This Week In DOCTOR WHO History: April 12th To April 18th - Warped Factor - Words in the Key of Geek.

Home Top Ad

Post Top Ad

This Week In DOCTOR WHO History: April 12th To April 18th

Three Doctors celebrate their birthdays this week in 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.

April 12th
It's back to 1969 to begin this week in Doctor Who history, with episode six of the Second Doctor adventure The Space Pirates which was broadcast to an audience of 5.3 million. Six years later and it's another part six, this time for the Fourth Doctor - 9.1 million joined him for Genesis of the Daleks.

Then in 2008, 9.04 million people saw Peter Capaldi make his Doctor Who debut, not as the Twelfth Doctor but as Caecilius in The Fires of Pompeii.


April 13th
It's our first of three Doctor birthdays for this week in Doctor Who history, as April 13th 1951 is the day Peter Davison was born, his Doctor had the day off today but back in 1968 5.9 million people were watching the Second Doctor in episode five of Fury From The Deep. Skip forward one regeneration and 6 years and we have the Third Doctor adventure The Monster of Peladon. Part four was broadcast on this day in 1974 and watched by 7.2 million.

It's a huge jump of nearly 40 years for our next episode broadcast on this day. That would be 2013's Cold War, broadcast at 6.03pm and watched by 7.37 million viewers.


April 14th
Doctor birthday number two, and that would be the other Peter-Doctor. Mr Capaldi arrived on the planet on this day in 1958, he shares his birthday with the now sadly departed Terence Dicks. The legendary Doctor Who writer and script editor was born in 1935.

As for actual episodes of Doctor Who, well we have one classic and one modern broadcast on this day. The classic being the second episode of 1973's Planet of the Daleks, which was watched by a mighty 10.7 million viewers. The modern being the third story of Series 3, Gridlock, an episode which was watched by 7.4 million.


April 15th
Back to 1967 for episode 2 of the Second Doctor story The Faceless Ones, a story which was watched by 6.4 million viewers. Then in 1972 the Third Doctor starred in episode 2 of The Mutants drawing an audience of 7.8 million. 

All the way forward to 2006, and after spending most of The Christmas Invasion in bed the Tenth Doctor's era got underway properly with the opening episode of series 2. The "chavtastic" New Earth was broadcast at 7:16pm and watched by 8.62 million viewers. That's not the only series that began on April 15th, as series 10, Peter Capaldi's final year began on this day in 2017 with The Pilot. 6.68 million viewers said hello to Bill Potts for the first time.


April 16th
On this day in 1966 9.4 million people were watching the third episode of The Celestial Toymaker (titled The Dancing Floor), which, along with parts one and two, is still sadly missing presumed wiped. And then flashing forward to new-Who, we have the introduction of the Slitheen in the fourth episode of the revived series, 2005's Aliens of London, which was watched by 7.63 million.


April 17th
The pure historical story The Crusade continued this day in 1965, part four titled The Warlords was watched by 9.5 million viewers. Two regenerations and 6 years later, the Third Doctor faced episode two of Colony in Space. Broadcast Saturday April 17th 1971 at 6:12pm and watched by 8.5 million viewers. Then it's new-Who time, on this day in 2010, 7.82 million viewers grabbed a jammy dodger and a cup of tea whilst tuning in to the Eleventh Doctor's third adventure - Victory of the Daleks.


April 18th
We promised you three Doctor birthdays up at the start of this feature, and three we have for you - David Tennant was born on this day in 1971. Born David McDonald, he shares his birthday with Rose's mum Jackie Tyler, aka Camille Coduri, and the short lived (thankfully) TV Movie Master, Eric Roberts.

We have two classic adventures to finish up another week in Doctor Who history, starting back in 1964 with the second episode of The Keys of Marinus (titled The Velvet Web), which was broadcast at 5.31pm and watched by a 9.4 million viewers. And finally, six years later episode 5 of The Ambassadors of Death was watched by 7.1 million.

That's it for this week, but 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...

No comments:

Post a Comment

Post Top Ad