As we approach the 60th Anniversary of Doctor Who, revisit the story of Doctor Who, the occasional series written for the 50th Anniversary, explaining the origins of the programme.
Episode 31 - An Unearthly Series - The Origins of a TV Legend: First published 23 Nov 2013
BBC Studios has teamed up with Reality+ to launch a collection of immersive experiences in the metaverse based on the BBC’s world-famous brands including Doctor Who.
BBC Studios has partnered with Web3 specialist Reality+ to create a metaverse experience in The Sandbox where fans will be able to interact with immersive content from their favourite brands, including Top Gear and Doctor Who, and enjoy a BBC events space.
The joint venture between BBC Studios and Reality+ marks the first time the BBC will have a home in the metaverse, following a handful of brand activation experiments with metaverse platforms. Part virtual real estate, part amusement park, The Sandbox fully embraces the idea of the metaverse as a continuous shared digital space, in which players and brands can build, own, and monetise their experiences on blockchain.
BBC Studios joins over 400 other entertainment brands who have entered The Sandbox to date, including Warner Music Group, Ubisoft, Gucci Vault, The Walking Dead, and Adidas.
Nicki Sheard, President Brands & Licensing, BBC Studios, said,
Tony Pearce, Co-Founder, Reality+ said,
Sebastien Borget, COO and Co-Founder at The Sandbox, added,
BBC Studios’ metaverse space in The Sandbox will launch later this year and further details will be released in due course.
Reality+ helps worldwide brands transition to Web3 with bespoke product, community and development strategies, backed by an award-winning technology platform. It has previously partnered with BBC Studios to develop the Doctor Who: Worlds Apart digital trading card game.
BBC Books has announced a new novelisation of one of the second Doctor's classic stories, The Evil of the Daleks, written by former companion Frazer Hines.
The new version is an inventive new retelling of one of Doctor Who’s all-time classic adventures first screened in 1967.
The Evil of the Daleks was the last story of Season Four, written by Doctor Who's original Script Editor, David Whitaker. An novelisation by John Peel was published in 1993, the last story of the original series to be published under the Target imprint.
This new adaptation of the adventure tells the story from the point of view of Jamie McCrimmon, companion to the second Doctor and played by Hines.
After defending a space station from a Cyberman incursion, the Doctor and Jamie learn that young astrophysicist Zoe wishes to join them on their travels. To give her fair warning of the dangers she may face, the Doctor places the TARDIS outside time and space and uses a mind projector to share one of their most harrowing adventures…
And so, Jamie is forced to relive his encounter with the Daleks at their most evil and calculating. In a complex plot that dragged him from modern-day London to Victorian times and finally, to the Dalekworld of Skaro, he endured ordeals that tested his courage, strength – and his friendship with the doctor – to the limit. He presents his own version of some of those events to Zoe; events that still anger him.
And while fact and fiction blur inside the TARDIS, a malevolent force watches from outside. Soon, Jamie finds himself lured from the safety of the ship into dangers that could end Zoe’s travels before they begin – and all their lives, as well.
The Evil of the Daleks by Frazer Hines (BBC Books, £20) is out in hardback on 26th October 2023.
BBC Audio have announced their plans for the Doctor's adventures on audio for digital and physical release for the diamond anniversary of the show.
Michael Stevens, Doctor Who Range Editor for BBC Audio, said:
Highlights include
January:The Romans
Written by Donald Cotton
Read by Tim Treloar, Jamie Glover, Dan Starkey, Clare Corbett, Jon Culshaw, Maureen O'Brien and Louise Jameson
Available to pre-order from Amazon
A multi-voice retelling of historical events featuring the First Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki.
The TARDIS crewmembers have taken a break from their adventures and are enjoying a well-deserved rest in a luxury villa.
But, in the gory grandeur that is Imperial Rome, things don't stay quiet for long. If the time travellers can save themselves from being sold as slaves, assassinated by classical hit-men, poisoned by the evil Locusta, thrown to the lions, maimed in the arena and drowned in a shipwreck, they still have to face the diabolical might of the mad Emperor Nero.
As if that wasn't enough, they also discover that, although Rome wasn't built in a day, it burnt down in considerably less time...
February: The Seeds of Death
Written by Terrance Dicks
Read by David Troughton
Available to pre-order from Amazon
Returning to Earth in the 21st Century, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe immediately find themselves caught in the midst of a crisis. T-Mat, a form of instantaneous transportation essential to the smooth running of life on Earth, is going disastrously wrong.
The Doctor discovers that the T-Mat base on the Moon has been taken over by a group of Ice Warriors, led by the villainous Slaar. With their home a desolate and dying planet, the Martian invaders see Earth as a world ripe for conquest. But before they can colonise Earth they must dramatically alter its atmosphere.
And so they unleash the Seeds of Death...
David Troughton reads Terrance Dicks's novelisation of the 1969 TV serial by Brian Hayles.
March: The Time Monster
Written by Terrance Dicks
Read by Jon Culshaw
Available to pre-order from Amazon
Outside the bounds of this world lives Kronos, the Chronivore - a mysterious creatures that feeds on time itself.
Posing as a Cambridge professor, the Master intends to use Kronos in his evil quest for power. To stop him, the Doctor and Jo must journey back in time to Ancient Atlantis and to a terrifying confrontation within the Time Vortex itself.
But can even the Doctor save himself from the awesome might of the Time Monster?
Jon Culshaw reads Terrance Dicks's novelisation of the 1972 TV serial by Robert Sloman, first published by Target Books in 1986.
April: Planet of Evil
Written by Terrance Dicks
Read by Tim Treloar
Available to pre-order from Amazon
The expedition to Zeta Minor began with eight men. Seven were murdered. One survived - but he was not the murderer.
The Doctor and Sarah land on the planet at the same time as the expedition's rescue team, and are immediately taken prisoner as the suspected murderers. But even stranger things soon begin to happen...
What terrible creature inhabits this wild, desolate planet, killing mercilessly and lurking in the murky depths of the Black Pool? Will anyone ever be allowed to leave alive?
Tim Treloar reads Terrance Dicks's novelisation of the 1975 TV serial by Louis Marks, first published by Target Books in 1977.
May: Warriors of the Deep
Written by Terrance Dicks
Reader to be announced
Available to pre-order from Amzon
When the TARDIS materialises on Earth in the year 2084, the Doctor once again encounters the Sea Devils.
Formerly the masters of this planet, but now forced to live in the murky depths of the sea, their intention is to reclaim their position of domination. Aiding them in a dastardly plan to attack humanity's defences are the Silurians, also known to the Doctor of old.
With deceit and subterfuge rife among the Sea Base personnel, can there be any hope for the Doctor's attempts to broker peace between humans and reptiles?
June: The Nightmare Fair
Written by Graham Williams
Resader to be announced
Available to pre-order from Amazon
Drawn into 'the nexus of the primeval cauldron of Space-Time', the Doctor and Peri are somewhat surprised to find themselves at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.
Is it really just chance that has brought them to the funfair? Or is their arrival somehow connected with the sinister presence of a rather familiar Chinese Mandarin?
Once again the Doctor encounters his deadly adversary the Celestial Toymaker in this adventure by Graham Williams, planned but never made for the TV series in 1986.
Other releases for the first half of the year include:
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the creation of the BBC.
The British Broadcasting Company came into existence on 18th October 1922, a private company owned by the leading electronics companies of the day, with a remit to provide radio broadcasts that could be heard on wireless sets manufactured by its owners.
Its first office was at Magnet House near Covent Garden in London. On its creation, it took over control of the already up-and-running Radio 2LO, owned by Marconi, one of the BBC's investors.
Over the next five years, new Radio stations were launched in the major cities of the UK and the BBC soon became part of national life.
On 1st January 1927, the BBC was reborn as a Corporation under a Royal Charter and the British Broadcasting Company became the British Broadcasting Corporation led by its first Director General, Sir John Reith.
Experimental television broadcasts were started in 1929, using a 30-line system developed by John Logie Baird, using Radio frequencies after normal programmes had closed down for the night. A regular Television service started from Alexandra Palace in November 1936, the world's first High Definition Television service.
The outbreak of World War II in 1939 saw Television broadcasts suspended, but Radio continued with the BBC, through its home and overseas services, becoming a vital part of the information war. Winston Churchill delivered 33 major wartime speeches by radio and in 1940, French general Charles de Gaulle, in exile in London as the leader of the Free French, made a speech, urging the French people not to capitulate to the Nazis.
Television resumed in 1946, with the BBC having a monopoly of the airwaves until the arrival of ITV in 1955. Almost everything broadcast was live, including drama, with very limited ability to record items in advance.
When Doctor Who was first broadcast, on 23rd November 1963, there were still only two television channels available in the UK. A third arrived in 1964 with the launch of BBC Two. Recording was still very elementary, and editing was costly and avoided whenever possible. Early Doctor Who's were recorded 'as live' onto 2 inch magnetic tape. Many of these early recordings were later wiped for reuse, meaning 97 episodes are missing from the archives.
Colour television arrived towards the end of the 1960s. Doctor Who was made in colour from the start of its seventh season which saw the arrival of the third Doctor.
Doctor Who would be an important part of the BBC One schedule throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The suspension of the series in 1989 was met by many protests from fans around the world.
A TV Movie was made in America in 1996 but was not deemed successful enough to merit a new series.
It was in 2003 that Doctor Who News reported that the BBC would be bringing back the series, under the artistic direction of Russell T Davies. The return in 2005 was spectacularly successful with the series an important part of the BBC schedules ever since. The TV landscape in 2022 is a world away from that when the series launched in 1963 with hundreds of TV stations competing for viewers with hugely well-resourced streaming services.
Doctor Who has been part of the BBC's identity for over half of the BBC's existence and still remains a vital part of the BBC's output.
A special 90-minute episode, the Power of the Doctor, will screen next Sunday, part of the events to mark the 100th anniversary. The story will feature the swan song of the first female Doctor, Jodie Whittaker.
The episode will mark the end of the Chibnall era of the Doctor's adventures and mark the return of Russell T Davies to the helm. It is clear that Doctor Who will be part of the BBC's ethos for many years to come.
We have adventures for the Tenth Doctor in the pipeline and the series has a brand new Doctor to look forward to. Ncuti Gatwa will be leading the TARDIS team into the BBC's second Century.
As part of the BBC Centenary celebrations, The One Show conducted a viewer poll to discover the most loved BBC TV shows of all time. The results were announced live on Friday evening, revealing Doctor Who to be the second-favourite show in the Corporation's history, only beaten by the ever popular Only Fools and Horses.
The poll featured some 50 programmes showcasing a variety of genre from throughout the BBC's history, as chosen by a panel of experts which included Sara Wallis, Mirror TV Columnist, David Butcher, Radio Times’ Choices Editor, Dick Fiddy, BFI Archive TV Programmer and Hanna Flint, Freelance Critic and MTV Movies Host.
The full Top 20 programmes are:
The One Show presenter Alex Jones said:
The full programme, including articles on many of the shows in the poll and guide through some of the objects illustrating the BBC's history, will be available via the BBC iPlayer for the next four weeks.
BBC Books has announced that it will be expanding the Doctor Who Target range with five new titles in Summer 2022, all published on 14th July 2021, each with newly commissioned cover artwork by Anthony Dry.
Penned by the original scriptwriter the late David Fisher and adapted from his new 2011 and 2014 audio novelisations, The Stones of Blood, and The Androids of Tara are now being released as two Target books. The original Target versions, published in the 1970s, were written by former Doctor Who script editor Terrance Dicks.
These will be accompanied by a Target edition of The Fires of Pompeii by James Moran, as well as The Eaters of Light by Rona Munro and The Zygon Invasion by Peter Harness.
For Doctor Who fans, the range of novelisations published by Target Books in the 1970s and 1980s holds a special place. There was a novel published for almost every Doctor Who serial between 1963 and 1989, with five notable exceptions.
Since 2012, BBC Books has been successfully reissuing these classic paperbacks and expanding the Target range to include all-new novelisations of modern-era Doctor Who episodes. These latest additions to the collection, all by the original writers of the TV episodes, will help Target fans complete their classic and modern-era collections.
James Moran said:
I’ve been watching Doctor Who and reading the Target books for as long as I can remember. The books were an essential part of my childhood, examining the amazing cover art, and “seeing” stories that aired before I was born. I loved learning new words from them, like “capacious”, and am beyond thrilled to become part of this publishing legend!
Rona Munro said:
Peter Harness said:
As part of this month's learning resouces from the BBC, CBBC have broadcast a series on classic music for schools over the past week: Ten Pieces have focussed on a number of works based around a theme, and Friday's episode, Back in Time, included a section on the groundbreaking work of Delia Derbyshire in creating the Doctor Who theme, presented by currrent series composer Segun Akinola.
The feature can be viewed via the Ten Pieces Orchestral Films page, and the full programme is currently available to watch on the BBC iPlayer until 27th June, with the Doctor Who theme segment starting from about six minutes.
Supporting material is available from the BBC Teach site, which includes downloadable scores for music showcased within the programmes. For Derbyshire, the Doctor Who theme tune has been published for performance by schools, arranged by Iain Farrington, and features arrangements for beginners, intermediate and grade 4/5 musicians.
(The site also features an item on Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, introduced by Christopher Eccleston)
The Arena docudrama, Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes, remains available to watch on the BBC iPlayer for the next eleven months. Its director, Caroline Catz, can be heard discussing Derbyshire on Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone from BBC Radio 6, and her BBC Radio 4 Great Lives programme on the composer ifrom January is still available to listen to on BBC Sounds.
Also launched recently is a new film, Sisters with Transistors, described as "the remarkable untold story of electronic music’s female pioneers, composers who embraced machines and their liberating technologies to utterly transform how we produce and listen to music today." The documentary looks at the careers of notable visionaries, including Delia Derbyshire and one of the founding figures of the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop, Daphne Oram.
The film was disussed on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour in April, and works from both composers can still be heard in the recentl repeat of the 2018 BBC Prom Pioneers of Sound.
BBC Books have announced a new fiction novel to be released later this year:
The Ruby's Curse
A River Song / Melody Malone Mystery
She's got ice in her heart and kiss on her lips...
1939, New York. Private Eye, Melody Malone, is hired to find a stolen ruby, the Eye of Horus. The ruby might hold the secret to the location of Cleopatra's tomb – but everyone who comes into contact with it dies. Can Melody escape the ruby's curse?
1939, New York. River Song, author of the Melody Malone Mysteries, is forced to find a reality-altering weapon, the Eye of Horus. River doesn't believe in curses – but is she wrong?
From the top-security confines of Stormcage to the barbarism of first-century Egypt, River battles to find the Eye of Horus before its powers are used to transform the universe. To succeed, she must team up with a most unlikely ally – her own fictional alter ego, Melody. And together they must solve another mystery: Is fiction changing into fact – or is fact changing into fiction?
The Ruby’s Curse is Alex Kingston’s first Doctor Who novel, and is released following the successful launch of Doctor Who adventures written by actors Tom Baker (Scratchman) and Sophie Aldred (At Childhood’s End) featuring the Fourth Doctor and Ace.
Alex said:
Albert DePetrillo, Publishing Director at BBC Books, said:
The novel is released in hardback on 20th May 2021, and is available to pre-order from Amazon UK.
The BBC has released two new images from the upcoming Doctor Who episode Revolution of the Daleks
The images were released today as part of New York Comic Con
The upcoming festive special will see the return of one of the Doctor’s biggest and most feared enemies – the Daleks.
The Doctor is locked away in a high-security alien prison. Isolated, alone, with no hope of escape. Far away, on Earth, her best friends, Yaz, Ryan and Graham have to pick up their lives without her.
But it’s not easy. Old habits die hard. Especially when they discover a disturbing plan forming.
A plan which involves a Dalek. How can you fight a Dalek, without the Doctor?
Revolution of the Daleks will air during the upcoming festive period on BBC One and BBC America.
Doctor Who: The Monster Vault
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