As we soar through the 2010s there have been two anniversaries in recent years that have come and gone with appropriate fanfares. Both are global icons. Both dominate in their field. Both are unmistakably British. 2012 saw the 50th anniversary of the James Bond movie series. 2013 was the 50th anniversary of the television series, Doctor Who. But why have they both lasted so long? And as they approach their 55th anniversaries; why do they seem to be more popular than ever?

The answer could be that their central characters seem to be incredibly clever at altering their appearances without the audience losing faith. Of course, James Bond is always the same character but with different actors in the role. His change of appearance is never referred to. The Doctor is the same character but is able to “regenerate” when his current body is no longer usable. His change of appearance becomes a major plotline. Whenever a new actor is cast in either role, it becomes a major media event, generating massive publicity for its respective franchise. However both series have had their ups and downs. And both series have nearly come to a premature demise. It hasn’t always been plain sailing for the Secret Agent and the Time Lord.

The Beginning

In the beginning James Bond was a character created by British writer Ian Fleming for his first novel, Casino Royale, published in April 1953. Such was the popularity of the novel and the character, Fleming was pretty much writing a Bond novel every year for the rest of his life. There had been numerous attempts to get Bond onto the big and small screen. An American TV movie of Casino Royale was produced but was terrible (he was Americanised as “Jimmy Bond” of the CIA). Fleming also attempted writing a screenplay with Jack Whittingham and Kevin McClory titled Longitude 78 West (which featured the evil organisation SPECTRE, led by Blofeld). When the movie didn’t get off the ground he re-wrote it as the Bond novel Thunderball. By 1962 Fleming had written ten James Bond novels and finally the character got the movie treatment he deserved with Dr No. Produced by UK-based Harry Saltzman & “Cubby” Broccoli and directed by Terence Young, Dr No was a box office smash and turned the previously unknown actor, Sean Connery into a global megastar.

The beginning of Doctor Who wasn’t quite as complex. The BBC was looking for a new TV show for early Saturday evenings; something that would fit between the sports show Grandstand and the pop music show Juke Box Jury. Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, brainstormed a science fiction idea with a team of scriptwriters. Newman came up with the idea of an alien traveller whose time machine was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. And so was born Doctor Who. Veteran actor William Hartnell was cast in the title role. Hartnell was already known to viewers for his long-running sitcom, The Army Game and had starred in the first Carry On movie, Carry On Sergeant in 1958. Doctor Who would bring him a whole new legion of younger fans.

The Sixties – Making It Big

By 1966 the James Bond films had become a phenomenon. By the fifth entry in the series, Thunderball, there were cinemas running the movie 24-hours a day and it rapidly became one of the biggest box office successes in cinema history (raking in $848m in today’s money). Its star, Sean Connery, was beginning to tire of the whole thing. Worried about typecasting and unhappy with his salary, Connery announced during filming of his sixth entry, You Only Live Twice, that he was quitting the role. Another headache for the producers was that the only Bond novel they didn’t have the film rights to – Casino Royale – was being turned into a spoof Bond movie by rival producers, starring David Niven as “Sir” James Bond. Rather than abandon such a successful franchise at its peak, Saltzman & Broccoli decided to recast the role. After a massive highly-publicised search they ended up selecting Australian former model George Lazenby. The result was On Her Majesty’s Secret Service; acknowledged now as one of the best entries in the series, initially the box office wasn’t up to previous standards. But even before filming had finished, the new star had decided he was only going to live once as James Bond and as the seventies dawned, Saltzman & Broccoli had to go searching again.

By 1966 Doctor Who was in its third series and was a Saturday teatime hit for the BBC – viewing figures peaked at 13 million during the second series. However, with star William Hartnell now in his late 60s, his health was deteriorating and the workload was proving to be too much. Hartnell was orgetting his lines and losing his patience and eventually both actor and producers decided the time had come for him to leave the role. With such a success on their hands, they knew they’d have to recast and Newman came up with the perfect excuse: The Doctor is an alien, so he can regenerate. Although the term “regeneration” wouldn’t be used until further down the line, the idea that The Doctor could change into a different form (although still humanoid in appearance) was one that would guarantee the longevity of the series. As Hartnell transformed into Patrick Troughton, the new Doctor was younger, more energetic and mischievous. Troughton played by his own rules though. By 1969 the actor was concerned about typecasting and decided that three series was enough. The 1970s were to see some big changes for The Doctor.

The Seventies – Changing Times

For Saltzman & Broccoli there was only one way they could take James Bond forward and that was to go back. Back to Connery. The producers went all out to lure back their first Bond – including offering him a then record wage of $1m. They succeeded. Although Connery only returned for one outing – Diamonds Are Forever – they managed to get the series back on track and they also knew where they were going next. Since the start of the series they had always wanted to get their hands on Roger Moore, however he was always tied up with TV series such as The Saint and The Persuaders. Now Moore was free, he was signed up and his first Bond movie, Live and Let Die was a massive success. While everything was sorted onscreen, things behind the scenes were heading towards disaster. Co-producer Harry Saltzman was bankrupt after some bad personal investments. Rather than sell his half of James Bond to this fellow producer, he chose to sell them to United Artists. Then there was more trouble: remember Fleming turning the abandoned Longitude 78 West screenplay into the novel, Thunderball? One of the co-writers on that original screenplay, Kevin McClory, was now taking Broccoli and United Artists to court, claiming he owned rights to Bond, Blofeld and SPECTRE, having created some of the material and characters that eventually went on to appear in Thunderball. As a result Broccoli stopped using Blofeld and SPECTRE in future movies, while McClory decided he had the right to remake the Thunderball movie as a rogue project away from the official series. Once all the courtroom battles were out of the way, “Cubby” Broccoli – now flying solo – produced The Spy Who Loved Me with Roger Moore in his third Bond movie (but without Blofeld and SPECTRE in the plot) and ended up with a huge box office success and securing the future of the series well into the 1980s.

As the 1970s dawned for Doctor Who there were two big changes: firstly the series would be broadcast in colour and secondly there was a new Doctor played by Jon Pertwee. The Third Doctor would be taller, more elegant and more physical. Due to budget restraints however, his exploits would be confined to the planet Earth. The excuse being that The Doctor was being punished by the Time Lords and being exiled on Earth with his ability to time travel being removed. This also meant that he got to join the United Nations International Taskforce (or UNIT for short) and this established an extended “family” that he could interact with during his adventures. Pertwee stayed the course for five series before handing over the TARDIS to Tom Baker in 1975. Baker would go on to take the series to greater heights and remain in the role longer than any previous actor, taking The Doctor into the 1980s.

The Eighties – The End?

The 1980s were prolific times for both The Doctor and James Bond. But by the end of the decade, the future was in doubt for both franchises. Roger Moore was firmly settled into the role of Bond but by the end of the ‘70s his contract had run out and he decided now was the time to go. “Cubby” Broccoli was still worried about the threat of a potential rival rogue Bond movie from Kevin McClory (his Thunderball remake was eventually released in 1984 as Never Say Never Again starring Sean Connery). With Broccoli keen to keep Moore on, he negotiated each new film separately, starting with For Your Eyes Only (1981) and ending with A View to a Kill (1985). Once Moore finally departed the role, Pierce Brosnan was briefly offered the part but TV commitments got in the way, so eventually Timothy Dalton took on the role. The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989) took Bond down a more gritty, brutal and realistic road than the light-hearted Roger Moore era. But just as Dalton was hitting his stride, legal wrangles, financial woes and courtroom battles looked as though Bond would be finished in the ‘90s.

As the 1980s dawned for Doctor Who, Tom Baker was finishing his seventh and final series in the role. His was the longest stint as the Time Lord and would prove to be the most popular (his penultimate series reached a peak of 16 million viewers). But new producer John Nathan Turner wasn’t impressed with Baker’s “difficult” behaviour and after six years in the TARDIS Baker felt it was time to move on. Peter Davison took over in 1982 but was keen to observe the unofficial “Troughton Rule” of not doing more than three series for fear of typecasting. Colin Baker became The Sixth Doctor in 1984 and The Doctor had to face up to his deadliest enemy yet. New BBC chief Michael Grade was not a fan of the series. The Doctor found himself being “rested” for a year and getting shifted around the schedules and timeslots before Grade then insisted on forcing a change of Doctor. Eventually Sylvester McCoy was hired as The Seventh Doctor, starting in 1987. But as Series 26 was broadcast in 1989 the BBC finally made the decision to take Doctor Who off the air for good.

The Nineties – Reborn, Regenerated

If you were a fan of The Doctor or 007 in the early 1990s it was not a great time for you. With Doctor Who cancelled and James Bond off the screens thanks to legal wrangles, there were only TV repeats and videos to watch. Finally in 1993, the various courtroom battles and legal wrangles that were keeping 007 at bay were settled. Timothy Dalton decided to walk away from the series and Pierce Brosnan was finally able to accept the role. GoldenEye was released in 1995 and was an instant hit. It seemed that Bond’s six year absence from cinemas created quite a hunger for a new movie. The future of James Bond was secure and Brosnan took the superspy well into the 21st century.

The moment it became clear that Doctor Who had been cancelled there was uproar amongst fans all over the world. The character was kept alive in novels, audio plays and comic strips but it was a TV series that was top of the “Whovians’” wish list. In 1996 it looked as though their dreams would come true. A one-off TV movie saw The Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) hand over to The Eighth (Paul McGann). But as the finance for this special episode came from across the Atlantic and the viewing figures weren’t good enough Stateside, we didn’t see any more of the Doctor for the remainder of the decade.

The 2000s and Beyond – Live to Die Another Day

As the 21st century began, Bond was bigger than ever. But then two things happened. One was horrifying and the other was an opportunity. During production of Die Another Day (released in 2002) the 9/11 terrorist attacks happened and producers Michael G Wilson & Barbara Broccoli (stepson and daughter of the late “Cubby”) weren’t sure where next to take the series. All they knew was that they wanted to press ahead without Brosnan. So after four successful movies, Brosnan was gone. With Casino Royale having been the only Fleming novel to have not been adapted as an official Bond movie, the rights finally landed in the lap of the Broccoli family, so they looked to “reboot” the series. Casino Royale was eventually released in 2006 with Daniel Craig becoming the sixth actor to officially play James Bond. Craig took Bond back to the critical and commercial success of the Sean Connery era. And with the legal wrangles over Blofeld and SPECTRE finally settled, Bond's deadliest villain can make a long-awaited comeback.

At the BBC, fresh faces were taking over and for the first time there were executives, producers and writers who grew up watching Doctor Who, were massive fans, missed it and were now running the very channel that cancelled it. Inevitably a brand new series appeared in 2005, starring Christopher Ecclestone as The Ninth Doctor. The fact that Ecclestone only signed up for a single series didn’t seem to matter, such was the triumph of the Doctor’s return. David Tennant took over for the second new series and this was where things really took off. There were spin-off series (Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures), there was merchandise like never before and more websites, books, comics and magazines than you could fit into a TARDIS. David Tennant handed over to The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) in 2010, just in time to celebrate the series’ 50th anniversary in 2013. Doctor Who saw his Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) arrive in 2014.

The Legacy

If you walk down any street in the world and hold up a photo of an Aston Martin DB5 or a Police Box, you won’t have to wait long before someone connects them with James Bond and Doctor Who. The branding, the iconic imagery, the recasting (or “regenerating”), the “rebooting”, the willingness to honour the past but move with the times and the loyalty of millions of fans all over the world – all of these things have ensured that these two British icons of popular culture continue to survive innumerable challenges. You can pretty much guarantee that they will be thrilling and entertaining audiences for the next 50 years.

If any one of us could come up with a brand half as successful as one of those icons, we’d be doing pretty well! For more info on The Doctor, visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006q2x0 and for James Bond visit http://www.007.com/