Everyone knows Saturday, November 23, 1963 is a key date in Doctor Who legend – the first episode, An Unearthly Child, aired then.
A week later, it was repeated and a TV critic immediately wondered what had happened to the magic of Doctor Who. Then again, the clunky caveman gruntathon wasn’t exactly the most gripping way to build a loyal audience.
There are some notable dates after that, including October 29, 1966: when William Hartnell’s familiar features somehow changed into Patrick Troughton, then January 3, 1970 – the first colour episode and Jon Pertwee’s debut, for example.
But Monday, November 2, 1981, isn’t always marked as a major day in the Doctor Who calendar.
It should be.
It’s the first day of the famous, brilliant and ground-breaking Five Faces of Doctor Who repeat season.
Over five weeks, Monday to Thursday on BBC 2 was devoted to repeats not just of Doctor Who, but long unseen treasures from the archives starting with the very first story, An Unearthly Child.
The season continued with The Krotons, The Carnival of Monsters, The Three Doctors and finally Logopolis, Tom Baker’s swansong.
While repeats of Doctor Who adventures were a staple throughout the 1970s, with Christmas omnibuses and summer repeats regularly attracting more viewers than the first-time round, they always featured the current Doctor and adventures from the timeframe the BBC had negotiated with Equity, the actors’ union for repeats.
It seems daft now, but these were the days where most homes could only get three television channels. Some could get more, but only if they counted getting a different ITV region as more (and to be honest, you could as they regularly showed different films and episodes of imported dramas back then).
To broadcast something outside of that repeat window needed special permission. Not only that, but viewers were used to watching new things, often complaining about repeats, repeats, repeats. A far cry from today, when ITV wheels out another chance to see a Harry Potter film at the drop of a wand.
And we also didn’t have video tapes, DVDs, blu-rays, or the iPlayer. To experience an old Doctor Who adventure, you had to hope Target had novelised it. And in 1981, there were still only a handful of novelisations, so not every classic tale – including The Krotons – was available for reliving.
So for us Who fans, being able to have access to our own Tardis and see past Doctors in full adventures was something magical.
The then producer of Doctor Who, John Nathan-Turner, had devised the repeat season as a way of bridging the gap between Logopolis ending in March and then new series starting in January 1982. This was the longest gap between series to date, nine months rather than six.
It was also a way of reassuring audiences who had grown up with Tom Baker that it was OK for the show to change its lead actor after seven years. As the Cybercontroller would say, ‘Clever, clever, clever’.
The Five Faces is more than just a special memory. I had to watch many episodes on the tiny black and white portable telly in my parents’ bedroom. Both An Unearthly Child and The Krotons conjure up the feel and smell of their bedspread – something very safe – juxtaposed with the ‘angry’ looking pattern of their wallpaper which my childhood imagination felt was evil.
The Carnival of Monsters was watched sitting in a cardboard box. No, me neither.
The gel guards appearing outside UNIT HQ in The Three Doctors was watched while scoffing baked beans and mash.
And as for Logopolis part four … when the regeneration occurred, my then best mate was dropped on my doorstep. I didn’t want to play with him and he didn’t like Doctor Who. Not a very happy combination and the memory is very vivid: I was sitting on the small footstalls that many homes had at the time, telling him to ‘sssshh’ while Tom Baker morphed first into The Watcher and then Peter Davison.
With that, the repeats were over, and the wait for the new series began in earnest. Well, almost. Because on December 28, 1981, K9 – my favourite hound – teamed up with Sarah Jane Smith for K9 and Company.
What a time to be alive.