On Saturday 23 November 23 1963, BBC TV broadcast the very first episode of Doctor Who. Fifty years later, the series is the most successful drama on television. In this special documentary, Radio 2 examines the reasons for its longevity and popularity. Featuring new interviews with the cast and crew of the series, the programme looks at the lasting appeal of Doctor Who and asks how much of its continued success can be attributed to its basic formula.With archive clips and the music of Doctor Who composer Murray Gold, Who Is The Doctor? considers the character of the Time Lord across all of his regenerations and revisits the origins of the series with Waris Hussein, director of the debut Doctor Who story, An Unearthly Child. The programme also examines how the franchise survived when the show was off TV, considers the impact of the revival in 2005 and assesses the value of the series to the BBC.
