12 Again Dr Who Special 12 Again

Coming up...12 Again travels through space and time to celebrate

over 50 years of Doctor Who.

If someone starts talking, Mum will go, "Shut up!"

Wow. That was the best TV show.

Whatever age you are,

you will always enjoy him, one version of him or another.

DALEK VOICE: Find them! Find them!

Find! Them!

THEY HUM THE DOCTOR WHO THEME BADLY

Great, isn't it?

Want to know more? Well...

Have you ever wondered what Doctor Who was like

when the stars of the show were your age?

What were their memories of the Time Lord? Who was their Doctor?

And which aliens had them hiding behind the sofa?

They've all played their part in the story

of one of the world's greatest sci-fi shows,

but once they were a kid watching Doctor Who just like you.

So let's travel back to a different dimension with our celebs

as they become 12 Again.

They are some of the cast from TV's biggest sci-fi drama.

Well done, Straxy.

Strax and Madame Vastra are friendly but fierce aliens.

I'm the lizard woman from the dawn of time.

SHE SCREAMS

Remain calm, human scum.

Luke Smith appears in the Sarah Jane Adventures and Doctor Who

as the alien who takes the form of a superhuman...

with no common sense!

It's you!

And Porridge, well, he just likes blowing things up!

-Porridge?

-Activate the desolator.

But what do Dan Starkey, Neve McIntosh, Warwick Davis

and Tommy Knight remember most about Doctor Who when they were 12?

-Knock-knock.

-Who's there?

-Doctor.

-Doctor Who?

-How'd you know my name?

-Wahey!

It was classic TV. Always left you wanting more.

Wow, that is something cool. It really is.

She was Leela, the rebellious warrior who accompanied

the fourth Doctor on his adventures.

We're safe now. We can rest.

And he was the seventh incarnation of the Doctor.

Ah, I'm the Doctor

But how did starring in Doctor Who

affect Sylvester McCoy

and Louise Jameson's lives?

I meet a lot of people now, in their 30s, and they said,

"Oh, you were my Doctor." And they get excited, still.

It's quite cool really, quite amazing to think.

As a 12-year-old, I think I identified

very strongly with the companion.

Ironic, isn't it, when I became one?

Ladies and gentlemen, calm thyselves...

He's CBBC's very own Doctor Who super fan.

HE HUMS THE DOCTOR WHO THEME

BANG!

And he is the impressionist who has every voice for every Doctor.

This is a galaxy grade interstitial time configuration helix.

But what did Chris Johnson and Jon Culshaw love most about Doctor Who?

-AS AN OGRON:

-The Ogrons, sounding like

a slowed-down Harry Hill.

Ooh.

I've got sonic screwdrivers, the action figures, the DVDs,

CDs, books, comics...

All are massive Doctor Who fans today, but what

are their memories of watching TV's top Time Lord when they were young?

I've always loved Doctor Who, certainly at the age of 12.

Vividly remember it. I mean, they all started with the tunnel.

The camera's in there and it's all spinning and it becomes Doctor Who.

Doctor Who turned into a sort of real family treat time

because Mother never allowed food in the living room

and we would lay the trolley up with boiled eggs

and baked beans and toast and things and it was all set,

ready on our lap and we had this lovely family time watching it.

There was no talking at all when Doctor Who was on.

That was the golden rule.

If someone started talking, Mum would go, "Shut up!"

I remember the title sequence finishing

and at the end of the music would be that big explosion...

and I would feel that anticipation and fear in the pit of my stomach

and excitement as I wondered what was going to happen now.

Back in the day when I was 12,

Doctor Who was a bit too scary really

for what you should be watching.

SHE SCREAMS

Hid behind the sofa. I mean, I really did.

It's a bit of a cliche, but I absolutely did.

In those days, you would have four-part adventures

and you'd have to wait a week to see it

so you'd be going, "What's going to happen next?"

They didn't waste it.

It was like, "No, you get one dose of this a week

"and that is your lot," so it always left you wanting more.

With a nail-biting week to wait to find out what happened next,

how did our young Doctor Who fans distract themselves?

I did lots of drawings and I found it in a box last year

in my mum and dad's attic and it's of a certain character

I'm quite well acquainted with now, but that's my picture of a Sontaran.

Whoa! Little did he know that 20 years later,

he would actually become a Sontaran.

It's all in an afternoon's work.

Whilst Dan was doodling, Jon was getting creative.

The Doctor Who monsters were eminently recreatable.

Plastic cups from a vending machine made very effective Daleks,

just stick some Smarties on.

My action man, I once made him into a Draconian,

gave him a pointed head

with lots of little beady bits to make him a Draconian.

Two adapted biscuit tins and a roller-skate

made a good K-9.

I just didn't have much to do in those days!

I proudly had one toy Dalek that I adored more than any other toy.

He broke last year.

The poor little thing lost his eye stalk.

It snapped right off in a box, so I wasn't happy about that.

(I miss you.)

That Dalek doesn't miss you, Chris.

It is not registered in my vocabulary bank.

But let's find out how it all began

and who better to ask than the Doctor himself?

Sylvester remembers the first series being shown in 1963.

This television programme came on called Doctor Who

and we just kind of watched it and then slowly became addicted to it.

We've waited long enough for her. We must go and find her.

Back in the days when everything was black-and-white,

a 12-year-old Louise watched a very different show.

That first series,

he didn't travel all over the universe like he does now.

It was very much... It was almost geared towards education.

The great fire of Rome, my dear.

To think that people will read about that in books for thousands

and thousands of years and here am I sitting here actually watching it!

The best history lesson ever.

You go into a history class, get given a book

and are told, "Read about this."

No, watch this bloke go and discover it. That's amazing!

They wanted to get people interested in science.

The adhesive effect of carbonated H2O and citric acid.

Lemonade to you.

Turned out to be the most fantastic science fiction programme

ever made, really. It is. 50 years proves it is so.

It was gripping stuff.

And there was no-one more fascinated by The Doctor's adventures

-than his companions.

-Why?

The Doctor without his companions would be rather incongruous.

There was a lot of, "What is it, Doctor?"

So that The Doctor can then explain to the audience.

-A magic talisman?

-No, it's a clockwork egg timer.

There's only so many ways you can say, "What is it?

"Oh, Doctor, what is it? Doctor?"

What? Sshh!

The companion is there to be the viewer,

to ask the question that the viewers will be thinking

when they're watching the show.

Why isn't the scanner showing anything?

Because, well...we're nowhere.

Thank goodness he cleared that up, then(!)

Still to come, we find out about The Doctor's time machine.

The TARDIS is The Doctor's time travelling machine/friend.

It's bigger on the inside than the outside

-because it's dimensionally transcendental.

-Yes.

Originally, a police box was a very important piece of equipment.

Whenever people say to me,

"We used to have those all around the country at one point."

I was like, "What, you had time machine dotted on street corners?

"Bit weird, isn't it? Bit reckless."

But first, at the centre of it all is the main man himself.

But what do our Whovians remember about the star of the show,

The Doctor?

Erm, I don't even know your name. Doctor...what was it?

Doctor Who is a Time Lord who has two hearts.

-Hearts-beat?

-I say, I don't think that can be right.

He's always on the side of the underdog.

He's always an extremely moral, very good character.

We've got reason to believe there's a great evil at work

somewhere in this school.

The Doctor comes from a planet called Gallifrey.

The reason why I remembered that

was because I come from a place near Galloway, which is in Scotland.

-Who are you?

-I told you, The Doctor.

You can never quite really gauge him,

you don't really know who or what he is.

I mean, Doctor Who, that's the whole premise.

-Is that supposed to sound impressive?

-Sort of.

He's mysterious and he's nice and he's just awe-inspiring.

-The entire world revolves around you?

-Sort of, yeah.

He's so selfless and accepting of everybody that he meets.

At heart, it's just a story of exploration and adventure.

You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep

or you could go...anywhere.

Occasionally running into trouble.

-Is it always this dangerous?

-Yeah.

I say occasionally, mostly running into trouble.

But the great thing about being a Doctor is,

if you get into too much trouble,

you have an ingenious way of cheating death.

Agh!

When The Doctor comes to the ends of his life,

it's a very sad time for all of us.

I don't want to go.

His body breaks down, all the molecules shift about

and it's one of these "lights, camera, action" moments

as he explodes in light...

..and comes back as a whole new man.

Nngggg-aaargh!

The first time you see his face you're, like, studying him

as close as you can because you're so curious to find

his little characteristics, his little bits

and things that make him a great Doctor.

Ears...yes. Eyes, two. Nose, and I've had worse chins.

Regeneration is possibly the most important pivotal point

of the whole series because if that hadn't worked,

we would not have had everything that came after it.

The first regeneration happened in 1966 when The Doctor,

William Hartnell, decided to leave and the show needed a new star.

It may not look much nowadays,

but that was cutting edge special effects back then.

That's its magic, you can change the actor,

because, you know, he's an alien, took on the form.

He can take on any form of human being.

For more than 50 years, each generation of Doctor Who fans

have enjoyed watching their very own Doctor.

So who was our celebs' favourite Doctor when they were 12?

To be honest, I adore them all. You're spoilt for choice.

That's the thing with the character.

Whatever age you are, you'll always enjoy him,

one version of him or another.

-Can you stop the bomb, Doctor?

-Not now, Barbara.

We don't know how long this little trick of ours will hold the Daleks.

As a 12-year-old, I think I rather looked up

to the William Hartnell character.

There must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties.

I thought of him as an educator, as a carer,

as a sort of slightly eccentric, slightly doddery,

rather intelligent old man.

Goodbye, Susan. Goodbye, my dear.

My Doctor Who was Tom Baker, with a very long scarf and a hat.

Yep, that long scarf was his trademark.

The first one made was nearly four metres long,

which means that The Doctor was always nice and toasty,

-but it must've got in the way a bit.

-Good evening.

Just very cool.

Sort of like a cosmic university dropout,

just stumbling into his adventures...

-AS TOM BAKER:

-..with wide eyes and a big grin.

Exactly, Brigadier. Exactly.

HE LAUGHS

And who was Neve's Doctor?

My Doctor at 12 was Peter Davison.

-Doctor?

-Well done.

At the time, he was the youngest that'd ever played Doctor Who.

I thought he was quite handsome, actually.

Agh! Quickly, let's get out of here.

I loved the cricket whites and he always had the celery.

-Remember that?

-Yes, wearing it on the collar.

Saved his life though, that's why he kept it.

I think I'm going to get my very own decorative vegetable.

Maybe a carrot?

Suspense.

And who was Dan's Doctor?

-When I was 12, it was Sylvester McCoy.

-Who the devil you?

I'm The Doctor, and this is Ace.

The Doctor had started to get a bit darker.

Even though he was still a hero,

we didn't quite know what he was thinking. That was really exciting.

-Well, how do you know?

-I'm very perceptive.

I wanted to keep the comedic front, silent-movie clowning,

visually kind of bit of him

but at the same time, I wanted to make him...mysterious.

Even dangerous,

even make the audience uncertain of who he is, really.

To bring back the WHO, in capital letters.

And it wasn't just personality traits

-that Sylvester brought to the role.

-TAPS SPOONS RHYTHMICALLY

It wasn't my idea to play the spoons of The Doctor,

it was because we had a party one night while we were filming

and everyone did their party piece.

And while Sylvester was playing his spoons,

he was spotted by one of the programme's bosses

who instantly said...

"Ooh, you're playing the spoons,

"we've got to have that as The Doctor!"

I thought he was joking, but we ended up having it. Ha-ha!

Who needs a Sonic Screwdriver when you've got celery and spoons?

Hey, that really shouldn't have worked.

In 1989, Doctor Who was quietly cancelled

and there was no new Doctor Who TV series for 16 years

until 2005 when the Doctor returned with a vengeance.

With a cool new look and a definite swagger in his step,

he was Tommy's 12-year-old Doctor.

DOCTOR WHO LAUGHS

Christopher Ecclestone playing the Doctor,

steps out with his leather jacket

and his big ears and his northern accent.

PFFRRRRT!

Excuse me, do you mind not farting while I'm saving the world?

I remember this scene with Rose and the Doctor and she goes to him,

"How come you've got a northern accent?"

If you are an alien, how come you sound like you're from the north?

Lots of planets have a north!

He had a certain way about him which was quite cocky and arrogant,

but I loved it.

If I was to tell you what I was doing to the controls of

my frankly magnificent time machine, would you even begin to understand?

-I suppose not...

-Well, shut it then.

And there was one thing that made this Doctor

slightly different from all the ones before him.

I'm the Doctor, by the way. What's your name?

-Rose.

-Nice to meet you, Rose.

Run for your life!

For the first time, the Doctor felt his two hearts flutter.

-How long have I been gone?

-About 12 hours.

ROSE LAUGHS

The Doctor fell in love with Rose, very subtly.

They don't say, "We're in love,"

but you can see the two of them really get on and it's very sweet.

Don't you disappear.

Because they never focus on it, it's just there,

like, you as a viewer can sort of go,

"I see what's happening with you two, I see what's going on."

But it was a love that couldn't last and Rose and the Doctor

were separated in a heart-wrenching episode.

When they have to say goodbye... It's so horrible!

-Am I ever going to see you again?

-SHE SOBS

You can't.

It's really horrible, they are separated by dimensions,

they will never see each other again.

I love you.

Rose Tyler...

Oh, sorry, I'll cry if I think about it, actually.

It's really upsetting.

Oh, how emotional! Someone pass me a tissue!

Still to come...

our celebs reveal what made them quiver behind the cushions

when they watched the show.

They're terrifying!

That's horrible!

-AS A DALEK:

-Find them! Find them! Find them!

And we discover the magic behind the music of Doctor Who.

The theme tune is so iconic.

It still works, 50 years later.

But first, the Doctor may be able

to travel through multiple universes and dimensions,

but he wouldn't be able to go anywhere without his TARDIS.

Do you actually live up here, on a cloud in a box?

I have done for long time now.

The TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space.

That's no more a box than you are a governess.

-I don't know what it means.

-SHE LAUGHS

It can travel anywhere in time and space.

It's bigger on the inside than the outside

-because it's dimensionally transcendental.

-Yes.

'It's like going through

'the wardrobe in Narnia. There's something...'

There's a whole brand-new world out there that you can explore.

It's smaller on the outside.

The TARDIS is the Doctor's time-travelling machine/friend.

It's a living being that used to be able to shape shift and transform,

but one day got stuck as a police telephone box,

which I think is hilarious

and makes it the most iconic part of Doctor Who.

Yes, when the Doctor landed in 1963,

his spaceship cunningly disguised itself as a police box

so as to blend into its surroundings.

It's meant to change its physical appearance.

With the chameleon circuit, but his is broken.

Yes, it got stuck when he landed in 1963 London.

As a result, it doesn't blend in with its surroundings.

Oh, I get it.

The chameleon circuit broke, it can't change its shape,

it's stuck as a police box.

All makes perfect sense. Except, what's a police box?

Originally, a police box was a very important piece of equipment.

People didn't have phones very much

and if they wanted to go for the police, they could run

down to the police box and there was a direct line to the police station.

And also, it was used by policeman to arrest people,

so they could actually put them in the police box and lock it.

But they also used it to keep their capes in or anything,

or even their lunch. So that's originally what it was.

The first time I ever saw one of those was in Doctor Who,

so to me it was always a time machine that was

bigger on the inside and looked really cool

and I never quite registered that it was something else before that.

So whenever people say to me,

"We used to have those all around the country at one point,"

I was like, "What, you had time machines

"just dotted on street corners?!

"Bit weird, isn't it? Bit reckless."

Reckless indeed.

In fact, young Dan actually came across one in real life

and designed his very own time-travelling vessel.

This is my drawing of a version of the TARDIS control console.

There's an infrared scanner, which is scanning...

I think that's probably me and my cat. I'm not entirely sure.

I don't think anyone is entirely sure, Dan.

However, a young Jon had his very own TARDIS in his back garden.

I viewed my dad's shed as a TARDIS

and there was a section of it that I painted white

and stuck some paper plates to the wall and I'd be in the shed

and then just let your imagination settle

and then when you feel the moment is right, walk out of the shed...

..and look around your back garden as if it's an alien world.

And if you're fighting for good,

you are inevitably going to come up against the forces of evil

and the ones all our 12-year-old celebs remember are these bad boys.

They are the Doctor's ultimate nemesis.

You are the Doctor!

You must be exterminated!

-The Daleks...

-The Daleks...

-Daleks...

-Dalek...

Behold, the restoration of the Daleks!

The Daleks are probably the most known villains from Doctor Who.

You are inferior.

They are terrifying.

Then arrange for the extermination of all human beings.

The Daleks first appeared in 1963

and are the most feared race in the universe.

The Earth will die screaming.

Having had all emotions removed except hate,

they are the ultimate destroying machines.

They're insane!

-AS A DALEK:

-They are generally ill disposed towards other species.

That's horrifying!

-AS A DALEK:

-Find them! Find them! Find them!

That's horrible!

The threat of the Daleks is totally maximised when

you know it's going to exterminate you because it's yelling it!

Exterminate! Exterminate!

They've tried to take over the universe

in over 100 episodes, more than any other aliens ever.

Is that it?

As the saying goes, if at first you don't succeed, try and try

and try and try and try and try again.

You will never defeat us, Doctor.

And behind all these plans to destroy the Doctor was

the Daleks' creator, none other than the supreme being Davros.

Let us learn who are our allies and who are our enemies.

Davros. He was good, wasn't he? He was like half a Dalek.

He was like a Dalek with the lid off.

Let the vengeance begin.

If I was him, I would have kept the lid on. He was ugly.

You wouldn't want to look in the mirror and see that,

so keep the lid on, Davros, be like the others.

Fascinating idea.

This is the man whose body was deteriorating

and he was looking for the next step in his race's survival.

The Kaled race is ended,

consumed in a fire of war,

but from its ashes will rise

a new race, the supreme creature,

the ultimate conqueror of the universe,

the Dalek!

Unlike the other Daleks, Davros has got a face

and it's not a very nice face.

You can see him ranting.

You will tell me! You will tell me!

Steady on, Davros!

He always had his hand poised, two fingers to flick a switch.

That button is either going to summon a Dalek or fire something

or explode something and it's always just hovering.

All, he's proper freaky and he's old-school freaky.

Through the Daleks I shall have the power!

Dude, you need to chill out. Maybe this will calm you down.

HE HUMS DOCTOR WHO THEME TUNE

The wonderful Doctor Who theme music.

THEY SING THE THEME TUNE

Perhaps the most recognisable theme tune in the world.

HE CONTINUES SINGING THE THEME TUNE

The theme tune is so iconic.

They used to finish with all their "waaah-chhhh" bit at the end.

THEY SING AND LAUGH

You know something awesome is about to happen.

Nice rendition, guys, but this is what it actually sounded like

when it first hit our screens back in 1963.

MUSIC: Original Doctor Who Theme

This was one of the first pieces of electronic music

ever to be heard on TV.

It was ground-breaking.

The music still works 50 years later. That music is avant garde.

If you don't know what "avant garde" means,

look it up and then tell me, I've no idea.

The melody was composed by Ron Grainer

and it was brought to life by

electronic-music pioneer Delia Derbyshire

in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which was basically a room

filled with lots of scientific sound wave machines and tape recorders.

Sounds complicated? It was.

The stories you hear of how she made that familiar theme happen

by wrapping string around a box and twanging it.

# Bong bong-bong Bong bong-bong... #

We spend quite a lot of time

trying to invent new sounds that don't exist,

sounds that can't be produced by musical instruments.

Using all of these,

we can build up any sound we can possibly imagine, almost.

In the days before synthesisers,

Delia Derbyshire created every note individually

and then recorded them separately,

playing them back using a lot of tape decks.

Little did she know that her work

would inspire one young Doctor Who fan.

I was obsessed with this when I was a kid

and I wanted to do my own Radiophonic Workshop type thing,

so I went round with a tape recorder

getting lots of everyday noises

like recording the toilet flushing

and sort of like the sink and bubbling some water

and then speeding it up and slowing it down and layering it

on top of each other, so I had little tape of different tracks,

of different alien worlds.

You creative little Sontaran, you!

And Dan is not the only one who's recreated these iconic sounds.

Even one of the coolest electro groups of all time, Orbital,

have remixed it and in 2010

performed it live with the Doctor himself.

Glastonbury, this is the last song of the evening, people!

CHEERING

Let's make this one count!

MUSIC: Orbital's remix of Doctor Who theme

Get in, Doctor!

CHEERING

So those were our celebs' 12-year-old memories

of TV's greatest theme tune,

but what did Doctor Who really mean to them when they were kids?

I loved it. I loved it. It was a joy to watch.

It's a great way of making friends with somebody.

"Have you watched Doctor Who?"

"Yeah, I have." "I'm a bit of a fan myself."

It brings people together.

I have always wanted to be the Doctor.

I think that is just the kind of life that I would like.

It is my dream job to be Doctor Who.

My love for Doctor Who has never gone away.

It makes me feel like a kid again

because it's the same thrill it gave me then

and I can enjoy it now more than ever.

I LOVE Doctor Who and I think I always will.

It would have been great at the age of 12 is Doctor Who had been around

because he could have come with me and jumped off the tall tree

onto the rhododendron bushes and we could have had such fun.

If I told my 12-year-old self,

"You're in Doctor Who!" I'd go, "Wow! What am I doing?"

I'd have said, "You're a Sontaran."

He went, "Why am I a Sontaran? Why am I not taller?"

I think I would probably be quite graceless about it.

"Why aren't you the Doctor?!"

If I was looking at my 12-year-old self now,

and I told her she was going to be a companion on Doctor Who,

I think she would have just laughed in my face.

It was classic TV and I actually recently fulfilled a career ambition

and I'm in a Doctor Who episode and there's Cybermen in it!

It's so exciting!

Little did I know when I was hid behind the sofa

that one day I would be causing that fear

amongst 12-year-olds throughout the land.

So what have we learned then?

There's a time and place for bodily functions.

PFFFFRRRT!

Excuse me, do you mind not farting while I'm saving the world?

Some Doctors need to go back to medical school.

Ears, yes. Eyes, two. Nose.

And never annoy Davros.

You will tell me! You will tell me!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd