 We're less than six weeks away from the return of Doctor Who and the first full introduction of the Twelfth Doctor. August 23rd not coming soon enough? Let's see how Doctor Who got to this point in the meantime. Doctor Who first aired in 1963, and if you don't discount the cancellation in 1989 and the movies in between, it's the longest running science fiction show ever. At the time of its premiere, the Doctor was played by the aged William Hartnell, and over the years the character has regenerated, thus allowing the producers to recast their titular hero without having to restart the storyline. Although each Doctor is technically a reincarnation of the previous one, they each have different looks and personalities. The first was essentially your time traveling grandfather, the second was playful and childlike, the third was a smooth talking scientist, the fourth, and the longest lived of all, was quirky with that wild scarf, and so on and so forth. After the Seventh Doctor in 1989, the series went into hibernation. There was an attempt to reboot in 1996, but that pilot was released as a one-off television movie. After a 16-year hiatus, Doctor Who was rebooted in 2005 by Russell T. Davies, the creator of Queer as Folk. The series, generally referred to as New Who, launched with The Ninth Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston, but Eccleston only stayed one season and was promptly replaced by the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant. Davies' period ran for four seasons, and brought back many of the series' most iconic antagonists, including the Doctor's one-time friend, The Master. In 2010, Davies stepped down, and Doctor Who was passed to Steven Moffat, then widely considered one of the show's best episode writers. Where Davies had tended toward loosely planned, sometimes downright goofy plots, Moffat created extremely intricate season-wide arcs, sometimes working on plot points from almost every episode. And with a new showrunner came A New Doctor, the eleventh one, played by Matt Smith. After the series finale, Smith appeared in two more specials. The Day of the Doctor premiered last November in honor of the show's 50th anniversary. It featured appearances from all previous Doctors, both living and dead, and introduced fans to The War Doctor, played by John Hurt. Smith's final appearance as the Eleventh Doctor was last year's Christmas special, The Time of the Doctor, which ended on the introduction of the Twelfth Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi. What does the future hold for the New Doctor? Not even the Time Lord can tell, but at least he has new kidneys to see him through.