1987

Events

February

• 7 - Katherine Costello Wainright (aka Kathy Nightingale) wrote a letter to her friend Sally Sparrow, entrusting her grandson to deliver it and a package of photographs to Sparrow in the year 2007. (DW: Blink)
• Some time after 7th February - Katherine Costello Wainright née Nightingale died. (DW: Blink)

April

• 27 - Rose Tyler, companion of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, was born. (Note This date is cited in Doctor Who Annual 2006, but is contradicted by information regarding Rose's age and the time she first left with the Ninth Doctor in DW: Rose, The Unquiet Dead, Aliens of London, Bad Wolf, Army of Ghosts, Doomsday and The End of Time)

July

• The Seventh Doctor, Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej battled an N-Form in London. (NA: Damaged Goods)

November

• 7 - Pete Tyler was killed when he was struck by a car while crossing the road to a friend's wedding. This event was witnessed by Rose Tyler and the Ninth Doctor. Initially Pete died alone before help could arrive. Rose created an alternate timeline by preventing him from being killed, which resulted in a dangerous paradox. After spending some time with his now-grown daughter, Pete learnt that for time to have continued normally, he must have died, so he ran in front of the same car. This time Rose was with him when he died. The fabric of time was altered so that the record showed Pete died as an unidentified woman knelt beside him. (DW: Father's Day) Technically, since Rose being with Pete becomes part of established time, the alternate timeline is in fact now the one where he dies alone.

Unknown date

• Ace was transported by a time storm from Perivale to Iceworld. (DW: Dragonfire)
• The Eighth Doctor taught some boars how to talk, enabling them to evolve into the intelligent Boar race. (EDA: Mad Dogs and Englishmen)
• Julia Hardwick, a future victim of the Weeping Angels, was born. It is possible that she became her own grandmother in her personal future. (WC: A Ghost Story for Christmas)

Behind the scenes

Events

January

• John Nathan-Turner attended a performance of The Pied Piper starring Sylvester McCoy. He subsequently offered McCoy the role of the Seventh Doctor.
• 15 - DWN: Doctor Who - Slipback was published in paperback.

February

• 19 - DWN: Doctor Who - Black Orchid was first published. This was the final Fifth Doctor story to be novelised; plans were made for a novelisation of Resurrection of the Daleks, but the book was never published. The story remained officially unnovelised.
• 23 - Esmond Knight (Dom Issigri in DW: The Space Pirates) died.
• 25 - John Collin (Brock in DW: The Leisure Hive) died.

March

• 19 - DWN: Doctor Who - The Ark was first published.
• 19 - REF: The Doctor Who Illustrated A to Z was published in paperback.
• 27 - The film Withnail & I received its first showings at a film festival in the US. The film was the first major acting role of Paul McGann after several TV projects.
• 28 - Patrick Troughton died from a heart attack while appearing at a Doctor Who convention in Columbus, Georgia, USA. Footage of him talking to fans only a few hours earlier circulated on YouTube, showing Troughton in good spirits.

April

• 04 - Production began on DW: Time and the Rani, the first story of the Sylvester McCoy era.
• 16 - DWN: Doctor Who - The Mind Robber was first published.
• 27 - Ciara Janson was born.

May

• REF: The Doctor Who Fun Book was first published.
• 21 - DWN: Doctor Who - The Faceless Ones was first published.
• Guitarist Frank Gambale included an instrumental called "The Tardis" as the closing track of his album A Present for the Future.

June

• The B-movie action thriller Three Kinds of Heat was released in the United States. Although a US-made film, the picture featured a number of UK actors, including a pre-Who Sylvester McCoy as one of the film's main villains, one-time stage Doctor Trevor Martin and Mary Tamm, playing a gangster's moll. The film had the dubious distinction of including a scene in which a future Doctor was shown killing off a one-time companion.
• 06 - Fulton Mackay died.
• 15 - DWN: Junior Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius was reissued by Target Books with a modified cover design.
• 18 - DWN: Doctor Who - The Space Museum was first published.
• 22 - Joe Dempsie was born.

July

• 16 - DWN: Doctor Who - The Sensorites was first published.

August

• 20 - DWN: Doctor Who - The Reign of Terror was first published. Written by Ian Marter, this novel was published posthumously, ten months after his death.

September

• 05 - Bill Fraser (Grugger in DW: Meglos and Bill Pollock in KAC: A Girl's Best Friend) died.
• 07 - DW: Time and the Rani Episode 1 was first broadcast, launching Season 24. It was the first appearance of Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor; due to Colin Baker declining to return for a cameo appearance, McCoy played both the Sixth and Seventh Doctors for the regeneration sequence. The series introduced a new theme music arrangement by Keff McCulloch, a new computer generated opening credits sequence, and a new series logo.
• 11 - Hugh David died.
• 14 - DW: Time and the Rani Episode 2 was first broadcast.
• 16 - Simon Gipps-Kent died.
• 17 - Stephen Jack (John Farrel in DW: Terror of the Autons) died.
• 17 - REF: Doctor Who: The Time-Travellers' Guide was first published.
• 19 - DWN: Doctor Who - The Romans was first published.
• 21 - DW: Time and the Rani Episode 3 was first broadcast.
• 28 - DW: Time and the Rani Episode 4 was first broadcast.
• 28 - Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted on US television. Over the next two decades it spawned multiple spin-off series and in many ways eclipsed the original Star Trek in commercial success. The revival of Doctor Who in 2005, which also spawned spinoffs with considerable commercial success, is often compared to TNG.

October

• 01 - DWN: Doctor Who - The Ambassadors of Death was first published. With this book, all stories of the Third Doctor era were now novelised -- the first era to be completed; two additional Third Doctor novelisations based upon radio plays were published in the 1990s.
• 4 - Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer in The Sarah Jane Adventures) was born.
• 05 - DW: Paradise Towers Episode 1 was first broadcast.
• 12 - DW: Paradise Towers Episode 2 was first broadcast.
• 15 - TC: K9 and Company was first published. This was the belated third (and final) volume in the Companions of Doctor Who spin-off series. Unlike the previous two books, however, this was not an original work but an adaptation of the K9 and Company pilot episode, KAC: A Girl's Best Friend.
• 15 - The paperback edition of REF: Doctor Who: The Key to Time was published.
• 19 - DW: Paradise Towers Episode 3 was first broadcast.
• 19 - REF: Build the TARDIS was first published.
• 26 - DW: Paradise Towers Episode 4 was first broadcast.

November

• 02 - DW: Delta and the Bannermen Episode 1 was first broadcast.
  • According to the 2009 DVD release of this story (production notes), a fan campaign against producer John Nathan-Turner began to receive media coverage during the time Delta and the Bannermen was being broadcast.
• 09 - DW: Delta and the Bannermen Episode 2 was first broadcast.
• 14 - Dimitri Leonidas, who played Howie Spragg in DW: The God Complex, was born.
• 16 - DW: Delta and the Bannermen Episode 3 was first broadcast.
• 01 - DWN: Doctor Who - The Massacre was first published. An adaptation of the serial DW: The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve, this was the first time in more than a decade that a novelisation title differed from the broadcast serial. In addition, the book made substantial changes to the original story, something not seen since the earliest days of Doctor Who novelisations.
• 22 - The Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion incident occurred when unidentified individuals briefly hijacked the broadcast signals of two television stations in Chicago. During the illegal interruptions a man dressed in a Max Headroom mask appeared on screen and carried on for a brief time. The first interruption took place during a sports broadcast. The second, lasting a minute and a half, occurred during a local PBS station's broadcast of DW: Horror of Fang Rock. The culprits were never caught. In the days following, Doctor Who got a bit of extra (albeit unwanted) publicity as the interrupted scene was rebroadcast on many American TV stations.
• 23 - DW: Dragonfire Episode 1 was first broadcast. This was the debut of Sophie Aldred as the final original-series companion, Ace.
• 23 - REF: Encyclopedia of The Worlds of Doctor Who: A-D was first published.
• 28 - Karen Gillan was born.
• 30 - DW: Dragonfire Episode 2 was first broadcast.

December

• 07 - DW: Dragonfire Episode 3 was first broadcast, concluding Season 24. Bonnie Langford left the series with this episode.
• 10 - DW: Doctor Who - The Macra Terror was first published.
• 20 - Neville Simons (Frank Michaels in DW: The Ambassadors of Death) died.

Unknown dates

• The independent video production RP: Wartime was released by Reeltime Pictures. This was the first of a number of non-BBC video productions featuring characters from Doctor Who (but never the Doctor) that were licensed by their creators, that would be released over the next fifteen years.