Doctor Who in America refers to the broadcast history of the long running British science fiction television series Doctor Who in the United States. Please refer to the main article for details on the series itself. A broadcast of the long-running and popular British science-fiction series Doctor Who. ... Main article: History of Doctor Who Doctor Who first appeared on BBC television on November 23, 1963. ... Main article: History of Doctor Who Doctor Who first appeared on BBC television on November 23, 1963. ...

The BBC series was originally sold to television stations in the United States in 1975, with Time-Life Television syndicating selected episodes of Jon Pertwee's time as the Doctor. Unfortunately, the series did not do well, despite an interesting write-up some years earlier in TV Guide. Apparently, program directors of the commercial television stations that picked up the Jon Pertwee series did not know that the program was an episodic serial, and so it was constantly being shuffled about in the programming schedules. In 1978, Tom Baker's first four seasons as the Doctor were sold to PBS public broadcasting stations across the United States. This time, though, Time-Life was ready to have the Doctor poised for American consumption, by having stage and screen actor Howard Da Silva read prerecorded prologues and teasers for the next episode which would inform the viewer as to what was going on. To accommodate these, up to three minutes of original material was cut from each episode. Originally mistaken for a British comedy (along the lines of "Doctor in the House", "Good Neighbors", "Benny Hill", and "Monty Python"), PBS program planners took the show at face value, but it soon achieved cult status. This article is an overview article about the Crown chartered British Broadcasting Corporation formed in 1927. ... 1975 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... Jon Pertwee - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... TV Guide is the name of two North American weekly magazines about TV programming, one in the United States and one in Canada. ... 1978 was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ... Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor Thomas Stewart Baker (born January 20, 1934) is a British actor, mainly associated with playing the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who, whom he played from 1974 to 1981. ... PBS re-directs here; for alternate uses see PBS (disambiguation) PBS logo The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a non-profit public broadcasting television service with 349 member TV stations in the United States. ... Film actor Howard Da Silva (May 4, 1909 - February 16, 1986), born Howard Silverblatt in Cleveland, Ohio, appeared in over sixty films and a number of television programs. ... Doctor in the House is a 1954 British comedy film, directed by Ralph Thomas and produced by Betty Box. ... For other uses, see The Good Life (disambiguation) The Good Life was one of the most successful British sitcoms of all time, produced by the BBC during the mid-1970s. ... Born Alfred Hawthorn Hill (January 21, 1924/1925 - April 20, 1992), Benny Hill was a prolific comic British actor. ... The Monty Python troupe in 1970. ...

In the mid 1980's, as more stations began to show the existing 1960s episodes, Lionheart (the program's American distributor in the 1980s) dispensed with the older Time-Life prints containing the Howard Da Silva narrations. Lionheart also offered stations the choice of the 25-minute episodes, or what some stations termed Whovies. These "omnibus editions," or, "movie versions" as they were also known, edited multi-part serials into a single, feature-length film, by cutting out the opening and closing credits, as well as the recap of the cliffhanger, between episodes. This practice carried into the earliest VHS releases in the US and the UK. It was roundly disliked by many fans and the practice was dropped by the early 1990's. 1980 is a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... 1960 was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in which a movie or novel contains an abrupt ending, often leaving the main characters in a precarious or difficult situation (for instance, hanging from the edge of a cliff). ... 1990 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The program became a part of 1980s geek chic, as popular as Star Trek was in the 1970s. Conventions, personal appearances of cast members and production staff as well as the national airing on PBS of the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors two days before the BBC sealed the success of the program in America. In November 1983, on the weekend after the airing of The Five Doctors, all the actors that had played the Doctor who were still living and some of those who played the Doctor's companions over the series' first two decades on television appeared at a standing-room-only event in Chicago, the start of a Thanksgiving Day weekend celebration that continues annually. // Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 60s and 70s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ... The Enterprise boldly going where no man had gone before. ... This article provides extensive lists of events and significant personalities of the 1970s. ... Science fiction conventions are gatherings of the community of fans (called science fiction fandom) of various forms of science fiction and fantasy. ... The Five Doctors was a special movie-length episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, produced in celebration of the programmes twentieth anniversary. ... November is the eleventh month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of four Gregorian months with the length of 30 days. ... 1983 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Chicago (officially named the City of Chicago) is the third largest city in the United States (after New York City and Los Angeles), with an official population of 2,896,016, as of the 2000 census. ... The First Thanksgiving, after the painting by Jean Louis Gerome Ferris (1863-1930) Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrated in much of North America, generally observed as an expression of gratitude, usually to God. ...

National fan organizations sprung up, like the North American Doctor Who Appreciation Society and the Doctor Who Fan Club of America, with the latter planning regional weekend events with an actor headlining the event. Local fan groups also developed, some disbanding when the series ended production, others which are still running. There are two conventions in America devoted to the series: Gallifrey One, which takes place in February and Chicago TARDIS taking place in late November. February is the second month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... November is the eleventh month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of four Gregorian months with the length of 30 days. ...

The statewide PBS chain New Jersey Network was the most enthusiastic on the series, scheduling pre-1970 serials as well as being the first to broadcast the new season on the program in 1985. NJN staff member Eric Luskin hosted and produced three documentaries on the series, the latter a "behind the scenes" look at the production of the 25th anniversary story Silver Nemesis. 1970 was a common year starting on Thursday. ... 1985 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Silver Nemesis is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in three weekly parts from November 23 (the series 25th anniversary) to December 7, 1988. ...

Once the series ceased production in 1989, the number of stations carrying Doctor Who naturally dropped, although the program's popularity had been waning in the United States for some years. As most stations were in the practice of purchasing the omnibus "movie versions" of the series rather than the fourteen episodes produced annually in its last four years, stations only received four feature-length stories each January. It wasn't until the mid-1990s that TJ Lubinsky at WXEL in West Palm Beach, Florida resuscitated nationwide interest in the series by broadcasting episodes never before seen and syndicated in America. However, only a small percentage of the 1980s-era tally of PBS stations still carry the program. 1989 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... // Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but keeping the same mind-set. ... Palm Beach is a town located in Palm Beach County, Florida, 65 miles north of Miami. ... // Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 60s and 70s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ...

In late 2004, the BBC began to stop sending any more episodes to PBS stations and not to renew current contracts as they expire. According to a report by the BBC, this is due to negotiations with commercial US networks to broadcast the new series of Doctor Who that started on March 26, 2005. This means that PBS stations currently only have their in-house libraries of Doctor Who stories to draw on, and once their contracts end, the series would finally disappear from PBS altogether. 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... March 26 is the 85th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (86th in leap years). ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ...

As of this writing, no announcement has been made as to which network or channel in the United States will broadcast the new series. There were media reports that the Sci-Fi Channel had expressed interest in the series, but ultimately did not take it up. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is presently the only North American broadcaster carrying the program, debuting it on April 5, 2005 to strong ratings. The Canadian broadcasts are formatted slightly differently than the UK version, with commercial breaks and introductions by series actors added in order to pad the 45-minute instalments to fill a 60-minute time-slot. Due to the lack of a United States broadcaster, many US fans resorted to using BitTorrent, USENET news groups and other peer-to-peer systems to download the episodes of the new series for viewing. Sci Fi is an American cable television channel, launched in 1992 and currently owned by corporate conglomerate NBC Universal, specializing in science fiction, fantasy, horror, and paranormal programming. ... The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known by the abbreviation CBC, is Canadas government-owned radio and television broadcaster. ... April 5 is the 95th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (96th in leap years). ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer (P2P) file distribution tool written by programmer Bram Cohen and debuted at CodeCon 2002. ... Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ...

See also

• Doctor Who on Region 1 DVD

This is a list of Doctor Who serials that are available on Region 1 DVD and their US release dates. ...

External links

• "American Who", US-based Internet audio magazine on "Doctor Who"
• "Gallifrey One", an annual US "Doctor Who" convention held in February in LA
• "Chicago TARDIS", an annual US "Doctor Who" convention held on Thanksgiving Weekend in Chicago.