The original series of Doctor Who ended in 1989. Apart from a one-off adventure in 1996, starring Paul McGann, it would not return for 15 years. It was the absence of Doctor Who from television that gave it cult appeal in Britain - a status the programme always enjoyed in the US, where it was not shown on the major networks, and fans had to search for it.

In the US, Doctor Who fans hold big annual conventions, where they can meet cast members and socialise. The longest-running one is Outpost Gallifrey, organised by the website of the same name. It is due to hold its 18th convention, in Los Angeles, in 2007. There is also the ChicagoTARDIS, which in 2006, was into its seventh year. UK conventions include Panopticon, which ran from 1977 until 2003, and Regenerations, which takes place in Swansea.

The UK has the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, set up in 1977, and the only group with official BBC approval. There are also many local clubs, such as Nottingham's TARDIS social, whose website features a "Quiz of Doom" set by the "Stoat of Death". In Derby, there is a group called the Whoovers, who have regular “Wholidays” to places holding Doctor Who exhibitions. Their motto is "Don't be a sucker, be a Whoover!" There are also fan clubs for individual Doctors, their companions and even supporting actors, such as John Levene, who played Sergeant Benton.

You can also find websites offering instructions on how to build your own police box, and even a TARDIS operating manual which explains, in mind-boggling detail, how to set your landing co-ordinates and make repairs.

The 1990s

Although the programme was no longer broadcast in the 1990s, the BBC kept the franchise going, licensing new novels, comics and audio-taped adventures. This gave many imaginative fans the chance to create their own Doctor Who adventures. So Mark Gatiss of the comedy sketch group, The League Of Gentlemen, wrote four Doctor Who novels in the decade. Like many fans, Gatiss favours the Doctor he came to know as a child - in his case, Tom Baker, the mid-1970s Doctor. A large part of Doctor Who fandom is based on childhood nostalgia.

Another fan was Russell T Davies, writer of Queer As Folk, Channel 4's ground-breaking gay drama series of 1999. Interviewed in the Guardian, Davies described what the Doctor meant to him as a child:

When I was eight, walking home from school... I always used to think 'I could turn round the corner and the TARDIS would be there - and I would run inside and I would fight alongside the Doctor.' It was the one programme that encouraged you to make up stories. The TARDIS could land in the everyday world and no other science-fiction programme would do that. You were never going to be a member of the crew on the Enterprise when you were eight years old: it was in the future and they were the navy.

The success of Queer As Folk meant that Davies was suddenly in demand as a writer. He says, "They'd phone me up and say 'Do you want to write A Tale of Two Cities?' and I'd say 'No, I want to write Doctor Who.'"

Eventually, Davies was able to pursuade Lorraine Heggessy, controller of BBC1, to bring back the series, casting Christopher Ecclestone in the role. Davies also brought in Mark Gatiss to write for the series. This led to an unprecedented situation in television history, when devoted fans were given control of the programme they loved.

Reactions to the Doctor's return

There have always been fierce arguments about the ideal actor to play the Doctor. So although the fans were pleased when the programme was revived in 2005, there were misgivings about the casting of Christopher Ecclestone - an actor who specialised in intense Northerners. Some fans objected to the redesigned TARDIS, and others complained that Davies had turned the programme into a soap opera. Members of the production team even received hate mail and death threats.

In a posting on an internet newsgroup, journalist and fan Guy Clapperton explained why his fellow fans had mixed feelings about the return of their favourite programme:

Doctor Who became, over a period of 14 years, a source of constant speculation. /If/ or /when/ it comes back, it'll be spectacular, they said, because it could do anything - it could be anyone, at any time, having exciting adventures. Of course the extension of this was that in our own heads everyone's private vision of /their/ Doctor Who became definitive... It's an actual series again and as such a generation of fans is slowly realising that this 'wow, we could do anything' ethos is being replaced by 'we are going to do this'. They're going to be stuck with 'This is the Doctor and companion and these are their stories.' And some of them are objecting.

Read Jesse Walker's Doctor Who and the Fandom of Fear article here