Doctor Who on the BBC: The Wilderness Years

As you may have heard, the popular science-fiction series Doctor Who was not broadcast by the BBC between 1989 and 2005. Except there was also a TV movie in 1996. And a charity special in 1993… and again in 1999. And a couple of other things...

Now, you’re probably aware of the existence of a large number of officially licensed audio dramas and novels that helped to keep the fans going during that long hiatus. But although I love Big Finish, and I also thought Festival of Death was quite good, they’re quite niche things. For the purposes of this article I’m interested in the number of times the casual BBC viewer could have turned on their TV or radio and seen or heard from a show that was supposedly dead and buried, on the flagship channels (so no repeats on Gold or anything like that either). As with several previous endeavours on this blog, all dates have been taken from BBC Genome, and assorted other information gleaned from elsewhere. Away we go!

(NB: There’s probably a lot of stuff missing, not least every time Jon Culshaw appeared on Dead Ringers back in the day and numerous occasions on which the show featured on various blooper reels. I’ve just gone for everything I can find that I think is interesting enough to warrant a mention - do let me know if you think there’s anything I’ve missed that’s worth noting.)

21 November 1990: Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred reprise their roles as the incumbent Doctor and companion Ace for a special edition of the BBC Schools programme Search Out Science, joined by John Leeson as the voice of K-9. (This can be seen on the DVD release of Survival, the final classic series serial.)

24 December 1990: Tony Slattery profiles Doctor Who for a Radio 5 series called Cult Heroes.

19 April 1991: The Radio 2 Arts Programme pays a visit to a Doctor Who convention in Manchester.

3 July 1991: Radio 4’s Kaleidoscope meets the Daleks at the new Doctor Who exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image. Radio 5’s On Your Marks will do likewise on 3 August.

26 August 1991: As part of a special night of programmes commemorating the Lime Grove Studios, which were closing that year, the previously unbroadcast original pilot version of the very first episode, An Unearthly Child, is broadcast on BBC2.

3 January 1992: Resistance Is Useless: A Doctor Who Retrospective begins on BBC2, aiming to show one story from each of the seven Doctors over the course of the year. First up is the 1965 William Hartnell classic The Time Meddler, showing for the first time since its original broadcast. It is broadcast weekly until the 24th January.

31 January 1992: Resistance Is Useless moves on to Patrick Troughton, with 1968’s The Mind Robber. For some reason, the continuity announcement for the first episode claims it is “the very moment that Patrick Troughton became the new face of Dr Who”, when it obviously isn’t.

6 March 1992: Resistance Is Useless begins a repeat run of the 1972 Jon Pertwee story The Sea Devils. Unfortunately, despite the stated aim to broadcast one story for each Doctor, this is to be Resistance Is Useless’ swansong; after The Sea Devils concludes on 10 April, there is no Tom Baker story to be seen the following week.

20 November 1992: Doctor Who is back on BBC2, although the Resistance Is Useless strand has been dropped, and we are instead treated to another Pertwee: the 1971 fan favourite The Daemons, which has been newly restored so it now exists in full colour for the first time since its original broadcast. On the morning of 25 November, we also get to see Search Out Science again.

8 January 1993: Three weeks after the repeat of The Daemons concludes, Tom Baker finally shows up, as BBC2 begins the 30th anniversary year with a repeat run of 1975’s Genesis of the Daleks.

10 January 1993: BBC One gets in on the action, as Doctor Who is a specialist subject on tonight’s edition of Mastermind.

19 February 1993: Following on from the Genesis screening, it’s Peter Davison’s turn as BBC2 embarks on a return trip to 1984’s The Caves of Androzani.

19 March 1993: The repeat run continues with a Colin Baker story, namely 1985’s Revelation of the Daleks. The original transmission was 2 45-minute episodes, whereas this repeat has been edited into the usual 4-parter, meaning parts one and three have rather amusing unscripted cliffhangers.

23 April 1993: Following a week’s break after Revelation wrapped up, the story chosen for the Seventh Doctor’s repeat run is 1989’s Battlefield.

11 June 1993: BBC One’s documentary series The Rock ‘n’ Roll Years covers 1963, mentioning Doctor Who a bit.

27 August 1993: The action shifts to the radio, as Radio 5 presents the first new Doctor Who material to be broadcast on the BBC in nearly three years with a fully dramatised production entitled The Paradise of Death, a five-part story starring Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney and Elisabeth Sladen, written by Barry Letts. It’s broadcast weekly until the 24th September.

5 November 1993: It’s another repeat run, but rather excitingly, this time it’s on BBC One - the first time the show proper has been there since 1989. The story is 1973’s Planet of the Daleks.

20 November 1993: Nicholas Courtney presents a new documentary on the show, 30 Years, on BBC Radio 2, with contributions from many cast and crew members.

26 November 1993: The Planet repeat takes a break for a week for Children in Need - but that contains the first part of a brand new Doctor Who story! It’s ‘3D’ charity mini-episode EastEnders-crossover Dimensions in Time, starring the five surviving classic Doctors and as many companions as they can get their hands on. It’s got… something of a reputation.

27 November 1993: The second part of Dimensions in Time is broadcast as part of Noel’s House Party. Edmonds, who will later be seen brandishing an electromagnetic pulse device, has the already incomprehensible story edited down even further to fit into his show, which doesn’t really help matters.

29 November 1993: Fans are treated to something rather better with a special documentary, 30 Years in the TARDIS, on BBC One (an extended version will later be released on VHS). Contributors include Ken Livingstone, who keeps on mentioning Davros.

3 December 1993: At the end of the busiest week the show has known since 1989, there’s a feature on the making of Dimensions in Time for Tomorrow’s World. Planet of the Daleks continues later in the evening.

2 January 1994: We’re back to BBC2, as 1973’s The Green Death is repeated every Sunday at 12pm.

6 March 1994: 1975’s Pyramids of Mars occupies the same bafflingly early repeat slot from this date.

12 April 1994: There’s another chance to hear The Paradise of Death, this time on BBC Radio 7.

9 July 1994: Radio 4’s play series Whatever Happened to…?, a series covering the fate of various fictional characters asks Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman? Nobody who was actually in, or worked on, Doctor Who is involved; the play is on the DVD release of The Dalek Invasion of Earth if you want to hear it.

11 June 1995: BBC2’s The Movie Game, a film and video quiz, features “clips from a new Doctor Who video”. Amusingly, the host is John Barrowman.

15 January 1996: Verity Lambert is interviewed about being the show’s first ever producer for BBC2 series Talking Points.

20 January 1996: Another new Jon Pertwee radio story, the six-part story The Ghosts of N-Space (recorded over a year ago and finally seeing the light of day now) begins a weekly run on Radio 7. A third story was planned, but the death of Pertwee later in the year put paid to it.

27 May 1996: He’s back, and it’s about time. Yes, the McGann TV Movie is broadcast in the UK on this date, and does very well in the ratings, but unfortunately fares less well in America and doesn’t go to a series. The following day, Radio 3 series The Music Machine investigates the show’s incidental music, having previously looked at Dalek voices in December 1994.

21 October 1996: Doctor Who is one of the specialist subjects on tonight’s edition of Telly Addicts.

7 December 1996: A tribute to Jon Pertwee, Everybody Down!, is broadcast on Radio 2, presented by Una Stubbs.

17 December 1996: Anyone who wants to hear The Ghosts of N-Space again is in luck, as it starts a Radio 2 repeat run on this date.

15 March 1997: A two-part BBC2 documentary on the contribution of women to the development of British television, A Night In with the Girls, includes contributions from Doctor Who’s original producer, Verity Lambert.

8 May 1998: Lost in Space, a BBC2 series “in which avid fans of science-fiction TV talk about the shows and characters that changed their lives”, begins with a discussion of Doctor Who.

22 November 1998: BBC Choice begins a week of programmes for the 35th anniversary, with all items introduced by Sylvester McCoy. Tonight’s programming is: An Unearthly Child pt 1; Genesis of the Daleks pt 1; 30 Years in the TARDIS; the TV Movie; and Remembrance of the Daleks pt 4.

23 November 1998: BBC Choice continue their inexplicable grab-bag with The Tomb of the Cybermen (it seems they only showed one part again, but I don’t know which one) and the second part of Genesis of the Daleks.

24 November 1998: Continuing the theme of “show one random part of a random story and continue serialising another story”, BBC Choice show an episode of The Daemons and part three of Genesis of the Daleks.

A visual representation of BBC Choice's scheduling

25 November 1998: Alongside part four of Genesis of the Daleks, one quarter of The Caves of Androzani is aired by BBC Choice.

26 November 1998: One fourteenth of The Trial of a Time Lord accompanies the penultimate chapter of Genesis of the Daleks.

27 November 1998: The final instalment of The Curse of Fenric is broadcast with the conclusion of Genesis, ending BBC Choice’s Doctor Who week and meaning I can put away my thesaurus for a bit.

24 December 1998: Some part of the above week of programming is repeated on BBC Choice; it looks like it’s the 22 November schedule again, although I can’t be sure.

12 March 1999: Comic Relief Night on BBC One includes a serialised Doctor Who special, The Curse of Fatal Death by Steven Moffat, airing throughout the night. It features Rowan Atkinson, Richard E. Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant and Joanna Lumley as the Ninth through Thirteenth Doctors.

7 April 1999: An unspecified Doctor Who competition features on today’s Blue Peter.

24 April 1999: Three Doctor Who fans are given the chance to win their very own Dalek on Whatever You Want.

10 July 1999: That old stand-by, Genesis of the Daleks, begins another outing on BBC Choice, running until 14 August.

25 July 1999: Beginning this week, BBC Choice repeat what they showed back in November 1998; so on this day they show what they showed on 22 November, the next day was last seen on 23 November and so on and so forth. (Yes, this does seem to include Genesis… when they were simultaneously repeating that again anyway.) We can glean from the listings for this that the episode of The Trial of a Time Lord they showed, on both occasions, was part 14.

15 October 1999: 1974’s Invasion of the Dinosaurs is repeated all in one night on BBC Choice as part of the appallingly spelled “Dino Nite”.

13 November 1999: It’s Doctor Who Night on BBC2! Although there’s no episode of The Simpsons they can show for this one, they do show a new documentary, Adventures in Space and Time, three comedy sketches written by and starring Mark Gatiss and David Walliams, a couple of 5-minute films exploring scientific aspects of the series, another documentary about the series’ various evils, the final part of The Daleks and the TV Movie. (The sketches will later be released on the DVD for An Unearthly Child, although a controversial line regarding the casting of the Doctor in the 80s is edited out at Gatiss’ request.) There's even a specially made Dalek ident that will become a regular feature on the channel due to popular demand.

16 November 1999: Repeat seasons are back again, with a double-bill of Spearhead from Space on BBC2. From the following week it’s just one episode a week, and it appears they intended to rerun the entire Pertwee era. In practise, however, they only manage to get to the end of Doctor Who and the Silurians before giving up; on the 1st February 2000, yet another repeat run of Genesis of the Daleks begins.

28 October 2000: Doctor Who memorabilia is featured on The Generation Game. (September 2021 Update! I was alerted by Twitter user @IcarFaem, who was able to find out the date of broadcast from this article, that earlier this year the relevant footage from this episode was uploaded to YouTube, and it turns out the episode featured a guest spot from Colin Baker in full costume.)

12 July 2001: An animated (note: very limited animation - the production started life intended for Radio 4) Doctor Who webcast, Death Comes to Time (starring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred, plus a rather impressive guest cast that includes Kevin Eldon and Stephen Fry), premieres on the BBCi Cult website, and technically falls outside the remit of this article as it wasn't on television. Still, it was Doctor Who made by the BBC, near enough, and got some level of coverage including an interview with Sylvester McCoy on the Today programme, so it probably should be on here. Twelve 10-minute episodes will follow on a weekly basis beginning in February 2002.

31 August 2001: Jon Culshaw puts his Tom Baker impression to use for a 10-minute short on BBC One, The Secret of Germany v England, where he plays the Doctor and travels through time to discover the formula of Germany v England football matches (ahead of the two teams playing a World Cup qualifier the next day).

19 October 2001: Phill Jupitus presents a shocking expose of 1981’s K-9 and Company on a programme looking at bad pilot programmes, TV’s Finest Failures.

1 December 2001: Radio 3 broadcasts a play called The Wire: Regenerations, in which six Doctor Who fans meet up for an annual convention. Tom Baker and Sophie Aldred appear as themselves.

15 April 2002: Fan favourite and much loved TV executive Michael Grade consigns Doctor Who to Room 101.

2 August 2002: Another BBC animated webcast, Real Time, begins releasing weekly 10-minute episodes on this date. It's made with the participation of Big Finish Productions, who had been releasing fully licensed audio dramas based on the series for the last three years, and features Colin Baker alongside one of BFP's original companions, Evelyn Smythe (played by Maggie Stables).

22 February 2003: Mark Gatiss presents a Radio 4 documentary, My Life as a Dalek.

2 May 2003: The BBC begin a third animated webcast. This time it's an adaptation of Shada, a story by Douglas Adams which would have been broadcast in early 1980 but was cancelled by strike action with only some of its exterior sequences filmed. Big Finish are once again involved; Tom Baker declines to reprise his role, so the story is rewritten for Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor.

Incidentally, Shada now exists as a 1992 VHS release with all the material that was filmed and linking narration by Tom Baker (reissued on DVD in 2012), a scriptbook, the BBC's webcast which was later released by Big Finish as an audio CD, an unofficial animated version, and a novelisation by Gareth Roberts. I wonder if anyone's ever tried comparing them all. Oh dear, I think I've just got an idea for my next article.

6 July 2003: Colin Baker appears as part of a sci-fi themed challenge on Top Gear.

26 September 2003: I'm fairly sure the BBC had an important announcement about Doctor Who to make on this date, but the specifics are slipping my mind right now.

19 October 2003: Alchemists of Sound, a documentary about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, is broadcast on BBC Four.

13 November 2003: It's the beginning of the BBC's final animated webcast. This one is Scream of the Shalka, starring Richard E. Grant, and is originally intended to be an official continuation of the series, with plans for a sequel in the works. However, by the time of release, this had been... rather overshadowed, shall we say, and Grant's Doctor had already been relegated to non-canonical status.

21 November 2003: With the show’s return announced, “Doctor Who drops in on Blue Peter” on this date, although I’ve no idea what actually unfolded. Later in the evening, there’s a Dead Ringers Who-themed sketch for Children in Need. Various other programmes ran Who-themed items when the return was announced; you can hear some of them on the various Doctor Who at the BBC CDs.

30 December 2003: A new documentary, The Story of Doctor Who, is broadcast on BBC One for the 40th anniversary.

22 March 2004: Radio 3 interviews composer Richard Rodney Bennett about his work. Doctor Who is mentioned, for which he composed the music for 1964’s The Aztecs.

22 June 2004: Doctor Who is, once again, a specialist subject on Mastermind.

26 June 2004: The Web of Fear part 1 - at the time, the only episode known to survive - is broadcast on BBC Four as part of a series of programmes about the London Underground.

25 September 2004: Colin Baker appears on a doctors-themed edition of The Weakest Link.

19 March 2005: Next week’s new series is preceded by an evening of programming on BBC2: the first Peter Cushing film, Doctor Who and the Daleks, is repeated in the afternoon, and later on we’re treated to a repeat of The Story of Doctor Who from December 2003, a ten-minute guide to Some Things You Need to Know about Doctor Who and a special Doctor Who edition of Mastermind (with incoming Doctor Christopher Eccleston giving out the trophy).

Week beginning 21 March 2005: Eccleston and Piper are on Blue Peter, a documentary entitled Project: Who? is on Radio 7, Eccleston is on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, and finally, on 26 March 2005, after another new documentary (this one entitled A New Dimension, and narrated by little-known actor David Tennant), the show returns to BBC One, meaning that anything that comes after officially falls outside this timeline’s remit. Phew!

(Although there’s one intriguing footnote - on Sunday 3 April 2005, Eccleston is listed as being interviewed on The Heaven & Earth Show. This would have been after it was announced he was leaving after one series, and the ensuing omnishambles as the BBC put out a quote from Eccleston regarding his departure that later turned out to not be from him at all - did this interview go ahead?)