We remember when DW started in 1963. The doctor was played by actor William Hartnell. Hartnell was a serious actor, not a leading man though he had starred in a number of British black and white B movies from the 195s and 1960s. You can still see them on Talking Pictures TV. Perhaps his best known role was in Carry On Seargent.
Hartnell played the role as a white haired, slightly caustic scientist. He wasn’t a likeable character at first. In the two feature films he was replaced by Peter Cushing, playing a less acerbic and more doddery character.
Hartnell was a serious actor and expected nothing but the best from the others, but he himself started having health issues and was eventually forced to leave.
He did this by the clever trick of regeneration, something that seemed amazing at the time but which now seems to happen regularly and without much comment.
This started a series of actors in the leading role, each portraying the doctor in a different style. Patrick Troughton was a kind of scruffy Pied Piper character. Jon Pertwee was a dapper man of action, Tom Baker was droll and dismissive. This was the golden era.
As we go on, the series loses its popularity and respect. It was always cheap. Pertwee spent nearly all his time on Earth riding around in an old car. There was a steady decline in quality, and what had been a flagship series seemed doomed.
Peter Davison and Colin Baker followed, then Sylvester McCoy, by which time the show was treated badly by the BBC, hard to find in the schedules and individual shows were poor. We had given up on DW by then.
That was the end for Dr Who.