1963 (production)

1963 in

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the DWU • production history • vital statistics • releases

1963 was a year in which a number of events important to the production of Doctor Who and its spin-offs occurred.

• 14 January - Sydney Newman took over the role of BBC Head of Drama.
• 29 March - C. E. Webber, on orders from Sydney Newman, sent a report to Donald Wilson, in which he described a potential science fiction programme which would eventually become Doctor Who. The report described suitable characters for the "five-o'clock Saturday audience": the handsome young man, the handsome well-dressed heroine aged about 30 and the mature man. The initial thought was of a laboratory-set programme with scientists for protagonists, although this was eventually scrapped in the next report.
• 16 May - A document, prepared by Donald Wilson and C. E. Webber and Sydney Newman, was submitted to Donald Baverstock which outlined the concept of a proposed programme called Dr. Who.
• 24 June - David Whitaker appointed as script editor.
• 7 August - William Hartnell has his first costume fitting and make up test.
• 20 August - First filming on "An Unearthly Child", the first ever episode, began. The session at Stage 3A of Ealing involved the recording of some of the elements of the opening credits.
• 31 August - Further filming of opening credits elements at Studio 5 of TV Centre. (Though the two sessions cover most of the elements used in the title sequence, some other howlaround elements would ultimately be used from a previous BBC production in 1960, Tobias and the Angel.)
• 3 September - Title sequence assembled from the pre-existing and newly recorded elements by Richard Barclay at Ealing.
• 20 September - William Hartnell, Carole Ann Ford, Jacqueline Hill and William Russell all meet together for the first time, for a publicity photo shoot at TV Centre.
• 21 September - Rehearsals for "An Unearthly Child" began at a Drill Hall on Uxbridge Road.
• 27 September - The first episode, "An Unearthly Child" is recorded. This version of the first episode was beset by technical problems, and the BBC subsequently rejected it for broadcast, authorising a rare "do-over" for later in the year. The outcome of these filming sessions was later dubbed "the Pilot Episode".
• 4 October - After viewing the pilot episode, Sydney Newman officially rejected the Pilot Episode in a lunch meeting with Verity Lambert and Waris Hussein and authorised a remounting of the episode. According to Howe and Walker, this was a contingency that had been planned for. Over the next couple of weeks, numerous revisions to the script and changes to costuming and characterisation were undertaken.
• 9-11 October - Filming for "An Unearthly Child" restarted at Ealing Studios following September's false start.
• 21 November - The first ever Doctor Who press conference was held to launch the new show. All four lead actors and David Whitaker attended the event at BBC Langham.
• 21 November - Radio Times published an article announcing the debut of Doctor Who, dated 23 November. This was the first Doctor Who-related article ever published.
• 30 December - The Audience Research Report on the first episode of Doctor Who was filed with the BBC.