TV is the New Reading

Fourth season brings ‘Doctor

Who’ back with a bang

The revitalized science fiction series “Doctor Who” – now in its fourth season – follows a nutty time-travelling gadabout on his adventures through time and space.

The series began nearly 45 years ago on British television and introduced the character of the Doctor – debuted by William Hartnell – as a strong-willed law unto himself, zipping about in his time machine, which has resembled a blue phone booth ever since its “chameleon circuit” malfunctioned.

Since then, the deep blue box has appeared on cliffs and bluffs and in all manner of spacecraft and stately country homes. It has been seen flying through the air although by all outward appearances it’s nearly as aerodynamic as a penguin, and its function is as reliable as the plot calls for it to be. Sometimes it can be materialized in exactly the right time and place to save the day, and sometimes it’s miles and eons off target.

New season, new problems

Since human beings don’t have time machines, the Doctor is naturally an alien, a frequent visitor to Earth from a distant planet called Gallifrey, now destroyed in something called a Time War. Because the Doctor needs to be recast occasionally, he does a thing called “regenerating,” so they have different actors playing the Doctor.

The latest, played by David Tennant, is a more ruthlessly unforgiving personality than past Doctors, but he’s facing worse enemies. Time was when the Doctor could defeat an enemy creature called a Dalek by putting a hat over its eyepiece. Now the Daleks have learned to shoot through the hats.

And in the third season, we encountered The Master, a rival Time Lord, who used to run about turning people into tiny miniatures of themselves. Now he’s doing things like destroying all of human civilization by bringing in creatures from the very distant future and encouraging them to kill vast numbers of people.

By the end of the third season – now airing Saturdays on BBC America at 4 p.m. – he gets into a final showdown with the Master. But even faced with extraordinary odds, there are still plenty of adventures to be had and the Doctor’s work is never done.

The fourth season of the refreshed, renewed and revitalized series premieres Friday at a special time of 7:30 p.m. before moving to its regular timeslot of 8 p.m. Fridays on Sci Fi.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

Back Back to Shows Back to Main Page Next