Today In DOCTOR WHO History: December 19th

Sniff my finger!

Welcome to our daily round-up of the Doctor Who episodes which received their premiere broadcast on this day throughout the show's long history, along with anything else of note that may have taken place. You can click on any red text to read our full retrospectives/reviews for that episode, and note that all viewing figures listed are for UK broadcasts (unless otherwise stated).

December 19th
It's a very happy birthday to everyone's favourite classic Who companion Adric (a-hem), or rather Matthew Waterhouse, who was born on December 19th 1961. I wonder what he was watching on his third birthday? Perhaps he was tuned in to BBC One at 5:40pm that Saturday evening hoping to catch some classic Doctor Who? If so he was in luck...

December 19th is also, like yesterday, another day with only a single Doctor Who episode broadcast to date, and again, like yesterday, it comes from the First Doctor's era. This time we're heading back to 1964 to find 'Grandfather' taking a trip to London to see the lights and get some last minute Christmas presents... What's that? I'm wrong? Oh, well he must be getting ready to say goodbye to Susan then, as she'd be off next week. First though she'd need to survive part 5 of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, entitled The Waking Ally, which was watched by 11.4 million viewers, with Matthew Waterhouse possibly being one of them.

Join us again tomorrow for another round-up of the episodes broadcast, the spin-offs aired, the special events, the birthday's celebrated and anything else of note that went down on this day in Doctor Who history.