003 - The Edge Of Destruction

Broadcast:

8^th - 15^th February 1964

Doctor:

William Hartnell

Companions:

Ian, Barbara, Susan

Adversary:

??

Written by:

David Whitaker

Director:

Richard Martin, Frank Cox

Music:

Stock

Script Editor:

David Whitaker

Producer:

Verity Lambert

Average Viewers:

10.2m (10.4, 9.9)

Summary: The TARDIS falters, the travellers are knocked unconscious and everything goes hazy and a little confusing as they turn on each other. There's an eerie silence, clock faces are melting and the TARDIS doors open and close on their own!

To set the scene, Robin Dixon and Tony Nash have just won a gold medal for Two-Man Bobsleigh at the Innsbruck Winter Olympics - the first British medal of any colour for 12 years and there wouldn't be another until the games returned to Innsbruck 12 years later! Britain and France have just agreed a deal to construct a channel tunnel (though construction wouldn't start for another 10 years and would barely commence before being closed down and a successful project was another decade away). The Beatles have just brought Beatlemania to America and the Searchers remain at number one in the UK chart with "Needles And Pins" for the two week duration of The Edge Of Destruction. Meanwhile between episodes, Southampton became the first town granted City Status by Queen Elizabeth II. And the day after the story finished, a curtain Christopher Ecclestone was born!

002 - The Daleks

Broadcast:

21^st December 1963 - 1^st February 1964

Doctor:

William Hartnell

Companions:

Ian, Barbara, Susan

Adversary:

Daleks

Written by:

Terry Nation

Director:

Christopher Barry, Richard Martin

Music:

Tristram Cary

Script Editor:

David Whitaker

Producer:

Verity Lambert

Average Viewers:

8.97m (6.9, 6.4, 8.9, 9.9, 9.9, 10.4, 10.4)

Summary: A petrified forest, pacifist farmers and mutants determined to wipe them out. A post apocalyptic tale where nuclear threat is still a reality. The travellers find themselves stuck on a radiation soaked planet, captured by one faction and determined to help the other.

Doctor Who has gained reasonable interest so far and while the world has come to terms with the loss of JFK the Cold War is very much still weighing it down. As 1963 draws to a close The Beatles are still at No. 1 with "I Want To Hold Your Hand" followed by "Glad All Over" (Dave Clark Five) and "Needles And Pins" (Searchers). At the cinema are It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and The Pink Panther. On television, satirical comedy show That Was the Week That Was came to an end after two years (to avoid any clashes with the coming years general election), and Top Of The Pops was broadcast for the first time and would run for 42 years. Sticking with music television, viewers who stayed with BBC Television after episode 5 of The Daleks would have seen Carole Anne Ford on the panel of Jukebox Jury!

Audiences didn't know it, but they were about to meet the most enduring adversaries the Doctor would ever face. Even as the second episode was broadcast and the Daleks made their first appearance the BBC's Head Of Drama, Sydney Newman, still wasn't convinced - Verity Lambert had assured him that there really was no choice but to use them and their story because nothing else was ready. It wouldn't be long before he graciously admitted to being wrong and the shows future was assured by the huge success of this story...

001 - An Unearthly Child

Broadcast:

23^rd November - 14^th December 1963

Doctor:

William Hartnell

Companions:

Ian, Barbara, Susan

Adversary:

Cavemen

Written by:

Anthony Coburn

Director:

Waris Hussein

Music:

Norman Kay

Script Editor:

David Whitaker

Producer:

Verity Lambert

Average Viewers:

6.3m ([4.4] 6.0, 5.9, 6.9, 6.4)

Summary: Two teachers find that their strange teenage pupil is living in a scrap merchants and her equally unusual grandfather, fearful of the consequences of this discovery, traps them and they end up fighting for their lives when they meet cavemen trying to make fire!

I'll take you right back to the start, this is the very beginning of a TV legend, day one of the longest running Sci-Fi series. Fifty years ago today at a quarter past five, the first episode of Doctor Who was broadcast on BBC Television. To set the scene, Summer Holiday, The Great Escape and The Birds have been big in the cinema and Sean Connery is currently playing James Bond in From Russia With Love. The Great Train Robbery was hot news just a few months ago and The Beatles were producing hip new sounds from Liverpool. Number one singles for the duration of this adventure were "You'll Never Walk Alone" (Gerry And The Pacemakers), "She Loves You" (The Beatles) and "I Want To Hold Your Hand" (The Beatles)

Sadly the world had just been shocked by the assassination of American President John F Kennedy on 22^nd November so this new and exciting show was being broadcast to a sombre and subdued audience. There were also power cuts in parts of the country! As a result of these two combined factors, the first episode was repeated the following week just ahead of episode two, to give it a better launch and it gained almost 2 million viewers.