Back in 1963 when the first episode of Doctor who aired on BBC television in the United Kingdom, who would have thought that this small budget science fiction series would become the longest running science fiction series of all time and eventually have several spin-offs? The success and popularity of Doctor Who over the years has simply been amassing!

Today in all the mayor English speaking countries most people will have at least heard of Doctor Who. The countries where the series has been most successful are the United Kingdom, New Zeeland, Australia and the United States. There exist totally dedicated fan groups in all these countries, most are accessible via the World Wide Web. The web has become one of the best places to access the Doctor Who world, with 100s of dedicated websites about anything from simple news and episode reviews to the collecting of props and other merchandise!

The fan base for Doctor Who, after it's around 45 years is considerable; as a result there exist literarily 100s of fan made episodes even some films. On the Would Wide Web you can find pages that list lots of the episodes. There are a number of websites dedicated to this, just do a Google search and you'll come across them easily. You can also try YouTube and other popular video sharing sites.

The BBC in response to the series early popularity, expanded the series to radio and to Audio book. The radio was used as a way to allow some of the past Doctors to play the role once more, in totally new stories written especially for radio and later made available in audio book format. The same thing was done later with audio books, when totally new episodes were written solely for the audio listeners.

These new Medias where also used as a way of re producing some of the old television episodes that had been sadly lost. Each doctor who actor had picked up a fan base over the time he had played the Doctor, so these fans welcomed and supported these new medias since they gave them the change to here their favorite doctor back in action.

But the BBC didn't stop there, in recent years, Doctor who has had two totally new spin off serials! Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. Torchwood has been aimed at an older audience than the original series which is more aimed at the teenage audience although is watched by all ages. In contrast The Sarah Jane Adventures have been aimed at children, which means that the Doctor Who franchise now covers pretty much all of the television viewing age groups.

But the BBC aren't the only ones to commercially create doctor who episodes, a company named big finish have a license from the BBC to create their own original audio dramas based on the series, which they then sell in DVD form over the internet.

Now it's all up to the likes of the new doctor who series and its younger brothers, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures to live up to the old doctor who series. So far they seem to be doing a good job, but only time will tell whether these new series have the staying power that the original series has enjoyed.