10 Ways Doctor Who Restores Your Faith In Humanity

10. It Brings Families Together

"Doctor Who is watched at several levels in an average household. The smallest child terrified behind a sofa, or under a cushion, and the next one up laughing at him, and the elder one saying €œShhh! I want to listen€, and the parents saying €œIsn€™t it enjoyable?"." These recollections of Tom Baker hark back to the bygone 70s during which the majority of families had one TV with three channels and still ate together at set meal times. It was an ideal that Russell T Davies feared might be unobtainable when he relaunched the show in 2005. After all, was there still a place for all-age drama when most kids now had their own TV sets? He needn't have flinched for the triumph of that first series in 2005 was that it brought families back together around the TV. Chat show host and radio DJ Jonathan Ross was one of many plaudits who celebrated being able to enjoy the show with his children. Later that year, media executive Greg Dyke made it official by announcing Doctor Who as "the return of TV for all the family". Today, there is a greater challenge. If in 2005 there was a risk of family members watching different things in different rooms, now they are watching different things on multiple devices in the same room. Dyke€™s greatest achievement, BBC IPlayer, carries with it a cruel irony. It means that each family member can now watch the programme whenever, wherever and however they choose to. That said, studies as recent as 2009 showed the importance of TV as perhaps the lasting vestige of family times, taking over from a shared meal. The author of the study concluded that €œwatching TV for an hour or two a few times a week can be the ultimate opportunity for families to bond". And how lovely that the production of the show has on numerous occasions brought specific families together? Take Caitlin Blackwood and Karen Gillan (above), for example. Two cousins who had never met, crossing paths to work on Doctor Who. And as for the needlessly confusing relationships between Peter Davison, Georgia Moffat and David Tennant, well... that one pretty much goes without saying!