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    Wish It All Away, and Back Again

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    May 21, 2025

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    May 4, 2025

    60 for 60 — The Greatest Stories in Doctor Who History — (24→19)

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    Who Told You There Wouldn’t Be Any Math?

    December 5, 2022

    B-Bye Bradley

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    May 8, 2022

    2024Kristmas #4 – Twice Upon the First

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    60 for 60 — The Greatest Stories in Doctor Who History — (18→13)

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    60 for 60 — The Greatest Stories in Doctor Who History — (36→31)

    October 12, 2023

    60 for 60 — The Greatest Stories in Doctor Who History — (42→37)

    October 5, 2023

    60 for 60 — The Greatest Stories in Doctor Who History — (12→7)

    November 17, 2023

    60 for 60 — The Greatest Stories in Doctor Who History — (24→19)

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    60 for 60 — The Greatest Stories in Doctor Who History — (30→25)

    October 28, 2023

    60 for 60 — The Greatest Stories in Doctor Who History — (48→43)

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    2024Kristmas #3 – The Man With All The Toys

    December 16, 2024

    2024Kristmas #2 – It’ll Be a Wild Blue Christmas

    December 10, 2024

    2024Kristmas #1 – Seasons Beastings

    December 3, 2024

    Pre-Embering the Fireplace

    May 5, 2024

    60 for 60 — The Greatest Stories in Doctor Who History — (24→19)

    November 10, 2023

    60 for 60 — The Greatest Stories in Doctor Who History — (42→37)

    October 5, 2023

    The Dark Jacket Dimension

    November 13, 2021

    The (W)hole Ruth

    January 31, 2020

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    May 25, 2025

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    May 24, 2025

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    … And All That Yaz

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    January 29, 2020

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    May 21, 2025

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    May 12, 2025
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    60 for 60 — The Greatest Stories in Doctor Who History — (36→31)

    October 12, 2023

    A Studio Film (or rather a film in the studio)

    June 9, 2023

    … And All That Yaz

    November 16, 2022

    Fivey at Forty: The First Companion Death of 1982

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    Sweet, not Effete

    April 5, 2025

    Arguably Arguable

    August 19, 2024

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    September 28, 2023

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    The End of Enlightenment

    January 13, 2025

    What’s in a Number? Occasionally Everything

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    November 19, 2024

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    The Truth That Supports the Lie

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    Déjà Who, All Over Again

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    XCited for Tom

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    May 12, 2025
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    Stock(s) Company

    September 9, 2024

    60 for 60 — The Greatest Stories in Doctor Who History — (18→13)

    November 13, 2023

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The Eight and ⅝ Doctors

By -- DSWNovember 25, 202003 Mins Read
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Anniversaries, or more specifically significant anniversaries, have a long and checkered history in the history of Doctor Who.  Technically the 57th Anniversary (or as the THT Brain Wizards like to think of it the Heinz-iversary) isn’t especially notable, but then again this is a site dedicated to Doctor Who History so….

The first significant Anniversary of note, and why not as Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks eventually figured out, was the tenth, and quite frankly the reason for this post and the new caps which adorn it.  But there are two obvious problems with The Three Doctors, which otherwise, is fairy-tale like charmer of a story.  The first and most obvious is the limited participation of William Hartnell, whose failing health limited him mostly to publicity shots and chiming in from the sidelines once or so an episode.  It’s a shame really, but fortunately Dicks was such an adept script-editor he was able to turn this limitation into a positive, enabling a focus in the amusing friction between the Troughton and Pertwee Doctors.  It also benefited John Levene’s Sgt. Benton.  There’s an awful lot of Benton going on in The Three Doctors.  The second problem, and we admit it’s a pedantic one, is that while it’s all well and good to have The Three Doctors kick off Season 10, the actual air dates run from December 1972 to January 1973, much closer to the 9th Anniversary than the 10th.  Told you it was pedantic.

Because multi-Doctor stories lend themselves to anniversaries, in the case of The Two Doctors at least it does what it says on the tin.  It’s just not an anniversary story (or a very good story for that matter).

The Five Doctors, almost, had the timing right, but Tom Baker had well and truly left and as such, despite the ministrations balancing the needs of so many moving parts by Terrance Dicks yet again, isn’t quite all that it could be.  But the fact that The Five Doctors works at all despite the heavier burden of nostalgia and sentiment which was bound to happen during the JN-T era is core to it’s charm.  We as fans could clearly see the scaffolding under girding the plot, and yet the presence and goodwill of everyone really shown through.

The other flaw in The Five Doctors?  November 23rd, 1983 was a Wednesday.  The BBC held it until Friday the 25th, which is why we held this post until the 25th, just for consistency mind you.  The crueler irony is that here in the states, if you were lucky, got to see The Five Doctors on the true Anniversary day of the 23rd.

That didn’t sit right with us either.

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On This Day in Doctor Who History

June 2025

Friday June 13

1964: The Aztecs [4--The Day of Darkness]
Recurs yearly
1970: Inferno [6]
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Saturday June 14

1969: The War Games [9]
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2008: Midnight
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Sunday June 15

2024: The Legend of Ruby Sunday
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Monday June 16

1973: The Green Death [5]
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2007: Utopia
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Tuesday June 17

1967: The Evil of the Daleks [5]
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1972: The Time Monster [5]
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2006: Love & Monsters
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2017: The Eaters of Light
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Wednesday June 18

1966: The Savages [4]
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2005: The Parting of the Ways
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Thursday June 19

1965: The Chase [5--The Death of Doctor Who]
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1971: The Dæmons [5]
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Random Thoughts

Moffat in the First Degree

By -- DSWFebruary 27, 2016 Tour Updates 2 Mins Read

Come and See the Softer Side of Six

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By -- DSWDecember 27, 2010 Tour Updates 1 Min Read
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