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Of the 253 episodes of "Doctor Who" that were produced in the 1960s, 106 no longer exist in the BBC Television Archives due to an archive purge in the 1970s.
Planet of the Daleks episode 3 has been restored to colour by a technique which can actually extract the original colour information from a black-and-white videotape, with a LOT of manual tweaking and colourising, for its DVD release. The result is impressive to say the least. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be feasible for most of the remaining episodes.
William Hartnell's regeneration at the end of The Tenth Planet survives only as a clip that was shown on the children's programme Blue Peter.
The Beatles make a cameo appearance in the 1965 story The Chase, in which they're seen on the Time-Space Visualizer performing "Ticket to Ride" on their only ever appearance on the venerable UK chart show Top of the Pops in 1964. Originally, the plan was to have the actual musicians appear as themselves as old men in the future, but the idea was vetoed by Beatles' manager Brian Epstein. Ironically, the live footage used in the episode is all that remains of this performance, as said Top of the Pops episode was erased.
A print of the 1965 episode The Daleks' Master Plan: "Day of Armageddon" was returned by former BBC engineer Francis Watson in January 2004.
Nine "lost" episodes from the Patrick Troughton era were rediscovered in Nigeria in 2013, bringing the official count of lost episodes to 97.
The format of the show's entire run before cancellation was a series of cliff-hanger adventure serials. Although, as originally conceived, the series would have only run for fifty-two episodes (i.e. one a week for a year), which would have made up one single extra-length serial. The series' format evolved out of this. Each of the Doctor's adventures would be told across several 25 minute episodes, with a cliff-hanger ending each one. Each "season" of the show would be broken into several stories, taking usually 4 to 6 episodes to play out — on-screen, each individual episode would begin with the title of the story, followed by the story's author, then what episode number of the story the audience were watching. This method of titling wasn't established until late in the third season; prior to this every episode was given its own unique title. There are no definitive official story titles for many of the earliest adventures, though semi-official ones have been consistently used on DVDs, books, etc.
When the series was first syndicated in the US, many stations did not show it in its original cliffhanger format. Instead, a "movie version", made up of all episodes of one adventure, but with the cliff-hanger endings edited out, would be shown. Since the number of episodes used to tell one story would sometimes vary (usually four episodes, but sometimes 6, 7, or only 2), the "movie versions" varied in length. Because of this, many stations showed the movie versions on weekends, in late-night or early-morning slots, where their schedules were more flexible.
One one occasion (Silver Nemesis in 1988), the "movie version" was shown in New Zealand at the same time that Episode 1 was aired by the BBC, marking one of the few instances of episodes premiering outside the UK.
A second rare instance of episodes premiering outside the UK was for "The Five Doctors" in 1983, which aired for Children in Need in the UK a day or two after the anniversary. In the US (and likely elsewhere in the world too), it aired on the actual anniversary on the 23rd.
On five occasions, past Doctor actors have to returned to the series as the Doctor in stories known as "multi-Doctor" stories, meaning that they feature multiple incarnations of the Doctor.
In 1973, the 10th-Anniversary story The Three Doctors saw William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton return to the role alongside Jon Pertwee.
In 1983, the 20th-Anniversary story "The Five Doctors" saw Troughton and Jon Pertwee return to the role alongside Peter Davison whilst Richard Hurndall played the First Doctor (Hartnell had passed away some years earlier) and Tom Baker appeared only in footage filmed for Shada, which was abandoned due to strike action.
Troughton reprised his role as the Second Doctor alongside Colin Baker's Sixth in The Two Doctors.
The 30th-Anniversary special, 1993's "Dimensions In Time", had five of the seven Doctors (William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton both gave it a miss, as they were dead), but is generally not considered canon.
Asteroid 3325, a small main belt asteroid discovered in 1984, is named TARDIS after the Doctor's time/space machine.
Many actors have been considered for the role of the Doctor over the years but only Ron Moody has twice declined the role. He was first choice after Hartnell left but refused (as did Peter Jeffrey), and he also turned down the chance again in 1969 when Troughton left. Graham Crowden turned down the role after Pertwee and veteran British comedian Richard Hearne was also considered but rejected for insurance purposes. In the revived version, Bill Nighy came closest to assuming the role after Christopher Eccleston left but was rejected at the last minute in favour of David Tennant (Nighy amusingly blamed Tennant for being better-looking).
Bill Nighy was also in the running to play the Ninth Doctor, to the extent that some media sources inaccurately reported that he'd been given the role when Eccleston's casting was announced.
Jon Pertwee had incredible difficulty learning some of the technobabble that the Doctor is famous for, so the crew hid cue cards in the set. Pertwee would also write some of his lines in Biro on the TARDIS console.
The Celestial Toymaker received complaints that the character Cyril was based on the Billy Bunter character created by Frank Richards, whose lawyers were incensed. The BBC issued a statement saying that Cyril was merely a Bunter-like character.
The original pilot episode was rediscovered in 1978 in a mislabeled film can. After an archive purge by the BBC between 1972 and 1978, the film survived by chance and was originally thought to be Lost Forever.
The BBC owns the copyright to the design of the Police Box as used as the design for the TARDIS. It was bought from the Metropolitan Police.
When the BBC started making merchandise of the TARDIS, the Metropolitan Police complained and they went to court. The judge decided that Police Boxes had mostly gone and the image was more recognisable with Doctor Who, so the copyright was awarded to the BBC.
The pilot episode of the series would have been the first transmitted edition had it not been remounted on the recommendations of BBC executives. It has been shown on television in the UK once, in 1991, and remains the only surviving episode from the 1960s held in its original unedited format.
When it became clear that failing health was affecting his performance and relationship with the cast and crew, William Hartnell, the first actor to play the Doctor, was asked to leave the show. Rather than cancel the successful series, the writers came up with the Doctor's ability to regenerate his body when he is near death, which allows for the smooth transition from one actor to another playing the role.
Their first attempt to eject Hartnell from the show happened some time earlier in The Celestial Toymaker, where the Doctor was made invisible at one point in the story. The original intention was for the Doctor to come back played by a different actor as part of the Toymaker's games, but this was vetoed and it was Hartnell that reappeared.
Originally, the Doctor's time machine, the TARDIS, was to have a different appearance in order to blend in wherever and whenever it materializes due to its "chameleon circuit". However, it was realized that this constant changing of a regular prop would be too expensive, and so it was decided that the circuit would be permanently disabled due to the TARDIS' age, thus retaining the appearance of a 1963 Police Box. A few decades later, the in-story reason for why the Doctor didn't keep trying to fix the circuit was that he'd grown fond of the shape.
The name of the Doctor's time machine, the TARDIS, is short for "Time And Relative Dimension In Space". In later serials, this was changed to "Time And Relative Dimensions In Space" (Dimensions in plural), but the series revamp in 2005 has reverted to the singular usage.
Ian Marter, who played Surgeon Lt. Harry Sullivan, also wrote the novelizations of several Dr. Who stories.
Julia Sawalha auditioned for the role of Ace.
As William Hartnell's illness progressed, he started to have memory problems and often forgot his lines. Many unusual ad libbed lines in place of those scripted were passed off as part of the Doctor's character.
The distinctive TARDIS sound effect is officially classified as a piece of music and was created by rubbing the bass strings of a piano with a key.
Two reasons are given for the first episode of the first series series being repeated the following week: a) it aired the day after John F. Kennedy's assassination and as a result drew lower than expected audiences. b) there was a widespread power failure and the episode was not seen nationwide.
Jon Pertwee's catchphrase "Reverse the Polarity of the neutron flow" is a Beam Me Up, Scotty (he said that specific phrase once in four years, although "reverse the polarity" was more common), but that didn't prevent it being used in Shout-Outs and Mythology Gags later in the series.
The series was originally devised as an educational program for kids, with co-creator Sydney Newman having no intention of featuring "bug eyed monsters." The first episodes featured cavemen. But when the Daleks were introduced, the attitude of the program was forever changed. Even so, the series continued to alternate between science fiction and purely historical stories for several seasons.
During the 1970s, series star Tom Baker and Ian Marter (who had played his companion Harry Sullivan) co-wrote and attempted to have a feature film entitled Doctor Who Meets Scratchman, which would have co-starred Vincent Price. Based on the script, the film would have consisted of nonstop strangeness and done no credit whatsoever to the reputation of the series.
The series was in part inspired by the British Quatermass TV serials of the 1950s. In 1988, the show paid homage by referring to Quatermass in the 1988 serial Remembrance of the Daleks...where it's also implied that this episode takes place the day Doctor Who made its debut.
Quatermass was alluded to again in 2009's "Planet of the Dead".
In a weird but fitting piece of coincidence, David Tennant was starring in a modern day Live Episode homage to Quatermass the day when he learned that he had been cast as the Tenth Doctor.
Although a number of televised spin-offs were considered throughout the course of the programme (including vehicles for the Daleks, for UNIT, and for the Jago and Litefoot characters from the Tom Baker serial The Talons of Weng Chiang), only one was ever produced before the show's 2005 return — "K-9 and Company": A Girl's Best Friend, aired initially as a Christmas special in 1981. Although the pilot fared well in the ratings, the BBC decided not to proceed with a series. After the 2005 return of the series, three spinoffs were made — Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures and K 9.
When the script called for him to recite coordinates to program the TARDIS, Tom Baker would sometimes rattle off a string of digits that was actually the telephone number to the Doctor Who production office; no one ever caught on.
"Dalek" and "TARDIS" became so familiar to British audiences that it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Several versions of the theme tune were used over the years, with the most famous being used from 1963 to 1980 (albeit with a slight rearrangement and the addition of an echo chamber effect being added in 1966). A disco version of the tune became a hit in the UK in 1978, and in 1988, The Timelords (later to be famous as the art rock/techno act The KLF) had a #1 hit with "Doctorin' the Tardis", a song that mashed the theme song together with Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part 2" and Sweet's "Blockbuster".
The version of the Doctor Who logo that was used from 1970 to 1973 during the Jon Pertwee era would later resurface as the logo for the 1996 revival film, after which it once again became the official logo for most Doctor Who-related merchandise. As of 2005, it is used as the official logo for the "classic series" with a brand new logo used on all merchandise relating to the Russell T. Davies era and a second new one used on all merchandise relating to the Steven Moffat era.
Due to ill health, William Hartnell was unable to appear in the third episode of The Tenth Planet, which was also his penultimate episode. Ironically, the final episode of the serial has since been lost and consequently the last surviving episode from the Hartnell era doesn't even feature Hartnell.
TV editing was very difficult in the 1960s, and so (in common with most other British TV drama at the time) many early episodes of "Doctor Who" were recorded "as live". If the actors fluffed their lines, the others had to cover for him/her. There are several obvious instances of this in the series, such as in The Web Planet where actor William Hartnell forgot his lines, leading to co-star William Russell to prompt him by asking "What galaxy is that in then, Doctor?". In order to facilitate this style of recording, the actors were allowed a four-day rehearsal period (Monday-Thursday) followed by camera rehearsal on Friday day and the actual studio recording Friday evening. Saturdays were often spent on location recording inserts for future episodes, and the actors were given Sunday off before the process started again for the next episode on Monday morning. Although editing techniques improved over the years, it remained the case that studio scenes would usually be taped almost as live, using a multi-camera system, until the series ended in 1989.
Michael Jayston, a Shakespearean actor, played an "intermediate" future incarnation of the Doctor known as the Valeyard who existed between the Doctor's twelfth and final incarnations.
In the 1976 season, the Doctor started operating his TARDIS from the craft's secondary control room, an obviously older version of the main control room with wood paneling and a Victorian design motif. This set was abandoned when it was discovered that the paneling warped while in storage during the hiatus and the series had the Doctor begin using the regular control room again.
The music playing when the Fifth Doctor visits the Brig in Mawdryn Undead is a traditional English dance melody called "Lillibullero". It's sometimes attributed to Henry Purcell.
The music playing on the Major's gramophone in Carnival of Monsters is the 1925 hit "Has Anybody Seen My Gal?"
"Never Gonna Give You Up" plays in "Father's Day", which aired before the Internet got ahold of it.
Steven Moffat, who took over Doctor Who in 2010, is the first straight guy to produce the show since 1979. Nothing really wrong with that, it's just rather noteworthy. Queer, you could say. Queer as Folk, even.[1]
11th Doctor Matt Smith guest-starred on an episode of Billie Piper's[2] show Secret Diary of a Call Girl as a shopkeep who ends up bedding Piper's character.
Troughton's pre-Who career involved a large batch of family television, including appearing in a Robin Hood series (interestingly, his grandson was Much in the 2006 TV version). Later he played Father Brennan in The Omen.
Pertwee's pre-Who career involved a fairly-well-remembered comedy called The Navy Lark. Later, he would play Worzel Gummidge.
Tom Baker played Rasputin in the film Nicholas And Alexandra (1971). Perhaps the most recognisable Doctor voice, impressionist Jon Culshaw has often used the voice for telephone spooofs in Dead Ringers.
A scene in Remembrance of the Daleks involving Ace inspired the creation of the Crowning Moment of Awesome section, which dropped the "Crowning" later on.
First live-action TV show on this site to get its very own gush page since it's so beloved.
Trivia "tropes"[]
Ascended Fanfic: Several sources close to Chris Chibnall have said that his arc for the show was inspired by ideas he had when he was younger and watching the classic series.
While the Master outlived Roger Delgado, the incarnation he played was retired when he tragically passed with no regeneration scene being filmed. It did lead to the Master being retired for three years however. Ironically enough, Delgado's tragic death preventing a Grand Finale for the Master may have ensured that the character would continue.
After Nicholas Courtney passed in 2011, the Brigadier died with him. Proved plot relevant as his old friend's demise prompted the Eleventh Doctor to stop running from death.
For nine years, Sarah Jane was a case of Character Outlives Actor before, on the ninth anniversary of Elisabeth Sladen's passing, Sarah was laid to rest.
Thanks to the magic of regeneration, any Time Lord is liable to be have outlived at least one of their actors.
Roger Delgado, the original portrayer of the Master, was killed in a car crash while filming a movie in Turkey in 1973. The Master appeared a few years later in a different regeneration (of sorts) intentionally created as a "transitional form" in order to bring him back as (again) a new actor.
Ironically, this may have ensured that the Master would return. Delgado reportedly wanted to make one more story with the character, at the end of which he would have been Killed Off for Real in the Season Finale.
The First Doctor is another notable one, having been portrayed on television by two other actors (Richard Hurndall and David Bradley) after William Hartnell's death.
Romana also outlived her original actress, Mary Tamm.
"The Death of the Doctor" in The Sarah Jane Adventures revealed that companions Barbara Wright-Chesterton and Ben Jackson were both still alive, despite the actors who played them having died in the 1990s.
Sarah Jane Smith herself outlived Elisabeth Sladen. The last episode of the series ends with the words "And the story goes on... forever." On the ninth anniversary of Sladen's passing however, Sarah Jane was finally laid to rest. Though if Rani is to be believed, Sarah might still be out there.
Carole Ann Ford signed on to play Susan after having been assured that she would be playing a Little Miss Badass. She really wasn't and left the show out of frustration that she was nothing more than screaming child. Like Colin Baker, she felt that Susan's portrayal in Big Finish helped redeem the character.
The Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, despite his love for the show, left in 1969 as he felt the strain of the time commitments and worried about being typecast. He went as far as to urge Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon) and Wendy Padbury (Zoe) to depart at the same time.
Troughton also counselled his later successor Peter Davison to stay on only 3 years, and this aided in his decision to leave the show in 1984.
Tom Baker was reportedly keen to distance himself from the show after leaving, refusing to appear in the 20th anniversary episode "The Five Doctors", and for a long time refusing to do conventions and public appearances related to the show. This was at least partly due to the length of time he spent on the show and being quite burnt out about it and partly because his iconic performance largely overshadowed everything else he did since then. He seems a lot more comfortable being associated with it in the 21st century.
It's worth noting that by 1980, sources show Baker as alcoholic, despondent, and nearly impossible to work with; executive meddling and heavy typecasting had taken a toll, his marriage was on the rocks, and he was not at all enamoured of newer writers like Christoper Bidmead or producer John-Nathan Turner, outright saying more than once that he should left right when JNT came in. He was nearly 50, and had little career left.
In 1993, Baker filmed a small part for the short "episode" Dimensions In Time. It's said there was far more planned using a different script, but Executive Meddling and a primadonna host got in the way.
From 2009, Baker returned as the Doctor for three five-part series of audio dramas for BBC Audio, and in 2011 began to star in audio dramas for Big Finish Productions. He has shown some regret about not doing "The Five Doctors" and distancing himself from the series at large, but at over 70 years old his health will not allow more involvement.
Mary Tamm, the first actress to play Romana, was assured that the character would not be a Distressed Damsel. Understandably she was rather miffed when the character turned out to be little more than that. Even her successor in the role, Lalla Ward, voiced this complaint early on.
It took a long time for Peter Davison to become comfortable with his tenure as the Doctor. With most of his career still ahead of him, he had been terrified of being typecast and did everything possible to prevent it, including insulting the show to the press. This doesn't seem to be an issue since Davison's Cameo in the mini-episode "Time Crash" as part of a charity drive. David Tennant used the short as a massive fan-gasm shout-out to Davison's tenure on the show. "You were MY Doctor." Tennant has repeatedly cited Davison's interpretation of the Doctor as his primary inspiration, and reason for becoming an actor. Davison had always felt that he was too young for the role. In "Time Crash" he felt he was at a more fitting age to play the Doctor, and had a grasp on the character that he was happy with. Ironically, the role of the Doctor being played by a younger man (and the contrast between the character's physical age and his actual age) was one of the primary things that carried over into the new series, thanks in part to Davison's example.
Davison also has had no problems acting as the Doctor in the Big Finish radio dramas, having been there from the beginning and having had a long and prolific moonlight career (alongside his TV role on Law and Order: UK) as the Doctor in new audio adventures.
Janet Fielding has stated that she was pretty bitter towards the show when she left because she wasn't happy with how she and her fellow companions were treated. She's since gotten over it and is much more comfortable with the show now.
Surprisingly subverted by Colin Baker, who you would think — given that he was the only actor playing the Doctor to be fired from the role, that his era was for a long time not incredibly popular with fans and that, well, he had to wearThat Coat — would have plenty of reason to not want to have anything to do with the show again. Instead, barring some rather understandable regrets, he's always appeared quite enthusiastic about the show, being associated with the show and returning to it in some form on occasion. Baker, long before David Tennant took the trope and ran with it, was theAscended Fanboy on Doctor Who, having been a childhood fan of the show. He too has done numerous Sixth Doctor Big Finish dramas, and he (and the writers) went the extra mile to completely rehabilitate Six's reputation, leading to him being a poster boy for Rescued From the Scrappy Heap.
Christopher Eccleston, the actor who played the Ninth Doctor, is probably the show's most infamous case of this, even if no one is quite sure why he left the show. Reasons offered range from alleging that the work environment was a toxic place, Eccleston being overworked or fearing typecasting, or that he'd simply signed on for one series. Whatever the case, Eccleston's disdain for the show was enough for him to turn down returning for the 50th anniversary (produced by a different production team) as well as opt out of multi-Doctor charity events.[3] He eventually returned to the role through audio dramas but those aren't produced by the BBC.
Billie Piper didn't like how Rose was simply thrown aside with 10.5.
John Simm was a bit frustrated at how crazy RTD told him to portray the Master as in Series 3. He was much happier when he was allowed to tone it down a bit in "The End of Time" and Series 10.
He's not too fond of Series 7 of the revival, which many agree was Eleven's weakest season. He puts it down due to him being busy with the then upcoming 50th anniversary special.
As he was leaving the show, he made it known that he was quite angry at the BBC for never giving the show the budget that a worldwide phenomena, and one of the BBC's biggest exports, deserved. He frustratingly noted that everyone always expected great things out of the show yet they had one of the lowest budgets for a television show of its calibre.
Carole Ann Ford was 23 when Susan was 15. Possibly. Susan's age is not very clear. She could have been as old as her Coal Hill class or already several centuries old.
Maureen O'Brien was 22 when playing the teenaged Vicki.
Dodo was a teenager but Jackie Lane was almost 25.
Zoe's age varies depending on what production member you ask, but she probably wasn't intended to be out of her teens, like Wendy Padbury was.
Turlough was supposed to be posing as a British schoolboy. Mark Strickson looked quite a bit older than his character, quite frankly.
Sophie Aldred was 24 when Ace was 16.
Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill and Nina Toussaint-White played school-aged versions of Amy, Rory and a teenage-passing-for River in "Let's Kill Hitler" at ages 23, 29 and 25.
Disowned Adaptation: Andrew Cartmel, the architect of the proposed "Cartmel Masterplan" which envisioned the Doctor as the reincarnation of "the Other", a founder of Time Lord society, had nothing but critical things to say about "The Timeless Children", which partly adapted the Masterplan, feeling it had "deplete[d] the mystery" from the show. Cartmel had wanted to tease that the Doctor might have some connection to the Other, not outright answer the Doctor's Mysterious Past.
Why Susan was made the Doctor's granddaughter. Otherwise there were too many Unfortunate Implications to have an old man and a teenage girl travelling together.
The show's cancellation following the Sylvester McCoy era has been explicitly, if not exclusively, pinned on BBC executive Michael Grade's personal distaste for it (though he was no longer controller by the time of the actual cancellation). Seventh producer Philip Hinchcliffe was moved on from the show following complaints about the levels of violence and horror during his tenure. The sacking of sixth Doctor Colin Baker was at the behest of BBC management.
Executive Meddling actually made Tegan have the Eighties Hair, amusingly enough. Producer John Nathan-Turner somehow thought that fans might somehow mistake Janet Fielding[4] for Adric[5] in long shots. It's a miracle that Ms. Fielding didn't take the guy's head off.
Similarly, Turlough had red hair to differentiate Mark Strickson (schoolboy outfit) with Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor (cricketing uniform).
Kamelion was originally going to be played by a series of humans, as he was a shape-changing robot. Instead turned into a real mechanical prop, which was then shelved when the only person on the planet (and we mean the real planet Earth) who knew how to operate the blasted thing died without telling anyone else how to work it.
A reference that Ace lost her virginity to Sabalom Glitz never made it past the censor.
Executive producer John Nathan-Turner demanded the Sixth Doctor's becoming "totally tasteless" in terms of fashion sense, rather than the Ninth Doctor-esque dark clothes and jacket Colin Baker wanted. And thus, the multicoloured suit was born.
After Christopher Eccleston denied to return for the 50th, Steven Moffat requested the use of a classic Doctor to replace him only for the BBC to turn him down on the basis that the casual audience didn't know enough about the classic series to identify with them. Since this ultimately allowed for the creation of the War Doctor, with John Hurt's star power pulling the ratings that the writer had promised, Moffat ultimately decided that the BBC were right in making this decision.
The classic example is Bill Filer in The Claws of Axos. He even has his own fan-produced spinoff. This includes even major characters like American companion Peri, whose accent alone gives away that Nicola Bryant is not actually from the States. The newer series has improved significantly on this, if not totally averted it, however. Most American parts are finally being played by real Americans. However, several actors in "Daleks in Manhattan"/"Evolution of the Daleks" still come from the UK.
British father and son W. Morgan Sheppard and Mark Sheppard play old and young Canton Delaware in "The Impossible Astronaut"/"Day of the Moon".
Hey, it's John Cleese! (Looking very much like Basil Fawlty, for the excellent reason that he did the cameo between scenes of Fawlty Towers, which was being shot in the same studios.)
In the Big Finish version of Shada, Manuel is trying to take over the universe.
Pat Gorman, who made a career out of performing stunts and playing monsters and bit parts, actually appears in more episodes than Peter Davison. Some other frequently recurring faces in the Whoniverse are actors Michael Sheard, Bernard Horsfall, Philip Madoc, and John Scott-Martin.
Sharp-eyed viewers may also recognize Christine Adams (Cathica) as Simone, Emerson Cod's love interest in Pushing Daisies. Tamsin Grieg (Fran from Black Books) has a small part as the saleswoman who convinces Adam to get a hole in his head.
Viewers may have a hard time understanding why the Marquis de Carabas is fighting for his life on Satellite 5, and being a total douchebag about it.
In Terror of the Vervoids Professor Lasky is Cathy Gale. To Australian viewers of a certain age, Commodore Travers is immediately recognisable as the star of the medical drama G.P.
Peter Purves went on to be a host of British kids show Blue Peter. Which is insanely fitting considering the 40+ years of cooperation those two shows have had.
Bernard Cribbins also played the role of Special Constable Tom Campbell in the Peter Cushing Dr. Who movie Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.
David Tennant himself is one of these, being such an unrepentant fan of the show that he lent his voice to several Big Finish Doctor Who audio productions and narrated a special documentary aired before the first episode of the 2005 revival, prior to finally landing his dream job.
The voice of the brain in Time and the Rani is Peter Tuddenham.
Bernard Cribbins is beloved throughout Great Britain as the voice of The Wombles.
The Dream Lord is Toby Jones, who played Dobby from the Harry Potter films.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: The 1993 charity special Dimensions in Time, a crossover with Eastenders, was created on the condition that it'd never be rerun or released on home video. You can find it on YouTube, however.
Lying Creator: The BBC website made it sound like the Cybermen would be major enemies in "A Good Man Goes to War". In reality, they're merely cold open cameos.
The 50th also had a docudrama about the show's run when William Hartnell was the lead called "An Adventure in Space and Time" that had originally been pitched for the 40th anniversary.
Averted with "The Stones of Blood", which was aired on the show's 15th Anniversary and was the show's 100th episode. It was going to start with the Doctor and Romana celebrating his birthday with a cake, but the production team wisely vetoed it as too self-congratulatory.
The 25th anniversary had two stories: "Remembrance of the Daleks", which had the Doctor revisiting the site of the first episode the next day (albeit hundreds of years later in his own timeline), and "Silver Nemesis", which was about a 25th anniversary, aired over the anniversary date, and had a cameo of Nicholas Courtney and some program staff.
"The Power of the Doctor" is both the show's contribution to 100 years of the BBC and the 300th individual story of Doctor Who.
The Other Darrin: Generally averted in favor of The Nth Doctor. It's played straight, however, with the recasting of the late William Hartnell as the First Doctor in The Five Doctors and Twice Upon a Time.
Sure Why Not: In the non-canon Comic Relief special "The Curse of Fatal Death", the Doctor regenerates into a woman. In The End of Time, the Eleventh Doctor feels his face and hair and freaks out, thinking he's regenerated into a woman. In "The Doctor's Wife", the Doctor mentions that the Corsair has had both male and female incarnations.
Throw It In: According to Steven Moffat, the casting of the War Doctor, trying to find a British actor of significant notoriety and caliber, came from setting the bar with the phrase "If John Hurt were the Doctor." From that moment, there was only one choice.
Susan Foreman was originally to have been a princess from another world that the Doctor had rescued before (see Executive Meddling above), the BBC felt it too weird for a young girl to be travelling with an elderly gentleman.
Susan and the Doctor were rather different in the original pilot when compared to their portrayals in "An Unearthly Child." Both were more aggressive, along with Susan being more sexual and "unearthly", and both were outright said to be aliens from the future. Aside from wanting a more kid friendly tone, Sydney Newman nixed the latter to keep some mystery about them.
The Canadian animation studio Nelvana at one point proposed a Doctor Who animated series, which never got beyond the concept art stage.
Similarly, when RTD was writing "The Waters of Mars," he wrote the character of Adelaide Brooke with Helen Mirren in mind.
The Ood were created for "The Impossible Planet" / "The Satan Pit" because the prosthetics were cheap — originally the Slitheen would've filled the role. Later in "The Doctor's Wife", an Ood again appeared because there was no budget for the new original alien Neil Gaiman had designed.
Adric's character was originally conceived as "an Artful DodgerIn Space," though largely in terms of his relationship with the Doctor. While wisps of this concept crop up in Adric's abilities once in a blue moon, the student-mentor dynamic more or less runs headlong into a brick wall after the Fourth Doctor regenerates.
Bernard Cribbins and Peter Cushing were considered to play the Fourth Doctor before Tom Baker won the role.
Many, many unmade and/or unfilmed serials and projects for the serial are documented on this Wikipedia article.
"The Mark of the Rani" and "Paradise Towers" both had different soundtracks during production. However, the composer on the former story suffered Author Existence Failure before he could finish the soundtrack, while the latter story's composer got canned after John Nathan-Turner decided the soundtrack was too dull and lacking in energy. The DVD releases of both stories include the alternate soundtracks.
John Hurt (the War Doctor) and Peter Capaldi (the Twelfth Doctor) were on the short list for the role of the Eighth Doctor.
Steven Moffat wanted John Barrowman to appear in "A Good Man Goes to War", but he was unavailable due to filming Torchwood: Miracle Day. Yes, that's right, the Doctor's army would have included Captain Jack.
Simon Pegg was originally slated to play Rose's father, Pete Tyler. However, Pegg was unavailable during the filming of "Father's Day", so his role was transferred to that of the Editor.
"The Day of the Doctor":
Jenna Coleman was the only actor contracted to appear in the special. The original plan was that the Doctor entering his time stream in "The Name of the Doctor" had Ret-Goned him and she had to remember him back into existence.
After David Tennant and Matt Smith said that they would be returning, the Moff wrote the story starring the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors before Christopher Eccleston denied to return. Barred from using any classic Doctors, the production team created the War Doctor to be the one who fought, and ended, the Time War.
Had Clara left in "Last Christmas", Shona would have been the new companion.
"Twice Upon a Time":
Bill originally wasn't to appear but Moff eventually realized that the story was kind of boring without her and he couldn't resist having her (a gay black woman) react to the First Doctor's mild sexism.
The special has about thirty minutes of deleted scenes which was cut because filming was so behind schedule.
Clara was to have a bigger return before Jenna Coleman's schedule made that impossible.
Both David Tennant and Peter Capaldi considered staying on for the Series after they left when a new showrunner was introduced but ultimately decided it was the right time to pass the baton.
Chris Chibnall originally wrote "The Timeless Children" with the Time Lords being Deader Than Dead and making it clear that this was the final end of them and Gallifrey. Remembering how Steven Moffat had managed to undo RTD doing the same earlier, he decided against it, leaving it open enough for another showrunner to find a way to bring the Time Lords back.
In an interview about their self-adapted novels, showrunners Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat admitted that they did this a lot during their time on the show, despite having Story Arcs mapped out.
Steven Moffat is not shy to admit that 2013-2014 was a hectic time for the show. Given the contract issues, he scrambled to properly cast "The Day of the Doctor", rewriting it many times. He later admitted that he abandoned the idea that Twelve's story arc would be searching for Gallifrey because that would have been an insanely boring story.
Thasmin, the Doctor/Yaz romance, in the 2022 Specials. Throughout most of Series 11 and 12, it was hinted that Yaz was building up to a Will They or Won't They? arc with Ryan before some Ambiguously Gay moments on the part of the now female Thirteenth Doctor combined with Yaz's Hero Worshipper tendencies in "The Haunting of Villa Diodati". The result is that, after this snowballed into a popular fanon ship, the 2022 Specials awkwardly try and play catch-up for three years of a dearth of interactions between the Doctor and Yaz to try and give the ship some canon foundation and validity.
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