(This is probably awful, but this has been done by someone who is not a Doctor Who fan. So, if there's anything good in here, I'll take it as a massive triumph)
Doctor Who (British television series)
1963-1966: William Hartnell
1966-1972: Brian Blessed
1972-1975: Christopher Lee
1975-1976: Michael Aldridge
1976-1999: VACANT DUE TO CANCELLATION
Doctor Who/Doctor Who: The Next Generation (U.S. television series)
1999-2004: Stanley Tucci
2004-2007: Matthew Perry
2007-2014: Lennie James
Doctor Who (film)
2014: Lennie James
Doctor Who, in the 1960s, was the epitome of cutting-edge television: a symbol of the future broadcast into the living rooms of British people every week. It was science-fiction for the young, portraying one alien's travels across space and time to do good, solve problems and get into various scrapes along the way. When Hartnell's health began to deteriorate and his time as the Doctor came to an end, it was the turn of someone much younger and more handsome to take over - in came Brian Blessed. He played a young and roguish Doctor, willing to do good but also increasingly preoccupied with rescuing extraterrestrial dolly birds (played by a vast array of actresses, including Carol Hawkins, Madeline Smith and Christine Noonan) from the clutches of evil monsters. Still veritably a children's TV programme, sly nods towards adult humour made the Blessed years into the blessed years of the original Doctor Who's run. Some viewed it as a clean sci-fi version of The Saint, but for children; others, namely stay-at-home mums, found small titillation in the antics of Blessed's Doctor and appreciated his winks to an older audience. Morality campaigners' attempts to pull the show from the BBC did land certain executives in hot water and the 1970-1972 run of the show did tone down Blessed's genuine charm in favour of a more rational character, but Blessed continued to be a heartthrob to many and he expanded the viewership massively. Recognised as the man who brought the Doctor to America (a fact held against him by some of the more rabid modern fanbase), Blessed has gone down in the history of television as the best British Doctor (though some friendless contrarians insist that it's actually Aldridge). The man himself would go on to play characters in various fantasy and sci-fi films as a result of his popular and enduring performance, including a role in the much-delayed but now much-loved cult classic Star Wars (1988) as comic and wise mentor Ben Kenobi.
Taking over from Blessed in 1972, Christopher Lee had the role thrust upon him by executives who thought the direction of the series ought to reflect the mood of the country a little bit closer. Blessed was all fun and games because he fit with the times; Lee would be serious and calculating for much the same reason. Playing an austere and highly driven Doctor, Lee excelled at the part he was given - donning a black trench coat and allowing the grey to creep up his quiffed hair. Dark mysteries, asexuality and rational thinking were in; smart suits, dolly birds and Boy's Own-style adventures were out. At first, the change of pace was welcomed and ratings didn't appear to stop. But, as 1973 turned to 1974 and the spate of strikes across the country began to affect the pace of production and writing, the quality of the productions fell, the reality they reflected grew bleaker, older viewers began to ditch the show in favour of other fantastical fare on the BBC, including the epic live-action series Lord of the Rings (1974-1978). Children were being left alone to watch their science fiction show, only to discover that the monsters were growing more grotesque due to budget cuts and Christopher Lee's character appeared more like a sinister villain than a brilliant and calculating man of science. Viewership crashed by early 1975 and Lee was growing tired of playing a role to be watched only by frightened children. Quitting in 1975, Lee would recover his career after Keith Joseph's government came to power in 1978 and tall, gaunt, dark-haired yet greying men in their '50s were suddenly in high demand to play PMs in political dramas.
The 'last chance Doctor', Michael Aldridge, might have done better in easier economic times. The BBC, by 1975, was hard-pressed on funds and, with a shrinking audience, Doctor Who was inevitably going to lose out. Aldridge was a brilliant character actor and, having seen Michael Bentine and Nigel Hawthorne turn down the role of the Doctor, leapt at the chance (truth be told, a few stage-based flops meant Aldridge could hardly afford to turn down the BBC when they asked). Running for a single season, the Doctor Aldridge played in the series was a seemingly patrician and benevolent man. Paired with Alison Steadman's hippyish Stella as a companion, Aldridge looked rather out of place: a fussy traditionalist out of time, rather than the 'cool' father figure he believed he was portraying. Steadman came out of the one-year ordeal (as it's probably better to call the thirteen season of Doctor Who) looking much better than Aldridge, with British film roles piling up for her during the late 1970s and the early 1980s. After the first year and the end of the thirteenth season, the show was officially cancelled due to layoffs in a range of departments and the hard choices of the Board of Governors at the BBC.
Doctor Who was dead... or, perhaps, just its British incarnation was.
Numerous attempts to revive the show with a number of actors (including Robin Askwith in 1986 and Hugh Laurie in 1990) in the lead role died shortly after being pitched and hopes of a revival dissipated. This was all in Britain, of course, where entertainment throughout the 1980s and 1990s consisted of period dramas and family comedies with little adventurous material on television. The innovation that existed was gone, but the American market grew hungry for such fantastical material to repurpose and consume. In the midst of the sci-fi boom created by Star Wars (1988) and the hit TV adaptation of Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle (1992-1994), TV execs were looking for the next big hit to give fantastical television the boost it needed during the Millennium Recession (1997-2001) and provide a distraction from the tough realities of late '90s America. Old reruns of the 1960s and early '70s Doctor Who were a mainstay of American television during this period and, with producers and directors looking to repurpose something familiar as something modern, they settled upon buying the rights to Doctor Who and rebooting it with a new American cast and American focus.
The first of the new Doctors was Stanley Tucci, a character actor who was known for a mixture of crime dramas and comedies. Crossing time and space in a blue portajohn, Tucci was a lovable and casual kind of Doctor who cracked wise, played the trickster, and seemed a perfectly human and relatable character attempting to find his way in the universe. It was a smash, especially with the addition of CGI and the advanced costumes that were made, and NBC was able to profit massively from a second wind for the sci-fi boom when Star Wars II (2000) released to wide critical acclaim. Tucci became a household name in the USA and in the United Kingdom, where young viewers - unacquainted with the original Doctors - enjoyed the irreverent humour and sense of adventure in this forty something balding man from across the Atlantic. Only reaching Britain in 2001, the country lagged behind but took to the American version of the show with fresh eyes and open minds. This was a great boon and, when Stanley Tucci finally stepped down from the role in 2004, it seemed like a British actor might even be considered for the next regeneration and the Doctor Who: The Next Generation branding might even be dropped (in America, the short title was the official one whilst Britain got the long title due to worries over treading on the memories of the original). Alas, an American would fill the role once more.
Matthew Perry was, by 2004, an actor looking for any job. Not a big film star, he'd floated from sitcom to sitcom since the early '90s, never finding his feet. NBC looked upon him with favour, however, as he'd had a successful few seasons at SNL and was one of the most recognisable cast members by some margin. His quirky and sarcastic sense of humour was what NBC believed the American audience expected after Tucci's run as the Doctor and what British audiences loved: they would be proved... for a time. Perry, wild-haired and scruffily dressed, took American audiences by storm just as the second half of President Dean's presidency began. America had come out of recession, mediated talks between belligerent nations involving areas such as Gibraltar and the Korean DMZ, dealt serious blows against the drug trade in Central America, and fostered new international agreements on green energy. The dawn of the 21st century was a liberal one and, with Perry as America's most-beloved science fiction hero and a cultural symbol of the times, the link between culture and politics never seemed stronger. That was, of course, until Republican moralists took hold of Doctor Who and declared it 'the latest battleground in the culture war'. Attempts to legislate for censorship of the show by Republican Congressmen were defeated in 2005 and 2006, but states began to take matters into their own hands as Kansas, Alabama, Indiana, and Missouri became the first of the so-called 'Anti-Who' states: they banned the programme being shown due to supposed offence caused to church organisations and 'God-fearing Americans'. Moral outrage at the content of the show - time travel, questioning the existence of a Christian God, including gay and lesbian characters, etc. - caused lawmakers in a variety of states to ban it as well, with only a few states in the Bible Belt adding to the original 'Anti-Who' states. By 2007, President Dean appeared divisive as he supported NBC in their rows with lawmakers but felt tied by a conservative Supreme Court that allowed the states to continue their censorship for as long as they wished (some of the bans would be rescinded, but any still exist to this day). The confident America was gone and the confident Perry was gone. Fears and rumours over drug abuse and emotional issues on set dogged Perry until he stepped down from the controversy. At present, he hosts his Real Talk Tonight show on HBO every Friday night.
Lennie James. Lennie fucking James. What is there to say about the first black Doctor beyond all the rave reviews he's had? The first British Doctor since the 1970s (as part of his contract, however, he is required to speak in an American accent), James brought something of the intellectualism of the original Doctors to the role he played. His regeneration sparked outrage, just as the Perry-era seasons did, but criticisms were more hushed due to the racial bigotry masked as anti-British sentiment that made up the anti-James arguments. He portrayed the character as an intellectual master of time, throwing away the casual and cool elements of the Tucci and Perry Doctors but replacing them with a greater appreciation of science and discovery. Exploring new alien worlds, made easier by the incredible leaps that CGI had made since the early Noughties, became the mainstay of the early James seasons and the visual effects added to the sense of wonder. Not afraid to get his hands dirty either, James brought back the tougher elements of the Blessed years whilst steering clear of the sexual innuendo. Wholesome but forward-thinking in many ways, the Doctor Who brand grew so much that it spawned two video games and some of the widest-read TV series novelisations in history. Without a doubt, it was becoming a truly global phenomenon and James was just taking it higher and higher with his level of acting and his willingness to explore dark stories involving childhood trauma, mental illness and the effects of war upon civilians. After an animated movie was canned in 2010 due to supporting stars dropping out for other commitments, Doctor Who was facing a change-up and a new companion was selected to replace Eliza Dushku. 2010-2013 marked the rockiest patch for the James era, where backlash against the liberalism of the Dean and Klobuchar presidencies grew and grew and the 2012 election saw a small scandal surrounding outsider candidate Mike Huckabee's speech at a Republican primary debate calling Doctor Who "everything that is wrong with liberal America". Polls suggested over half of all Republican voters agreed and a third of the country agreed as well, but the show wouldn't face any real issues until Sam Brownback was inaugurated in 2013 and the conservative press was once again all over this totem of "liberal America".
In reaction, NBC agreed to a movie deal to bring Doctor Who to the big screen. The film had one of the highest opening weekends in American film history, though it wasn't nearly high enough to break into the top four. With critics lauding James' big screen performance as a "triumph" and as a "masterclass in making science fiction serious", it was clear how Doctor Who had come so far and challenged so many concepts in the USA. It was now a serious part of the cultural landscape, a British import turned American institution, and its content had transformed from childish pseudo-science to a sincere look at science fiction, its tropes, and its taboos. Sadly, James has since revealed he wants to explore other roles and has taken leave from the show. Thus, it has been off-air for nearly three years now and there's little sign of it returning until a new actor is found who can fill the shoes James left behind. In the current climate of the U.S., it seems unlikely to be rebooted.
In Britain, however, the BBC has been reconsidering its position on the series and is apparently lining up a veteran talent of stage and screen, Kris Marshall, to take over as the new Doctor. At least, that's how the bookies' odds are lining up.