---
title: "Doctor Who"
year: 2005
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/doctor-who-2005"
fi1m_score: 78
critics_reviews: 1
published: "2026-09-18T10:46:51.394109+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-18T10:46:52.168642+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Doctor Who (2005)

Created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber, Donald Wilson · MPA TV-PG · Action & Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy

**Fi1m score: 78** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far

*In a sentence:* Thirteen series, a blue police box, and the most frightening thing in the lot is a statue that never moves

> Russell T Davies’s revival of the BBC’s time traveller gave Britain back a programme it had not known it missed. Across thirteen series the peaks are as high as anything on television and the troughs are real; start at the start.

## Synopsis

London, 2005. A shop assistant from a council estate is locking up for the night when the mannequins in the basement start walking, and a stranger in a leather jacket who calls himself the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) takes her hand and tells her to run. He is an alien with a time machine disguised as a blue police box, the TARDIS, and he offers her all of space and time. Over thirteen series the Doctor changes face, played in turn by David Tennant, Matt Smith and Jodie Whittaker, and takes on new companions, among them Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill), Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman), Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie) and Graham O’Brien (Bradley Walsh). Somewhere out there, the Daleks are waiting.

## Review

When Russell T Davies brought [*Doctor Who*](https://film.one/tv/doctor-who) back on 26 March 2005, the programme had been off air for sixteen years and was remembered mainly for wobbly sets and a long scarf. His job was to make a Saturday-night family serial that a 2005 audience would not laugh at, and he did it. Across thirteen series and 153 episodes the revival has been magnificent, silly, moving and occasionally dreadful, sometimes inside the same hour. It is good television more often than not, and at its best it is as good as British television gets.

The first series is still the model. Christopher Eccleston plays the Doctor as a northerner in a leather jacket who grins too wide and goes quiet too fast, a man carrying something he will not name. Ernie Vincze shoots London in flat, overcast daylight, so a walking shop dummy looks like something that might happen on the way to the bus. Edward Thomas gives the TARDIS an interior of coral struts and amber light, a machine that looks grown rather than built. Robert Shearman’s *Dalek* puts one of the old enemies in a cage and makes it frightening again.

Eccleston made one series and David Tennant took over, and the programme grew louder. Tennant talks faster than anyone has a right to, and Davies wrote him bigger stakes every year, until whole planets hung on whether a man in a pinstripe suit would stop talking and act. Murray Gold’s score rose with him, choir and brass on every farewell, and it tells us what to feel at the exact moment the acting has already done it. We cried anyway. Graeme Harper and Euros Lyn directed the best of these hours, and the partings, prepared over a whole series, land.

Here is what we felt most sharply. Steven Moffat’s *Blink*, from Series 3 in 2007, is an hour in which stone angels move only when nobody is looking. We were well past the age at which this should work, and we watched it with our knees drawn up on the sofa. Hettie Macdonald directed it, and the trick is done in the cutting: the statues are never once seen to move.

Moffat took charge from Series 5 in 2010 and gave the part to Matt Smith, who plays an old man in a young man’s body and moves like a giraffe learning to skate. Moffat’s plots run on puzzles; on a good night they click shut so neatly that you forgive the setup, and on a bad night they are all setup. Arthur Darvill’s Rory Williams is the most decent man in the whole run and the one companion who seems to have a life the Doctor is interrupting. Michael Pickwoad’s redesigned TARDIS traded coral for copper and clockwork, and Toby Haynes shot Series 5 with a confidence the earlier years had not attempted.

Jenna Coleman’s Clara Oswald arrives as a riddle to be solved and takes a series to become a person, which is the script’s fault and not hers; once she is allowed to be a schoolteacher who lies to everyone, including the Doctor, she is one of the show’s best. Pearl Mackie’s Bill Potts and Matt Lucas’s Nardole make Series 10 the lightest company the programme had kept in years, and Rachel Talalay directs the later finales with a steadiness the writing does not always earn.

Chris Chibnall’s run, from Series 11 in 2018 to the six-part *Flux* in 2021, is the weakest stretch. Jodie Whittaker is a warm, quick, physically funny Doctor, and the scripts hand her explanations where earlier Doctors got jokes. Bradley Walsh’s Graham O’Brien, a widower who keeps asking sensible questions, is the era’s best idea. Mandip Gill and Tosin Cole are given too little to do, and *Flux* piles up so many threads that we lost track of who was where, and then stopped minding, which is worse. Segun Akinola’s score, sparer and stranger than Gold’s, is the one department that improved.

Under all of it is Delia Derbyshire’s theme, realised in 1963 from oscillators and tape, and no arrangement since has bettered it. The revival carries a 12 and earns it: children will be frightened and will come back the following week, which was always the point. Start with the first series. If Eccleston has not got you inside the hour, nothing later will; if he has, there are 152 more episodes waiting.

*Fi1m score 78, published 18 September 2026.*

### Reviews we read (1)

- **Variety** (70/100, inferred): The BBC has successfully revived the cult classic with strong casting and production values that should appeal across generations. Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper bring charm and energy to their roles in the opener. [Read](https://variety.com/2005/tv/reviews/doctor-who-3-1200526717/)

## Details

- **Created by:** Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber, Donald Wilson
- **Creator:** Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber, Donald Wilson
- **Director:** Graeme Harper, Euros Lyn, Douglas Mackinnon, Rachel Talalay, Charles Palmer, Jamie Magnus Stone, James Strong, Joe Ahearne, Toby Haynes, James Hawes, Jamie Childs, Daniel Nettheim, Wayne Che Yip, Richard Clark, Nick Hurran, Saul Metzstein, Adam Smith, Keith Boak, Colin Teague, Azhur Saleem, Hettie Macdonald, Emma Sullivan, Nida Manzoor, Justin Molotnikov, Paul Wilmshurst, Alice Troughton, Daniel O'Hara, Julian Simpson, Edward Bazalgette, Ben Wheatley, Catherine Morshead, Bill Anderson, Mark Tonderai, Jennifer Perrott, Jonny Campbell, Lawrence Gough, Paul Murphy, Andrew Gunn, Sallie Aprahamian, Ashley Way, Jeremy Webb, Mat King, Colm McCarthy, Sheree Folkson, Peter Hoar, Stephen Woolfenden, Brian Grant, Farren Blackburn, Richard Senior, Steve Hughes, Lee Haven-Jones, Jamie Payne, Dan Zeff
- **Writer:** Steven Moffat, Russell T Davies, Chris Chibnall, Mark Gatiss, Toby Whithouse, Gareth Roberts, Helen Raynor, Peter Harness, Jamie Mathieson, Paul Cornell, Matthew Graham, Tom MacRae, Stephen Thompson, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Matt Jones, Vinay Patel, Neil Cross, Pete McTighe, Neil Gaiman, Maxine Alderton, Ed Hime, Stephen Greenhorn, Sarah Dollard, Keith Temple, Nina Metivier, James Moran, Malorie Blackman, Joy Wilkinson, Catherine Tregenna, Robert Shearman, Simon Nye, Rona Munro, Charlene James, Phil Ford, Richard Curtis, Mike Bartlett
- **Cinematography:** Ernie Vincze, Rory Taylor, Mark Waters, Stephan Pehrsson, Ashley Rowe, Sam Heasman, Tim Palmer, Owen McPolin, Stuart Biddlecombe, Richard Stoddard, Damian Bromley, Ed Moore, Balazs Bolygo, Robin Whenary, Catherine Goldschmidt, Neville Kidd, Phil Wood, Suzie Lavelle, Graham Frake, Denis Crossan, Simon Chapman, G. Magni Ágústsson, Ali Asad, Tony Slater Ling, Dale Elena McCready, Tico Poulakakis, Nic Morris, Jake Polonsky, Mike Southon, Mark Garrett, Gavin Struthers, Mike Spragg, Simon Dennis, Erik Wilson, Simon Archer
- **Editor:** Mike Jones, John Richards, Graham Walker
- **Music:** Delia Derbyshire, Murray Gold, Segun Akinola
- **Production design:** Edward Thomas, Michael Pickwoad
- **Costume design:** Lucinda Wright, Howard Burden, Louise Page
- **Producer:** Peter Bennett, Nikki Wilson, Phil Collinson
- **Cast:** Christopher Eccleston as Doctor Who; Matt Smith as The Doctor; Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald; David Tennant as The Doctor; Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor; Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts; Mandip Gill as Yasmin 'Yaz' Khan; Bradley Walsh as Graham O'Brien
- **Certificate (MPA):** TV-PG
- **Release (the US):** 26 March 2005
- **Genres:** Action & Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V_xYubUJFo

## Where to watch in the US

- AMC+: streaming
- Amazon Prime Video: add-on
- The Roku Channel: add-on, hd
- Apple TV: add-on, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy, sd
- Apple TV: buy, hd

*Checked 2026-09-18.*

Also available in: AT, AU, CA, DE, FR, GB, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *The Prisoner* (1967): The other British series about a man with no name and a place he cannot leave.
- *Torchwood* (2006), Fi1m 73: Davies’s Cardiff spin-off, grubbier and later at night; the third series is the one. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/torchwood.md)
- *Life on Mars* (2006): Matthew Graham’s time-slip cop show, made with the same Saturday-night nerve.
- *Quatermass and the Pit* (1967): The Hammer film that taught British television how to dig up something ancient and wrong.
- *Dark* (2017), Fi1m 74: German time travel with all the puzzles and none of the jokes, for Moffat’s fans. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-dark-knight-rises.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/doctor-who-2005