Doctor Who and the Daleks (featurettes)

Doctor Who and the Daleks was the title given to a series of six five-minute featurettes broadcast as part of the repeat showing of Planet of the Daleks in November/December 1993.

You may wish to consult Doctor Who and the Daleks for other, similarly-named pages.

One featurette prefaced each episode of Planet of the Daleks, which had been selected to represent Doctor Who for its 30th Anniversary and was scheduled to run on Friday evenings on BBC One (shown by BBC Scotland on BBC Two), having been designed to fill out the first five minutes of the required half-hour timeslots. There was a one-week break between Planet of the Daleks episodes three and four due to the BBC's annual Children in Need appeal on 26 November.

As of 2023, two of the featurettes have been made available commercially as DVD extras: The Antique Doctor Who Show and UNIT Recruiting Film appear on the releases of Horror of Fang Rock and Spearhead from Space, respectively.

Three of the other four featurettes – Bigger Inside Than Out, I Was That Monster and Police 5: The Master – have not appeared on DVD or Blu-ray due to a variety of copyright and clearance problems. For example, Bigger Inside Than Out used newsreel footage that would be very expensive, if not impossible, to clear for commercial release.

The remaining featurette, Missing in Action, has not appeared on DVD or Blu-ray as the Doctor Who Restoration Team deemed it "a seriously flawed piece of journalism that does not deserve more exposure" due to its misleading editing.^[1]

Schedule[[edit] | [edit source]]

The transmission dates of the Doctor Who and the Daleks featurettes were as follows:

Bigger Inside Than Out

(5 November 1993)

A history of the police box. Narrated by Colin Baker.

The Antique Doctor Who Show

(12 November 1993)

Collectables expert Justin Pressland and Doctor Who expert David J. Howe speak to fans about their collections of Doctor Who memorabilia in a pastiche of Antiques Roadshow (1979-ongoing).

Missing in Action

(19 November 1993)

The story behind the destruction of old Doctor Who episodes junked by the BBC Archives in the 1970s, and the efforts made by fans to track down copies of the lost episodes and return them. Narrated by Nicholas Courtney.

I Was That Monster

(3 December 1993)

Interviews with actors who brought to life some of Doctor Who's most famous monsters. Featuring John Scott Martin, Pat Gorman and Stuart Fell.

Police 5: The Master

(10 December 1993)

Shaw Taylor presents a pastiche of his long-running five-minute ITV crime prevention series Police 5 (1962-1990), warning viewers to be on the lookout for a dangerous individual known as the Master.

Note: This featurette is also sometimes referred to as Crime File - The Master.

UNIT Recruiting Film

(17 December 1993)

The narrator of the film, a UNIT soldier (voice: Dexter Fletcher), tells of his experiences serving in this international military/scientific taskforce, while Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (voice: Nicholas Courtney) tells the story of UNIT's beginnings and encourages the public to “unite with UNIT and save the world”.

Note: Towards the end of this featurette, a telephone number, 071 757 7047, was given on-screen for anyone interested in joining UNIT (which has been edited out for DVD). Those who did call the number heard a recorded message from Nicholas Courtney in character as the Brigadier, who congratulated the caller on passing what was actually a UNIT initiative test, before announcing the news that The Green Death was to be repeated on BBC Two in the New Year.

(Please note: the aforementioned telephone number is now no longer valid.)