The World’s most long sci-fi show Doctor Who celebrating 50th anniversary today and that show tonigtht anything could possible afmous Doctors is in the show.
50 years ago today, a children’s teatime sci-fi show made its debut on the BBC – and went on to change the world, both in terms of television and the imaginations of viewers for generations.
To celebrate the Time Lord’s big day, check out the finest Doctor Who facts from across time and space below.
* Have you taken our rock-hard Doctor Who quiz yet? Take the internet’s hardest set of Who posers and prove yourself as the ultimate Whovian!
The 50th anniversary special will be the show’s 799th episode since it began in 1963. And that’s with a large gap in the middle.
The nearest rival doesn’t come close – with Superman’s youthful adventures in Smallville achieving 218 episodes across 10 series.
Other franchises have jumped across different series, but Doctor Who was the only one to master Regeneration
Off screen, the Doctor’s carried on adventuring in a variety of spin-off media including novels and comics.
Big Finish Productions have been producing official audio adventures featuring past Doctors since 1999 and they’re going from strength to strength as the 50th Anniversary audio Light At the End shows.
What’s more, recent mini episode the Night of the Doctor undeniably brought those audio adventures into the canon of the Doctor Who universe thanks to a few choice words from the Eighth Doctor…
The BBC started colour transmission on November 15th 1969. That meant that the first colour Doctor Who episode was 1970’s Spearhead from Space which introduced the Third Doctor.
The only serial completely shot on film, that’s also the only classic adventure fit for Blu-ray.
The record highest viewer figures for an episode of Doctor Who is taken by part four of 1979’s The City of Death – also part of the first Doctor Who serial to be filmed abroad.
16.1 million viewers tuned in, although strike action on the ITV network may take some of the credit…
Being the mother of Doctor Who is quite a claim, but original producer Verity Lambert was also the first ever female producer at the BBC.
Doctor Who knew how to break barriers from the beginning.
The BBC’s short-sighted decision to junk black and white episodes in the late 60s and early 70s has robbed us of classic episodes of the First and Second Doctors. But fans haven’t given up hope that these episodes survive somewhere in the world.
Those searches have yielded results. The recent discovery of copies of 1968 serials The Enemy of the World and the Web of Fear in Nigeria mean that only 97 episodes of Doctor Who remain missing ( although Marco Polo may have something into say about that soon …).
That figure stood at 137 in 1981.
Dr Who 50th Anniversary BBC One:Producer Steven Moffat “emotional wallop”
“It’s the most ambitious episode we’ve ever done,” he said.
The episode, The Day of the Doctor, will be broadcast in more than 90 countries at the same time as it airs on BBC One on Saturday night.
The BBC says it is likely to be the largest simulcast of a TV drama in history.
“This event means it is a worldwide show not simply a British phenomenon,” Moffat said.
The episode will also be screened in 3D in more than 1,500 cinemas across the world, including Australia, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Spain, Sweden, Norway and Iceland.
The 50th anniversary adventure stars Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt as different incarnations of the Doctor.
John Hurt’s version of Doctor was first introduced at the end of the episode, The Name of the Doctor, broadcast in May.
Jenna Coleman plays companion Clara, while Billie Piper returns as Rose.
The episode will also feature the Daleks and the return of shape-shifting aliens the Zygons, who first appeared in 1975.
The story involves a mystery at London’s National Gallery in the present day, as well as “a murderous plot” in Elizabethan England in 1562.
Guest stars include Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart and Joanna Page as Elizabeth I.
Steven Moffat, Doctor Who’s lead writer and executive producer, admitted he was “nervous” about the special episode finally being seen around the world.
“I’m glad we don’t do it every time, but it’s very exciting to do it once,” he told the BBC News website.
He added he hoped fans would be “very happy” with the 75-minute special. “It’s got a big emotional wallop at the end, I think they’ll be cheering.”
Moffat, along with Matt Smith and Jenna Colman, attended the official Doctor Who anniversary celebration at London’s ExCel on Friday.
The three-day event, which is being attended by 8,000 fans a day, features appearances from Doctor Who stars from all eras of the series.
Smith told fans during a question and answer session that Steven Moffat’s anniversary story “added to the mythology” of Doctor Who.
Moffat described the first ever Doctor Who episode, An Unearthly Child, broadcast on 23 November 1963, as “one of the very best episodes of Doctor Who ever made”.
Watch BBC One Show Doctor Who 50th Anniversary “The Day Of The Doctor” Trailer
[media id=987 width=610 height=340] [adrotate group=”14″]
