First airing in 1963, the program was originally designed for children, but because it followed in the tradition of the best British children’s literature (by not underestimating its audience and therefore not talking down to it), Doctor Who was accessible to everyone and over the years its audience has grown to include viewers of all ages the world over. The show ran until 1989, when it was canceled due to declining ratings. A 1996 attempt to revive it in the U.S. went nowhere, but then, in 2005, the BBC offered Russell T. Davies the chance to resurrect the moribund time lord. The Welsh-born, Oxford-educated Davies is one of Britain’s most highly respected television writers, having created, produced and written numerous award-winning shows for children and the groundbreaking 1999 adult series Queer as Folk. A lifelong fan of the man from Gallifrey, Davies jumped at the chance to revive Who.

And revive it he did, in a spectacular accomplishment that produced not only an enormously entertaining television series but also a textbook example for screenwriters in this era in which the entertainment industry is working overtime to strip- mine its past by remaking, rebooting or revising seemingly every last piece of material in its collective libraries. Whether you like the idea of remakes or not, they are a Hollywood fact of life right now and the odds are great that any currently working writer is going to be faced with the challenges of doing one. Since it’s no secret that most of these retreads are pretty disappointing, it seems a good idea to look to one that isn’t for tips on how to do it right.

In my opinion, the biggest and best thing that Davies did right in remaking Doctor Who was that he did not remake Doctor Who at all -- he didn’t reinvent it or reimagine it or update it or make it relevant or hip or edgy or ironically self-referential, or accessible or cool or whatever the hell else it is that people do to beloved properties that tend to just ruin them for fans and general audiences alike. Instead, Davies simply did Doctor Who. He took all of the elements of the program as they had existed for years and then executed them really, really well -- perhaps as well as they have ever been done.

The aspect that makes the quality of the show immediately obvious is the look of the show. In its original run, the program was produced on a relatively low budget and looked it -- it was shot mostly on garishly lit videotape, the sets were always a bit dodgy, as were the props, the special effects, and the creatures. In some ways, the low-rent cheesiness of the production values added to the show’s charm, but also led to the feeling that the program was never quite able to live up to its fantastical ambitions. Davies negotiated a much larger budget for his series and so the production values are all now top-notch and, as a result, the world of Doctor Who now looks the way that fans have always imagined that it should.

But it is in the writing that Davies’ approach has paid the most dividends. Davies and his writing staff are telling the same stories the show has always told, but they are now more clever (sometimes dizzyingly so), more layered (ditto), and a heck of a lot more epic. Plus, a decision was obviously made to explore areas that the material has always suggested, but never really examined. An excellent example of this is the way in which the show explores its protagonist’s character. In the near 50-year run of the series, The Doctor has seen a great many human companions come and go -- something that it’s easy to imagine might make him a wee bit wistful. Davies took this notion and ran with it -- his Doctor has a strong melancholy streak and the stories have explored his growing sense of loss to the point where in recent episodes he has sworn off having companions altogether because he just can’t bear the pain of losing another. Also, The Doctor has always been depicted as loving and cherishing life, yet the stories frequently require him to kill his opponents. One can imagine this would cause him a good deal of conflict and regret and, once again, this element was made a part of the stories, with an anguished Doctor frequently begging his opponents to change their ways before he is forced to act and then becoming both mournful and angry when they force him to mete out the ultimate penalty. Other examples include a deepening of the relationships between The Doctor and his companions (to the point of romance in one instance) as well as an examination of the impact the companions’ decisions to leave Earth and join The Doctor on his jaunts has on the loved ones that they leave behind. None of this is done is weighty or heavy-handed manner, but it does serve to give the show added depth, texture and dimension and the cumulative effect of it all is rather unexpected -- as you watch a show about a guy fighting monsters, you find yourself becoming emotionally involved and sometimes even profoundly moved. That’s great writing.

Ultimately, Davies made a decision to respect the basic material and trusted that if it was presented well it would connect with an audience. This seems to be a principle that the best redos (Star Trek, Casino Royale) observe and the worst (Land of the Lost, Planet of the Apes) do not. Heeding it has certainly paid off brilliantly for Davies: the first series of his Doctor Who, which starred Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor, was a solid hit, but since David Tennant -- an actor whose energetic, enthusiastic approach to the role meshes perfectly with the tone of Davies’ writing -- took over in Series Two (it is part of show’s mythology that when a Time Lord dies, he regenerates into a brand new body, so when the current lead decides he wants to leave the role, The Doctor is put into a fatal situation that allows his replacement to take over the part with a minimum of fuss. Officially, Tennant is the 10th Doctor), it became a smash and has remained one ever since.

Davies and Tennant are both leaving the show at the end of its current series. With Matt Smith taking over as the 11th Doctor, we can only hope that new showrunner Steven Moffat will resist the urge to tamper with Who and will instead simply continue to nurture it -- a hope we have for the rest of remake-happy Hollywood as well.