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On This Day (USA) - 22 January



The Daleks' Master Plan: The Abandoned Planet premiered on BBC One in 1966 at 5:50pm GMT, watched by 9.80 million viewers.

Returning to Kembel, the Doctor, Sara and Steven discover the Dalek base has been abandoned and that the leaders of the alliance have been imprisoned.


Day of the Daleks: Episode Four premiered on BBC One in 1972 at 5:51pm GMT, watched by 9.10 million viewers.

The Controller betrays the Daleks and is exterminated. The Daleks travel back in time to the 20th Century to ensure that the peace conference fails.


The Face of Evil: Part Four premiered on BBC One in 1977 at 6:26pm GMT, watched by 11.70 million viewers.

The Acolytes of Xoanon defend their God. But only the Doctor knows their world is doomed.


 Birthdays
Tommy Knight was 31 - 31 credits, including Luke Smith in The Stolen Earth / Journey's End (as Thomas Knight)

Tommy Knight was born on 22 January, 1993, in Chatham, Kent, in England. He is the middle child of five children (three boys and two girls), all of whom act. He attended Delce Junior School in Rochester from year four onwards and now currently attends Sir Joseph Williamson�s Mathematical School.

Best known for his role as Luke Smith, the adopted son of Sarah Jane Smith, in The Sarah Jane Adventures, Tommy Knight began his acting career in West End Theatre, appearing in plays such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Royal Shakespeare Company�s Macbeth. He has also made his mark in television, such as starring in Doctors, The Bill, and the factual miniseries drama The Impressionists. He finally landed a role on the Doctor Who spin-off series as Luke Smith, and has been on the show since the pilot episode in 2007. Knight has also made three appearances alongside Elisabeth Sladen on Doctor Who, reprising the role of Luke Smith in the episodes The Stolen Earth, Journey�s End, and the second part of The End of Time

As of 2012 he has become part of the regular cast in Waterloo Road.

Biography originally by Nicole-Anne Keyton


Richard Dinnick was 56 - 5 credits, including Writer for Recorded Time and Other Stories(BF)

Richard Dinnick is a British screenwriter, novelist, and audio playwright.

He is the winner of the 2012 BBC Writersroom opportunity to create a new show and to write for TV on the BBC and is now writing on the CBeebies TV shows Tree Fu Tom and Go Jetters - amongst others - as well as Mind Candy's new Moshi Monsters TV Show.

He was one of six finalists in a recent BBC Academy opportunity to workshop a script for Waterloo Road.


Pamela Salem (died 2024 aged 80) would have been 80 - 16 credits, including Toos in The Robots of Death

Pamela Salem is a British film and television actress.

She appeared in Doctor Who twice, playing Toos in the 1977 story, Robots of Death and Rachel in the 1988 story Remembrance of the Daleks.

She was born in Bombay, India, and educated at Heidelberg University in Germany and later at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England. 

She is best-remembered on television for her co-starring role in the early 1980s ITV children's fantasy series Into the Labyrinth as the evil witch Belor, and her late 1980s guest role in the BBC's popular soap opera EastEnders as shady mafia affiliate Joanne Francis. 

She had previously auditioned for the role of the Fourth Doctor's companion Leela, but the role eventually went to Louise Jameson instead. Salem also had a recurring role in the British sitcom French Fields between 1989-91.

Other television guest appearances have included roles in popular British series such as Out of the Unknown, Blake's 7, The Onedin Line, The Professionals, Howards' Way, Ever Decreasing Circles and All Creatures Great and Small, and more recently in American series including Magnum, P.I., Party of Five, ER, and The West Wing where she played a British prime minister.

In film, she played the role of Miss Moneypenny in the 'unofficial' 1983 James Bond film Never Say Never Again, starring Sean Connery. She also appeared in Michael Crichton's The Great Train Robbery (1979, another film which also starred Connery), as well as supporting roles in The Bitch (1979) and Gods and Monsters (1998).

She is married to the actor Michael O'Hagan, and they currently live in Los Angeles.


John Hurt (died 2017 aged 77) would have been 84 - 11 credits, including The War Doctor in The Day of The Doctor

Sir John Hurt, CBE is an English actor.

Hurt has had a career spanning six decades and initially came to prominence for his supporting role as Richard Rich in the film A Man for All Seasons (1966). Since then he has played leading roles as Quentin Crisp in the TV film The Naked Civil Servant (1975), the deformed man John Merrick in David Lynch's biopic The Elephant Man (1980), Winston Smith in the dystopian drama Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), Mr. Braddock in the Stephen Frears drama The Hit (1984), and Stephen Ward in the drama depicting the Profumo affair, Scandal (1989). He is also known for his television roles as Caligula in I, Claudius (1976), and the War Doctor in the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special (2013).

Hurt's other films include the prison drama Midnight Express (1978), the science-fiction horror film Alien (1979), the adventure film Rob Roy (1995), the political thriller V for Vendetta (2006), the sci-fi adventure film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), the Harry Potter film series (2001–11), the Hellboy films (2004 and 2008), and the Cold War espionage film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011). His character's final scene in Alien has been named by a number of publications as one of the most memorable in cinematic history.

He was married to actress Annette Robertson between 1962 and 1964, lived with French model Marie-Lise Volpeliere-Pierrot between 1967 and 1983, married to actress Donna Peacock between 1984 and 1990, production assistant Joan Dalton between 1990 and 1996, lived with Sarah Owens between 1996 and 2002, and is now lives near Cromer in Norfolk with his fourth wife Anwen Rees Meyers, who he married in 2005. He has two sons, Alexander "Sasha" John Vincent Hurt and Nicholas "Nick" Hurt, both from his third marriage.