Pluto's No Place For A...

In the weeks leading up to Christmas 1977, the Doctor, Leela and K9 were on our screens, fighting a people's revolution in the far future on the planet Pluto. Fast forward twenty years and The Sun Makers was still entertaining audiences, on satellite TV...

Doctor Who: The Sun Makers (UK Gold)

Sunday 6 July 1997, 11.15am-1.00pm (omnibus)

Monday 29 September to Thursday 2 October 1997, 7.20-7.50pm (episodic)

The 'break bumper' (holding slide) and continuity announcement over the closing credits both come from July 1997, when the serial was being shown one Sunday morning in 'The Vortex'.

During the summer of 1997, UK Gold aired the first half of Tom Baker's stint as the Doctor in an episodic format on weekday evenings, starting on Monday 2nd June 1997 with episode one of Robot, introduced by Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith). Sladen introduced each story until her swansong The Hand of Fear, following which the channel's presenters Glen Allen and Susanna Boccaccio took over. Sadly, with a major revamp of the channel imminent, the evening line-up changed at the beginning of October 1997 and Doctor Who disappeared from the weekday schedule following the conclusion of season 15 story The Sun Makers. Glen Allen was on hand to introduce each episode with a little help from some uninvited guests; a Voc Robot, Vervoid, Sea Devil and an Eighties-style Cyberman, closing in menacingly on poor Glen...

There was just one more Doctor Who story broadcast before Glen departed and UK Gold regenerated... but we'll come back to that day another time - bye for now!