1964 1965 19781966 19791967 19801968 19811969 19821970 19831971 19841972 19851973 19861974 19871975 19881976 19891977

Susan Foreman

Steven Taylor

Ian Chesterton & Barbara Wright

Ben & Polly

Zoe HeriotFuture genius

Dr Harry Sullivan

Romana I & II Time Lord

Victoria Waterfield

Sarah Jane Smith Reporter, present-day Earth*

Dr Liz Shaw

Vicki Jamie McCrimmon Highland piper

Jo Grant Unit trainee, present-day Earth

Leela Fighter

Adric Boy genius

Ace Teen apprentice

Nyssa of Traken Alien scientist

Peri Brown American botany student

K-9 Robot dog

Tegan Jovanka Australian flight attendant

Melanie Bush

Turlough Alien exile

Katarina Dodo Chaplet

William Hartnell 1963-66 Patrick Troughton 66-69 Jon Pertwee 70-74 Tom Baker 74-81 Peter Davison 82-84 Colin Baker 84-86 Sylvester McCoy 87-89

Sara Kingdom

Hartnell regenerates into Troughton; first appearance of the Cybermen, who come from the tenth planet, Mondas

UNIT leader, first seen in spring 1968, appears regularly until 1975, and then in 1983 and 1989. His last appearance was in the spin-off, The Sarah Jane Adventures, in 2008. The actor Nicholas Courtney died in 2011. Brigadier Alistair

Lethbridge-StewartSarah Jane

Smith

Reporter, went on to be the longest-serving of the companions. She appeared with the Tenth Doctor in School Reunion, as well as appearing in two spin-offs, K9 and Company in 1981, and The Sarah Jane Adventures from 2007 until the death of Elisabeth Sladen in 2011

The Three Doctors The tenth anniversary: Doctors reunite, though Hartnell was too ill for more than a cameo role

The Five Doctors 20th anniversary episode, set on

Gallifrey. Shown on 23 November in US, two days later in UK

Two debuts: the war-like cloned Sontarans, and Sarah Jane Smith

Sarah Jane departs, the Doctor is alone for a story set on his home planet Gallifrey

City of Death, which had John Cleese and Eleanor Bron in minor roles, is acclaimed as a classic story

The E-space trilogy, featuring vampires, a new male companion, Adric, and a farewell to Romana and K-9

Michael Grade puts the series on hiatus for 18 months amid claims that it is overly violent

Trial of a Time Lord is the second season-long arc, in which the Doctor is put on trial for breaking the rules of Gallifrey

In Doctor Who’s 25th year the Daleks return in a story set in 1963, written by now best-selling novelist Ben Aaronovitch. The Cybermen return in a story called Silver Nemesis, to mark the anniversary

Colin Baker is sacked. Sylvester McCoy takes over

Falling ratings, and a lack of support at the senior level of the BBC lead to cancellation. Doctor Who is over …

The Cybermen return, and Adric dies in the explosion that killed the dinosaurs

Return of the (redesigned) cybermen

WARNING: Getting into the UNIT dating controversy is a little

like spilling a classic Who fan’s pint. Sarah said she ‘came from 1980’ in 1975, but the balance

of other evidence suggests that the stories are set in a version of contemporary Britain, albeit one

with space travel

Doctor Who starts day after the assassination of Kennedy, on 23 November 1963

YEAR

THE DOCTORS

THE DOCTOR’S COMPANIONS

The Daleks, were created

by Terry Nation, but

owe their distinctive

look to BBC designer

Raymond Cusick

Season

The Daleks’ Master Plan: the longest single

non-arc story. First companion deaths, first

Christmas episode

First appearance of the Ice Warriors, who hail from ‘the red planet’ The War Games:

First appearance of the Time Lords, who capture the Doctor and sentence him to regeneration and exile on Earth

Spearhead from Space marks the first time Doctor Who is broadcast in colour and the first appearance of the Autons

The return of the

Daleks in January

1972

Jon Pertwee bows out with

Planet of the Spiders

Genesis of the Daleks brings in ratings and acclaim. Campaigner Mary Whitehouse is less keen. She calls it ‘teatime brutality for tots’

Doctor Who tries a season-

long arc, The Key to Time.

The Douglas Adams-penned Shada falls victim to a strike. It is later remade as an Eighth Doctor audio adventure

Tom Baker bows out. Peter Davison takes over; the show moves from Saturday to twice weekly

Colin Baker takes over. Show moves back to Saturdays with 45 minute episodes

The Doctor’s nemesis and fellow Time

Lord, The Master, makes his first

appearance, played by Roger Delgado.

The Dalek Invasion of Earth, set in 2164. The first companion departure, as Susan stays on Earth

The Doctor through time A brief history of Doctor Who I: The classic era SPIN-OFF FILMS RECURRING CHARACTERS OVER BOTH ERAS

Episodes featuring Daleks

Future and/or alien world

Cybermen

Present day Earth invaded

Silurians or Sea Devils

Set in alternate universe

Ice Warriors

Autons

Sontarans

Set in past, with aliens

Set in the past

KEY TO PREDOMINANT SETTING/VILLAIN

Doctor Who and the Daleks, based on the second story of the First Doctor’s tenure. Both films starred Peter Cushing as an inventor called Dr Who

Daleks - Invasion: Earth 2150AD, based on 1964 serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Bernard Cribbins co-stars; he returns in 2007 as Donna Noble’s grandad, Wilf

1965 1966

12

34

5

6

7 89 10

12

13 14 15 16

17

18

19

20

2122

23 24 25 26

11

1996

Paul McGann 1996

After the cancellation, the character of the Doctor continued in a series of books published by Virgin in 1991-97. The authors included Russell T Davies, Paul Cornell, Mark Gatiss and Gareth Roberts, all of whom went on to write for the rebooted version of Doctor Who

In 1996, the BBC and the US production companies Fox and Universal produced a TV film starring Paul McGann as the Doctor. The story was set in San Francisco (though filmed in Vancouver) and Eric Roberts chewed the scenery as the Master. The movie was not successful enough to reboot the franchise

Other than Children in Need segments and a web series, Scream of the Shalka, the next time we heard of the Doctor was in 2004

Paul McGann continues to play the Eighth Doctor in audio plays produced by Big Finish and broadcast on Radio 4 Extra

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Rose Tyler

Jack Harkness

Rory Williams

Martha Jones

Donna Noble

Amelia Pond

Wilf Mott

Mickey Smith

433David Tennant Dec 2005 – Jan 2010 Matt Smith Jan 2010 – present

Christopher Eccleston 2005

271

282

315

326

337.1

293

304

DEC 2008 - JAN 2010: THE YEAR OF THE SPECIALS

Part II: The revival

New aliens, the Slitheen, appear in

episodes 4-5 and 11, then move to

spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures

Steven Moffat’s first episodes, which introduced Capt Jack Harkness, terrified children, and won a 2006 Hugo award

‘Are you my mummy?’

‘Don’t blink. Blink and you’re dead’

‘Who turned out the lights?’

villains have appeared in Doctor Who since it began in 1963, according to Guardian readers, with 104 episodes featuring the Daleks, 84 featuring the Master, 56 with the Cybermen, and 24 with the Ice Warriors. Of the monsters solely seen since 2005, the Weeping Angels are most frequently used

‘Silence will fall’

The Autons are the first enemies of the reboot.

2006’s codeword, Torchwood, first mentioned in 2005, is explained (a little)

Enter Martha Jones, medical student. This year’s codeword is Harold Saxon

Adapted by Paul Cornell from his 1995 novel, Human Nature

The Girl in the Fire- place, by Steven Moffat, winner of the 2007 Hugo award

The Cybermen are reborn in an alternate universe

The question ‘who would win in a fight between the Daleks and the Cybermen?’ is answered. Rose is stranded in the alternate universe

Enter the Ood

Donna and the Doctor help free the Ood

Agatha Christie meets the Doctor

Return of the Sontarans

(and Martha)

River Song’s first appearance,

her death, and Moffat’s fourth

Hugo nomination in a row

Donna Noble tracks down the Doctor

Amelia Pond meets the Eleventh Doctor. He sees a crack in the universe in her bedroom wall

The return of the Weeping Angels, and River Song

The Silurians return and Rory is swallowed by the crack in time

Enter The Silence and a plot to kill the Doctor, tied in to the 1969 moon landings

The Doctor’s Wife, by novelist Neil Gaiman, in which the Tardis, in the form of a young woman, gets to talk to her ‘thief’. Gaiman won a Hugo award

The mystery of River Song’s origins is finally revealed

An older version of Amy meets the Tardis team

The Brigadier’s daughter Kate is revealed to be running UNIT in her father’s footsteps

The Doctor and hisfriend Craig foil a Cybermen attack

The Doctor escapes the death we saw at the start of the season, but regains his mystery

Let’s Kill Hitler

Second appearance of dinosaurs

Amy and Rory are stranded in in 1930s New York by the machinations of the Weeping Angels. They go on to live happy lives, but the Doctor can never see them again

The Doctor and Amy meet Vincent Van Gogh, courtesy of screenwriter Richard Curtis

Three-parter brings back the Master

Finale, in which Rose gets a Doctor of her own, and Donna loses her memory

A finale which roams across history, features most of the Doctor’s enemies, changes time and ends happily in Rory and Amy getting married – and Steven Moffat getting another Hugo award

The return of Sarah Jane Smith

Dalek introduces the Time War between the Daleks and Time Lords. Rob Shearman’s script is based on his audio play

The words Bad Wolf appear in every episode. A Dalek army is defeated. The Doctor sacrifices himself so Rose can live, and regenerates

The BBC was lobbied by Russell T Davies, whose stock was high after

Queer As Folk, to bring back Doctor Who. He was joined by fellow fans

Steven Moffat (writer of Press Gang and Coupling) and Mark Gatiss (one

of the League Of Gentlemen). The casting of Christopher Eccleston

helped persuade critics to take the reboot seriously. Filming began in Wales in 2004

David Tennant is the first actor to play the Doctor who was a self-avowed fan of the show. Before taking the role he had

taken roles in Big Finish’s Doctor Who audio plays

The end of an era: David Tennant, producers Julie Gardner and Phil Collinson and head writer Russell T Davies move on. Moffat takes over and there is a frenzy of speculation over who will be the Eleventh Doctor. Almost no one predicted it would be a 26-year-old relative unknown, Matt Smith

River Song

The Christmas Invasion 2005 David Tennant’s first

appearance. With 9.8m viewers it was the second-highest rated programme

on Christmas Day

The Runaway Bride 2006 Catherine Tate arrives as Donna Noble. The Doctor

and Donna defeat the spider Empress of the

Racnoss

A Christmas Carol 2010 The Doctor tries

to alter the past of a miser to make him

kinder

The Doctor, The Widow and the

Wardrobe 2011 A child in wartime

Britain wanders through a portal to

another world

The Snowmen 2012 Set in Victorian times, starring Richard E Grant (who voiced

the Doctor in a web series) and introducing the companion

Clara Oswald. Oswin Oswald, also played by Jenna-Louise

Coleman, was seen in Asylum of the Daleks in early 2012

The Next Doctor Dec 08 The Tenth Doctor teams

up with an imposter (David Morrissey) and

fights Cybermen

Planet of the Dead Easter 09 A London bus full of passengers and an

aristocratic thief are transported to an alien

world. Partly filmed in Dubai

The Waters of Mars Nov 09 An intelligent virus infects

the team at Bowie Base One on Mars. The Doctor tries

to defy history and save the legendary Adelaide Brooke,

with horrifying consequences

Dreamland Nov 09 Six-episode animated series

shown on the red button, BBC website and BBC2. The

Doctor finds an artefact which attracts the attention

of the men in black

The End of Time Dec 25, Jan 1 The Master, the

Time Lords, the time war, and the Tenth Doctor

sensing his end is nigh … a complicated farewell to Tennant, Davies and the

2005-10 producers

Daleks

Future and/or alien world

Cybermen

Present-day Earth invaded

Weeping Angels

Set in alternate universeAutons

Sontarans

Set in past, with aliens

‘Fezzes are cool’

SOURCES: DATABLOG READERS; BBC; TARDIS WIKIA; AND A LIFETIME BEHIND THE SOFA.

THANKS TO RKINSPACE; PHASESHIFT; JONATHAN BALDWIN

THE DOCTOR’S COMPANIONS

Season

KEY TO PREDOMINANT SETTING/VILLAIN

Voyage of the Damned 2007 Kylie, the Titanic in space and Bernard

Cribbins returns. It was the second most watched TV

programme of 2007

Run, you clever boy, and remember!

Silurians