Season 12

The twelfth season of Doctor Who ran between 28 December 1974 and 10 May 1975. It was the first season of the series to feature Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. It was also the last Doctor Who season to have a December/January start until the Peter Davison era.

Overview
Season 12 consisted of five serials and twenty episodes and was the shortest season to date. The season was shortened by a decision by the BBC to move Terror of the Zygons, originally intended as the finale, to the start of Season 13 to allow the next season to begin earlier and let Doctor Who better compete against the soon-to-debut Space: 1999.

All the stories in this season were interconnected. Several forming a loose story arc relating to Space Station Nerva. The Cybermen returned to the series for the first time since The Invasion. Genesis of the Daleks, a story which introduced Davros and showed the creation of the Daleks, is one of the most famous of all Doctor Who serials.

Primary cast

 * The Fourth Doctor - Tom Baker
 * Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
 * Harry Sullivan - Ian Marter

Guest cast

 * Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - Nicholas Courtney
 * Warrant Officer Benton - John Levene
 * Hilda Winters - Patricia Maynard
 * K1 Robot - Michael Kilgarriff
 * Professor Kettlewell - Edward Burnham
 * Vira - Wendy Williams
 * Noah - Kenton Moore
 * Rogin - Richardson Morgan
 * Vural - Donald Douglas
 * Krans - Glyn Jones
 * Erak - Peter Walshe
 * Styre - Kevin Lindsay
 * Davros – Michael Wisher
 * Nyder – Peter Miles
 * Gharman – Dennis Chinnery
 * Stevenson - Ronald Leigh-Hunt
 * Lester - William Marlowe
 * Tyrum - Kevin Stoney
 * Vorus - David Collings

Stories set during this season
PROSE: A Device of Death (immediately after Genesis of the Daleks)

VHS

 * Robot (1992)
 * The Ark in Space (1989) (edited movie format)
 * The Ark in Space (1994)
 * The Sontaran Experiment/Genesis of the Daleks (1991)
 * Genesis of the Daleks (2001)
 * Revenge of the Cybermen (1983/1984) (edited movie format)
 * Revenge of the Cybermen (1999)
 * The Tom Baker Years (1992) (extracts from each of the stories)

DVD
The stories were released on DVD individually in between 2002 and 2010.

Novels

 * Doctor Who and the Giant Robot
 * Doctor Who and the Ark in Space
 * Doctor Who and the Sontaran Experiment
 * Doctor Who and the Genesis of the Daleks
 * Revenge of the Cybermen

Scriptbooks

 * In 2004, BBC Books published a hardcover, annotated collection of all the scripts from Season 12.