Dr. Who

The Doctor
The Cushing Doctor
Portrayed by	Peter Cushing
Tenure	1965–1966
First appearance	Dr. Who and the Daleks
Last appearance	Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.
Number of series	n/a
Appearances	2 stories (n/a episodes)
Companions	Susan, Barbara, Ian, Louise, Tom Campbell
Chronology
Preceding	n/a
Succeeding	n/a
Series	Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.

Dr. Who is a character in two films made by AARU Productions in the 1960s based on the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by the actor Peter Cushing.

Although based upon the character of the Doctor from the television series, the character has fundamental differences as described below. The character appeared in two motion picture releases: Dr. Who and the Daleks, which was based upon the televised serial The Daleks, and Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D., based upon the serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Plans for a third film, based on The Chase, were abandoned after the poor box office performance of the second film.^[1]

Cushing made no mention of the character or films in his autobiography.^[2]

Personality

The Doctor is a gentle, grandfatherly figure, naturally curious and sometimes absent-minded, but at the same time is not afraid to fight for justice. He is shown to have a keen (and somewhat juvenile) sense of humour, and a strong sense of adventure with a will of iron and very strong morals.

Unlike the Doctor in the television series, he is apparently human, not a Time Lord, and is actually named "Dr. Who" (first name not given), and not called "the Doctor" (see also "Doctor who?"). This does not, however, directly contradict the William Hartnell era of the television series, as by this time the Doctor's species and home planet had not yet been specified. Cushing's Doctor is an eccentric inventor who claims to have created TARDIS.

Companions

In the first film, Doctor Who travels with his two grand-daughters, Susan (Roberta Tovey) (who is much younger than Susan of the TV series), and Barbara (Jenny Linden) (who is apparently Susan's older sister or cousin, since she also addresses Doctor Who as "Grandfather"). They are joined in this first adventure by Ian Chesterton (Roy Castle), who is depicted as Barbara's "new boyfriend" (and is generally a rather inept, clumsy, comical figure as opposed to the more straightforwardly-heroic portrayal of Ian in the television series).

In the sequel, Susan is joined by Doctor Who's niece Louise and the somewhat "comical" additional male companion, London police officer Tom Campbell (Bernard Cribbins).

TARDIS

Doctor Who's TARDIS resembles both that used in the television series and a real police box (although there is no explanation for the machine having this appearance). As with the regular TARDIS, it is larger on the inside (although the interior is vastly different than the series' console room). As with the TARDIS from the 2005 series onwards, the interior and exterior of the Ship are directly connected by the external doors.

Other appearances

As well as the two films, Dr. Who appeared in the comic strip Daleks versus the Martians in the Doctor Who Magazine Spring Special 2006, and the short story The House on Oldark Moor by Justin Richards, published in the BBC Books' collection Short Trips and Sidesteps.

A doubly fictional duplicate of the Seventh Doctor who appeared in the Virgin New Adventures novel Head Games was also known as "Dr. Who".

I Am The Doctor: The Unauthorised Diaries of a Time Lord by John Peel states that, in the Doctor Who universe, Dr. Who was created by Barbara Wright as a way of making some money from her adventures and alerting people to the existence of the Daleks, without giving away too much about the real Doctor.

References