‘Doctor Who’ marks 50 years of time travel adventures

TORONTO – Fans of the time-travel series “Doctor Who” know the long-running British adventure saga is all about regeneration.

The quirky sci-fi smash centres on an ancient alien hero who has been revived from near-death no less than 10 times, assuming a new body, with a new personality each time.

And so it’s perhaps fitting that the offbeat show has survived its own multiple near-deaths to celebrate its 50th anniversary this weekend, with a blitz of special broadcasts on Space to mark the milestone.

“I’m sure when they started out at ‘Doctor Who’ they thought maybe it would last for a couple of seasons,” says former star Peter Davison, who played the Fifth Doctor in the early ’80s.

“But it went on and on and on, of course helped by the fact they came up with the brilliant idea of regeneration so you could get different actors to play the part…. When we got to 20 (years), I wasn’t even thinking in terms of 50 so it was extraordinary, really, that we’ve got here.”

Over the past half-century, “Doctor Who” evolved from a curious genre experiment into a global phenomenon, introducing along the way such otherworldly technologies as the Doctor’s all-servicing Sonic Screwdriver, a talking robot dog named K-9 and of course the flying TARDIS spaceship, bearing an awkward name that stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space.

Then there are the slew of bizarre TV villains who ingrained themselves as deeply as the Doctor himself, including the war-mongering Daleks and their unison cries to “Exterminate!”, the emotionless Cybermen, and a rival Time Lord known simply as The Master.

Davison says the show was fairly radical for the early ’60s, but landed at the BBC at just the right time.

“You used to get the occasional science fiction program that would go out … but they were very sort of earth-based. I mean the technology for doing anything other than that was pretty primitive,” Davison said in an interview from outside London before attending the “Doctor Who”-themed Reversed Polarity convention in Toronto earlier this month.

“And really it was sort of perfect timing. It was that point in time when people’s imaginations were sort of leaping into the possibilities and then a science-fiction program, especially about a time traveller, was just a brilliant concept.”

Although regarded as quintessentially British — thanks in no small part to the Doctor’s distinctive blue spaceship, shaped like a London police phone booth — the show actually began with a Canadian.

Toronto-born Sydney Newman was head of the drama group at BBC-TV when he was tasked with coming up with a family-friendly series for Saturday nights.

“He was a great lover of science fiction, it was really him who said, ‘I want to have a science fiction program on the telly,'” says Davison.

The first episode aired Nov. 23, 1963 with its First Doctor: a doting yet crusty hero played by 55-year-old William Hartnell, who figured in mostly historical stories.

But in just a few years it became apparent Hartnell’s poor health made it impossible to continue in the role. The show had to figure out how to keep the adventures going and that sparked one of the show’s most novel concepts: If the Doctor is an alien, why can’t he just transform himself into an entirely new humanoid when necessary?

The twist allowed for what would become a steady rotation of new and diverse Doctors, starting with a younger, more mischievous hero who took over in 1966, in the form of Patrick Troughton. The new lead also allowed for a new emphasis on monster stories, notes Peter Haining in his 1990 overview, “Doctor Who: 25 Glorious Years.”

Over the years, the show would go on to suffer plenty of ups and downs, including an extended hiatus in the mid-’80s as ratings sunk, says Haining.

“Doctor Who” returned, but only to get yanked off the dial a few years later in 1989.

“I didn’t think it would ever come back again. I was absolutely amazed,” longtime “Doctor Who” director Graeme Harper says of that time.

Harper, who started at the BBC in 1966 as a runner and worked his way up the ranks to directing, says a series of budget cuts took their toll through the ’70s and ’80s.

“When the (BBC has) a huge success, they keep it going with money thrown at it, maybe for three or four series, and then they take 10 per cent off and five per cent off and five per cent, so each year it gets made for less and less and less,” says Harper, who worked as an assistant director and director with Doctors including Troughton, Davison and Jon Pertwee (the Third Doctor), Tom Baker (the Fourth Doctor) and Colin Baker (the Sixth Doctor).

“And in the end, I think ‘Doctor Who’ was made for so little money. I mean the actors got paid, the staff got paid, but the money thrown at effects and the way it was shot, et cetera, and the fact it was multi-camera at a time when we had ‘Star Wars’ coming, I mean, how can it compete with ‘Star Wars’? Well, it did, but it became kind of parochial, it was a little British antiquated science fiction series, I think that’s how it was viewed.”

After its demise there were multiple attempts to revive the show, including one in 1993 when Harper says he was asked to make a 30th anniversary film for a DVD release. But that plan eventually fell apart.

Harper was pleased to see the Doctor return for a 1996 North American made-for-TV movie, starring Paul McGann, which some had hoped would spawn a new series.

“But I think we knew that it really wasn’t going to happen,” says the 68-year-old. “Once that kind of didn’t go as a series again that was the end and I thought that was the last we would see of it. And guess what? Here we are.”

The show was rebooted in 2005 with a radically revamped look and format, to acclaim from critics and fans.

The slick modern productions now stand in stark contrast to those early episodes, which have taken on a campy quality, Davison admits.

“When I watch the new series, obviously, I’m deeply envious of the special effects,” he says.

“We, in fact, had no computers at all. When I made ‘Doctor Who’ we could do green screen stuff, what they call CSO — colour surface overlay — where you’d act against a green screen and they could very roughly put a monster against a green screen even though the edges were a bit dodgy. But you couldn’t even put print onscreen so you’d have to put it on a piece of card and then film it.”

But even at the time, each episode of “Doctor Who” had a pioneer spirit about it, says the 62-year-old Davison, whose Doctor was the youngest at the time and known for wearing cricket-inspired garb.

“Sometimes, probably, we tried to push ourselves a little further than we should have done,” he admits. “We would try things that we didn’t really quite have the technology to do. And it always seems slightly rougher around the edges when you do that but they were great times.”

Harper says it remains a great show for a broad audience.

“I’m absolutely thrilled that it’s come back, not just for fans but for whole families,” he says.

Davison says he’s a big fan of what newcomers David Tennant (the Tenth Doctor) and Matt Smith (the Eleventh Doctor) have done, noting that the revival has managed to harken back to those original episodes in clever ways.

“When I was offered the part my first thought was that I was too young to play it and of course now looking back from this vantage point with Matt and David I fit far more into the scheme of things than I felt I did at the time,” he notes.

“I know that (then-producer) John Nathan-Turner wanted to bring some youth to the part, he wanted to bring a little more kind of action to it and I suppose I could run down corridors quicker than my predecessors.”

The 55-year-old Peter Capaldi has been announced as the incoming Twelfth Doctor, and Davison says he heartily approves. But he urged for a casual outfit for this next incarnation, admitting he generally prefers an off-kilter vibe.

“I like the thrown-together look of the Doctor. A slight sort of disjointed feel, that Matt had actually, definitely.”

But keeping it relevant and exciting for audiences requires just the right touch, adds Harper.

“The secret about ‘Doctor Who’ is never to talk down to any young person,” he says. “Make it for an adult audience and every member of the family will get what they want out of it.”

“Doctor Who” pretty much takes over the entire Space lineup this weekend with the origins tale, “An Adventure in Space & Time,” debuting Friday. Brian Cox plays Newman, the Canuck science fiction fan who spawned the saga.

The long-awaited “Doctor Who” 50th anniversary special, “The Day of the Doctor,” airs commercial-free Saturday, and is book-ended by the pre-show “InnerSpace: Before the Day of the Doctor” and the after-show, “After the Day of the Doctor: InnerSpace Live.”

Later on Saturday, Space broadcasts “Doctor Who: Best of the Monsters,” “Doctor Who: Tales from the TARDIS” and “Doctor Who: The Companions.”

And bleary-eyed fans with stamina for more get another all-day marathon on Sunday, this time of previously aired episodes of “Doctor Who Revisited,” starting at 6 a.m. ET.