This Week In DOCTOR WHO History: July 31st to Aug 6th

It's a desperate venture into Doctor Who history...

Click on any red text to read our full retrospectives/reviews for that episode. All dates and viewing figures are for UK premier broadcasts unless otherwise stated.

Aug 1st
Thank heavens for the First Doctor! The BBC knew they had a huge hit on their hands with Doctor Who so they kept him on the air for 42 weeks in that very first year of the show! These part-time Doctors today don't know how good they have it.

On this day in 1964 The Sensorites was coming to a close. In the episode titled A Desperate Venture, Carol and Susan were invited onto the Sense-Sphere version of Blue Peter where they helped a Sensorite named Valerie to build a Tracey Island play-set out of old toilet tubes and empty nail varnish bottles. 6.9 million confused viewers took notes hoping to recreate it at home when their mum's had finished with the bottle of Fairy Liquid.

Aug 2nd
OK, so it's not an actual television episode but with the Summer schedules being what they are it's worth including here. The BBCi service premiered the animated Sixth Doctor adventure Real Time on this day back in 2002. Mind you, as most people had 56k dial-up internet connections back then, chances are it was the following day by the time it had buffered.

Aug 4th
Again, not an actual episode, but this day did give us confirmation of the man who would be Who. Yup, August 4th 2013 Zoe Ball announced that Peter Capaldi was to be the Twelfth Doctor, about 20 minutes into Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor. 6.1 million viewers tuned in in the UK, with millions more around the globe as the event was simulcast.

Aug 5th
And still it's not an actual episode, but it was based on one so that kinda counts, right? Back in 1966 the second Peter Cushing Dr Who movie, Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., received its premiere. And yes, that is Bernard Cribbins.

Then, burn baby burn, it's a Vera inferno! That's right, it's 2011 and we've reached the halfway stage of Torchwood: Miracle Day. 5.17 million bought marshmallows to the premiere of The Categories of Life. Mmmm, toasty!

And that's it for this week. I know, over before we began. Remember to join us next week where there's much more Who to be found - honest!

Until next Sunday...