2006 (releases)

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2006 in

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the DWU • production history • vital statistics • releases

In 2006, a number of things set in or relevant to the Doctor Who universe were released or published.

Early 2006

• According to his book, The Writer's Tale, Russell T Davies, David Tennant and others involved in Doctor Who, following production of Doomsday, agreed that after the fourth series the program would be rested for a year, except for the occasional special. This idea evolved into the 2009 Specials season and dovetailed with the eventual departures of Davies and Tennant from the series.
• The American network Sci-Fi Channel announced it had bought the rights to air the new version of Doctor Who. The first series aired beginning in March 2006, a year after their UK and Canadian broadcasts, and the network had the option of airing Series 2 as well.
• AUDIO: Pier Pressure was first released.
• 2 January - Actor John Woodnutt died.
• 2 - BFBS: Parallel Lives was first released.
• 3 January - BFBS: Something Changed was first released.
• 7 January - Actor Richard McNeff died.
• 16 January - The interactive mini-episode NOTDWU: Attack of the Graske was made available on the BBC's Doctor Who website, after it was available exclusively on the BBC's Red Button TV service.
• 19 January - PROSE: Deus Le Volt was first published.
• 19 - Assistant floor manager and production manager Gary Downie died.
• 30 January - The DVD box set The Beginning, which featured the first three Doctor Who stories An Unearthly Child, The Daleks and The Edge of Destruction, was released.
• AUDIO: Night Thoughts was first released.
• AUDIO: Telos, the final episode of the first season of the Big Finish Productions spin-off, Cyberman, was first released.
• AUDIO: Buried Secrets and AUDIO: Snow Blind were first released. They were the first episodes of the spin-off audio series Sarah Jane Smith to be released since 2002. The remaining episodes were released when the character returned to TV in School Reunion.
• BFBS: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Goddess Quandary was first released.
• 14 February - Doctor Who: The Complete First Series, the DVD box set featuring the complete 2005 seasons, was released to Region 1. Due to the fact that the series had yet to be aired in the United States, for which the Sci-Fi Channel belatedly obtained the rights, the set was released on this date only in Canada. American consumers were still able to order it from Canada. The American release occurred later in the summer.
• AUDIO: Time Works was first released.
• AUDIO: Fatal Consequences was first released.
• 2 March - The DVD set The Beginning featuring An Unearthly Child, The Daleks and The Edge of Destruction was released in Region 4.
• 18 March - Actor Michael Attwell died.
• 28 March - The Beginning DVD box set featuring An Unearthly Child, The Daleks and The Edge of Destruction was released in North America.
• PROSE: The Stone Rose, PROSE: The Feast of the Drowned and PROSE: The Resurrection Casket were first published. These were the first original novels to feature the Tenth Doctor
• AUDIO: The Kingmaker was first released.
• PROSE: Short Trips: Farewells was first published. With BBC Books having retired its BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures and BBC Past Doctor Adventures book lines at the end of 2005, the Short Trips collections were now the only source for original (licensed) literary stories featuring the first eight incarnations of the Doctor.
• AUDIO: Dreamland was first released. It was the final episode of the Big Finish Productions audio spin-off series, Sarah Jane Smith, as the character returned to television later this month.
• Approximately one week prior to the broadcast of New Earth, the BBC released the first Tardisode. These mini-episodes, available online or via mobile phone, featured specially shot scenes setting up elements of the episode to come.
• 5 April - BBC Magazines launched Doctor Who Adventures, a weekly magazine promoting the Doctor Who franchise aimed at younger readers (no relation to Doctor Who Magazine). Unlike DWM, it was not distributed internationally.
• 10 April - Genesis of the Daleks was released to DVD in the UK.
• 13 April - The first episode of Totally Doctor Who aired in the UK. Similar in some ways to Doctor Who Confidential, this BBC series also took a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the series, but with the focus on a kid-friendly point of view.
• 15 April - New Earth was first broadcast, launching the second season of the revived series and the first full season to feature David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor
• 15 - Beginning with the day's issue, the BBC's promotional magazine, Radio Times, began extensive coverage of Doctor Who, with weekly features called "Who's Watch" that ran for the duration of each new season.
• 22 April - Tooth and Claw was first broadcast; this episode featured the origin of the Torchwood Institute.
• 24 April - Elisabeth Sladen and John Leeson appeared on Blue Peter promoting School Reunion.
• 27 April - Elisabeth Sladen appeared on BBC One's Breakfast to promote her upcoming appearance on Doctor Who.
• 29 April - School Reunion was first broadcast. This landmark episode returned Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith and John Leeson as K9 to Doctor Who. It set the groundwork for the later spinoff, The Sarah Jane Adventures. This episode was also the first to definitively link the new series to the 1963-89 classic series in direct continuity. Anthony Stewart Head, a frequent voiceover contributor to various Doctor Who projects, made his first and, to date only, on-screen appearance. Mickey Smith, played by Noel Clarke, graduated from recurring character to companion with this episode becoming, in the process, the first-ever non-Caucasian television companion (although there had been others in the comic strips previously).
• 29 - BBC Radio Wales broadcast Back in Time - Adventures in Sound.
• PROSE: I am a Dalek was first released, launching the BBC Quick Reads novella series, aimed at promoting literacy. The books were roughly the length of one of the shorter Target novelisations and although they were considered part of the BBC New Series Adventures line, were published in paperback. Annual releases of Quick Reads books continued for the next several years.
• AUDIO: The Settling was first released.
• AUDIO: Fractures was first released.
• BBC Books marked its tenth year publishing original Doctor Who fiction.
• 1 May - AUDIO: The Dalek Conquests was first released.
• 1 - BBC Video continued its "vanilla" releases of new-series episodes with Doctor Who: Series 2 Volume 1 featuring The Christmas Invasion and New Earth. Not counting his cameo at the end of Series 1, this was the first full DVD release featuring the Tenth Doctor.
• 4 May - Genesis of the Daleks was released to DVD in Region 4.
• 6 May - The Girl in the Fireplace was first broadcast. This episode wons Doctor Who its second Hugo Award and featured guest star Sophia Myles, who became romantically involved with David Tennant after production.
• 13 May - Rise of the Cybermen was first broadcast. This episode introduced the alternate Earth known as Pete's World, as well as the Cybermen created by Cybus Industries.
• 14 May - This was the tenth anniversary of the broadcast of the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie.
• 19 May - Producer Peter Bryant died.
• 20 May - The Age of Steel was first broadcast. Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke) left the series with this episode (though he returned for several guest appearances).
• 23 May - Actor Bill Wiesener died.
• 27 May - The Idiot's Lantern was first broadcast.
• AUDIO: Something Inside was first released.
• AUDIO: Warfare was first released.
• AUDIO: The Crystal of Cantus was first released
• 3 June - The Impossible Planet was first broadcast. It was the first appearance of the Ood.
• 5 June - BBC Video released the DVD Doctor Who: Series 2 Volume 2 featuring Tooth and Claw, School Reunion and The Girl in the Fireplace.
• 6 June -Genesis of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks were released in North America.
• 10 June - The Satan Pit was first broadcast.
• 14 June - Actor Jay Neill died.
• 15 June - PROSE: The Albino's Dancer was first published.
• 17 June - Love & Monsters was first broadcast. It was the first "Doctor-lite" episode; beginning this season, the filming schedule demanded at least one episode feature only a brief appearance by the Doctor. The monster featured in this episode was designed by a contest entrant.
• 19 June - Inferno was released to DVD in the UK.
• 19 - PROSE: Genius Loci was first published.
• 24 June - Fear Her was first broadcast.
• AUDIO: The Nowhere Place was first released.
• AUDIO: Appropriation and AUDIO: Mindbomb were first released.
• AUDIO: The Tartarus Gate was first released.
• 1 July - Army of Ghosts was first broadcast. Noel Clarke temporarily returned to the series.
• Approximately a week prior to the broadcast of Doomsday, the final Tardisode was released online and to mobile phones; the BBC decided not to continue them after this.
• 4 July - The belated release in the United States of the Doctor Who: The Complete First Series DVD box set, which had been available in Canada since February, took place.
• 5 July - Newsbeat on BBC Radio 1 reported on the casting of Freema Agyeman as the new companion.
• 6 July - Inferno was released to DVD in Region 4.
• 6 - The final episode of the first season of Totally Doctor Who aired in the UK.
• 8 July - Doomsday was first broadcast, concluding the second season of the revived series. Billie Piper, Noel Clarke and Camille Coduri left the series with this episode. In a surprise cliffhanger, successfully kept secret from Internet spoilers and the press, popular comic actor Catherine Tate appeared for the first time as Donna Noble, although the character's name was not revealed until months later. This episode was also historic for featuring the first on-screen interaction between Daleks and Cybermen. The broadcast was followed by the final episode of Doctor Who Confidential's second season. The events of Doomsday formed a major piece of backstory for the soon-to-debut spin-off series, Torchwood.
• 8 - Actor Peter Hawkins died.
• 10 July - BBC Video released the DVD Doctor Who: Series 2 Volume 3 featuring Rise of the Cybermen, The Age of Steel and The Idiot's Lantern.
• 18 July - Director David Maloney died.
• 18 - Doctor Who fan sites, including Outpost Gallifrey, began reporting that plans were afoot for a third Doctor Who spinoff series to feature K9. The series would be a non-BBC production; it took several more years before the K9 TV series finally got off the ground, however.
• 19 July - Actor Tim Condren died.
• 24 July - The Hand of Fear was released to DVD in the UK.
• AUDIO: Red was first released.
• AUDIO: Panacea was first released, concluding the third series of Big Finish Productions spin-off series, Gallifrey.
• AUDIO: Timeless Passages was first released.
• Doctor Who won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, the first time the Doctor Who franchise won an international award of this magnitude. The award was presented for the Steven Moffat two-parter The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. Two other episodes from the 2005 series were also nominated in this category: Father's Day and Dalek. The competition in the category also included "Pegasus", an episode of Battlestar Galactica; Jack-Jack Attack, an animated short spun-off from the film The Incredibles; Lucas Back in Anger, a short film; and, controversially, the opening segment of the previous year's Prix Victor Hugo Awards Ceremony. Moffat was nominated for his Doctor Who episodes for the next three consecutive years, winning the award in 2007 and 2008 and coming a close second place in 2009.
• 4 August - Actor John Alderson died.
• 7 August - BBC Video released the DVD Doctor Who: Series 2 Volume 4 featuring The Impossible Planet, The Satan Pit and Love & Monsters.
• 17 August - PROSE: The Sideways Door was first published.
• 21 August - BBC News revealed details of a cancelled Doctor Who spinoff. Entitled Rose Tyler: Earth Defence, the special would have followed Rose Tyler from the events of Doomsday. Russell T Davies, however, vetoed the idea.
• 24 August - The International Astronomical Union approved an official definition of the term "planet" which resulted in Pluto and several newly discovered Pluto-like worlds being disqualified from planetary status. The decision was immediately controversial, with attempts at overturning it expected in the future. The Doctor Who franchise, retroactively, had made its opinion known by establishing Pluto as a planet in The Sun Makers.
• PROSE: The Nightmare of Black Island, PROSE: The Art of Destruction and PROSE: The Price of Paradise were first published.
• AUDIO: The Reaping was first released.
• AUDIO: The Gathering was first released.
• PROSE: Short Trips: The Centenarian was first published.
• AUDIO: Innocence, the first episode of the Big Finish Productions miniseries I, Davros, was first released.
• AUDIO: The Worst Thing in the World was first released.
• BFBS: Collected Works was first published.
• GE Fabbri Ltd launched Battles in Time, a card game/magazine publication released fortnightly in the UK. International distribution did not begin until February 2009 when its content was included on the website for a later Fabbri publication, Doctor Who DVD Files.
• 4 September - AUDIO: Doctor Who at the BBC: The Plays was first released, featuring several full-cast audio dramas based upon the real-world impact of Doctor Who. Tom Baker and Sophie Aldred appeared, and one play dramatised the life of Delia Derbyshire.
• 4 - The Mark of the Rani was released to DVD in the UK.
• 4 - Actor Bill Meilen died.
• 5 September - The Web Planet and Inferno were released in North America.
• 7 September - The Hand of Fear was released to DVD in Region 4.
• 14 September - Writer Peter Ling died.
• 20 September - The first issue of Doctor Who: Battles in Time magazine was published in the UK.
• 21 September - Actor Tony Lambden died.
• 23 September - Actor Patrick Tull died.
• 25 September - BBC Video released the DVD Doctor Who: Series 2 Volume 5 featuring Fear Her, Army of Ghosts and Doomsday, completing the "vanilla" releases of Series 2.
• 29 September - Actor George Lee died.
• AUDIO: Memory Lane was first released.
• PROSE: Short Trips: Time Signature was first published.
• AUDIO: Purity was first released.
• AUDIO: Summer of Love was first released.
• 9 October - Series 2 of Doctor Who began airing on the CBC in Canada with New Earth. Due to a month-long hiatus at mid-season, Series 2 didn't conclude until February 2007.
• 9 - The Sontaran Experiment was released to DVD in the UK. This release was seen as an experiment in releasing a two-episode story on its own rather than as an add-on with a longer story.
• 20 October - Billie Piper appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. During her appearance she confessed to being a subscriber to Doctor Who Magazine, even after her departure from the show.
• 21 October - Actor Peter Barkworth died.
• 22 October - The Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood debuted with the broadcast of Everything Changes and Day One (the episodes were edited together to form a single broadcast). It featured the debuts of Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper, Gareth David-Lloyd as Ianto Jones, Burn Gorman as Owen Harper, Tom Price as Andy Davidson, and Kai Owen as Rhys Williams; Naoko Mori reprised her role as Toshiko Sato from Aliens of London.
• 22 - Torchwood Declassified, a behind-the-scenes series similar to Doctor Who Confidential, debuted.
• 22 - Actor Richard Mayes died.
• 26 October - REF: Doctor Who: The Inside Story was first published.
• 29 October - Ghost Machine was first broadcast.
• AUDIO: No Man's Land was first released.
• AUDIO: Corruption was first released.
• BFBS: Old Friends was first published.
• AUDIO: The Oracle of Delphi was first released.
• REF: Howe's Transcendental Toybox Update No. 2 was first published.
• 2 November - The Mark of the Rani was released to DVD in Region 4.
• 5 November - Cyberwoman was first broadcast.
• 5 - Actor R.J. Bell died.
• 6 November - The Invasion was released to DVD in the UK. This release was notable for including two episodes currently lost from the BBC Archives, but restored using animation, an experiment that was not repeated until the 2011 announcement that animation would again be used for the missing episodes of The Reign of Terror.
• 6 - Also issued this date in the UK were two compilation box sets released exclusively through the British arm of Amazon. The Cybermen Collection consisted of Tomb of the Cybermen, The Invasion and Earthshock, while the larger Third Doctor Collection features Spearhead from Space, Inferno, The Claws of Axos, The Three Doctors, Carnival of Monsters and The Green Death.
• 7 November - The Hand of Fear, The Web Planet and The Mark of the Rani were released in North America.
• 7 - In Region 1 (North America), BBC Video redistributed the episodes of Series 1 in the same four-volume "vanilla" (no-extras) sets the company had issued in the UK in mid-2005. The full-season box set remained in print.
• 10 November - Actor Chubby Oates died.
• 12 November - Small Worlds was first broadcast.
• 14 November - Actor John Hallam died.
• 15 November - Actor Elaine Ives-Cameron died.
• 19 November - Countrycide was first broadcast. This episode was notable for being the very first televised Doctor Who franchise storyline that contained no actual science fiction or fantasy elements (beyond the presence of Jack Harkness).
• 20 November - BBC Video released the Doctor Who: The Complete Second Series DVD box set in the UK.
• 26 November - Greeks Bearing Gifts was first broadcast.
• 26 - BBC Video began issuing Torchwood episodes in "vanilla" (no-extras) DVD editions, similar in format to the Doctor Who releases over the previous two years. Torchwood: Series 1 Part 1 was released.
• AUDIO: Year of the Pig was first released.
• PROSE: Short Trips: Dalek Empire was first published.
• AUDIO: Guilt, the final episode of the I, Davros miniseries, was first released.
• AUDIO: The Empire State was first released.
• 3 December - They Keep Killing Suzie was first broadcast.
• 3 - Writer Craig Hinton died.
• 4 December - The Impossible Planet was broadcast in Canada on the CBC, after which the network decided to place the show on hiatus for the next five weeks.
• 7 December - The Sontaran Experiment was released to DVD in Region 4.
• 7 - Stunt co-ordinator Peter Brayham died.
• 10 December - Random Shoes was first broadcast.
• 11 December - Elisabeth Sladen appeared on Blue Peter to promote The Sarah Jane Adventures.
• 17 December - Out of Time was first broadcast.
• 22 December - Julie Gardner appeared on the Richard Evans radio call-in program on BBC Radio Wales. During the broadcast, David Tennant called in as a joke, pretending to be a long-lost relative of Julie's who wanted a role on Doctor Who.
• 24 December - Combat was first broadcast. The episode was written by Noel Clarke, the first Doctor Who franchise regular to write a televised episode.
• 24 - A Christmas-themed Doctor Who short story, WC: Deep and Dreamless Sleep, was published on the TimesOnline website.
• 24 - BBC Radio Wales broadcast Back in Time - Jingle Hell promoting The Runaway Bride with appearances by David Tennant, Catherine Tate and others.
• 25 December - The Runaway Bride, the second Doctor Who Christmas special, was first broadcast, properly introducing Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, although Donna declined an invitation to become a companion at this point.
• 25 - BBC Radio broadcast Jo Whiley Meets Doctor Who, a behind the scenes look at the making of the 2007 series, which was combined with in-studio conversation with David Tennant.
• 26 December - The Torchwood: Series 1, Part 1 DVD was released.
• 27 December - Matt Smith made his TV acting debut in The Ruby in the Smoke, which aired in the US this date as part of Masterpiece Theatre.
• 28 December - This was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the broadcast of A Girl's Best Friend, the pilot for K9 and Company, only a few days before the debut of The Sarah Jane Adventures featuring the same character.
• 31 December - BBC Radio 7 debuted a new series of audio dramas co-produced with Big Finish Productions starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor. Dubbed The New Eighth Doctor Adventures, these stories were, initially, aired on BBC7 first and later released by Big Finish on CD. The first story was episode 1 of AUDIO: Blood of the Daleks, which introduced new companion Lucie Miller played by Sheridan Smith. This meant that, as of this date, there were actually two series of Doctor Who being broadcast by different arms of the BBC: the main series on BBC TV and the Eighth Doctor series on BBC7.