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Background
The Doctor
Martha Jones
Captain Jack Harkness
William Shakespeare
The Master ?
The Professor
'Here YOU are, living a life, day after day. The one adventure I can never have. I've got the TARDIS. Same old life. The last of the Time Lords.'
It's been a long break and we've missed him… But fear not. The galaxy's most celebrated time traveller is back to his planet-saving best as a major new Doctor Who series comes to BBC1.
Once again, David Tennant is the man holding the sonic screwdriver, returning for his second full series since the Beeb revived the show with Christopher Eccleston in 2005.
But the Who landscape has seen a few changes since the TARDIS was last in town. Assistant Rose Tyler (memorably played by Billie Piper) is no more - she was separated from the Doctor forever when he defeated the Daleks and Cybermen in the series finale.
The Doc's new sidekick is Martha Jones, a trainee doctor (the medical, not the Time Lord, kind) who appears in episode one. Martha is played by relative newcomer Freema Agyeman, 27, who was doing shifts in Blockbuster and considering giving up acting when producers said they would like to audition her as Billie's replacement.
She joins a flotilla of big name guest stars across the 13-part series, including Bleak House's Anne Reid as a character called Florence Finnigan, Adam Dalgliesh lead Roy Marsden as a hospital doctor, presenter Reggie Yates as Martha's brother, Leo, The League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss as a man called Lazarus, Ardal O'Hanlon as an alien called Brannigan and Shameless's Dean Lennox Kelly as Shakespeare.
Others to watch out for include Sir Derek Jacobi (playing a baddie called The Professor), Life on Mars star John Simm (rumoured to be the Doctor's nemesis, The Master), Spaced actress Jessica Stevenson, Spooks star Miranda Raison and EastEnders' Tom Ellis.
Not surprisingly, there will be plenty of baddies, too. Enemy forces to be reckoned with include the bloodsucking alien Plasmavores, The Judoon, a clan of galactic stormtroopers and an evil force with designs on 1930s New York.
A mysterious half-human from outer space, 'The Doctor' first appeared to British earthlings on 23 November, 1963 - in historical terms, the day after President Kennedy was assassinated. His job generally involves saving Planet Earth and its human inhabitants from extinction at the hands of evil aliens, though he tends to use wit rather than violence to outmanoeuvre them. One of his cleverest tricks is the ability to 'regenerate' his body when close to death. He can do this a total of 12 times - and David Tennant is the Doctor's Tenth incarnation.
The son of a Scottish vicar from Renfrewshire, David's full birth name is David John McDonald - he changed his surname to Tennant because someone had already registered David McDonald with actor's union Equity. The name Tennant was inspired by Pet Shop Boys lead singer Neil. David's eclectic film and TV jobs include Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Casanova and BBC genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?, where he discovered that his family stemmed from Northern Ireland. His girlfriend is actress Sophia Myles, who met him while filming an episode of Doctor Who and was last seen on BBC's Dracula.
Not to be confused with Adeola, a character Freema played in the last series of Doctor Who, who died after a mind-control device was inserted into her head by the Cybermen. Martha is a bright, capable medical student who first crosses paths with the Doctor when her hospital is transported to the Moon. Before long, she's battling Plasmavores and the Judoon. All in a day's work for a hard-grafting trainee doctor…
Prior to scooping the Doctor Who role, Freema was an unknown quantity in acting circles, though she had popped up in Casualty, Silent Witness and the revamped Crossroads (before its axe). Her break came when she appeared in a Doctor Who episode called Army of Ghosts, playing a Torchwood operative called Adeola whose brain was taken over by the Cybermen. She had to keep silent about the role for several months. She was born in London but has parents from Ghana and Iran.
Time-travelling mystery man Captain Jack first, who will pop up in the series finale, first appeared on Doctor Who in an episode called The Empty Child. A flirtatious, bisexual charmer, Jack hails from the 51st century but has dabbled in military roles through the ages - Rose Tyler first met him in London during the Blitz, where he was posing as an RAF pilot. Amongst other things, he is the head of Torchwood (which became a BBC3 spinoff show) a secret organisation which tracks down alien technology. Real-life trivia: the racehorse Hucking Harkness was named in his honour.
John grew up in Joliet, Illinois, but his roots, like David Tennant, are true blue Scottish: he was born in Glasgow. In his earlier career he was best known to kids as the co-presenter of Live and Kicking on Saturday mornings, and he has gone on to star in several major musicals. He will soon appear as a judge on talent search Any Dream Will Do. Outside acting, he likes dogs. He owns two cocker spaniels called Penny and Lewis, which sleep at the foot of his bed. As a memorabilia collector, he also owns two TARDISes.
Look out for the Bard in episode two of the new series of Doctor Who. He makes an appearance when the Doctor gives Martha her first taste of life in the TARDIS - a trip back to Elizabethan England. Unexpectedly, they find old Will under the control of deadly, witch-like creatures and discover they will have to battle forces from the dawn of the universe if they are to stop history from being changed altogether. Many of the Shakespeare scenes were filmed at London's reconstructed Globe Theatre, on the south bank of the Thames.
Brother of Queer As Folk actor Craig Kelly, Dean is best known for playing Kev on C4's Shameless and Dex on BBC1 postie drama Sorted. A boyhood Liverpool fan, he is well-known to viewers as a very tidy real-life footballer. He lined up against Diego Maradona in the last series of Robbie Williams-organised Soccer Aid on ITV1, watched by Pele from the stands, and the wall of his toilet at home in Brighton boasts a photograph of him embracing the two footballing legends.
The Master is a recurring Doctor Who baddie - perhaps the greatest of all his foes - who first appeared in the 1971 episode Terror of the Autons. He was originally played by bewhiskered actor Roger Delgado and then by a range of subsequent actors. In the past, his special powers have included an intense, hypnotic stare and the catchphrase 'I am the Master - you will obey me!' He also has his own shape-shifting version of the TARDIS and a favourite weapon is the Tissue Compression Eliminator, which shrinks its victims as it kills them.
One of TV's most-admired stars for his role in BBC1 back-to-the-future drama Life on Mars, John got his break aged 25, playing a killer in the crime series Cracker. He has a five-year-old son called Ryan with his wife, actress Kate MacGowan. Before becoming a professional actor, he was in a band called Magic Alex, which once toured with indy outfit Echo and the Bunnymen. Outside acting (and music), he enjoys going to the ballet.
Doctor Who insiders are remaining tight-lipped about the precise role of the mysterious 'Professor' - though the man who plays him, Sir Derek Jacobi, previously played old enemy The Master in an earlier series. This time, we understand, the Professor will be a force for good, rather than evil, taking a key role alongside the Doctor in preventing the world from ending.
One of Britain's most recognisable veterans of stage and screen, Sir Derek is only the second actor in history to have been twice-knighted: by the UK and Denmark (the other was Sir Laurence Olivier). His most famous role was the title part in Roman drama I, Claudius and he has appeared in Doctor Who before - as The Master (see John SimmÕs profile). Sir Derek has been in a 27-year relationship with partner Richard Clifford, which was registered several months after civil unions became legalised in England and Wales.
