Doctor Who . It is my

favor i te show; I watched both the classic ser ies and th e new ser ies and read m ost of the

books . And I can also say i t has inf luenced m y l i fe for the bet ter and h elped m e get through

some tough t im es.

I t contains everyth ing you could ever want in a sho w: act ion, comedy, romance, mystery

and drama. The plot is so phenomenal and com pel l ing and no o ther sci- fi can com pare to i t

and its not just my opinion, it is very hard for a show to continue for 50 years and just reach

i ts peak in pop ular i ty . The set t ing c an be anywhere in space and t ime, with any typ e of plot or

outcom e; you can hate an episode, or a part icular actor 's interpretat ion of the Docto r , but

there is always the possib i l i ty for something b et ter because the show is always changing.

The show centres on a t ime travel ler cal led "the Doctor" , who com es from a hum an- l ike

race of beings know n as Time Lords. He travels through t ime and space in a t ime machine he

cal ls the TARDIS. This sh ip - which looks l ike a sm al l , Londo n pol ice bo x on the outside - has

nearly inf in i te dimensions on the inside.


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1. General facts

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

Doctor Whois 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 DoctorWho".

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

Recordsas 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; severalaccounts 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 Lordswere 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

Companionswere 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 TARDISsometimes called

the Shipby 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 apolice 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.

Dalekswere 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 Koscheiand 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

Cybermenwere 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 MondasEarth's

twin planetand 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 Angelswere 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-offscan 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 DoctorWho. Ultimately only a single pilot episode was produced. It aired on BBC1 as a

holiday special in 1981. The DoctorWho franchise would not attempt another TV spinoff until

Torchwood in 2006.

2. Torchwoodis 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

ClawandArmy 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.

Torchwoodis 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.


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Conclusion


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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

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