Carry On Don't Lose Your Sash

I'm sure that, regardless of its reputation, all serious Doctor Who fans are looking forward to the imminent arrival of The Sensorites on DVD, restored to its former glory by the faithful Doctor Who Restoration Team. How lucky we are, for this time twenty years ago we'd have been happy just to have seen it, a fuzzy multi-generation VHS recording copied for you by some bloke who knew a bloke who knew a bloke... so you can imagine how thrilled fandom was when UK Gold restored the First Doctor to our screens in late 1992, especially when they were showing stories unseen for nearly thirty years...

The omnibus edition of The Sensorites (1964) aired on the morning of Sunday 6th December 1992, prior to a vintage movie double-bill consisting of The Fastest Gun Alive (1956) and The Lady Wants Mink (1953), shown as part of UK Gold's Weekend Film Festival strand. But back to Doctor Who, which kicked off at 9.00am and only paused for those pesky advert breaks, placed midway through each episode; there was a slight cock-up however, when viewers saw something they weren't meant to at the end of part five:

BBC Enterprises replaced the final episode's rolling credits with static computer-generated captions, to ensure that any other cast and crew members from the first five episodes received their on-screen credit. Which was nice of them, even if it was slight vandalism...

Right after those came a little trailer for the next Doctor Who story, The Space Museum... but hang on, that's not right?

For reasons best known to themselves, UK Gold were showing the First Doctor's stories out of sequence, so The Sensorites was followed by The Space Museum, which was followed by The Web Planet... yes, you had to be really dedicated to drag yourself out of bed on Sunday mornings in December 1992...

Time to say goodbye, but if you're interested in seeing continuity from the 1992 episodic broadcast of The Sensorites, look no further than benriggers' channel at Dailymotion. Lovely stuff! Next time, WhoGold has something of the Daleks... find out which one on Sunday 29th January 2012. But don't get up too early, will you...