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November 23rd
Welcome to a special edition of our regular weekly column. Celebrating 56 years (56 years!) of adventures in time and space. Because on this day the very first episode of Doctor Who was broadcast back in 1963 on a Saturday afternoon at 5:16pm. I'm sure you all knew that, right? 4.4 Million viewers sat down to watch An Unearthly Child, part one in a four part adventure that at the time of broadcast went under the title of 100,000 BC (original working title being The Tribe of Gum). Now, of course, we refer to the whole story as An Unearthly Child, likely thanks to the 1973 Radio Times Tenth Anniversary Special which called it that.
Of course, it's not the only Doctor Who episode broadcast on this day. On the fifth anniversary of the series, episode four of the classic Second Doctor Cybermen adventure The Invasion had the honour of being broadcast on this day in 1968, and watched by 6.4 million viewers.
Now, you may well be thinking that the Tenth Anniversary special The Three Doctors is next on our list, but actually that was broadcast from December 30th 1972, just under 11 months from the actual tenth anniversary date. It was the first story of the tenth season of Doctor Who. Something that likely seemed quite unlikely back in 1963.
Moving on to the 80's and the actual 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors was also not broadcast on the anniversary, here in the UK that is as it was delayed two days so it could coincide with the BBC's Children in Need charity night. However it did premiere in the USA on November 23rd 1983, making it the first Doctor Who story to receive it's debut screening anywhere other than in the UK.
We do have two more 80's episodes which were broadcast on November 23rd though. 5.5 million people tuned into part one of the 1987 adventure Dragonfire. The following year 6.10 million people saw the Seventh Doctor do battle with the Cybermen in the first part of Silver Nemesis. The latter being billed as something of a 25th anniversary special.
How about some Who related birthdays for you? Michelle Gomez, or Missy to you and I, was born on this day in 1966, and fifty years before that, in 1916, Michael Gough arrived on the planet. He'd go on to play both the Toymaker in The Celestial Toymaker and Councillor Hedin in Arc of Infinity.
Currently the only story from the revived series which has been broadcast on the show's actual anniversary is the 2013 50th Anniversary special, The Day of The Doctor. Simulcast around the world in cinemas and on television, it kicked off at 7:50pm with a huge BBC One audience of 12.8 million viewers. And if you pressed the Red Button afterwards you'd have been able to enjoy the marvelous Five(ish) Doctors Reboot. In fact, let's watch it again shall we?...
How are you celebrating Doctor Who day? Let us know in the comments below.
Until tomorrow...
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