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| © Copyright Peter Crawford 2013 |
A CURIOUSLY ENGLISH PHENOMENA
The Head of Drama, Canadian Sydney Newman, was mainly responsible for developing the programme, with the first format document for the series being written by Newman along with the Head of the Script Department (later Head of Serials) Donald Wilson and staff writer C. E. Webber.
Writer Anthony Coburn, David Whitaker, a story editor, and initial producer Verity Lambert also heavily contributed to the development of the series.
The programme was intended to appeal to a family audience, as an 'educational' programm, using time travel as a means to explore scientific ideas and famous moments in history.
On 31 July 1963 Whitaker commissioned Terry Nation to write a story under the title 'The Mutants'.
As originally written, the Daleks and Thals were the victims of an alien neutron bomb attack but Nation later dropped the aliens and made the Daleks the aggressors.
When the script was presented to Newman and Wilson it was immediately rejected as the programme was not permitted to contain any "bug-eyed monsters".
The first serial had been completed, and the BBC believed it was crucial that the next one be a success, however, 'The Mutants' was the only script ready to go so the show had little choice but to use it.
According to producer Verity Lambert; "We didn't have a lot of choice - we only had the Dalek serial to go ... We had a bit of a crisis of confidence because Donald [Wilson] was so adamant that we shouldn't make it. Had we had anything else ready we would have made that."
Nation's script became the second Doctor Who serial – "The Daleks" (aka "The Mutants").
The serial introduced the eponymous aliens that would become the series' most popular monsters, and was responsible for the BBC's first merchandising boom.
The First Episode
It has been suggested that the transmission of the first episode was delayed by ten minutes due to extended news coverage of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy the previous day; whereas in fact, it went out just eighty seconds late.
Because it was believed that the coverage of the events of the assassination, as well as a series of power blackouts across the country, may have caused too many viewers to miss this introduction to a new series, the BBC broadcast it again on 30 November 1963, just before the broadcast of episode two.
The programme soon became a national institution in the United Kingdom, with a large following among the general viewing audience.
Many renowned actors asked for, or were offered and accepted, guest-starring roles in various stories.
With popularity came controversy over the show's suitability for children.
Morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse repeatedly complained to the BBC in the 1970s over what she saw as the show's frightening or gory content - but then she complained about almost everything on television. Regardless, however, the programme became even more popular - especially with children.
John Nathan-Turner, who produced the series during the 1980s, was heard to say that he looked forward to Whitehouse's comments, as the show's ratings would increase soon after she had made them.
During Jon Pertwee's second series as the Doctor, in the serial Terror of the Autons (1971), images of murderous plastic dolls, daffodils killing unsuspecting victims, and blank-featured policemen marked the apex of the show's ability to frighten children.
Other notable moments in that decade included a disembodied brain falling to the floor in 'The Brain of Morbiu' and the Doctor apparently being drowned by Chancellor Goth inThe Deadly Assassi (both 1976).
The TARDIS
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| The Original TARDIS - interior |
BBC scriptwriter Anthony Coburn, who lived in the resort of Herne Bay, Kent, was one of the people who conceived the idea of a police box as a time machine.
In 1996, the BBC applied for a trade mark to use the TARDIS's blue police box design in merchandising associated with Doctor Who.
In 1998, the Metropolitan Police Authority filed an objection to the trade mark claim; but in 2002, the Patent Office ruled in favour of the BBC.
The TARDIS is a product of the advanced technology of the Time Lords, an extraterrestrial civilisation to which the programme's central character, the Doctor, belongs.
A properly maintained and piloted TARDIS can transport its occupants to any point in time, and any place in the universe.
The interior of a TARDIS is much larger than its exterior ("It's bigger on the inside"), which can blend in with its surroundings using the ship's "chameleon circuit".
TARDISes also possess a degree of sentience (which has been expressed in a variety of ways ranging from implied machine personality and free will through to the use of a conversant avatar) and provide their users with additional tools and abilities including a telepathically based universal translation system.
In the series, the Doctor pilots an apparently unreliable, obsolete TT Type 40, Mark 1 TARDIS.
Its chameleon circuit is broken, leaving it stuck in the shape of a 1960s-style London police box after a visit to London in 1963.
When Doctor Who was being developed in 1963, the production staff discussed what the Doctor's time machine would look like. To keep the design within budget, it was decided to make it resemble a police box. This was explained in the context of the series as a disguise created by the ship's "chameleon circuit", a mechanism which is responsible for changing the outside appearance of the ship in order to fit in with its environment. The Ninth Doctor explains that if, for example, a TARDIS (with a working chameleon circuit) were to materialise in ancient Rome it might disguise itself as a statue on a plinth. The First Doctor explained that if it were to land in the middle of the Indian Mutiny, it might take on the appearance of a howdah (the carrier on the back of an elephant). A further premise was that the circuit was broken, explaining why it was "stuck" in that form.
The Doctor's TARDIS was for most of the series' history said to have been stolen from the Time Lords' home planet, Gallifrey, where it was old, decommissioned and derelict (and, in fact, in a museum), however, during the events of 'The Doctor's Wife' (2011), the ship's consciousness briefly inhabits a human body named Idris, and she reveals that far from being stolen, she left of her own free will.
During this episode, she flirtatiously implies that she "stole" the Doctor rather than the other way around, although she does also refer to him as her "thief" in the same episode.
The unpredictability of the TARDIS's short-range guidance (relative to the size of the Universe) has often been a convenient plot point in the Doctor's travels.
Also in 'The Doctor's Wife', the TARDIS reveals that much of this "unpredictability" was actually intentional on its part in order to get the Doctor "where he needed to go" as opposed to where he "wanted to go".
Although "TARDIS" is a type of craft rather than a specific one, the Doctor's TARDIS is usually referred to as "the" TARDIS or, in some of the earlier serials, just as "the ship".
The eleventh incarnation of the Doctor is also known to have referred to her as "Sexy", a name she actually adopts as her preferred address in 'The Doctor's Wife', much to the Doctor's embarrassment.
Dr Who - the Early Days
The BBC drama department's 'Serials division' produced the programme for 26 seasons, broadcast on BBC 1.
Falling viewing numbers, a decline in the public perception of the show and a less-prominent transmission slot saw production suspended in 1989 by Jonathan Powell, Controller of BBC 1.
Although (as series co-star Sophie Aldred reported in the documentary 'Doctor Who: More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS') it was effectively, if not formally, cancelled with the decision not to commission a planned 27th series of the show for transmission in 1990, the BBC repeatedly affirmed that the series would return.
While in-house production had ceased, the BBC hoped to find an independent production company to relaunch the show.
Philip Segal, a British expatriate who worked for Columbia Pictures' television arm in the United States, had approached the BBC about such a venture as early as July 1989, while the 26th series was still in production.
Segal's negotiations eventually led to a Doctor Who television film, broadcast on the Fox Network in 1996 as a co-production between Fox, Universal Pictures, the BBC and BBC Worldwide. Although the film was successful in the UK (with 9.1 million viewers), it was less so in the United States and did not lead to a series.
Licensed media such as novels and audio plays provided new stories, but as a television programme Doctor Who remained dormant until 2003.
Dr Who in the 21st Century
The 21st century revival of the programme has become the centrepiece of BBC One's Saturday schedule, and has "defined the channel."
Since its return, 'Doctor Who' has consistently received high ratings, both in number of viewers and as measured by the Appreciation Index.
In September of that year, BBC Television announced the in-house production of a new series.
The executive producers of the new incarnation of the series were writer Russell T Davies and BBC Cymru Wales Head of Drama Julie Gardner.
Doctor Who finally returned with the episode "Rose" on BBC One on 26 March 2005.
There have since been six further series in 2006–2008 and 2010–2012, and Christmas Day specials every year since 2005.
No full series was filmed in 2009, although four additional specials starring Tennant were made.
In 2010, Steven Moffat replaced Davies as head writer and executive producer.
The 2005 version of 'Doctor Who' is a direct continuation of the 1963–1989 series, as is the 1996 telefilm. This differs from other series relaunches that have either been reimaginings or reboots (for example, Battlestar Galactica and Bionic Woman) or series taking place in the same universe as the original but in a different period and with different characters (for example, Star Trek: The Next Generation and spin-offs).
The Doctor
The character of the Doctor was initially shrouded in mystery.
All that was known about him in the programme's early days was that he was an eccentric alien traveller of great intelligence, who battled injustice while exploring time and space in an unreliable time machine, the "TARDIS" (an acronym for Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space), which notably appears much larger on the inside than on the outside (a quality referred to as "dimensionally transcendental").
The initially irascible and slightly sinister Doctor quickly mellowed into a more compassionate figure.
It was eventually revealed that he had been on the run from his own people, the Time Lords of the planet Gallifrey.
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| William Hartnell - Dr Who |
Introduced into the storyline as a way of continuing the series when the writers were faced with the departure of lead actor William Hartnell in 1966, it has continued to be a major element of the series, allowing for the recasting of the lead actor when the need arises
The serials 'The Deadly Assassin' and 'Mawdryn Undead', and the 1996 TV film have established that a Time Lord can regenerate 12 times, for a total of 13 incarnations.
The BBC Series 4 FAQ suggests that now the Time Lord social order has been destroyed, the Doctor may be able to regenerate indefinitely: (Useful for the BBC).
"Now that his people are gone, who knows? Time Lords used to have 13 lives."
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| 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' |
The Doctor has fully gone through this process and its resulting after-effects on ten occasions, with each of his incarnations having their own quirks and abilities but otherwise sharing the consciousness, memories, experience and basic personality of the previous incarnations.
To date, eleven actors have played the lead role in the television series, with continuity maintained by the ability of the character's species to 'regenerate' - a very handy ability in the circumstances.
The character's enduring popularity led to the Doctor being described as "Britain's favourite alien".
The Doctor in his eleventh incarnation is played by Matt Smith, who took on the role in January 2010 and became the first Doctor to be nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in 2011.
On 1 June 2013, it was announced that Matt Smith would leave the series during the 2013 Christmas special.
On 4 August 2013, it was announced that Peter Capaldi would play the Doctor's twelfth incarnation.
The character of the Doctor was created by the BBC's Head of Drama Sydney Newman.
The first format document for the series that was to become 'Doctor Who' – then provisionally titled 'The Troubleshooters' – was written up in March 1963 by C. E. Webber, a BBC staff writer who had been brought in to help develop the project.
Webber's document contained a main character described as 'The maturer man, 35–40, with some 'character twist', however, Newman was not keen on this idea and – along with several other changes to Webber's initial format – created an alternative lead character named Dr Who, a crotchety older man piloting a stolen time machine, on the run from his own far future world.
No written record of Newman's conveyance of these ideas – believed to have taken place in April 1963 – exists, and the character of Dr Who first begins appearing in existing documentation from May of that year.
The character was first portrayed by William Hartnell in 1963.
At the programme's beginning, nothing at all is known of the Doctor: not even his name, the actual form of which remains a mystery.
In the first serial, 'An Unearthly Child', two teachers from Coal Hill School in London, Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton, become intrigued by one of their pupils, Susan Foreman, who exhibits high intelligence and unusually advanced knowledge.
Trailing her to a junk yard at 76 Totter's Lane, they encounter a strange old man, and hear Susan's voice coming from inside what appears to be a police box.
Pushing their way inside, the two find that the exterior is actually camouflage for the dimensionally transcendental interior of the TARDIS.
The old man, whom Susan calls "Grandfather", subsequently kidnaps Barbara and Ian to prevent them from telling anyone about the existence of the ship, taking them on an adventure in time and space.
The first Doctor explicitly positioned the Doctor as grandfather to his companion Susan, and he wore a long white wig, and Edwardian costume, reflecting a "definite sense of Englishness".
When, after three years, Hartnell left the series due to ill health, the role was handed over to character actor Patrick Troughton.
To date, official television productions have depicted eleven distinct incarnations of the Doctor (following Hartnell's death in 1975, actor Richard Hurndall substituted in his role as the First Doctor in 1983's The Five Doctors).
Of those, the longest-lasting on-screen incarnation is the Fourth Doctor, as played by Tom Baker.]
Currently, the Eleventh Doctor is portrayed by Matt Smith, who is to be replaced by the Twelfth Doctor, portrayed by Peter Capaldi in the Christmas Special.
Transitions
Except for the off-screen transition between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors, to date each regeneration has been worked into the continuing story, and also, most regenerations (minus the Second-to-Third and Eighth-to-Ninth transitions) have been portrayed on-screen, in a handing over of the role.
The following list details the manner of each regeneration:
First Doctor (William Hartnell): Frail and steadily growing weaker throughout 'The Tenth Planet', the doctor collapses at the serial's end.
Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton): a forced "change in appearance", and exile to Earth by the Time Lords in the closing moments of 'The War Games'.
Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee): radiation poisoning from the Great One's cave of crystals on the planet Metabilis 3 at the end of 'Planet of the Spiders'.
Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker): fell from the Pharos Project radio telescope in Logopolis and was assisted in the regeneration by a mysterious "in-between" incarnation identified as "The Watcher".
Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison): spectrox poisoning, contracted near the start of 'The Caves of Androzani'.
Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker): suffered great injuries when the Rani attacked the TARDIS, and caused it to crash land at the start of 'Time and the Rani'.
Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy): died in San Francisco during exploratory heart surgery by a doctor unfamiliar with Time Lord physiology, after being hospitalised for non-life threatening gunshot wounds in the 1996 television movie.
Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann): died aboard a crashing shuttle after failing to convince its pilot to accompany him to safety in the TARDIS in "The Night of the Doctor".
The ship crashed on the planet Karn, where the Sisterhood of Karn revived the Doctor and offered him an elixir that allowed him to choose the characteristics of his next regeneration.
Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston): cellular degeneration caused by absorbing the energies of the time vortex from Rose Tyler, which she in turn had absorbed through the heart of the TARDIS in "The Parting of the Ways".
Tenth Doctor (David Tennant): radiation poisoning incurred while saving the life of Wilfred Mott in 'The End of Time'.
Only the Doctor's first regeneration (Hartnell to Troughton) occurs due to natural causes – the Doctor is showing increasing signs of age, and comments that his body is "wearing a bit thin," though this is apparently exacerbated by the energy drain from Mondas.
All of the other regenerations have been caused by some external factor, such as radiation poisoning, infection or fatal injuries.
In the original series, with the exception of the change from Troughton to Pertwee, regeneration usually occurred when the previous Doctor was near "death".
The changeover from McCoy to McGann was handled differently, with the Doctor actually dying and being dead for quite some time before regeneration occurred.
The Eighth Doctor comments at one point in the television movie that the anaesthesia interfered with the regenerative process, and that he had been "dead too long", accounting for his initial amnesia.
Kate Orman's novel 'The Room with No Doors', set just before the regeneration, also notes that this is one of the few regenerations in which the Doctor was not conscious and aware that he was dying.
The Second Doctor (Troughton), was the only Doctor whose regeneration was due to nothing more than a need to change his appearance.
He was not aged, in ill health, or mortally wounded at the end of 'The War Games'.
Prior to his exile, the Time Lords deemed that his current appearance was too well known on Earth and therefore forced a "change of appearance" on him.
This method of changing appearance was a source of early speculation that the Second and Third Doctor were actually the same incarnation, since the second was never seen to truly "die" onscreen.
Continuity has since established that one of his allotted regenerations was indeed used up for this transition.
The 2005 series began with the Ninth Doctor already regenerated and fully stabilised, with no explanation given.
In his first appearance in "Rose", the Doctor looked in a mirror and commented on the size of his ears, suggesting to some viewers that the regeneration may have happened shortly prior to the episode, or that he has not examined himself in the mirror recently.
Some draw the conclusion that the Ninth Doctor's appearances in old photographs, without being accompanied by Rose, may also suggest that he had been regenerated for some time, but these appearances could have also occurred afterwards.
In the 2013 mini-episode 'The Night of the Doctor', a prequel to the 50th anniversary special, it was revealed that the Eighth Doctor had been revived by the Sisterhood of Karn after dying in a spacecraft crash.
The Sisterhood offered him an elixir that enabled him to choose the characteristics of his next regeneration, and he opted for 'a warrior'; the final scene of the mini episode shows him regenerating not into the Ninth Doctor, as had been widely assumed, but into the War Doctor, played in the final scene of 'The Name of the Doctor' by John Hurt.
Personality
Throughout his regenerations, the Doctor's personality has retained a number of consistent traits.
Its most notable aspect is an unpredictable, affable, clownish exterior concealing a well of great age, wisdom, seriousness and even darkness.
At times he has been described as "fire and ice and rage, he's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun, he's ancient and forever, he burns at the centre of time..." and "the man who can turn an army around at the mention of his name".
While the Doctor can appear childlike and jocular, when the stakes rise, as, for example, in 'Pyramids of Mars', he will often become cold, driven and callous.
Another aspect of the Doctor's persona, which, though always present, has been emphasised or downplayed from incarnation to incarnation, is compassion.
The Doctor is a fervent pacifist and is dedicated to the preservation of sentient life, human or otherwise, over violence and war, even going so far as to doubt the morality of destroying his worst enemies, the Daleks, when he has the chance to do so in Genesis of the Daleks, and again in Evolution of the Daleks.
He also, in 'The Time Monster', begs Kronos to spare the Master torment or death, unintentionally winning the evil Time Lord's freedom, which he tells Jo Grant was preferable anyway, and forgives the Master for his actions in 'The Sound of Drums' and 'Last of the Time Lords', vowing to take responsibility for his former friend.
Nonetheless, the Doctor will kill when given no other option and occasionally in self-defence; examples of this can be seen in 'The Tomb of the Cybermen', 'The Dominators', 'The Invasion', 'The Krotons', 'Spearhead from Space', 'The Sea Devils', 'The Three Doctors', 'The Brain of Morbius', 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang', 'The Invasion of Time', 'Earthshock', 'Arc of Infinity', 'Vengeance on Varos', 'The Two Doctors', 'Silver Nemesis', 'World War Three', 'The Christmas Invasion', 'Tooth and Claw', 'The Age of Steel', 'The Runaway Bride', 'Smith and Jones' and most notably in 'Remembrance of the Daleks', when he arranges for the planet Skaro to be destroyed; it has also been stated numerous times in the series, beginning in 2005, that he was responsible for destroying both the Dalek and Time Lord races in order to end the Time War.
Another example of the Doctor purposely taking a life is 'The Sontaran Experiment', where he tells his companion Harry Sullivan to remove a device from the Sontaran ship, which causes the death of the Sontaran, something the Doctor knew would happen but Harry did not. In the 2005 episode 'The End of the World', the Doctor teleports Cassandra back onto the ship and does nothing to prevent her death, even ignoring her cries for help and pity.
Similarly, in "'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship', he strands Solomon on a spacecraft with a homing device to which several missiles have locked on, effectively consigning him to death.
In situations where fixed points in history must be preserved, the Doctor is sometimes faced with hard choices resulting in the deaths of many.
In 'The Visitation' he started the Great Fire of London, and in 'The Fires of Pompeii' (2008) he caused the volcano above Pompeii to erupt, which killed everyone in the city (but saved the rest of the world).
On other occasions he is seen to be critical of others who use deadly force, such as his companions Leela in 'The Face of Evil' and 'Talons of Weng-Chiang', or Jack Harkness in 'Utopia' (2006).
In the episode 'The Lodger' (2011), a member of the Doctor's football team offhandedly mentions annihilating the team they will play next week.
The Doctor looks very angry and says "No violence, not while I'm around, not today, not ever. I'm the Doctor, the oncoming storm... and you basically meant beat them in a football match, didn't you ?"
In the revived series, the Doctor has displayed a ruthless streak at times.
When his companion or innocent people are harmed, his indignation drives him to seek the antagonist with a vengeance.
The Ninth Doctor intentionally electrocuted the Dalek he encountered in 'Dalek' despite its pleas for him to have pity, coldly stating "you never did".
The Tenth Doctor notably had a "one chance only" policy when dealing with aliens invading the Earth, leading to his companion Donna Noble commenting that he needs "someone" to keep his temperament in check.
In 'The Family of Blood', the alien the Doctor defeats noted retrospectively that "he never raised his voice – that was the worst thing, the fury of a Time Lord".
The Eleventh Doctor was the only Doctor to undergo three significant personality changes, becoming even more ruthless when alone in his travels, when Amy Pond and Rory Williams were absent, then fell into a depression beyond his other incarnations when the couple were lost to him, becoming the first Doctor to retire voluntarily, before finally being overjoyed at the prospect that Clara Oswin Oswald was still alive.
The Doctor has an extreme dislike for weapons such as firearms or rayguns, and will often decline to use them even when they are convenient.
The Tenth Doctor was especially put off by guns, going out of his way to make his feelings known.
In 'Doomsday' (2006) the Daleks declare the Doctor is unarmed, to which he replies "That's me. Always."
In 'The Doctor's Daughter' (2008) he is enraged at the death of Jenny, and points a gun at the head of the man who shot her before throwing it away and yelling "I never would !".
He has proven capable of using weapons effectively when necessary, as seen in 'Resurrection of the Daleks' and 'Revelation of the Daleks'.
In 'The End of Time', he hit a small diamond with a single shot to destroy a machine and prevent the destruction of time itself.
He will occasionally use a firearm as a convenient way to bluff his way through a situation, hoping that his foe will not suspect that he does not intend to shoot.
He will also occasionally present non-threatening items as weapons so as to fool his enemies and buy himself time.
In two concurrent episodes in 2012 however, the Eleventh Doctor resorts to real violence.
He directs missiles to kill a man in 'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship', and in 'A Town Called Mercy', he throws Kahler-Jex out of the town where he knows the Gunslinger will find and kill him, and aims a pistol at him to keep him out.
The Doctor has a deep sense of right and wrong, and a conviction that it is right to intervene when injustice occurs, which sets him apart from his own people, the Time Lords, and their strict ethic of non-intervention.
While the Doctor remains essentially the same person throughout his regenerations, each actor has purposely imbued his incarnation of the character with distinct quirks and characteristics, and the production teams dictate new personality traits for each actor to portray.
Fashion
The Doctor's clothing has been equally distinctive, from the distinguished Edwardian suits of the First Doctor, to the Second Doctor's rumpled, clownlike Chaplinesque attire, to the dandy-esque frills and velvet of the Third Doctor's era.
The Fourth Doctor's long frock coat, loose fitting trousers, occasionally worn wide-brimmed hat and trailing, multi-striped scarf added to his somewhat shambolic and bohemian image; the Fifth's Edwardian cricketeer's outfit suited his youthful, aristocratic air, as well as his love of the sport (with a stick of celery on the lapel for an eccentric touch though in 'The Caves of Androzani' - it is revealed to turn purple when exposed to gases the Doctor is allergic to); and the Sixth's multicoloured jacket, with its cat-shaped lapel pins, reflected the excesses of 1980s fashion.
The Seventh Doctor's outfit – a straw hat, a coat with two scarves, a tie, checked trousers and brogues/wingtips – was more subdued, and suggestive of a showman, reflecting his whimsical approach to life.
In later seasons, as his personality grew more mysterious, his jacket, tie, and hat-band all grew darker.
Throughout the 1980s, question marks formed a constant motif, usually on the shirt collars or, in the case of the Seventh Doctor, on his sleeveless jumper and the handle to his umbrella.
The idea was grounded in branding considerations, as was the movement starting in Tom Baker's final season toward an unchanging costume for each Doctor, rather than the variants on a theme employed over the first seventeen years of the programme.
When the Eighth Doctor regenerated, he clad himself in a 19th-century frock coat and shirt based around a Wild Bill Hickok costume, reminiscent of the out-of-time quality of earlier Doctors and emphasising the Eighth Doctor's more Romantic persona.
In contrast to the more flamboyant outfits of his predecessors, the Ninth Doctor wore a nondescript, worn black leather jacket, V-neck jumper and dark trousers.
Eccleston stated that he felt that such definitive "costumes" were passé and that the character's trademark eccentricities should show through their actions and clever dialogue, not through gimmicky costumes.
Despite this, there is a running joke about his character that the only piece of clothing he changes is his jumper, even when trying to "blend into" a historical era.
The one exception, a photograph of him taken in 1912, wearing period gentleman's clothing, resembles the style of the Eighth Doctor.
The Tenth Doctor sports either a brown or a blue pinstripe suit – usually worn with ties – a tan ankle-length coat and Converse trainers, the latter recalling the plimsolls worn by his fifth incarnation.
Also, like that incarnation (and his first one), he occasionally wears spectacles: a pair with black, thick-rimmed frames.
In the 2007 'Children in Need Special' he states that he doesn't actually need glasses to see, but rather wears them to "look a bit clever."
On some occasions he wears a black tuxedo with matching black trainers.
In interviews, Tennant has referred to his Doctor's attire as 'geek chic'.
According to Tennant he had always wanted to wear the trainers.
The Tenth Doctor says in 'The Runaway Bride' that, like the TARDIS, his pockets are bigger on the inside. The Second, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh and Eleventh Doctors routinely carried numerous items in their coats without this being conspicuous.
The Eleventh Doctor's appearance has been described as appearing like "an Oxford professor", with a tweed jacket, red or blue striped shirt, red or blue bow tie, black or grey trousers with red or blue braces, and black boots.
He maintains "Bow ties are cool" even when his companions do not agree, and is delighted to meet Dr Black, the first man who agrees with him, in the episode 'Vincent and the Doctor'.
As a running gag, he exhibits attraction to unusual hats, like a fez, a pirate hat, and a Stetson, often only to have them destroyed by River Song shortly afterwards.
Starting in the second half of Series 7, the Eleventh Doctor has reverted to wearing a frock coat, like the ones his early predecessors wore, along with a waistcoat and black trousers, black braces, an off-white shirt, with brown boots.
The bow tie is still present.
He has also added round-rimmed glasses that belonged to former companion Amy Pond.
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