DR. WHO
POPULARITY: Holds Guinness World Record as world’s longest-running science-fiction television show, having debuted in 1963; currently broadcast in about 50 countries; current run launched in 2005, has won 30 BAFTAs, and six Hugo Awards; most downloaded series in the U.S. on iTunes in 2011.
FACEBOOK FOLLOWERS: 2.7 million
MAIN HANGOUTS: It can take an hour to sift through just one labyrinthine, 30-page thread on the message boards of Gallifrey Base. For more daily updates, there’s the Base’s sister site, the Doctor Who News Page.
AVERAGE DEMOGRAPHIC: In the U.K., Doctor Who was always a family program. However, in the U.S., the show's earlier incarnations were mostly embraced by sci-fi-loving men who discovered it on PBS in the eighties. But since its 2005 revival, it has steadily continued finding a wider and larger audience; it now has a notably large female following, compared to other long-running sci-fi properties.
DEVOTIONAL PROFILE: From fan-run conventions (Gallifrey One in Los Angeles has staged an event yearly since 1990), to myriad fanzines (the Doctor Who Club of Australia has published more than 200 issues of Data Extract since 1980), and the stylish production of numerous fan films (the third and final part of a reimagining of the lost 1966 serial “The Power of the Daleks” was recently released online), the Doctor Who fan appears to be as resourceful as the series' time-traveling protagonist.
In fact, it was fans who kept the Doctor alive in the U.K. when the BBC canceled the show in 1989 until its reboot in 2005: The TV network, seeing no value to its defunct character, let fans write a series of novels starting in 1991 and, further down the road, permitted a former Doctor Who Magazine editor to produce further audio adventures for CD and download, voiced by old cast members. Both of these enterprises continue today with many of the same fan players behind the scenes, and with each brand counting their numerous releases well into the hundreds. While they’ve become viable arms of Doctor Who, what’s noteworthy is how both were key to keeping the Whoniverse alive and in the public consciousness for the sixteen lean years the series wasn’t on the air. The line between Doctor Who fan and professional has, in modern times, frequently been a blurry one. One of the writers of that initial series of novels? None other than Russell T Davies, the man who so successfully reenvisoned Doctor Who in 2005 for modern TV audiences.
So, as the fans continue to commune, create and debate (as with the undying question of the ages: Which of the eleven actors who have played the Doctor is the best?), it's clear that this vibrant community will keep on doing so well after the series has someday ended. And then, just as a new actor has always emerged to take over the TARDIS, perhaps an enterprising fan will step forward to revive and reinvent the Doctor for TV once again.
From vulturecom.
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