List of Doctor Who television stories

This is a list of Doctor Who televised stories.

Episodes broadcast over the internet (webcasts) and mini-episodes are also included on this list. Names used are those given by the BBC as of today. For the 1963 version of the programme, this means that the list employs the DVD releases name in most cases, which may differ for some titles, particularly those broadcast from 1963 to 1965. This does not include Doctor Who spin-offs.

Doctor Who episodes were generally broadcast on Saturday evenings, with occassional shifts to the schedule.

First Doctor
The First Doctor was portrayed by William Hartnell from 1963 to 1966.

Webcast
Due to the nature of the original version of this story being a single episode, the entire thing was recreated by UCLAN in 2019, in the same format and as close to original as possible, and released onto YouTube.

Second Doctor
The Second Doctor was portrayed by Patrick Troughton from 1966 to 1969.

Third Doctor
The Third Doctor was portrayed by Jon Pertwee from 1970 to 1974.

Season 7
Colour production began in this season.

Season 10
The opening story of season 10 introduced its first ever Anniversary Special, celebrating 10 years of the show.

Season 11
Note: Even though all stories from the Jon Pertwee era exist in full, some of the stories were wiped in their original  videotape format, leaving only   film telerecordings made for overseas sales. These episodes were electronically restored to colour in later years.

Fourth Doctor
The Fourth Doctor was portrayed by Tom Baker from 1974 to 1981.

Season 13
The penultimate story of the season, The Brain of Morbius, is notable for suggesting that the Doctor had several lives before the First Doctor.

Season 16 (The Key to Time)
The show makes its first attempt at a season-long story arc with the mysterious Key to Time making appearances through the entire season. The story arc is loose and is not considered to be a single story by this wiki.

Season 17
Note: Due to Shada being affected by BBC industrial action around the time it was filming, the story was never completed and ended up being unbroadcast.
 * An attempt to remake the story was made on 4 February 1992, with the footage being stitched together with linking narration from Tom Baker, as himself, and released on BBC Video on 6 July 1992.
 * Big Finish Productions remade the story as WC: Shada with Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor on 12 and 14 November 2002 and released from 2 May to 6 June 2003. An exclusive adaption in the form of AUDIO: Shada was released on 21 November 2003.
 * In 2011, Ian Levine privately funded animation to fill in the gaps in the already existing parts of the story. Paul Jones was hired to fill in for Baker, who declined to appear. Levine hoped for an agreement with BBC Worldwide for a commercial release on DVD. This never materialised.
 * An attempt to recreate the story with animation was made with recording taking place from 9 to 13 June 2017. Baker returned as the Doctor, and even filmed a special live-action coda on 13 September 2017. The story was broadcast on 19 July and released as digital download in November 2017.

Fifth Doctor
The Fifth Doctor was portrayed by Peter Davison from 1981 to 1984.

For this era the broadcast schedule was shifted to twice a week, and moved around on the days of broadcast.

Season 19
Beginning this season, broadcast was moved to Mondays and Tuesdays.

Season 20
Beginning this season, broadcast was moved to Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with the exception of Part 1 of Arc of Infinity, which was broadcast on Monday.

Children in Need 1983
A special episode was produced to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series, as part of the Children in Need charity. It could have been considered to be a part of either season 20 or season 21.

It marked a rare instance, and the second of its kind, in the "Classic" era of single episode comprising the full story, last seen with Season 3's Mission to the Unknown.

It marked the first instance of an actor in the role of the Doctor being replaced; notably the First Doctor being portrayed by Richard Hurndall, replacing William Hartnell who had fallen ill and died in 1975.

The special was broadcast on a Wednesday.

Season 21
Beginning this season, broadcast was moved to Thursdays and Fridays, with the exception of Resurrection of the Daleks which was broadcast on two consecutive Wednesdays.

Sixth Doctor
The Sixth Doctor was portrayed by Colin Baker from 1984 to 1986.

With the exception of The Twin Dilemma, the schedule was shifted back to broadcast once a week.

Season 22
The show's format changed to 45-minute episodes in this season.

From this season onward, broadcast was changed back to Saturdays.

Season 23 (The Trial of a Time Lord)
25-minute episodes resumed. The Trial of a Time Lord was produced as four separate stories (The Mysterious Planet, Mindwarp, Terror of the Vervoids, The Ultimate Foe) with 3 of them consisting of 4 episodes and the last being 2 episodes, making up 14 episodes. Like season 16, season 23 had an overriding story arc.

Seventh Doctor
The Seventh Doctor was portrayed by Sylvester McCoy from 1987 to 1989, and in 1996.

McCoy very briefly portrayed the Sixth Doctor for the regeneration into the Seventh Doctor.

Season 24
This season moved broadcast to Mondays.

Season 25
From this season onwards, broadcast was moved to Wednesdays.

Children in Need
This special was broadcast on a Friday and Saturday.

Eighth Doctor
The Eighth Doctor was portrayed by Paul McGann in 1996, 2003, and 2013.

It marks the first time for a Doctor's main run to consist of a movie, and the first time their main run only consists of a single story.

TV Movie
The movie was broadcast on a Sunday.

Mini-episode
This mini-episode was created as part of the 50th anniversary in 2013.

The story gave this Doctor the previously-unseen regeneration into the War Doctor, portrayed by John Hurt.

Comic Relief
The Ninth Doctor was portrayed by Rowan Atkinson in 1999. The story also featured the Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth Doctors portrayed by Richard E. Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant and Joanna Lumley.

The skit was broadcast on a Friday.

Animated serial
The Ninth Doctor was portrayed by Richard E Grant in 2003.

The serial was broadcast on Thursdays.

Series 1
The Ninth Doctor was portrayed by Christopher Eccleston in 2005.

Beginning with series 1 of the BBC Wales-produced Doctor Who the multi-episode serial format was abandoned in favour of a mixture of standalone single-episode stories and two- (or three-) parters, in an ongoing story arc. Standard episode length changed to 45 minutes, with occasional longer episodes. For promotional purposes, the BBC chose to start numbering the series anew, although officially the count continued from 1989's Season 26. This wiki preserves the numbering in this list and its infoboxes.

From this series onwards, the Saturday broadcast schedule was retained. At the end of The Parting of the Ways, David Tennant make his first Doctor Who appearance as the Tenth Doctor.

Tenth Doctor
The Tenth Doctor was portrayed by David Tennant from 2005 to 2010.

Beginning with Tennant's era, the producers began varying the story formats, adding occasional mini-episodes (usually produced for charity) and an annual Christmas Special story (both of which are generally considered separate from the season that follows). Several episodes have exceeded the 45-minute standard.

Series 2
The special was broadcast on a Sunday.

Series 3
The special was broadcast on a Monday.

Series 4
The special was broadcast on a Tuesday.

2008-2010 specials
Episodes began being filmed in HD from Planet of the Dead.

Unusual to the show, a series of five specials were featured following the series finale Journey's End to compensate for the lack of an actual series in the year between this and the following series: two Christmas Specials, an Easter Special, an Autumn Special and a New Year Special. The second Christmas Special and the New Year Special marks the first time since Season 26 that a multi-parter is labelled under one title.

These specials were generally considered by the production team at the time to be part of the preceding Series 4, being specifically coded "4.X". David Tennant considered Planet of the Dead to be "Episode 15".

The specials were broadcast on a Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and two Fridays.

Eleventh Doctor
The Eleventh Doctor was portrayed by Matt Smith from 2010 to 2013.

This Doctor's era, as of 2022, holds the record for having the largest amount of mini-episodes in the show's history, a total of 29.

Series 6
Broadcast of series 6 was split in half between episodes seven and eight.

The specials were broadcast on a Saturday and Sunday.

Series 7
Series 7 was split again, with episodes one through five — featuring the outgoing companions' final adventures — being broadcast in late 2012, and episodes six through thirteen, introducing a new companion, following in 2013. The 2012 Christmas Special was broadcast in-between.

This series was the first of the revived series not to include any two-part stories. It was marketed as a series of "blockbuster" stories, instead.

The special was broadcast on a Tuesday.

The final story, The Name of the Doctor, established a hitherto unknown incarnation of the Doctor: the War Doctor, portrayed by John Hurt.

2013 specials
A special episode was produced to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the series, alongside the Christmas special. Could have been considered to be a part of series 7.

The 50th anniversary special gave some insight into the life of the War Doctor, portrayed by John Hurt. It also introduced a new incarnation from the far future in the Doctor's timeline, known as the Curator, played by Tom Baker.

The specials were broadcast on a Saturday and Wednesday.

Twelfth Doctor
The Twelfth Doctor was portrayed by Peter Capaldi from 2013 to 2017.

Series 8
Beginning with series 8, thirteen episodes were cut down to twelve episodes.

Series 9
The specials were broadcast on a Thursday and Friday.

Series 10
The last story of the era, Twice Upon a Time, saw the second instance of an actor for the Doctor being replaced; notably also the second time for the First Doctor, with David Bradley replacing Richard Hurndall who died in 1984, only half a year after he himself replaced William Hartnell, who died in 1975. With this, Bradley would become the regular actor of this particular incarnation.

The specials were broadcast on a Sunday and Monday.

Thirteenth Doctor
The Thirteenth Doctor was portrayed by Jodie Whittaker from 2017 to 2022.

Series 11
Beginning with series 11, the incoming executive producers changed the season standard of twelve, 45-minute episodes and a Christmas Special, to ten, 50-minute episodes (with some variance) and a New Year Special, as well as changing the broadcast day to Sunday. Like series 7, this series did not include any two-part stories.

The special was broadcast on a Tuesday.

Series 12
Series 12's opening story was a two-parter, broadcast under one title, in the first example of this format since Series 4's The End of Time. Part One replaced the New Year Special and was broadcast on a Wednesday.

The half-way point of the series, Fugitive of the Judoon, established a hitherto unknown incarnation of the Doctor had existed: the Fugitive Doctor portrayed by Jo Martin.

The final story of the series, The Timeless Children, established that the Doctor was the being known as the Timeless Child and had therefore lived several hitherto unknown lives before the First Doctor, confirming the suggestion made in Season 13's The Brain of Morbius.

The special was broadcast on a Friday.

Series 13 (Flux)
The main run of series 13 was entitled Doctor Who: Flux. This series re-introduced the serialised format, unrepresented since Doctor Who's original run in season 26.

It was the first series since season 23 (The Trial of a Time Lord) to be made into one continuing serial, and as such it is considered a single story by this wiki.

This was a format previously used in Torchwood, specifically for series 3 (Children of Earth) and series 4 (Miracle Day).

For the first time in Doctor Who since the William Hartnell era story The Gunfighters, individual episodes were also given their own story titles (The Halloween Apocalypse, War of the Sontarans, Once, Upon Time, Village of the Angels, Survivors of the Flux and The Vanquishers).

The Flux storylines were also each called a "Chapter", rather than "Part" as previously used.

2022 specials
Similar to back in 2008-2010, a series of three specials were commissioned to compensate for the lack of an actual series in the year between The Vanquishers and the following era, starting with a New Year Special.

The show also re-introduced the Easter Special, not seen since the aforementioned specials.

As part of the 100th Anniversary celebrations of the BBC, an event was held across a week, called the BBC 100, which included the special episode The Power of the Doctor, labelled a Centenary Special, the first story to be labelled such.

Similar to the aforementioned specials, these specials were considered to be part of the preceding Series 13.

The specials were broadcast on a Saturday and two Sundays.

Fourteenth Doctor
The Fourteenth Doctor was portrayed by David Tennant from 2022 onwards.

It marked the first time for a previous actor to have portrayed the Doctor, to be returning as the incumbent Doctor.