Doctor Who Classic Series Synopsis
Sunday, December 2, 2007 at 01:51AM 
The Seal of Rassilon,
founder of the Time Lords
This is a brief rundown of the Doctor and the life he lived before the new TV series began. So if you're curious about the new show but want a little bit of background first, or if you've just started watching the new series and are wondering about what the Doctor was up to before and who this "UNIT" group is, here's the bare-bones summary you want.
THE TIME LORDS
On the planet Gallifrey, a world that is said to be located "in the constellation of Kasterborus", there evolved a society of people who had mastered the art of time travel long before the human race began evolving on Earth. These people could travel through the "vortex" of space and time with their time travel capsules, ships which could escape detection thanks to "chameleon circuits" and "perception filters." Most of these ships were also "dimensionally transcendental", meaning their interior dimensions were larger than those of the exterior. These ships were known as a "TT capsule" or a "TARDIS" (Time And Relative Dimension In Space).
Deciding it was their duty to be caretakers of the "web of time", and believing that they were the most advanced race in all the universe, these people proclaimed themselves "Lords of Time." After a few attempts to spread their knowledge ended in disaster, the Time Lords decided never to interact nor interfere with the "lesser races" of the universe except when absolutely necessary. Growing complacent with their society and believing that their world was already perfect, Time Lords came to believe in keeping the status quo rather than trying to discover new sciences or ideas.
Time Lords have two-hearts, minor telepathic abilities and life-spans that measure into centuries. They are all naturally born "time sensitives", able to feel the presence and flow of temporal energies in the universe. A skilled Time Lord can travel to a specific point in space and time and be able to sense whether or not the location is a "fixed point" in history or if it can be subject to some change without risking a chain reaction of changes to universal history. A true Time Lord can stand in certain places in space and time and literally feel the different possibilities stemming from that one moment.
The most significant ability of a Time Lord is "regeneration." If their body ages to a point that it's worn out or if
they receive serious injuries, a Time Lord can will their body to completely rebuild itself cell by cell (providing that there isn't too much overall damage and that death isn't instantaneous). This gives the Time Lord a completely new physical appearance. Memories remain intact, so the personality is essentially the same. But general behavior alters a bit since brain chemistry and hormones have changed with the rest of the body. For more on regeneration, check out Traits of a Time Lord.
Because of their rules concerning observation only of other races, some consider Time Lords as only myth while many in the universe have no knowledge of them whatsoever. Only the oldest and most powerful races are fully aware of the Time Lords of Gallifrey.
Eventually, one Time Lord, a scientist with at least one grandchild, grew unhappy with his life. He believed it was a mistake to stand apart from the rest of the universe. Renouncing the ways of his people, this renegade Time Lord decided he would venture into the cosmos and meet other races face to face, that he would hear their thoughts and dreams and he would encounter mysteries of nature and science that his people deemed unworthy of attention.
This renegade Time Lord then stole an antique TARDIS from a repair shop, hot-wired it and escaped Gallifrey. He was accompanied by his young granddaughter Susan (herself not yet old enough to achieve the official rank of Time Lord).
When one renounces the society of Time Lords, he gives up everything: birthright, power, rank, even his own birth name. Thus, we have never learned the name of this renegade, for even the Time Lords refuse to use it anymore. Instead, this wandering scientist has used many other aliases, but often he prefers the simple title he gave himself after he began his wanderings: The Doctor.
A TARDIS normally requires six people to navigate and operate it properly. Since he was alone, and since he was a poor pilot who had re-wired several parts of the already worn-out time ship, the Doctor originally had no control whatsoever over where and when he would land (he blamed this entirely on the ship, of course, and claimed that his "year-o-meter" was broken). Even the ship's chameleon circuit malfunctioned to a point beyond repair, locking the exterior of the time machine in the form of a blue police box from 1960's London.
During his third incarnation, the Doctor sufficiently tinkered with his TARDIS and re-studied time sciences enough that he got a better handle on how to control his "old girl." And yet, to this day, the ship is still occasionally unreliable.
THE DOCTOR'S CLASSIC ADVENTURES
At first, the Doctor chose only to explore but not to get involved in the affairs of others if he could help it, still clinging to some part of his Time Lord upbringing. Likewise, while he was fascinated by other races, he still tended to look down on them. However, he and Susan wound up accidentally taking on two humans as passengers: school teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. After sharing a couple of adventures with these two humans, the Doctor found himself impressed with their spirit of loyalty and companionship, as well as their resourcefulness. From then on, he relaxed his preconceptions and over time he even came to regard Earth and its people as his favorite in the universe (even if they did frustrate him from time to time).
After several trips in the TARDIS, the Doctor found it harder and harder to stay out of the affairs of others, deciding that despite the risks, he could not allow evil to happen in front of him. While he never directly looked for trouble, he made it a point to never back down from menaces or tyrants or those who would victimize others. But despite his constant adventuring, the Doctor never grew comfortable with carrying weapons, preferring to rely on his wits to solve problems before him.
Susan eventually left the TARDIS to lead her own life. Months later, Barbara and Ian returned to their home on Earth. But the Doctor was a lonely man and had gotten used to exploring in the company of others, so he made it a habit to recruit traveling companions, many of whom he looked on either as students or as trusted allies. Eventually, each companion would leave for one reason or another. Some, sadly, were killed in the course of an adventure.
Aside from his own companions, the Doctor has worked with many allies on different planets and in different 
time periods. On Earth, he has repeatedly worked alongside UNIT, an international organization that focuses on dealing with paranormal and alien threats. Originally, this group was dubbed the United Nations Intelligence Task Force, but in recent years it changed its name to the Unified Intelligence Task Force. (This was due to the real world U.N. ringing up the BBC and saying that they did not want to be associated with a fictional military force that combated aliens, possibly because it was just too cool for them).
Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, who led the U.K. branch of UNIT for a time, became one of the Doctor's closest friends (even if they did argue at every opportunity). Even after he officially retired from active duty, the Brig was always willing to put his life on the line in defense of Earth if he needed to. In recent years, he was knighted Sir Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.
Eventually, the Doctor reached an understanding with the Time Lords. He was no longer a fugitive and was allowed to roam free, so long as he did not endanger history and so long as he agreed to do occasional missions for the Time Lords whenever they deemed it necessary (specifically, for their black ops organization, the Celestial Intervention Agency). In their eyes, he was still a renegade that needed to be kept on a leash and he hated their repeated interference in his life.
Over the years, the Doctor's most famous invention was his "sonic screwdriver", which (along with loosening bolts without having to touch them) often aided in his efforts to rewire circuitry or break through locks.
During his eighth incarnation (as implied in the audio plays), the Doctor made a new, improved sonic screwdriver, making it a multi-purpose tool so that he could rely on its help for a number of situations rather than having to carry different devices around in his pockets.
This new sonic screwdriver is able to detect and scan energy readings, fuse wiring and thin bits of metal, undo locks, create localized sonic beams, transmit signals and patch into outside transmissions. It can be considered akin to a magic wand. Of course, there are certain machines it cannot affect and it has been seen to be incapable of opening anything with a "deadlock seal."
The original Doctor Who TV series ended with the Seventh Doctor and his protégé Ace in 1989. A TV-movie made in 1996 (also titled "The Enemy Within") took place many years later in the Doctor's life, when he was traveling alone. In that story, he regenerated into the Eighth Doctor and went off to find new companions and new adventures. Although the Eighth Doctor never appeared on-screen again, he gained further popularity by having more adventures in novels, comic strips and dozens of audio plays (with actor Paul McGann reprising the role) that are still being produced to this day.
The new series (which began airing in 2005) opens with the Doctor having just survived a great and terrible war, the "Last Great Time War." It was during this war that he regenerated into his ninth body. Thus, when the fist episode "Rose" begins, we are introduced to a newly-born Ninth Doctor (played by Christopher Eccleston).
Armed with his multi-use sonic screwdriver and a new toy known as "psychic paper" (an old Time Lord invention), the Doctor once again went off into time and space, seeking new wonders for the sheer thrill of it. His first stop: Earth, to find what was left of the Nestene race which had lost its home world during the events of this terrible war.
If you want to learn what happened next, you can rent and/or buy the first season DVDs of the new series and find out for yourself.
And that's Doctor Who in a nutshell!
If you want a short synopsis on the personality and basic life of the Doctor's incarnations, check out The Doctor's Incarnations In A Nuthsell.
You can also feel free to check out my many essays on the In-Depth History of Doctor Who, which traces his life through each incarnation, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.
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