25 November 1983 As part of the BBC’s annual Children in Need charity telethon, The Five Doctors is broadcast in the UK. Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee return to the series, with Tom Baker represented through clips from the unfinished story Shada, and Richard Hurndall taking the place of the late William Hartnell as the First Doctor.
8 February 1984 Part 1 of Resurrection of the Daleks is broadcast. Coverage of the Winter Olympics means that the four-part story is stitched together as two double-length episodes.
16 March 1984 After three years, Peter Davison makes his final regular appearance as the Doctor, handing over to Colin Baker who debuts as the Sixth Doctor in the closing moments of the episode. The regeneration takes place in The Caves of Androzani, the penultimate story of the season.
22 March 1984 Colin Baker makes his full debut as the Sixth Doctor in The Twin Dilemma. The Doctor uses the term ‘incarnation’ for the first time to describe his new body.
5 January 1985 Colin Baker’s first full season as the Doctor opens with a return for the Cybermen. Following the success of longer episodes for last year’s Resurrection of the Daleks, the series is now broadcast in longer 45-minute episodes and returns to its traditional Saturday night slot.
2 February 1985 The first appearance of Kate O’Mara as the Rani.
16 February 1985 Having enjoyed appearing in The Five Doctors, Patrick Troughton returns to the series once more in The Two Doctors, joined by Frazer Hines as Jamie.
27 February 1985 Michael Grade, the Controller of BBC One, becomes the most vilified person in the history of Doctor Who when his decision to delay the next series by eighteen months is announced.
30 March 1985 The Daleks are seen to hover above the ground for the first time in Revelation of the Daleks Part 2. The confusing camera angle used means that many viewers miss this historic event.
25 July 1985 The first episode of radio drama Doctor Who: Slip-back is broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It stars Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant as the Doctor and Peri, and forms part of the station’s Pirate Radio 4 strand for younger listeners.
6 September 1986 After an enforced hiatus, Doctor Who returns to screens with the first episode of the longest-ever Doctor Who story, the 14-part Trial of a Time Lord.
6 December 1986 Colin Baker makes what will become his final regular televised appearance as the Doctor in the final part of the Trial season.
18 December The official press announcement that Colin Baker will not be returning as the Doctor.
28 February 1987 British newspaper The Sun breaks the story about Sylvester McCoy’s casting as the new Doctor. McCoy, along with Bonnie Langford, attends a photo call for the press on 2 March to confirm the news, and later appears on Blue Peter.
28 March 1987 Patrick Troughton passes away at the age of 67 while attending a Doctor Who convention in the USA.
7 September 1987 Sylvester McCoy debuts as the Seventh Doctor.
23 November 1987 On Doctor Who’s 24th birthday, Sophie Aldred makes her first appearance as Ace in Dragonfire.
5 October 1988 A Dalek is seen to hover up a flight of stairs for the first time in Remembrance of the Daleks.
23 November 1988Doctor Who celebrates its Silver Jubilee with Silver Nemesis, an adventure that appropriately pits the Doctor and Ace against the Cybermen.
23 March 1989 Jon Pertwee stars as the Doctor in the first performance of stage show Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure at the Wimbledon Theatre, London. Colin Baker takes over the role from Pertwee on 5 June.
12 July 1989 Roger Laughton, Director of Co-Production at BBC Enterprises, receives a telephone call from American-based television producer Philip Segal. Segal expresses an interest in forging a transatlantic co-production deal with the BBC to continue Doctor Who into the 1990s.
23 November 1989 On Doctor Who’s 26th anniversary, Sylvester McCoy attends a studio session to record the voiceover that will be played in the closing seconds of Survival, the final story of Season 26. These are the final lines recorded for the original 26-year run of Doctor Who.
6 December 1989 After 26 years and 695 broadcast episodes, Doctor Who’s original television run comes to an end as the Doctor and Ace walk off into the distance. But as history will prove, the Doctor still has work to do.
June 1991 Virgin Books publishes the first novel in the Doctor Who New Adventures series, Timewyrm: Genesis by John Peel. The book is the first full-length novel featuring the Doctor not to be based on a TV story or unused script.
27 August 1993 BBC Radio Five broadcasts the first episode of Doctor Who: The Paradise of Death, a brand new radio adventure for Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, with Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah and Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier, written by Third Doctor producer Barry Letts.
26 November 1993 To celebrate Doctor Who’s 30th anniversary, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy appear as the Doctor in Dimensions in Time, a two-part adventure that forms part of that year’s BBC Children in Need telethon. Broadcast in experimental 3D, the story features members of the cast of BBC soap opera East-Enders and the return of many companions from Doctor Who’s 30-year history, several for the last time. Kate O’Mara makes her third and final appearance as the Rani.
12 September 1994 With continuing rumblings of a US co-production deal for Doctor Who going back to Philip Segal’s phone call to the BBC in July 1989, film and TV actor Paul McGann tapes a screen test for the role of the Doctor in London.
5 January 1996 Over a year after he first auditioned, Paul McGann is confirmed as the new Doctor at a photo call held at the Doctor Who Exhibition at Longleat. Two days later he flies to Vancouver to begin filming the first new Doctor Who in production since 1989. He is joined by Sylvester McCoy to allow a regeneration scene from the Seventh to the Eighth Doctor to be filmed.
14 May 1996 Paul McGann makes his one and only screen appearance as the Doctor with the worldwide debut of the feature-length TV movie Doctor Who on the Fox network in America.
20 May 1996 Jon Pertwee passes away at the age of 76.
27 May 1996 The first UK broadcast of the Doctor Who TV movie attracts 9.1 million viewers – making it the highest-rated television drama that week. The episode is dedicated to the memory of Jon Pertwee. Sadly, the success of the TV movie in the UK does not lead to a new series. Yet…
2 June 1997 Publication of the novel The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks commences BBC Books’ own line of original Doctor Who fiction. Paul McGann’s reading of the novelisation of the TV movie is released as part of the BBC Radio Collection.