Season 1 (Doctor Who 1963)

You may wish to consult Series 1 for other, similarly-named pages.

Season 1 of Doctor Who ran between 23 November 1963 and 12 September 1964. It starred William Hartnell as the First Doctor and Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman, the Doctor's granddaughter.

Overview

It consisted of eight serials (listed below) and 42 episodes, and a pilot episode which never aired on television. (More accurately, the production team made several versions of the pilot episode.) The inaugural season established many of the concepts that continue to the present day, and also introduced the hugely popular Daleks. Two of the three historical stories of this season are presently considered lost, although audio recordings of all episodes remain.

Television stories

#	Title	Writer	Episodes	Notes
1	An Unearthly Child	Anthony Coburn	4	First appearances of the First Doctor, Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and the TARDIS
2	The Daleks	Terry Nation	7	First Dalek appearance
3	The Edge of Destruction	David Whitaker	2	Only set in the TARDIS
4	Marco Polo	John Lucarotti	7	First storyline based around an historical figure
5	The Keys of Marinus	Terry Nation	6
6	The Aztecs	John Lucarotti	4	Introduces the concept of changing history
7	The Sensorites	Peter R. Newman	6
8	The Reign of Terror	Dennis Spooner	6	First story to feature location filming

Notes

• Unseen by the public, an early version of "An Unearthly Child" was produced, but was not broadcast until 1991.
• Stories consisted of between 2 and 7 episodes, with each episode having a distinct title. Some stories have been given different titles over the years; see individual articles for details.

Cast

Main cast

• The First Doctor - William Hartnell (Introduced in An Unearthly Child)
• Susan Foreman - Carole Ann Ford (Introduced in An Unearthly Child)
• Ian Chesterton - William Russell (Introduced in An Unearthly Child)
• Barbara Wright - Jacqueline Hill (Introduced in An Unearthly Child)

Season 1 was the last season before Season 6 to retain the same core cast members for an entire series.

Guest cast

• Za - Derek Newark
• Temmosus - Alan Wheatley
• Marco Polo - Mark Eden
• Arbitan - George Coulouris
• Autloc - Keith Pyott
• John - Stephen Dartnell
• Jean-Pierre - Peter Walker

Production

Creation

The series was essentially the creation of a committee, with the following amongst the many who created the various parts that went into the series: Donald Wilson (time travel), Sydney Newman (the First Doctor and Susan), C. E. Webber (Ian and Barbara, scenario for the first episode), Anthony Coburn (Susan's name, the TARDIS looking like a police box), and David Whitaker (Susan as the Doctor's granddaughter).

Production overview

Verity Lambert was chosen by Sydney Newman as Producer of the series and Mervyn Pinfield was assigned as Associate Producer, picking up on the mainly technical side of the series such as dealing with the in-camera SFX.

Initially, the series was only ordered for the first four episodes that made up 100,000 BC and came close to going no further. This was extended to thirteen episodes, but the production team had either eleven (100,000 BC and The Mutants) or eighteen (100,000 BC, The Mutants, Marco Polo). To solve this problem, David Whitaker wrote the two episode Inside the Spaceship, something that normally wouldn't have happened due to an existing rule that prohibited Script Editors writing for the series they were editing. (Otherwise they could simply have "hired" themselves and deprived other script writers of work.)

The first to third season story titles have been a contentious issue. For more information, see Disputed story titles.

Stories considered during this season, but ultimately unmade, included:

• The Masters of Luxor (a.k.a. The Robots) by Anthony Coburn
• The Hidden Planet (a.k.a. Beyond the Sun) by Malcolm Hulke
• The Red Fort by Terry Nation
• Farewell Great Macedon by Moris Farhi
• The Miniscules by C. E. Webber (a variant on this idea appeared as Planet of Giants, aired during Season 2)

Stories set during this season

• A segment of The Eight Doctors in which the First and Eighth Doctors meet occurs during "The Forest of Fear".
• The Virgin Missing Adventures book The Sorcerer's Apprentice is set after Marco Polo.

Ratings

• Average: 8.1 million
• Highest: 10.4 million (five-way tie)
• Lowest: 4.9 million (An Unearthly Child, episode 1, due to a widespread power cut)

Adaptations and merchandising

Home media

VHS

• An Unearthly Child (1990/2000)
• The Daleks (2-part version) (1989)
• The Daleks (Remastered) (2001)
• The Edge of Destruction and The Pilot Episode (2000)
• The Keys of Marinus (1999)
• The Aztecs (1992)
• The Sensorites (2002)
• The Reign of Terror (2003) (with linking narration of missing episodes, also includes The Faceless Ones 1,3 & The Web of Fear Ep 1)
• The Hartnell Years (1991) (Pilot Episode)

See episode articles for full details.

Loose Cannon VHSes

• Marco Polo (2002)
• The Reign of Terror (2000) (Episodes 4+5 only)

DVD Releases

Serial name	Number and duration of episodes	R2 release date	R4 release date	R1 release date
The Beginning: An Unearthly Child (4 episodes) The Daleks (7 episodes) The Edge of Destruction (2 episodes) Marco Polo (reconstruction)	13 × 25 min. 1 × 30 min	30 January 2006	2 March 2006	28 March 2006
The Keys of Marinus (6 episodes)	6 × 25 min.	21 September 2009	7 January 2010	5 January 2010
The Aztecs (4 episodes)	4 × 25 min.	21 October 2002	2 December 2002	4 March 2003
The Sensorites (6 episodes)	6 × 25 min.	23 January 2012	2 February 2012	14 February 2012
The Reign of Terror (reconstruction)	6 × 25 min	TBA	TBA	TBA

Novels

• Doctor Who and an Unearthly Child
• Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks'
• Doctor Who – The Edge of Destruction
• Doctor Who - Marco Polo
• Doctor Who and the Keys of Marinus
• Doctor Who - The Aztecs
• Doctor Who – The Sensorites
• Doctor Who – The Reign of Terror

Audiobooks

• Marco Polo
• The Reign of Terror

Theatrical Film

• Dr. Who and the Daleks - based upon the second serial, The Daleks.

External links

• BBC Website Guide to Season 1