The twenty-ninth in our series of features telling the story of the creation of Doctor Who, and the people who made it happen.

By the middle of November, the show's opening serial had been recorded, and production was proceeding on the second - The Daleks, by Terry Nation.

On Saturday 16th November 1963, exactly fifty years ago today, the British public had their first glimpse of Doctor Who, when the first trailer for the new series was broadcast on BBC Television.

The trailer was shown at 5.40pm, sandwiched between an episode of the cartoon series Deputy Dawg, in which he tries to sell his vintage fire engine, and an episode of The Telegoons, the puppet show version of the radio's The Goon Show. The Doctor Who trailer no longer exists, but the script survives in the BBC archives.
As well as the television promo a radio version was also transmitted in the week before the series' debut. The BBC Publicity team was briefed about the show, with producer Verity Lambert putting out a rewritten memo based on the one issued by Donald Wilson back in July. Reflecting the unease about the series in the higher echelons of the BBC, the memo no longer talked about a programme running for 52 weeks, but just listed the titles of the first three stories. Lambert made a plea for the team to protect spoilers in the series.
Although thirteen episodes were now confirmed and a transmission date was fast approaching, the production team were still having to cope with a number of problems and an inherent resistance to the show from within the BBC. James Mudie, the Head of Scenic Servicing for Television, had been against the idea from the start, worried that late scripts and impossible demands would put undue pressure on his department and jeopardise other productions. In July, he had warned the management to "think twice about proceeding with a weekly series of this nature."

Things came to a head in early November when the Controller of Programme Services, Ian Atkins, decided that the spaceship set was too heavy and cumbersome and needed to be simplified. It was taking too long to be rigged in the studio whenever it was needed, and would have to be redesigned. Mudie jumped on this memo and asked Head of Design J Beynon-Lewis and the designer of the current story in production, Raymond Cusick, to proceed with this as a matter of urgency: "in its present form it is obstructing the night setting operations for the whole of the Television Service."

Cusick informed Lambert of the instructions for the redesign he had been given. Although she had no strong objection, she was adamant that the costs for the redesign should not come from Doctor Who's budget but should be paid for by the design department, as the fault lay with original designer Peter Brachacki. Lambert was not happy that she had been bypassed in the decision process and not included in the memo to Cusick. She complained to her superior, Wilson: "No copy of Mr Mudie's memo was sent to me and instructions were issued to the designer without reference to me, in spite of the fact that no provision of man hours or money has been made for this by anybody up to the present time."

On Friday 15th November the first episode of The Dead Planet was recorded at Lime Grove Studio D, although the following week it would be discovered that the episode was not quite as ready for transmission as had been thought . . .

Throughout the problems, one man remained buoyant, fully behind the series and its untried production team. On Friday 15th November Head of Television Drama Sydney Newman sent Wilson the following memo.

The BBC's annual fundraising event Children in Need is in full swing tonight, and at 7:55pm it was the Doctor's turn to encourage people to donate to the cause with an exclusive clip from the 50th Anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor; the clip featured Matt Smith as the Doctor, Jenna Coleman as Clara, Jemma Redgrave as Kate, plus David Tennant as the Doctor and a very brief glimpse of Joanna Page as Elizabeth!

The BBC have released a number of new publicity photos to promote the forthcoming 50th Anniversary adventure The Day of the Doctor. Images feature Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt as the Doctor, with Jenna Coleman as Clara and Billie Piper as Rose, and featuring Joanna Page as Elizabeth and Jemma Redgrave as Kate.

The Night of The Doctor

Some publicity images are also available for the minisode, The Night of The Doctor. (Note: these images are currently hidden by default for those who have yet to see the episode and its revelations.)

The BBC have released a special mini episode, The Night of the Doctor - an introduction to the forthcoming 50th Anniversary Special, The Day of the Doctor:




The 6'54" episode will also be available to watch on UK television via the BBC Red Button service over the course of the following week at the following times:

• Sat 16 Nov: 7:30-9:55pm
• Sat 16 Nov: 10:30-11:45pm
• Sun 17 Nov: 6:30-9:55pm
• Mon 18 Nov: 7-10:30pm
• Tue 19 Nov: 9:30pm-Midnight
• Wed 20 Nov: Midnight-7:00am
• Wed 20 Nov: 7:30pm-Midnight
• Thu 21 Nov: Midnight-7:00am
• Thu 21 Nov: 5:30-8:10pm
• Thu 21 Nov: 10pm-Midnight
• Fri 22 Nov: Midnight-7:00am
• Fri 22 Nov: 7:30pm-Midnight
• Sat 23 Nov: Midnight-2:30pm
• Sat 23 Nov: 6:00-7:45pm

New Zealand's Prime television channel will screen The Day of the Doctor a little later than the simulcast that will be seen in many other countries.

If simulcast, the 50th anniversary special would have screened at 8:50am NZ time on Sunday 24 November. It will instead commence just ten minutes later, at 9:00am.

This brief delay is believed to be because Prime is not permitted to broadcast PGR (Parental Guidance Recommended) classified programmes before 9:00am in the morning. New series episodes of Doctor Who invariably receive this rating in New Zealand. Prime will repeat the special at 8:30pm the same day.

A couple of new documentaries to mark the anniversary are also scheduled on Prime for 24 November. Doctor Who Explained will screen at 6:30pm followed by Doctor Who in the U.S. at 10:15pm.

One additional item appears in Prime's line-up for 24 November. Closing Time will screen on 2:00pm. This is not part of the anniversary schedule but rather the latest in a run of weekly repeats of the latter half of Series Six.

CBBC is celebrating 50 years of Doctor Who with the launch of a Blue Peter competition, which will give children the chance to design a brand-new device for the forthcoming series of Doctor Who.

The competition, which will be launched on the Doctor Who: Blue Peter Special on Thursday 21 November. Viewers aged between six and 15 will be asked to design a new sonic device for either Sontaran Commander Strax, Madame Vastra or Jenny Flint and the winning gadgets will feature in the science fiction series next year.

There will be three eligible age categories for the competition - six to eight years, nine to 11 years and 12 to 15 years. All entries will be considered by a panel of judges which will include Blue Peter editor Ewan Vinnicombe, Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat, Doctor Who producer Nikki Wilson, Doctor Who’s brand account manager Edward Russell, CBBC presenter Chris Johnson, Blue Peter series producer Ellen Evans and Michael Pickwoad, production designer for Doctor Who.

Winners will be announced as part of Blue Peter’s Christmas show on 19 December. The designer of the winning device will be invited to Cardiff to see their gadget being used on the Doctor Who set, with three runners up each receiving a special framed picture including their competition entry and a signed picture of the actor they designed their device for.

Competition details will be live on the Blue Peter website following the launch on the show on 21 November.

Ewan Vinnicombe, editor of Blue Peter, said: In addition to the exclusive competition, Blue Peter will also be broadcasting two live episodes dedicated to Doctor Who – Doctor Who: Blue Peter Special on Thursday 21 November and a Doctor Who: Blue Peter Party episode on Saturday 23 November.

Presenters Barney Harwood, Lindsey Russell and Radzi Chinyanganya will be joined by aliens and monsters in the studio and the audience will be challenged to design their very own alien live on air. Viewer questions will be answered by Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman, and there will be a very special themed ‘make’ as the team shows the CBBC audience how to make their very own cushion (to hide behind) and some tasty – if slightly scary – Dalek cupcakes.

Doctor Who News is offering a copy of the official 50th Anniversary book, Doctor Who: The Vault, to the person who can most accurately guess the BBC One ratings for the UK premiere of The Day of the Doctor.

The Day of the Doctor is being broadcast in the UK on Saturday 23rd November at 7.50pm, later than normal Doctor Who episodes. On BBC One it follows Strictly Come Dancing, the latest edition of the Dancing With the Stars format, which achieved a rating of 11.09 million viewers in the most recent reported week. Doctor Who will be opposite The X Factor on ITV, which had 8.67 million viewers in the most recent week.

Doctor Who: The Vault:

This is the full and official story of Doctor Who, from the first pre-production memos in 1963 to the most recent props created for the 2013 series, including interviews with key contributors and scores of prop photos, design sketches and behind-the-scenes stills from every decade of the show's production.

Taking you year by year through the world's longest-running science fiction series, Marcus Hearn explores the show's groundbreaking innovations as well as its impact on popular culture through books and comics, magazines and toys, merchandise and ephemera.

The Vault is a collector's dream and the ultimate celebration of Doctor Who

Entering The Competition:

To enter the competition, please send the following details to comp-50thratings@doctorwhonews.net:

• Your name and email address
• Your country (full address will only be requested if you are a winner)
• Where you read about this competition
• Your guess for the final viewing figure!

Previous Ratings:

For comparison, the rating for the previous Doctor Who episode, The Name of the Doctor, shown in May, was 7.45 million. The last Christmas episode, The Snowmen, had 9.87 million watching at 5.15pm. The last episode shown in November was The Waters of Mars in 2009, which had 10.32 million watching, while the last anniversary special, The Five Doctors, shown in 1983, had 7.70 million watching.

Terms And Conditions:

• The competition closes at 7.50pm GMT, 23rd November 2013.
• Only one entry will be accepted per person.
• The competition is open worldwide.
• BARB figures are expected around 10 days after transmission; we will contact the winner once they have been published.

BBC One programme introductions may be subject to interruptions by the Doctor, as witnessed this evening on the channel when he popped up before Strictly Come Dancing! The BBC have now made a clean version of that ident available to watch:



The 'interruption' was preceded by the broadcast of the 40 second version of The Day of The Doctor trailer, as released by the BBC yesterday.

As Doctor Who begins to 'take over' television in the final fortnight before the 50th Anniversary weekend, viewers can have fun watching out for 'cameo' appearances in other BBC One programmes, for example the TARDIS parked innocuously on the desk during The Graham Norton Show on last night.


See how many you can spot!
(note: Chris Johnson's desk on the CBBC programme links does not count!)

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Graham Norton will serve up a more substantial slice of Doctor Who on the 22nd November when he hosts two Doctors on his sofa: both Matt Smith and David Tennant will be guests on the show to promote The Day of The Doctor broadcast the following day. Other guests on the show will be Emma Thompson, Robbie Williams and Jimmy Carr.

The programme will also be shown on BBC America on the 23rd November from 10:00pm.

The BBC have now released the first full trailer for Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary story, The Day of the Doctor:




The official BBC website also reports that a second trailer will be released tomorrow (Sunday); this trailer has been seen in various forms at industry events, but will now be presented in its finished form, complete with special effects.