Doctor Who is a well-loved British science-fiction TV show, and is based around a character, simply named as ‘The Doctor’. The series has been running since 1963, when it first aired with William Hartnell portraying the 1st Doctor.
The show was an immediate hit with the British public and ran for 3 seasons until 1966. Due to health reason William Hartnell had to quit the show, and many thought this was going to be the end of the show, but the writers thought up a plan about the character ‘regenerating’ into a new version of the Doctor, bringing Patrick Troughton in to play the character, who brought a new perspective of the Doctor while retaining the main principles of the character.
The original run of the show ended in 1989, but later returned for a TV movie in 1996. Then nearly 10 years later, writer Russell T Davies decided to bring the show back to BBC One in 2005, with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor and Billie Piper as his companion, Rose Tyler.
The character has been played by a total of 14 actors:
William Hartnell as the 1st Doctor
Patrick Troughton as the 2nd Doctor
Jon Pertwee as the 3rd Doctor
Tom Baker as the 4th Doctor
Peter Davison as the 5th Doctor
Colin Baker as the 6th Doctor
Sylvester McCoy as the 7th Doctor
Paul McGann as the 8th Doctor
John Hurt as the ‘War Doctor’ or Doctor 8.5
Christopher Eccleston as the 9th Doctor
David Tennant as the 10th Doctor
Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor
Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor
and currently Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor
The eleventh season of the rebooted show, starring the first female doctor, Jodie Whittaker premiered on the 7th October 2018 and runs for 10 episodes every Sunday.