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List of Doctor Who characters

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ138877262 ↗
Source-derived summary

The long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who has featured a large number of characters throughout its history. The show stars its protagonist, the Doctor, an alien who travels in time and space in a time machine known as the TARDIS. When the Doctor dies, they can regenerate, which allows them to survive death, though changes their appearance and personality in the process. The Doctor often travels alongside a number of travelling companions, who often act as major supporting characters and co-protagonists on their travels. The Doctor and their companions often encounter a number of antagonists, as well as a number of villainous alien races and creatures, who they must often stop from achieving villainous agendas.

The series began with William Hartnell's First Doctor in 1963's An Unearthly Child, accompanied by companions Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) and Ian Chesterton (William Russell), with the series' very first alien antagonists, the Daleks, who debuted in the subsequent serial, The Daleks (1963-64). Since then, the show has featured a revolving cast, with the Doctor regenerating into new forms and with new companions, antagonists, and characters being introduced throughout the show's run.

The Doctor

The Doctor is the main character of Doctor Who, a long-running British science fiction television series. The Doctor travels in time and space in their time machine known as the TARDIS, frequently alongside a variety of travelling companions. The Doctor is a member of an alien race known as the Time Lords, and when the Doctor dies, a feature of their Time Lord biology, regeneration, allows the Doctor to survive, albeit with a new face, appearance, and personality.

Main incarnations

Other incarnations

Companions

Companions are those who travel with the Doctor in their adventures through time and space.

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The public source identifies “List of Doctor Who characters” as wikimedia list article. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around List, Doctor and characters.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1963—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with List, Doctor and characters providing the first useful test.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q138877262. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1963.

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This entry incorporates text from “List of Doctor Who characters” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.