Trivia: Such was the popularity of Doctor Who in Britain in the mid-1960s that even the Beatles wanted to make an appearance in the show. So a scene was written into "The Chase" to allow them to appear. The idea had been devised of including a scene on the Time and Space Visualiser depicting a Beatles fiftieth-anniversary concert in 2015, with the Fab Four dressed up as old men. John, Paul, George, and Ringo themselves were interested in the proposition, but it was vetoed by their manager, Brian Epstein. It was then thought that an appearance by the Beatles on Top of the Pops might be used instead, but no such footage was available. Fortunately, the Beatles were scheduled to perform "Ticket to Ride" at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith on April 10th, 1965, and that footage was used instead.
Planet of the Spiders - S11-E5
Trivia: The first thing the Third Doctor does on-screen is collapse out of the TARDIS, which is also the last thing he does in that incarnation.
Trivia: This Doctor Who story was originally scripted and produced as a four-episode story, but, just two weeks before transmission, upon viewing the story, co-creators Sydney Newman and Donald Wilson felt that the final two episodes (Episode 3, 'Crisis'; and Episode 4, 'The Urge to Live') should be combined into a single episode. The new 'condensed' episode incorporated the opening titles of 'Crisis' with the closing credits of 'The Urge to Live'.
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.
Trivia: In case you've ever wondered why everyone in the universe speaks English, Time Lords have the ability to telepathically understand and speak any language they hear and they're able to share this ability with their companions. (As for why everyone in the universe has a British accent, this can be put down to the fact that the Doctor is an Anglophile.).
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.
The Talons of Weng-Chiang - S14-E6
Trivia: A pile of straw - seen in the road as Weng-Chiang searches for the time cabinet - was placed there to hide a modern (1970s) car which had, despite requests to the contrary, been parked in the road prior to filming, and whose owner refused to move it.
The Daleks' Master Plan - S3-E4
Trivia: Originally the Time Destructor's core was made out of "Vitaranium." It was changed to "Taranium" after William Hartnell kept calling it "Vitamin."
The Crusade - S2-E6
Trivia: The first episode of the Doctor Who story "The Crusades" was called "The Lion" (a reference to King Richard I, "The Lionheart") and was first broadcast on March 27, 1965. This episode was really bad. The only surviving copy was returned to the BBC Archives in January 1999, from a film collector in New Zealand, who had bought it at a car boot sale for $5.00NZ (about $3US). The vendor of this episode of Doctor Who had recovered it several years before from a landfill site in Wellington, New Zealand, where TV NZ had dumped it when clearing out its archives.
The Daleks' Master Plan - S3-E4
Trivia: For many years, it was thought that every episode of "The Daleks' Master Plan" had been destroyed by the BBC, in their 1970s purge of the archives. However, in 1983, two episodes (5 and 10) were found and returned to the BBC for preservation. They were found in a highly unlikely location: the basement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Clapham, South London. No one knows how they got there.
Trivia: Throughout the whole of Doctor Who, the original series and the new series, the Doctor only refers to himself as 'Doctor Who' once - and this was a mistake by William Hartnell, who was getting frail. The end credits originally listed the actor playing the Doctor as 'Doctor Who', but this later changed to mainly using 'The Doctor'.
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"
Trivia: For the first three seasons of Doctor Who, each individual episode had a title, as well as an "umbrella" title for the whole story (like the titles of chapters in a book). This has caused much confusion over the years. For example, the story "100,000 BC" is the title of the first Doctor Who story, but this story is also widely known as "An Unearthly Child" after the title of the first episode. By the time of "The Gunfighters" (first broadcast in May 1966) this source of confusion was realised, and the practice ceased. From 28th May 1966, each Doctor Who story had just the "umbrella" title, followed by "Part One" "Part Two" and so on.
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.
Trivia: "Inside the Spaceship" is only one of two "official" titles given to this Doctor Who story. It is also called "The Edge of Destruction", and it is under this latter title that it is known when the story was made available on video.
Trivia: Sylvester McCoy was given a new costume for Season 26, with a darker jacket, hatband, tie and handkerchief to reflect the gradual development of the Seventh Doctor's personality, and to show that the Doctor himself was getting 'darker' and more serious. To surprise viewers with the revised outfit, it was decided the Doctor would begin the season wearing a duffel coat over his regular clothes, the belief at this time being that "The Curse of Fenric" would be the 'lead story' for season 26. Later however, it was pushed back to third in transmission order, meaning that the effect went for nought, as the costume had already been seen in the first two serials.
Trivia: It is mentioned that, The Doctor, like all Time Lords, can 'regenerate' himself a maximum of twelve times. After that, "it really is the end". Since the series started in 1963, nine actors have played the role of Doctor Who: William Hartnell (1963-66), Patrick Troughton (1966-69), Jon Pertwee (1970-74), Tom Baker (1974-81), Peter Davidson (1982-84), Colin Baker (1984-86), Sylvester McCoy (1987-89)(*although, according to the BBC, it was 1987-96, due to McCoy reprising his role for the 1996 TV Movie), Paul McGann (1996:TV Movie only) ...and the ninth Doctor Who will be Christopher Eccleston, who stars in a new series, planned for broadcast in 2005.
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").
Trivia: Season 17 had the highest audience viewing figures of any season of Doctor Who. The average audience for Season 17 was 11.2 million viewers. The highest audience viewing figure ever for any individual Doctor Who episode was part 4 of "City of Death" (first broadcast 20 October 1979) with 16.1 million viewers. However, these figures were artificially boosted by the fact that, at the time, ITV was off the air due to a strike, leaving just the two BBC Channels broadcasting.
Trivia: As mentioned elsewhere, the Doctor regenerated eight times (out of a possible twelve) in the classic series. Here is a short summary of the regenerations, in order of when they happened: First Doctor (William Hartnell) - weakened in a battle with the Cybermen ("The Tenth Planet"). Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) - forced regeneration when he was exiled to Earth by the Time Lords ("The War Games"). Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) - radiation overdose ("Planet of the Spiders"). Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) - fell off Jodrell Bank radio telescope walkway ("Logopolis"). Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) - poisoned with Spectrox Toxemia ("The Caves of Androzani"). Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) - the Rani's hijacking of the TARDIS using a navigational guidance system distorter caused enough damage to fatally injure the Doctor ("Time and the Rani"). Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) - shot by hoodlums in San Francisco, then dies on the operating table (1996 television movie). For the regenerations of the Eighth Doctor and beyond, see the new series.
Answer: It was never destroyed on-screen; it was intact at the end of the TV movie, and destroyed by the start of the 2005 series. It was destroyed in the novel "The Ancestor Cell," but in a completely different manner to what happened in the series.
DaveJB