Statistics


On This Day (USA) - 1 October



The Smugglers: Episode 4 premiered on BBC One in 1966 at 5:51pm BST, watched by 4.50 million viewers.

The greed of the pirates leads to betrayals and death. With Polly held hostage, the Doctor is forced to reveal the secret hiding place of the lost treasure.


The Invisible Enemy: Part One premiered on BBC One in 1977 at 6:20pm BST, watched by 8.60 million viewers.

Eye of the Gorgon: Part One premiered on CBBC in 2007 at 5:30pm BST

The Wedding of River Song premiered on BBC One in 2011 at 7:05pm BST, watched by 7.67 million viewers.

Death is the Only Answer premiered on BBC Three in 2011 at 8:35pm BST

When Time Froze premiered on BBC Three in 2011 at 8:35pm BST

Confidential takes a front pew at the wedding of the year. Alex Kingston talks about the big day and there's the lowdown from Matt Smith and Karen Gillan.


 Birthdays
Derek Seaton (died 1979 aged 35) would be 81 - credited as Commander Hilred in The Deadly Assassin

Derek Seaton played Commander Hilred in the Doctor Who story The Deadly Assassin. He died of a brain haemorrhage in 1979 at the age of 35.

During his career, Seaton, who was married to the actress Paula Wilcox, also appeared on ITV Playhouse, EscapeShoestringBBC2 Play of the WeekRobin's NestPeople Like UsHappy Ever AfterMiss Jones and SonWithin These WallsDeath of an InformerTittertimeAnd Mother Makes FiveMan About the HouseMarked PersonalThe Strauss FamilyZ CarsDombey and SonHauntedSoftly SoftlyTheatre 625The Wednesday PlayThe Likely LadsTroilus and Cressida, and Coriolanus.


Philip Hinchcliffe will be 80 - 22 credits, including Producer for The Ark In Space

Philip Hinchcliffe is a British television producer, who was responsible for one of the most successful and well regarded periods in Doctor Who's history.

He was producer from 1975-1977, responsible for 68 episodes covering the early reign of Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. With script editor Robert Holmes he created a new type of Doctor Who story taking the series into a realm darker and more adult than had previously been seen, with a gothic atmosphere influenced by the horror films produced by Hammer Films.

Hinchcliffe was educated at Slough Grammar School and Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he studied English Literature. After a brief period working for a travel company and then as a teacher, he joined Associated Television in 1968, writing episodes for shows including the soap Crossroads (1970), then script editing the sit-com Alexander the Greatest (1971-2), children's adventure series The Jensen Code (1973), and children's drama series The Kids from 47A (1973).

In Spring 1974, at the age of 29, he was approached by the BBC's head of serials to take over as producer on Doctor Who, his first full production job, initially trailing and then succeeding long-serving producer Barry Letts. Although he trailed Letts on Tom Baker's first story Robot, he was first credited on The Ark in Space. Throughout his first year he was mostly producing scripts that had been commissioned by the previous production team prior to their departure and it was not until a year later that Hinchcliffe's full influence came to bear, with Planet of Evil in late 1975 � Tom Baker's second season in the title role of the Doctor.

During Hinchcliffe's tenure the programme achieved a popularity only previously seen during the 'Dalekmania' years of the mid 1960s. However, the BBC had received complaints from Mary Whitehouse, chairwoman of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, that the series was unduly frightening for children and could traumatise them. The NVALA had been critical of the series ever since the beginning of the 1970s and the complaints reached their height in the Hinchcliffe-produced The Deadly Assassin, where Chancellor Goth was seen to attempt to drown the Doctor by forcing his head underwater. 

While the BBC publicly defended the programme, after three seasons Hinchcliffe was moved onto the adult police thriller series Target in 1977, and his replacement Graham Williams was specifically instructed to lighten the tone of the storylines. The classic series never again achieved such consistently high viewing figures after Hinchcliffe's departure.

Hinchcliffe also wrote several novelisations of Doctor Who serials for Target Books, adapting The Keys of Marinus, The Seeds of Doom, and The Masque of Mandragora.

After Doctor Who Hinchcliffe worked on numerous series, single dramas and films including Target, Private Schulz, The Charmer, Take Me Home, Friday on My Mind and many others. He stepped down from the producer role in 1995, after working on the feature films An Awfully Big Adventure starring Hugh Grant and Total Eclipse starring Leonardo di Caprio, but was engaged as an Executive Producer by Scottish Television from 1998 to 2001, overseeing series including Taggart and the John Hannah episodes of Rebus, and one-off dramas including The Last Musketeer with Robson Green.

His daughter, Celina Hinchcliffe, is a television presenter, who fronts news programmes and sporting events for the BBC.

In recent years, Hinchcliffe has made numerous appearances on DVD releases of Doctor Who serials made under his producership. His most notable appearance is in Serial Thrillers, a documentary included in the Pyramids of Mars DVD release, focusing on his three-year reign as producer in some depth, examining what made the show so successful during that period.

wikipedia


Victor Carin (died 1981 aged 47) would be 91 - credited as Virgil Earp in The Gunfighters

Victor Carin  played Doctor McKenzie on Coronation Street in 1967. 

He appeared in the 1966 Doctor Who story The Gunfighters.

His other credits include  Sutherland's Law and Raffles.


George Coulouris (died 1989 aged 85) would be 121 - credited as Arbitan in The Keys of Marinus

George Coulouris was a prominent English film and stage actor.

Coulouris was born in Manchester, England,  and was educated at Manchester Grammar School. He attended London's Central School of Speech and Drama, in the company of fellow students Laurence Olivier and Peggy Ashcroft.

Coulouris's stage debut was in 1926 with Henry V at the Old Vic, and by 1929 he made his first Broadway appearance, followed by his first Hollywood film role in 1933.

A major impact on his life was Orson Welles, whom he met in 1936. He joined Welles' Mercury Theatre, and played Mark Antony in their opening modern dress production of Julius Caesar. In Citizen Kane (1941), Coulouris played Walter Parks Thatcher, a financier similar to J. P. Morgan. George Coulouris won a National Board of Review 'Best Actor' award in 1941 for his performance in Citizen Kane. Orson Welles was the only other Citizen Kane actor to win the same award.

During the 1930s and 1940s he remained a regular figure on the stage and screen, starring in his own Broadway production of Richard III in 1943. His films in this period included For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Mr. Skeffington (1944) and Watch on the Rhine (1943), for which he received an Oscar nomination. He also gave a notable performance as Robert de Baudricourt, in the Technicolor spectacular, Joan of Arc (1948), starring Ingrid Bergman. 

Coulouris returned to Britain after 1950, and appeared in more films, theatre and television productions. His stage work included the title role in King Lear at the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre (1952); the lead (Dr. Stockmann) in An Enemy of the People (1959) at the Cambridge Arts Theatre; Peter Flynn in Sean O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars at the Mermaid Theatre (1962); a part in August Strindberg's The Dance of Death; and Big Daddy in Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1970).

Later film roles included parts in the Doctor in the House films, Papillon, the biography of Mahler, The Long Good Friday and Murder on the Orient Express. During his life he played in over eighty films.

Radio roles were also numerous, and his television roles included parts in Danger Man and The Prisoner episode "Checkmate", and an appearance as Arbitan in the Doctor Who serial The Keys of Marinus.

 He died on April 25, 1989, of heart failure following Parkinson's disease in London.


 Deaths
Ian Liston (died 2016 aged 68) - credited as 'Hero' in The Armageddon Factor

Ian Liston played Wes Janson and an unnamed AT-AT gunner in The Empire Strikes Back.

He appeared in Doctor Who in the story The Armageddon Factor (1979).


Dorothy-Rose Gribble (died 2014 aged 97) - credited as Woman Slave in The Romans

Dorothy-Rose Gribble played the Woman Slave in the 1965 Doctor Who serial The Romans.

Also worked on Monitor and ITV Play of the Week

Fluent in German and Spanish, she was also theatre producer, narrator, poetry reader, writer and ran her own guest house. She was born in Totnes, Dorset between April and June 1917, and currently lives in Newbury.


Ian Collier (died 2008 aged 66) - 5 credits, including Stuart Hyde in The Time Monster

Ian Collier was a British actor. 

Collier appeared on stage in "Hamlet" in 1969 at the Lunt-Fontanne in New York City. He appeared in various television programmes including RentaghostHi-de-Hi! and Howards' Way

He appeared in the Doctor Who story The Time Monster. Later he became the second actor to portray the villain Omega

Collier portrayed Omega in the Fifth Doctor serial Arc of Infinity and later in the Big Finish Productions audio drama Omega. He also played Doctor Who companion Bernice Summerfield's father, Isaac Summerfield, in Death and the Daleks. And he guest starred in the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio drama Excelis Decays.


Noel Johnson (died 1999 aged 82) - 2 credits, including Charles Grover M.P. in Invasion of the Dinosaurs

Noel Johnson  was anEnglish actor.

He appeared in the 1967 story The Underwater Menace and the 1974 story Invasion of the Dinosaurs

He was the radio voice of Dick Barton special agent on BBCradio and Dan Dare on Radio Luxembourg.

His assured upper class voice cadence made him ideal for characters of that type, notably in the BBC Radio 4 dramatic adaptation of A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell. This was broadcast as 26 1-hour episodes between 1978 and 1981; Johnson played the novel sequence's narrator Nicholas Jenkins, while the younger Nicholas was played by Gareth Johnson in the first 18 episodes. In the last quarter of the series - in which Jenkins is in late middle-age - Johnson plays Jenkins alone.

His movie career included small roles in Defence of the RealmWithnail & I, andFor Your Eyes Only, and numerous television dramas, including Dixon of Dock GreenCoronation StreetOut of the UnknownDoomwatch, Death of an Expert Witness, ColditzRumpole of the BaileyInspector Morse and A Touch of Frost, amongst many others.


Vere Lorrimer (died 1998 aged 78) - credited as Tourist Guide in Silver Nemesis

Vere Lorrimer was a British television producer and director.

His work as director included many BBC dramas including Compact, Dixon of Dock Green, Doomwatchand Blake's 7.


Russ Karel (died 1995 aged 46) - 3 credits, including Assistant Floor Manager for The Sontaran Experiment

Russ Karel was Assistant Floor Manager for the Season 12 Doctor Who television stories The Ark in Space, The Sontaran Experiment and Revenge of the Cybermen.