Sunday 27 March 2011

A Space Helmet For A Cow?

Saturday 26th March 2005 was a red letter day for many Doctor Who fans everywhere, for this was the day that the series finally returned to our screens, featuring Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. And he was awesome. Taking advantage of the hype surrounding the new series, UKTV Gold celebrated the "enduring appeal" of the series with nearly eleven hours of classic Who with 'The Doctor Who Story', presented by the Doctor's robot companion K-9, as voiced by the one and only John Leeson.

The day kicked off at 8.00am with two short features looking at the early years of the series, when William Hartnell was in charge of the TARDIS...


Interviewees included Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Peter Purves (Steven), Colin Baker (Sixth Doctor), Paul McGann (Eighth Doctor) and former producers Verity Lambert and Barry Letts.


A screening of the First Doctor story The Time Meddler (its final appearance on British television to date, fact fans) followed at 8.10am; although these were not the Nigerian prints originally screened by the channel in December 1992, the episode caption ('The Watcher') had been cut, and the current BBC logo was electronically superimposed over the opening titles. Here's all the continuity for your viewing pleasure:


The schedule continued with repeats of The Daemons (10.20am-1.05pm), Pyramids Of Mars (1.05-3.10pm), Attack Of The Cybermen (3.10-5.25pm) and Dragonfire (5.25-7.00pm), finishing just in time for viewers to switch over to BBC1 for Rose (2005). It wouldn't be long before Rose made its debut on UKTV Gold, but we'll come back to that another time. Maybe.

Hope you've enjoyed watching these clips! WhoGold will return on Sunday 10th April 2011.

3 comments:

  1. KinggodzillakMarch 27, 2011

    I like the way they updated the original 40th anniversary opening to include a very non-Who picture of Eccleston - that looks like it comes from the mid-90s!

    And I still want to know what that clip of someone wanting to be told something before they bring on the person is from...

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  2. Didnt UKTV Gold like Peter Davison/Patrick Troughton's Doctors then? Considering they didnt show any story from their eras. Suppose they didnt have time!

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  3. They only had the rights to transmit programmes a number of times, and so these repeats had to be 'taken' from the regular repeat run. Pyramids of Mars was skipped in January 2005, and Dragonfire was similarly omitted in December 2005; interestingly, these and The Time Meddler would never appear on Gold again. Attack Of The Cybermen was screened a few months later in July 2005, but subsequently omitted in January 2006 during the final Colin Baker repeats.

    By February 2006, the channel would exclusively show Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker stories until the series was eventually dropped.

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