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Happy Whoniversary!

50 years ago today, a children's teatime sci-fi show made its debut on the BBC - and went on to change the world, both in terms of television and the imaginations of viewers for generations.

To celebrate the Time Lord's big day, check out the finest Doctor Who facts from across time and space below.

* Have you taken our rock-hard Doctor Who quiz yet? Take the internet's hardest set of Who posers and prove yourself as the ultimate Whovian!

For the latest on the Doctor Who 50th anniversary celebrations and events, click on the link

50. It’s the longest running science fiction show in the world!

The 50th anniversary special will be the show’s 799th episode since it began in 1963. And that’s with a large gap in the middle.

The nearest rival doesn’t come close – with Superman’s youthful adventures in Smallville achieving 218 episodes across 10 series.

Other franchises have jumped across different series, but Doctor Who was the only one to master Regeneration

49. Classic Past Doctors are still adventuring thanks to Big Finish’s Audio Adventures!

Off screen, the Doctor’s carried on adventuring in a variety of spin-off media including novels and comics.

Big Finish Productions have been producing official audio adventures featuring past Doctors since 1999 and they’re going from strength to strength as the 50th Anniversary audio Light At the End shows.

What’s more, recent mini episode the Night of the Doctor undeniably brought those audio adventures into the canon of the Doctor Who universe thanks to a few choice words from the Eighth Doctor...

48. Doctor Who took seven years to reach colour

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The BBC started colour transmission on November 15th 1969. That meant that the first colour Doctor Who episode was 1970’s Spearhead from Space which introduced the Third Doctor.

The only serial completely shot on film, that’s also the only classic adventure fit for Blu-ray.

47. The Highest Rated Episode

The record highest viewer figures for an episode of Doctor Who is taken by part four of 1979’s The City of Death – also part of the first Doctor Who serial to be filmed abroad.

16.1 million viewers tuned in, although strike action on the ITV network may take some of the credit...

46. Verity Lambert was the BBC’s first female producer

Being the mother of Doctor Who is quite a claim, but original producer Verity Lambert was also the first ever female producer at the BBC.

Doctor Who knew how to break barriers from the beginning.

45. The missing episodes

The BBC’s short-sighted decision to junk black and white episodes in the late 60s and early 70s has robbed us of classic episodes of the First and Second Doctors. But fans haven’t given up hope that these episodes survive somewhere in the world.

Those searches have yielded results. The recent discovery of copies of 1968 serials The Enemy of the World and the Web of Fear in Nigeria mean that only 97 episodes of Doctor Who remain missing ( although Marco Polo may have something into say about that soon ...).

That figure stood at 137 in 1981.

44. The Doctor’s arch nemesis could have been his brother...

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The Doctor’s Time Lord nemesis is the dastardly Master. Introduced in 1971’s Terror of the Autons, the suave villain tussled with the Doctor during many of his third incarnation’s adventures. In fact, plans were mooted to reveal the bearded rogue as the Doctor’s brother... Sadly, that development was ended by actor Roger Delgado’s untimely death in 1973. To this day that storyline has never been picked up...

43. Doctor Who has appeared in Star Trek...

The two longest running science fiction programmes couldn’t ignore each other. Each show has featured each other in various in-jokes.

One episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation featured the names of classic Doctor actors on an on-screen graphic while a Star Trek insignia appeared in a classic episode of Doctor Who.

However, recent comic series Assimilation² showed that the two universes can collide as the Eleventh Doctor worked with Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s crew to defeat the combined might of the Borg and the Cybermen.

42. Douglas Adams script edited Doctor Who

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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy author was script editor of the show for its 17th season and contributed three scripts including classic the City of Death (featuring a John Cleese cameo) and the unfinished Shada.

In fact, his third Hitchhiker’s novel, Life, The Universe and Everything, was originally intended to be a Doctor Who script...

41. Daleks have been able to fly since 1973

Daleks first rose above their perceived stair-phobia in 1973’s Planet of the Daleks where, thanks to an anti-gravity mat, a single Dalek pursued the third Doctor up a ventilation shaft.

It was in 1989’s Remembrance of the Daleks that a Dalek first elevated up stairs under its own propulsion, much to the Doctor’s shock.

Since the series returned in 2005, Daleks have been flying all over the place.

40. Director Peter Jackson is a Whovian

The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson is an avid Doctor Who fan, and that extend to more than collecting memorabilia and casting Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy in The Hobbit.

Last year he offered to direct an episode of the show. His price, one Dalek.

Sounds like a bargain to me...

39. Steven Moffat’s first Doctor Who script for Comic Relief

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Current producer and lead writer of Steven Moffat couldn’t have guessed he’d hold his current position when he penned his Curse of Fatal Death sketch for Comic Relief in 1999. That 23 minute parody fulfilled a number of fan wishes, including Rowan Atkinson, Richard E. Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant and Joanna Lumley as the Doctor...

38. The word TARDIS has made the Oxford English Dictionary

It’s the Doctor’s famous time and Space machine, but it’s also a recognised word.

Noun. 1. Time machine. 2. A building or container that is larger inside than it appears to be from outside.

It’s not wrong.

37. Coverage of the assassination of John F. Kennedy delayed Doctor Who’s first broadcast

Doctor Who’s first episode was broadcast the day after President John F Kennedy was assassinated.

Popular opinion has it that news coverage delayed the first screening by 10 minutes, but in fact it was only 80 seconds.

The show’s first episode was repeated again the following week to make sure it wasn’t missed.

36. Doctor Who’s original pilot was rejected

A month before the full series recording started, a pilot was produced. Unfortunately it was littered with a catalogue of set and technical problems.

So much so, BBC Head of Drama Sydney Newman took the unusual – and expensive- step of ordering a second one be produced.

35. Doctor Who hits the big screen

Following the outbreak of major Dalekmania in the mid-1960s, the perfidious pepper pot’s creator Terry Nation quickly took the Daleks to the cinema.

1965’s Dr Who and the Daleks was quickly followed by Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150AD in 1966.

Both films were adaptations of the original television stories, but this time.

Peter Cushing portrayed human inventor Dr Who!

34. Bernard Cribbins has fought Daleks on TV and film!

You may know national treasure Bernard Cribbins from his role as Wilfred Mott opposite David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor, but he has the distinction of fighting Daleks on both the small and big screen.

He played policeman Tom Campbell in 1966’s Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150AD.

33. Doctor Who Episodes used to have titles!

We’re all used to the classic series title sequences featuring episode numbers, but for its first three years, the series gave individual episodes their own names.

1966’s The Gunfighters ended the practice with its fourth part, the OK Corral! Fortunately the Doctor survived that infamous clash...

32. Doctor Who went 3D for its 30th anniversary

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Much is being made of this weekend’s The Day of the Doctor being broadcast in 3D in cinemas across the world, but it’s not the first time that the Doctor’s burst out the screen.

The bizarre Doctor Who and Eastenders crossover that was filmed for the show’s 1993 anniversary was also 3D, albeit a little more old school.

Despite a host of Doctors, companions and monsters, the matter of where that ‘special’, Dimensions in Time, sits in Doctor Who continuity is subject to very little debate...

31. Torchwood is an anagram of Doctor Who

Torchwood was cunningly thought up as the cover name to keep Doctor Who production details secret when it was revived in 2005.

When it later came to establishing a secret British organisation, that name stood out...

30. And the longest serving Doctor is...

Debatable.

In terms of series, Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor holds the record of six years and 9 months (178 episodes) while the show was in production.

But in terms of first appearance to replacement Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor steals it with just one film, but 8 years and 10 months.

It was an astonishing 17 years before last week’s mini episode the Night of the Doctor finally let the Eighth Doctor regenerate.

29. Radio times’ favourite son

With this week’s multiple covers, Doctor Who has graced the front cover of The Radio times a record 50 times since 1964.

The 2005 cover which combined the Daleks’ iconic march across Westminster Bridge with that year’s General Election has just been voted magazine cover of the century by the Professional Publishers Association.

28. Multiple Doctor stories are synonymous with the show’s anniversaries... or are they?

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Past Doctors may appear in other Doctor’s stories, but they’ve only teamed up a few times.

The first was the Three Doctors, but that was broadcast 11 months before the show’s 10th anniversary!

1985’s the Two Doctors saw Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor bump into Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor, but it wasn’t an anniversary special.

In fact there’s only been one official multi-Doctor anniversary special before, although 1983’s the Five Doctors only featured three original actors in the Doctor’s role.

Fourth Doctor Tom Baker appeared by via unscreened footage while the late William Hartnell was replaced by Richard Hurndall.

27. The Fourth Doctor didn’t just have one scarf...

The Fourth Doctor famous for his ridiculously long scarf, but he didn’t just have one.

He went through several variations of his multi-coloured first scarf before switching to a fetching rust, plum and claret version just before he regenerated...

26. The Sonic Screwdriver’s 50th anniversary is in five years...

Surprisingly it was the Doctor who most often carried a recorder around who introduced the Sonic Screwdriver in 1968’s Fury from the Deep.

Since the Second Doctor first brandished it, until the Fifth Doctor broke it in 1982’s The Visitation.

It was next seen in 1996’s TV movie and since 2005 the Doctor’s barely been seen without it.

25. A Doctorless episode

Since it’s revival in 2005, we’ve become used to Doctor-lite episodes like Blink, Love and Monsters and Turn Left. But the classic series went one better with 1965’s Mission to the Unknown.

A stand-alone story that set up the epic Dalek Master Plan arc later that year, it didn’t feature the Doctor or TARDIS crew at all.

Sadly, only audio recordings remain.

24. That Police Box!

Now most commonly recognised as a TARDIS, the Police box was a common sight in Britain when Doctor Who launched (although they were red in Glasgow).

A kiosk that provided shelter for the police or a means for members of the public to call them, they were introduced throughout the 20th century. By 1953 there were 685 in the UK.

While personal radios saw them fade away some still exist, such as the reproduction built outside Earl’s Court underground station in 1997.

23. Doctor Who reaches space!

Doctor Who has proved inspirational for 50 years and in 1984, it became a properly entrenched part of the universe.

Discovered by Arizona based astronomer Brian A. Skiff, the small asteroid known as Asteroid 3325 was given the name TARDIS.

22. It’s one of the BBC’s Top five Brands

Don’t worry how important Doctor Who is to the BBC. Last year’s annual report showed that Doctor Who and the Beeb’s other top brands (Top Gear, Lonely Planet, Dancing with the Stars and BBC Earth) made up 30% of their headline sales.

Who is big business .

21. The Radiophonic Workshop

For years, the show’s famous theme tune and incidental sound effects were provided by the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop.

Set up in 1958, the Workshop pioneered extraordinary music and effects that had an incredible effect on musicians and electronic.

That familiar theme tune was the arrangement of Delia Derbyshire with assistance from Dick Mills.

Mills still holds Workshop performances with other original members if you’re lucky enough to catch them.

20. The Other McGann

Paul McGann was brilliantly cast in 1996’s TV movie, but it could have been another McGann.

His brother Mark McGann also auditioned for the role of the Eighth Doctor in the mid-1990s.

19. Matt Smith is the youngest Doctor

At 27 when he first appeared, Matt Smith is the youngest Doctor to have been cast as the Time Lord, beating Fifth Doctor Peter Davison by two years.

18. Expensive home entertainment!

Revenge of the Cybermen had the privilege of being the first Doctor Who VHS release in October 1983.

Unbelievably the four part story retailed at £39.95. That’s over £100 in today’s money!

Good thing the story concerns the Cybermen’s hunt for the planet of gold!

17. The Whomobile

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Dynamic dandy, the Third Doctor was renowned as a man of action.

But the Whomobile that debuted in 1974 romp Invasion of the Dinosaurs was actually from actor Jon Pertwee’s personal collection!

Having commissioned it, he owned it until his death in 1996.

16. Steven Moffat’s Hugo Awards

Sitting alongside his BAFTA awards, current show runner Steven Moffat has won no fewer than Four Hugo Awards for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short form) across three Doctors: The Empty Child, the Girl in the Fireplace, Blink and the Pandorica Opens.

15. Companion Doppelgangers

A host of actors have made multiple appearances in Doctor Who, perhaps most notably incoming Doctor Peter Capaldi who appeared as Caecilius in 2009’s The Fires of Pompeii and Colin Baker who made a cameo before he became the Sixth Doctor.

Companions steal the record however, with Freema Agyeman, Karen Gillan and Lalla Ward all having played other roles in the show before they joined the TARDIS crew.

14. The Doctor once wished the audience a Merry Christmas!

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The Doctor’s broken the fourth wall and spoken to his audience on a few occasions, but perhaps never as cheerfully as during episode "The Feast of Steven" that was broadcast on 25th December 1965.

The First Doctor couldn’t keep the merriment to the TARDIS crew as he wished everyone at home a Merry Christmas!

13. The Sound of the TARDIS

Created, of course, by the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop, the famous “wheezing and groaning” effect was created by scraping house keys along piano wire (with a little help from reverb and static!).

So simple, so unmistakable.

12. Tom Baker almost made a Doctor Who film!

During his time on the series, Tom Baker worked on a Doctor Who film proposal with sometime TARDIS crew member Ian (Harry Sullivan) Marter.

Doctor Who Meets Scratchman would have been a brainstormingly bonkers film with a climax taking place on a giant pinball table.

Despite Baker’s continued efforts, the film never saw the light of day.

11. Multiple Davros

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Genius creator of the Daleks first appeared in 1975’s genesis of the Daleks.

Michael Wisher’s chillingly brilliant portrayal made him an immediate fan favourite but he has subsequently been played by three other actors on television: David Gooderson, Terry Molloy in the classic series and Julian Bleach in 2008.

10. Acronyms in Space and Time

TARDIS stands for “Time and Relative Dimensions in Space”.

Contrary to what a no doubt confused Susan said in the show’s first episode, she didn’t name it.

Rather the Doctor ‘borrowed’ a Type-40 time capsule from the Time Lords to escape his home planet.

Even at the time, the Type-40 wasn’t state of the art...

9. Chameleon Circuits

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The Doctor’s TARDIS famously has a distinctively stuck chameleon circuit, but that hasn’t always been the case. None other than the Sixth Doctor managed to fix it in 1985’s Attack of the Cybermen.

The results weren’t too spectacular with the TARDIS taking an eccentric view of blending in and having a few problems with navigation.

It wasn’t long before the famous Police Box fascia was back.

8. Simulcast Special

The 50th anniversary special the Day of the Doctor has been described as the biggest event in BBC Drama’s history and it’s easy to see why.

Scheduled for 7.50pm this Saturday, the episode will be simulcast across the world to almost 80 countries!

Think of the viewers in Melbourne Australia who’ll be watching at 6.50am on Sunday morning!

7. Original TV cyborgs

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Two decades before Star Trek introduced the Borg, Doctor Who hoped that the Cybermen would match the popularity of the Daleks when they first fought the First Doctor in 1966.

They weren’t far off, with the metal monsters returning another three times in the following two seasons. They had some pedigree as well. Co-creator Dr Kit Pedler was a medical researcher at London University and the show’s unofficial scientific advisor.

6. The Time Lords hit the charts

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The Doctor hit the top of the pops in 1988 thanks to The Time Lord’s novelty record Doctorin’ the TARDIS. But who were the Time Lords?

None other than legendary British band KLF who cheekily followed up their success with a guide called The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way).

5. The Doctor is... A Doctor!

It’s a confusing title for a name and one that has led the Doctor to profess to be a Doctor of many things during his travels.

However, he’s also claimed to be a qualified medical doctor, in human physiology at least.

During 1967’s The Moonbase the Second Doctor claimed to have taken a medical degree in Glasgow in 1888.

4. JK Rowling was asked to write for Doctor Who

In 2005, show runner Russell T Davies asked Harry Potter author JK Rowling to write for Doctor Who.

Unfortunately, although she was amused by the idea she was a bit tied up completing the story of the boy wizard.

A shame, but there’s always time...

3. The Almost Doctors

Throughout his 50 years, Doctor Who’s amassed a large number of actors who were almost cast or have allegedly turned down the part.

Actors who claim to have declined the time traversing role include Geoffrey Bayldon, Ron Moody, Bill Nighy and Hugh Grant.

Recent Who Villain Richard E Grant has actually said yes to the part twice, but neither of his appearances in the 1999 parody The Curse of Fatal Death or 40th Anniversary animation Scream of the Shalka count as a canon part of the Whoniverse.

2. Matt Smith will make episode 800!

At Christmas, we may see the fall of the Eleventh, during the 800th episode of the show. What a way to go...

1. Series 8 is back... in Autumn 2014

The 12th Doctor’s already made his first appearance, having filmed his regeneration, but well have to wait a while to see him properly in action.

Steven Moffat has announced that Series Eight of everybody’s favourite Time Lord will be screened in 2014, but it’s likely they won’t reach the air until Autumn.

Yes, that’s almost a year. It’s a good thing that there are two specials in the meantime...

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The Doctors The Archive magazine order now only £4.99 at www.mirrorcollection.co.uk

This hugely collectable 84-page glossy magazine salutes and commemorates 50 years of Doctor Who on the BBC. From the show's earliest days, The Doctors - The Archive features stunning unseen images from the Mirror's archive.