40 Years of Travel through Time and Space...

On a cold, wet November evening in 1963, a new science fiction programme appeared on screens across Great Britain. The characters included two school teachers, Ian and Barbara, a student with a mysterious background, Susan, and her even more mysterious grandfather known only as “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 old time machine called the TARDIS. The TARDIS is Dimesnsionally Transcendental, a fancy way of saying that it is much larger on the inside than on the outside. It is also supposed to be able to change its outward appearance to blend in with its surroundings, but due to a chronic malfunction, it got stuck in the shape of a 1950s-style British Police Call Box after a trip to 100,000 BC.

As the show went on, it was eventually revealed that the Doctor had been "on the run" from his own people, the Time Lords of the planet Gallifrey, who practiced strict non-interference in the affairs of other times and cultures. This didn't stop them from occasionally 'arranging' for the Doctor to be at the right place at the right time, knowing that he would set things right for them.