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).
March 25th
on March 25th 1967 the Second Doctor faced episode three of The Macra Terror. Broadcast at 5.51pm to an audience of 8.5 million viewers. Also on this day in 1972 the fifth part of the Third Doctor story The Sea Devils was watched by an audience of 8.3 million. And...
Classically trained for the stage, Patrick Troughton made his cinema debut with small roles in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet, the Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed Escape (one of the stars of which was William Hartnell), and a minor role as a pirate in Disney's 1950 version of Treasure Island. Later cinematic roles included Father Brennan in The Omen, and Melanthius in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.
It was on television though where Troughton made his name, and he also admitted that it was his favourite medium. In 1953 he became the first actor to play the folk hero Robin Hood, starring in six half-hour episodes broadcast from 17 March to 21 April on the BBC and titled simply Robin Hood. Pat then appeared in numerous TV shows, including The Count of Monte Cristo, Ivanhoe, Dial 999, Danger Man, Maigret, Compact, The Third Man, Crane, Detective, Sherlock Holmes, No Hiding Place, The Saint, Armchair Theatre, The Wednesday Play, Z-Cars, Adam Adamant Lives! and Softly, Softly, and was offered the part of Johnny Ringo in the Doctor Who story The Gunfighters but turned it down.
A fortuitous decision as in 1966 he would, of course, be cast as the Doctor, with legend (and producer Innis Lloyd) stating that William Hartnell had approved of his casting, saying, "There's only one man in England who can take over, and that's Patrick Troughton". Troughton pioneered the 'three years and out' approach, but returned multiple times to the role; in The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors and The Two Doctors - clearly he had a thing for numbers.
After Who, you may have seen Patrick Troughton in episodes of Paul Temple, Dr. Finlay's Casebook, Doomwatch, The Persuaders!, A Family at War, Coronation Street, Softly, Softly: Taskforce, Colditz, Play for Today, Z-Cars, Special Branch, Sutherland's Law, The Sweeney, Jason King, Survivors, Crown Court, Angels, Warship, Van der Valk, Space: 1999, The Onedin Line, All Creatures Great and Small, Only When I Laugh, Nanny and Minder. He also portrayed Cole Hawlings in the much loved 1984 BBC Television dramatisation of the John Masefield children's book The Box of Delights.
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.
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