December 7th
The third part of An Unearthly Child, entitled The Forest of Fear was broadcast in 1963 and watched by 6.9 million viewers. That's a whole million more than part two, and two and a half million more than the opening episode. Doctor Who was gaining some word of mouth attention from children up and down the country, but it would be another few weeks until Dalek-mania swept Britain and viewing figures leapt up to over 10 million! We took a look back at An Unearthly Child here.
Today is not only Wendy Padbury's birthday - aka Zoe Heriot - but in 1968 it also saw episode 6 of The Invasion broadcast to an audience of 6.5 million. A story featuring herself, the Second Doctor and Jamie. We took a look at The Invasion here and paid tribute to Zoe here.
December 7th also saw the final episode of season 24 broadcast, that would be part three of Dragonfire. 4.7 million tuned into that, whereas the year after 5.2 million were watching part three of Silver Nemesis.
December 8th
The Fourth Doctor and Romana faced the Nightmare of Eden on this day in 1979. Part three drew an audience of 9.6 million viewers.
December 9th
One of the surviving episodes of the Second Doctor 1967 adventure The Ice Warriors was broadcast this day. That would be part five, which was watched by 8 million viewers. Fast forward to 1978 and the Fourth Doctor was starring in the penultimate episode of The Androids of Tara, which was watched by 8.9 million viewers.
December 10th
All of Patrick Troughton's 1966 debut adventure The Power of the Daleks is sadly missing from the archives. We took a look back at it here, but 7.8 million people watched episode six on this day in 1966. Eleven years later and Doctor number Four and Leela were drawing an audience of 8.9 million viewers for part three of The Sun Makers.
December 11th
One of only three surviving episodes from the twelve part First Doctor adventure The Daleks' Master Plan was broadcast this day in 1965. Episode 5, entitled Counter Plot was watched by 9.90 million viewers. Our retrospective can be found here.
The fifth part of the 40th Anniversary animated web adventure Scream of the Shalka was released onto the BBC's Doctor Who website at noon on this day in 2003. (We checked out the 2013 DVD release here)
December 12th
Part four of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, entitled The End of Tomorrow, was broadcast on this day in 1964 and watched by 11.9 million viewers.
December 13th
Two penultimate episodes from two Fourth Doctor stories were both broadcast on this day. Firstly in 1975, an audience of 11.4 million tuned in to The Android Invasion, less than half that were watching in 1980 when 5.4 million saw State of Decay.
So did you watch any of these adventures live? We'd love to hear your memories about any of them. Tell us in the comments below.
Until next Sunday...
