Jodie Whittaker is the Doctor
In a specially shot trailer aired after BBC1’s live coverage of the Wimbledon men’s tennis finals, the first female Doctor Who is unveiled in the form of actress Jodie Whittaker (Broadchurch, Black Mirror, Attack The Block). Her first appearance in the role proper will presumably take place at the end of outgoing star Peter Capaldi’s final episode, to be aired on Christmas Day 2017. The transition to a new Doctor also includes the transition to new showrunner Chris Chibnall, whose first season will be broadcast in 2018.
Trevor Baxter, actor, dies
British actor Trevor Baxter, best known in genre circles for a one-off appearance in the 1970s Doctor Who story The Talons Of Weng-Chiang as Professor George Litefoot, dies at the age of 84. Though his guest role on Doctor Who lasted six half-hour episodes, his double-act chemistry with fellow guest star Christopher Benjamin was memorable enough that there was brief discussion at the BBC of possibly launching the two Victorian-era characters in their own TV spinoff. That idea was quickly shelved, but Big Finish Productions, the makers of audio Doctor Who, would revive it in the 21st century, leading to the popular audio series Jago & Litefoot, which ran for nearly a decade. Baxter’s list of guest starring roles spans almost the entirety of classic British TV, and he acted on stage on the West End and with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was also a prolific playwright in his own right.
Doctor Who: The Lie Of The Land
The 837th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 138th episode since the series’ revival). Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, and Matt Lucas star. Michelle Gomez guest stars.
Doctor Who: The Pyramid At The End Of The World
The 836th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 137th episode since the series’ revival). Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, and Matt Lucas star. Nigel Hastings guest stars.
Doctor Who: Extremis
The 835th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 136th episode since the series’ revival). Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, and Matt Lucas star. Michelle Gomez guest stars.
Doctor Who: Oxygen
The 834th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 135th episode since the series’ revival). Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, and Matt Lucas star.
Doctor Who: Knock Knock
The 833rd episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 134th episode since the series’ revival). Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, and Matt Lucas star. David Suchet (The Hercule Poirot Mysteries) guest stars.
Doctor Who: Thin Ice
The 832nd episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 133rd episode since the series’ revival). Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, and Matt Lucas star. (This story is unrelated to an audio story of the same name based on a script for the unproduced 1990 television season of Doctor Who.)
Doctor Who: Smile
The 831st episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 132nd episode since the series’ revival). Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, and Matt Lucas star; Mina Anwar (The Sarah Jane Adventures) guest stars.
Doctor Who: The Pilot
The 830th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 131st episode since the series’ revival), beginning the revived series’ tenth season. Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, and Matt Lucas star in a story introducing new companion Bill Potts.
John Hurt, actor, dies
British actor Sir John Hurt, renowned for memorable roles in everything from I, Claudius to Alien to The Elephant Man to 1984 to Doctor Who, dies at the age of 77 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer (during which he kept actively working). Known to genre fans for the role of unlucky astronaut Kane in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), though before this he had lent his voice to animated adaptations of Lord Of The Rings and Watership Down. He spoofed his Alien character for Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs in 1987. Other genre fare included the movie adaptation of Carl Sagan’s novel Contact in 1997, V For Vendetta, Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, the final two Harry Potter movies, and voiced the dragon in the BBC’s TV series Merlin. In 2013, he joined the pantheon of incarnations of the Doctor for Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary, playing a previously unseen incarnation of the Time Lord, a role he reprised for Big Finish Productions’ Doctor Who audio plays.
Doctor Who: The Return Of Doctor Mysterio
The 829th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 130th episode since the series’ revival). This Christmas-themed episode closes the ninth season, and reintroduces Nardole (Matt Lucas) as a new regular companion for the Doctor in a story that pastiches American superhero comics (and their media spinoffs). Justin Chatwin and Charity Wakefield guest star.
Class: Nightvisiting
Internet-only channel BBC4 premieres the third episode of Class, a Doctor Who spinoff created by acclaimed young adult author Patrick Ness, and starring Katherine Kelly.
Class
Internet-only channel BBC4 premieres the first and second episodes of Class, a Doctor Who spinoff created by acclaimed young adult author Patrick Ness, and starring Katherine Kelly. Peter Capaldi and Nigel Betts guest star, both reprising their characters from Doctor Who.
Doctor Who: Doom Coalition 1
Big Finish Productions releases the audio drama box set Doctor Who: Doom Coalition 1, beginning a new storyline for Paul McGann as the eighth Doctor. Nicola Walker, Hattie Morahan, Mark Bonnar, and John Woodvine guest star. Doom Coalition 1 is comprised of four single-CD stories: The Eleven, The Red Lady, The Galileo Trap, and The Satanic Mill.
Doctor Who: The Last Adventure
Billed as the final adventure of the sixth Doctor (who never got an exit story on TV), the lavish audio drama box set Doctor Who: The Last Adventure, starring Colin Baker, is released by Big Finish. Michael Jayston reprises his role of the Valeyard from the 1986 Trial Of A Time Lord TV story, with Bonnie Langford, Miranda Raison, India Fisher, Lisa Greenwood, Trevox Baxter and Christopher Benjamin reprising their roles as the Doctor’s companions and allies. The Last Adventure is comprised of four single-CD stories: End Of The Line, The Red House, Stage Fright, and The Brink Of Death.
Barrie Ingham, actor, dies
Actor Barrie Ingham, one of the few actors to have played speaking parts in both the Doctor Who and Star Trek franchises, dies at the age of 82. Having appeared alongside William Hartnell in the 1965 Doctor Who story The Myth Makers, Mr. Ingham went on to play a more visible role as Alydon with Peter Cushing in the movie Dr. Who And The Daleks. He also appeared in the 1989 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Up The Long Ladder as the leader of a throwback space colony.
Doctor Who: Last Christmas
The 815th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 116th episode since the series’ revival). This Christmas-themed episode closes the eighth season, and is the first Christmas special during Peter Capaldi’s reign as the twelfth Doctor. Nick Frost and Michael Troughton guest star.
Doctor Who: Deep Breath
The 803rd episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 104th episode since the series’ revival). This episode opens the show’s eighth full season since its revival, and is the first full episode with Peter Capaldi as the twelfth Doctor. Dan Starkey and Michelle Gomez guest star.
An Adventure In Space And Time soundtrack
Silva Screen Records releases a CD of music from the 2013 made-for-TV movie An Adventure In Space And Time, composed by Edmund Butt (Life On Mars, Origin, Intergalactic).
Doctor Who: The Time Of The Doctor
The 802nd episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 104th episode since the series’ revival). This Christmas-themed episode sees the exit of Matt Smith as the eleventh Doctor (revealed during the story to actually be the thirteenth and final Doctor), but bends the long-standing mythos surrounding regeneration in time to introduce Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor. The production staff behind the scenes will remain largely intact for the transition into the Capaldi era.
Doctor Who: The Day Of The Doctor
The 801st episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 103rd episode since the series’ revival). This is the show’s 50th anniversary special, starring Matt Smith, David Tennant, and John Hurt, with past Doctors putting in appearances via archive footage; Tennant’s co-star Billie Piper also appears, though not as Rose Tyler. This is the first episode since 1976 to feature the shape-shifting Zygons, and it adds a major plot twist to the Time War.
An Adventure In Space And Time
BBC2 broadcasts the movie An Adventure In Space And Time, starring David Bradley, Brian Cox and Jessica Raine, chronicling the genesis and the early years of Doctor Who (and celebrating the show’s 50th anniversary). Numerous past stars of the series make cameo appearances in other roles. The movie is written by Doctor Who writer Mark Gatiss, who had originally proposed the project a decade earlier.
Doctor Who: The Last Day
The BBC debuts the Doctor Who minisode The Last Day on the internet as part of the promotional build-up to the much-anticipated 50th anniversary special, Day Of The Doctor.
Doctor Who: Night Of The Doctor
The BBC debuts the Doctor Who minisode Night Of The Doctor on the internet, reintroducing Paul McGann as the eighth Doctor in his first on-screen appearance since the 1996 TV movie and depicting his apparent regeneration into a previously unknown incarnation of the Doctor, as played by John Hurt. The minisode debuts on McGann’s birthday, but was originally intended to premiere much closer to the 50th anniversary special, Day Of The Doctor, until it became apparent that word of McGann’s secretive return to Doctor Who was about to be leaked.
Missing Doctor Who stories recovered
The BBC announces that broadcast archive company TIEA has recovered nine missing episodes of Doctor Who, all from the Patrick Troughton era, completing one story of which only one episode was previous held in the BBC archives (The Enemy Of The World) and almost completing another story (The Web Of Fear), which is now missing only the third of its six episodes. All nine episodes have been found in surprisingly good condition in at a regional broadcaster in Nigeria, which had received the episodes from a Hong Kong broadcaster in the early 1970s. All nine episodes are made available for digital download, with remastered DVD releases due in time for the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who in November 2013. The find had been the subject of wild speculation on the internet for months.
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Peter Capaldi is the Doctor
In a live half-hour reality-show-style special broadcast simultaneously around the world, the BBC reveals that actor Peter Capaldi will be the twelfth incarnation of the last Time Lord in Doctor Who. Capaldi has already appeared in the series once (in 2008’s The Fires Of Pompeii) and in the third season of the spinoff series Torchwood. At the age of 55, Capaldi is the oldest actor to play the Doctor since William Hartnell, and represents a significant departure from his youthful precessor, who is leaving the TARDIS at the age of 30. Capaldi’s first Doctor Who episodes will not be seen until 2014.
Matt Smith reveals Doctor Who departure
Actor Matt Smith announces that he will be give up the role of the eleventh Doctor in the forthcoming Christmas 2013 Doctor Who special, handing the TARDIS off to the twelfth actor to play the Doctor. First announced as the eleventh Doctor early in 2009, Smith has occupied the TARDIS since his first appearance in the closing scenes of 2010’s New Years’ Day special The End Of Time Part 2.
Doctor Who: The Name Of The Doctor
The 800th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 102nd episode since the series’ revival), closing the new series’ seventh season and setting up hints toward the much-anticipated 50th anniversary special. John Hurt and Richard E. Grant guest star.
Doctor Who: Nightmare In Silver
The 799th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1 (the 101st episode since the series’ revival). Warwick Davis (Willow, the Star Wars movies) guest stars in an episode written by Neil Gaiman, featuring the Cybermen.