Source: BBC
Submitted by: Nigel in Melbourne (SoSF Fan)
Dr Who ‘longest-running sci-fi’. Doctor Who has been named TV’s longest-running sci-fi show, after 43 years and 723 episodes, according to the Guinness Book of Records.
“This achievement is all thanks to the remarkable production team who first created Doctor Who,” said Russell T Davies, who penned the TV revival.
He also thanked the audience “who have kept it alive for all these years”.
The series began on 23 November, 1963, and was revived in 2005 after 16 years off the screen.
William Hartnell played the original Doctor Who, with Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker and Peter Davison among those following in his footsteps.
Christopher Eccleston took up the mantle of the ninth Timelord last year – following the show’s relaunch. He was replaced after just one series by David Tennant after Eccleston dropped out.
Guinness World Records editor, Craig Glenday, added: “This is a proud day for Doctor fans everywhere.”
US series Stargate SG-1, now in its 10th series, holds the world record for “longest-running science fiction show (consecutive)”.
It launched in 1997 and has run for 203 episodes without a break. Hit US series The X Files previously held the record, notching up 202 episodes.
Allrighty! Glad to see the good Doctor has gotten the props he deserves!
let’s see now:
doctor who 1st ep = “an unearthly child” airdate 23 November 1963 and runs continously until cancelled by the bbc ep = “survival” 06 December 1989.
so why is stargate the world record holder at 10 years?
Stargate probably ran more eps as who was only doin a dozen episodes a year.
I may be wrong.
In either case they are both worthy of recognition.
I have a feeling that Guinness is using the episode itself rather than the number of parts. Its a case of assuming that Doctor Who only had 6 episodes a season rather than 22 – 24 for stargate. Of course they are forgetting that each ep of Doctor Who had anywhere from 3 to 6 parts to it.
Actually, Nigel, Doctor Who in it’s classic form had stories of which individual episodes ran weekly. Each episode was 30 mins. Stories consisted of 4 to 6 episodes.
Any way you slice it, Doctor Who ran ran continuous epidsodes from ’63 to ’89, with over 600 individual episodes. Thats in excess of 300 hours of consecutive episodes. Guiness STILL has it wrong.
Actually the classic series did have up to 20 episodes per year. But they were divided into several story arcs that consisted of 3-6 parts. They usually aired one part per week. It is like in Stargate they have an episode that is continued to the next week but they count it as 2 episodes labeling them pt 1 and pt 2. With shows like Stargate they like to do that at the end of the season for a cliffhanger and then when the next season starts the episode has the same titel with pt2 at the end.
With Dr Who they only started the 13 episode per year since the series restarted in 2005 before that they ran with more episodes per year. But I believe one of the seaons with the sixth Doctor was cut short and so was the last season with the seventh Doctor and the 8th Doctor only played in a 2hr movie so he only had one episode.
But I think either way you look at it Dr Who is the longest running sci-fi series. Even beating out Star Trek since that series had several different shows they might have been in the Star Trek universe but they weren’t all the same show.