A phrase that comes up a lot (especially when talking about Female or Black Doctors. Although that's not the main topic here. Each to their own/let sleeping dogs lie/agree to disagree whatever. Just don't argue here. ) is that the show is about Change.

Is it really? I mean, one core idea is about it really, Regeneration. And maybe you could throw in going to different times, the setting each week is different. And maybe companions. But the only one that was there at the beginning is the different times and settings. The show was a success then without Regeneration and different companions, so was change really an integral part?

I think a much better core idea is something not being what it seems. Sort of judging something as normal, and it being extraordinary.

A strange school girl is in fact an alien.
A bizarre old man is in fact an alien.
A Police Box is in fact a living bigger on the inside time ship.
Outside the doors is not the junk-yard again as it would seem.
That's not an ordinary human shadow, it's a caveman.
That may look like a plunger and a whisk, or the illegitimate love child of a tank and a pepper pot but really it is the most hated and evil being in all creation. (Okay, maybe the idea doesn't hold out in this particular instance. )
Those aren't ordinary people in the snow. They may look and sound like humans but really they are metallic Cybermen who had their souls stripped from them in order for them to survive.
That's not an ordinary death, instead of ending like you'd expect, it goes on again! A fresh start!
That's not an ordinary space man, it's a potato. (I don't know.)
That strange northern bloke is actually an alien.
Rose may have no job and may have no A-levels, but she's brilliant anyway.
That's not really a fat bloke, it's a big alien.
You thought that was a child, but really it's a nanobot enhanced warrior.
That's not really a strange northern fat bloke, it's really a strange northern fat alien that was supposed to be the size of a bus even though the competition strictly said no CGI so the kid didn't read and I should know because I entered the competition and I'm not spiteful in the slightest.
You thought that was a statue, but really it's a demonic alien.
She seems like his future wife, but really she's the daughter of his best friends who was kidnapped, genetically modified with base genetic cores inherently in her extrapolated so she can regenerate, and is trained to be an assassin who then goes rogue, get's lost, dies, finds her parents and grows up with them, finds the Doctor, dies, kills the Doctor, changes her mind and saves the Doctor, becomes an archaeologist, gets forcibly made to kill the Doctor, goes to prison, leaves prison nightly with the Doctor, marries the Doctor in an aborted timeline, gets pardoned,leaves prison, does some more archaeological stuff, and dies in a library...person.

It goes on and on.

I think a lot of it is about having ones expectations turned around. Like in Hide, not a scary monster, but instead lovers lost across worlds!

What do you think? Is not judging things by what they seem a core idea to Doctor Who, more so than change?

Or am I talking nonsense? Where am I going wrong and what other evidence is there that Change is core to the show?

Are the ideas mutually exclusive? Why not both?

Not nonsense at all. Great post.

I think the concept of 'change' is only central to the show when it suits and at certain times. It essentially says there is nothing wrong with moving forward and not to be a slave to the past especially when it comes to the new Doctors. That concept is sacred and central. But i alot of ways the show thrives on familiarity and doesn't deviate from its own set of rules within the Whoniverse.

But as you have pointed out its even more about the unexpected. Whether that be in people or situations. Things are never always what they seem in Doctor Who. It often turns accepted tropes and cliche on their head and that's part of what makes it so enduring and popular. There is nothing else like it. I am not saying the show hasn't been guilty of playing to archetypes and stereotypes etc but more often than not it asks the viewers to look at things differently. There is always more to everything than meets the eye. Its why the show excels in comparison to boring, writing by numbers drivel like Atlantis and Primeval and Merlin- all shows that feed off familiarity and retreading lazy old ground. Doctor Who rarely if ever does this. All part of its charm!

I don't think 'change' is what the programme is about. But it is a tool that the programme has used to stay relevant over the years. The original concept was so vague and undefined that it had an unprecedented leeway to change over the years.

I think you're right there, Johnny. One big example, I'd have to say, is definitely the Jon Pertwee era. The change there is staggering, but it kept the show going and allowed it to return to the older format sometime later. I guess the change is important as it has enabled it to survive a lot longer than otherwise it could have done. But like you say about the undefined original concept, it's quite open like you say to different interpretations. It's like a reboot without having to ignore the past. It's quite nifty really.

The format of Doctor Who is unique in television, in that really, there is no format. Astonishing.

The only consistent ingredient is the mysterious traveller in the blue box. And even he can utterly change his appearance and personality. Whoever it was who came up with the idea of Regeneration (regardless of what it was called in 1966) deserves a medal. Being able to recast your lead actor as part of an ongoing storyline is a genius idea. As dalekaddison mentions above, it enables the show to totally reboot itself, whenever it wants, but it is still able to keep all the choice parts of what has gone before. Daleks, monsters, timey-wimey, companions, spaceships, spooky stuff - pah!
This show can change everything, completely yet somehow it still remains identifiably Doctor Who - THAT is the secret of its success.

Not just the actor - the mythology of Doctor Who has built up organically, rather than being baked-into the concept. It's a really stark contrast to the long-term world-building used in so many cult shows these days, where the author's try to give the impression of peeling back layers of a ready-made universe.

I probably wouldn't say the show is about change, though change is a crucial aspect of what makes the show so successful.

Part of its strength in Doctor Who is its ability to rejuvenate itself...literally regenerate and give itself a complete facelift, right down to the very kind of people you cast in the leading roles. You only need to look at how different Series 1 and Series 7 are to appreciate how it successfully takes on very different façades. It manages this by uniquely being able to get comfortable in pretty much any genre it wants - in a month's worth of episodes you can get a period drama, a horror story, a proper sci-fi romp and a contemporary invasion story. Doctor Who is adaptable... but that doesn't mean it's all about change, necessarily.

There are fundamental constants and an element of sentiment that take the show to a whole other level as well. Rather than stubbornly trying to always move on for the sake of easier production, the show has come back again and again with familiar comforts that tap into that nostalgia-factor that keeps long-term fans hooked - and after 50 years, it's leading the way in British television, and even in international television at being able to deliver a show that has a past so richly woven and worth revisiting. The Daleks are still an integral element of the show after five decades, we relatively recently got a spin-off out of a character who was first introduced in the 1970's, we have a 50th Anniversary special coming up that will not only see the return of a popular former Doctor and companion, but will also be making harks and references back to an episode of the show that aired in black-and-white, all the back in 1963. All of these elements are just as crucial to the success of the show, and are every bit as much of what it is all about - change may be one major ingredient to making Doctor Who successful, but it also embeds itself in some familiar constants which it constantly tries to keep relevant in new and refreshing ways.

Doctor Who as a show is very much like its main character then, and it's about regeneration. Now and again it gets a new face and a new outlook, but it also maintains the same sort of characteristics and sense of classic adventure, just like The Doctor himself.

I love the idea of regeneration. Nowhere have I ever heard about anything even remotely likely that being used in any other TV show.

In one of the BBC America "The Doctors Revisited", Moffat said that regeneration was "the most reckless and brilliant" ideas in TV, and I can't agree more.

Like Moffat said, they could have any guy who looked like Hartnell, stuck him a white wig and explain the change away. But no, they gave the role to someone who didn't look anything like him, and play it in a totally different way. It could have been as easily been a spectacular failure and killed the show right there, but it didn't! They had no way of know it would work so well.

And the best part, is that they still didn't explain it. They just rolled with it, he's different, but he's still the Doctor. It took until the Third Doctor's final story for us to get any sort of explanation.

Seriously, I don't think any other show out there is willing to pull off anything like that off.

No other show could do it now, because it would be quite justifiably accused of ripping off Doctor Who. First one with a brilliant idea claims the patent.