Dr Who's timely return

Doctor Who is set to return to BBC television by popular demand after an absence of seven years.

The cult show chronicling the adventures of the Time Lord and his evil robotic enemies the Daleks ran for nearly 30 years and was one of the most successful children's television series ever.

It was axed in 1989 because of falling viewing figures, but made a comeback in 1996 in the form of a 90-minute television movie.

BBC1 controller Lorraine Heggessey has signed a deal to resurrect the doctor and his spacetime travelling machine the Tardis in what some critics see as a sign that the corporation has run out of fresh ideas.

But the BBC, which has been steadily haemorrhaging viewers to ITV1 and satellite channels this year, hopes it is banking on a guaranteed ratings winner thanks to the millions of viewers who remember the sci-fi series as part of their childhood.

However, in a move that may alarm dedicated fans, scripts are being prepared by screenwriter Russell T. Davies, who wrote the controversial Channel 4 gay drama Queer As Folk. No actor has yet been cast in the lead role.

Production is due to start in January, but Doctor Who will not reach screens for another two years.

The series, revealed in a recent poll as Britain's most-missed television programme, will be screened - as before - on early Saturday evenings.

Miss Heggessey has been trying for months to secure the return of the show. She was faced with an uphill task because a film version is also due out and the producers did not want the television show to clash with it.

The series about the mysterious intergalactic adventurer, who invariably travels with pretty female assistants, first came to the nation's screens on Saturday,

November 23, 1963. But the opening lines of the first doctor, played by William Hartnell, were delayed by 17 minutes because of coverage of the assassination of U.S. President John Kennedy the previous day.

As time went on, viewers discovered that the doctor had fled an alien world after a disaster.

He travelled in the Tardis - which was an old-fashioned police phone box on the outside, but a huge complex inside. But he could not steer it and ended up on Earth.

Unlike Earthlings, age did not weary him because of his unique ability to regenerate - hence the number of different and increasingly younger doctors.