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.
May 24th
Just one proper Doctor Who episode has been broadcast on this day, and the one that gets us underway for another look back into the Doctor Who archives is part six of the Second Doctor's final adventure The War Games. If you were tuned into BBC1 at 5.15pm that Saturday then you would've been joined by 4.2 million others waiting to discover how the Doctor, Zoe and Carstairs would rescue their friends.
That was the proper episode, but there was also a minisode. Good as Gold was first broadcast on CBBC (as part of Blue Peter) on 24th May 2012. Written via a competition (Script to Screen) in which junior schools were asked to write a script including the Eleventh Doctor and an enemy of his (in this case The Weeping Angels). The competition was won by the children of Ashdene School and it looks like this...
Now, has anyone got any Raid?...
May 25th
On this day in 1968 6.8 million people were watching the Second Doctor in episode five of The Wheel In Space, an installment which along with parts 1,2 & 4 is now sadly missing from the archives. Skip forward one regeneration and 6 years and we have the STUFF OF NIGHTMARES!!!! If you have an arachnid phobia that is! It's the Third Doctor's swansong Planet of the Spiders. Part four was broadcast on this day in 1974 and watched by 8.2 million viewers.
May 26th
On this day in 1973 episode two of The Green Death was broadcast to an audience of 7.2 million viewers. Then we jump into a Type 40 and travel 34 years into the future for our first proper new-Who story of the week, and that Tenth Doctor eh? Always kissing someone! This time it was the school nurse Joan Redfern, who get herself all tangled up in a bit of Human Nature. Broadcast in 2007 at 7:11pm, the start of the Chamelion Arch two-part adventure was watched by 7.74 million viewers.
Also, because we like to note these things, Peter Cushing was born on this day in 1913. Among his many roles in the Hammer Horror films he will be remembered as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars and the 1960s big-screen Dr. Who. The two films certainly weren't canon but will raise a hat to him anyway, won't we Sylv...
May 27th
This day gave us another classic Second Doctor adventure, in the form of episode 2 of The Evil of the Daleks. Broadcast in 1967 at 5:50pm and watched by 7.5 million viewers, it is the only installment of the seven-part adventure which currently resides in the BBC archives. One regeneration later and the Third Doctor did battle with The Time Monster on this day in 1972. Episode two was broadcast that Saturday at 5:51pm, and watched by 7.4 million viewers.
Then it's McGanniversary time, as on this day in 1996 it was the start of a (very brief) new beginning for Doctor Who. The TV Movie (aka The Enemy Within), jointly produced between the BBC and Fox, was hoped to be the start of a new series of adventures featuring Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor. Alas it was not meant to be, as although a mighty 9.08 million tuned into the UK broadcast on that Bank Holiday Monday evening, its premiere on US television on Tuesday May 14th saw a rather disappointing 5.6 million tune in, just a 9% share of the audience.
But we're not done with today yet as we have 2006's The Idiot's Lantern, which was watched by 6.76 million viewers, and 11 years later The Pyramid At The End Of The Worlds drew 5.79 million viewers when it debuted at 7:51pm.
May 28th
Episode 1 of The Savages was broadcast on this day 1966, a story which may have seen the First Doctor attempt to educate the Elders and the bands of roaming savages in how to properly line up a shot with his new Polaroid camera. Or not. Either way, alas, the story is entiirely missing from the BBC archives so we can never be sure if he succeeded to take the shot, only the 4.8 million viewers watching when it was broadcast would know.
Then 39 years later it was party time, sort of. "Everybody lives" and so the Doctor Dances! The Ninth Doctor adventure was broadcast in 2005 at 6:59pm and watched by 6.86 million viewers. Then moving on to 2011 and the Eleventh Doctor adventure The Almost People which drew an audience of 6.72 million.
May 29th
Three episodes were broadcast on this day in Doctor Who history, each of them featuring a long standing foe. Firstly, in 1965 we have episode two of the First Doctor/Dalek adventure The Chase (titled The Death of Time) which was watched by 9.5 million viewers. Two regenerations and it's another episode two, this time it's the Third Doctor and the Master in The Dæmons, drawing an audience of 8 million viewers. Lastly in 2010 we have the Eleventh Doctor and the Silurians in Cold Blood, which was watched by 7.49 million viewers and saw Amy having second thoughts about that cut-price Botox treatment she booked.
And it just so happens to be Pearl Mackie's birthday today. Born in 1987, Mackie was of course Bill Potts to Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor.
May 30th
We've reached the end of another week in Doctor Who history but we have two final adventures for you before we sign off. Back in 1964 the second part of The Aztecs (titled The Warriors of Death) was broadcast to an audience of 7.4 million viewers, and 6 years later Liz Shaw discovered that gentlemen don't always prefer blondes! It's episode 4 of Inferno, it was broadcast at 5:15pm and watched by 6 million viewers, and that's where we'll leave it for another week.
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...
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