Doctor Who

The Daleks - S1-E2

Trivia: When originally recorded on 15 Nov 1963, the first episode of this Doctor Who story ('The Dead Planet') was found to be unsuitable for broadcast due to the soundtrack picking up interference from the assistant director's headphones. The episode was re-recorded on 6 Dec 1963, which forced the production of all subsequent episodes (from episode 4 onwards) to be delayed a week.

100,000 BC - S1-E1

Trivia: Many early (Hartnell-era) Doctor Who stories are known by more than one title. The first ever story is known as "100,000 B.C." When it was commissioned in October 1963, the story was called "Doctor Who and the Tribe of Gum." This story is also widely known by the title "An Unearthly Child", and this is the title under which it has been released on video and DVD.

Marco Polo - S1-E4

Trivia: This, the fourth Doctor Who story, is one that did not survive the BBC's purging of the archives in 1972-78. Originally seven episodes were made, and first broadcast in February-April 1964: none survive in the BBC's archives, and the entire story is one that is "missing believed wiped"

Season 1 generally

Trivia: Before the BBC committed itself to Doctor Who, a pilot episode was made in September 1963. Once approval was given for a 13-week series of Doctor Who, the pilot episode was remade as part one of the first-ever story. The pilot episode was intended purely for internal use at the BBC and not for transmission. However, unusually, the pilot episode survived on film, and was broadcast on BBC TV on 26th August 1991, as part of The Lime Grove Story... a series of shows commemorating the BBC's Lime Grove TV Studios, which closed in 1991. It has since been made available on video.

100,000 BC - S1-E1

Trivia: It is a popular myth that the first ever Doctor Who story (broadcast on 23 November 1963) was delayed by 10 minutes due to news of the assassination of US President John F Kennedy the day before. This is not the case: the first ever episode of Doctor Who WAS delayed, but only by some eighty seconds, due to the previous programme (Grandstand) overrunning. The source of the myth seems to have originated from the fact that, due to power cuts blacking out several TV transmitters, the first ever episode of Doctor Who ("An Unearthly Child") was repeated a week later (30 November 1963), immediately before the first ever broadcast of Part 2 ("The Cave of Skulls").

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Earthshock - S19-E6

Question: In Earthshock, season 19, at the end of episode 3, the Cyber Leader views his troops marching down the corridor. Each column is headed by a Cyber Leader. Is this a mistake, or is there more than one Cyber Leader allowed per army?

Answer: In 'The Five Doctors', three separate Cyberleaders are definitely used. So it's likely that Cyberleaders are like unit commanders, of which a fair-sized army might have several.

Daria Sigma

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