Doctor Who/Timelines

• 1963
  • November 23 1715–1740, first episode broadcast: An Unearthly Child, by Anthony Coburn, edited by David Whitaker, starring William Hartnell as Dr. Who, William Russell as Ian Chesterton, Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright and Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman (order as listed in Radio Times; order of appearance reverse), produced by Verity Lambert, directed by Waris Hussein; theme music by Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
  • December: first appearance of the Daleks, created by Terry Nation, realized by Raymond Cusick
• 1964 November 12 Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, by David Whitaker after Terry Nation, first novelization
• 1965
  • August 23 Dr. Who and the Daleks, first film adaptation
  • September first Annual
  • December 25: only Christmas day episode in the original production
• 1966
  • May: change from episode titles to serial titles on screen
  • October: first appearance of the Cybermen, created by Dr Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis
  • October/November: Hartnell succeeded by Patrick Troughton in tile role
• 1967
  • January 7 The Highlanders Episode 4: up to this point many adventures were historical, not science fiction; this episode was the last purely historical one till 1982
• 1968 October 12 The Mind Robber Episode 5, shortest episode (so far), 18 minutes
• 1970 various changes
  • Jon Pertwee in the title role
  • reduced to half the year (previously only fairly short summer holiday)
  • in colour
  • the Doctor marooned on Earth, gets a job as scientific adviser to UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, later renamed UNified Intelligence Taskforce after complaints from the United Nations)
• 1971: first appearance of the Master, played by Roger Delgado; he appears throughout the year
• 1972/3: to start the 10th season, the BBC run a story called The Three Doctors, bringing back Hartnell (his last acting appearance) and Troughton; at the end of this, the Doctor's exile on Earth is lifted, and UNIT stories start to be phased out
• 1974: Pertwee succeeded by Tom Baker
• 1978/9: whole season with unifying structure, The Key to Time
• 1981 December 28: first television spinoff, K-9 and Company (pilot only)
• 1982 changes:
  • Baker succeeded by Peter Davison
  • programme moved from Saturday to Monday and Tuesday
  • similar numbers of episodes fitted into only 3 months
• 1983
  • October: Revenge of the Cybermen, first video (from 1975)
  • November 23/25: 20th anniversary special, The Five Doctors. The late William Hartnell was included in the cast list on the strength of a brief archive sound clip, but was mainly represented by lookalike Richard Hurndall; Baker's appearance was confined to footage from a planned story abandoned owing to industrial action. Eleven companions also appeared: Carole Ann Ford as Susan; Frazer Hines as Jamie; Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier; Wendy Padbury as Zoe; Caroline John as Liz Shaw; Richard Franklin as Captain Yates; Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith; John Leeson as the voice of K-9; Lalla Ward as Romana; Janet Fielding as Tegan; Mark Strickson as Turlough. Four old enemies also reappear: a Dalek (voice Roy Skelton, operator John Scott Martin); Cybermen (David Banks, Mark Hardy, William Kenton), a Yeti (uncredited) and the Master (Anthony Ainley). This was the first episode prebroadcast elsewhere before its appearance in the series, and the longest episode (so far), 90 minutes.
• 1984 March: Davison replaced by Colin Baker
• 1985: programme returns to Saturday, with about half the episodes at twice the length
• 1986
  • episode length halved, with no compensating increase in number
  • this year the entire season was screened as a single serial, The Trial of a Time Lord
  • afterwards, Baker was sacked
• 1987: Sylvester McCoy as the new Doctor
• 1989 December 6: Survival Part Three, last episode of the original production; series suspended pending finding someone else to produce it in place of the BBC
• 1991: Virgin New Adventures, novel series, starts with the four volumes of Timewyrm, continuing where the television series left off
• 1993 August/September: The Paradise of Death, first radio story
• 1996 May: second production, an unsuccessful pilot programme by Fox TV, with the BBC as apparently only nominal coproducer; McCoy appears at the start, with Paul McGann as the main star; for the first time the main actors are credited at the start
• 2001 February: Remembrance of the Daleks, first DVD (from 1988)
• 2005
  • March 26: Rose, first episode of the third production, by BBC Wales, with Christopher Eccleston in the title role
  • series pattern for the new production is roughly as 1985, with added Christmas specials
  • at the end of the series Eccleston replaced by David Tennant
• 2007 May/June: first television story adapted from an earlier publication, Human Nature by Paul Cornell, 1995

TBC