1982 (releases)


 * 4 January - TV: Castrovalva Part 1 was first broadcast, launching Season 19 and properly introducing Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor. Beginning with this story and continuing until 1989, the lead actor was credited as "The Doctor", not "Doctor Who" or "Dr. Who". Also, beginning with this story, the series moved to a new broadcast schedule, with the series beginning in January rather than the autumn, and airing two episodes a week. This format continued throughout the Davison era.
 * 5 January - TV: Castrovalva Part 2 was first broadcast.
 * 11 January - TV: Castrovalva Part 3 was first broadcast.
 * 12 January - TV: Castrovalva Part 4 was first broadcast.
 * 14 January - PROSE: Doctor Who and the State of Decay was first published.
 * 18 January - TV: Four to Doomsday Part 1 was first broadcast.
 * 18 - Actor Rik Makarem was born.
 * 19 January - TV: Four to Doomsday Part 2 was first broadcast.
 * 25 January - TV: Four to Doomsday Part 3 was first broadcast.
 * 26 January - TV: Four to Doomsday Part 4 was first broadcast.
 * Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly magazine changed its title to Doctor Who Monthly this month.
 * 1 February - TV: Kinda Part 1 was first broadcast.
 * 2 February - TV: Kinda Part 2 was first broadcast.
 * 8 February - TV: Kinda Part 3 was first broadcast.
 * 9 February - TV: Kinda Part 4 was first broadcast.
 * 15 February - TV: The Visitation Part 1 was first broadcast.
 * 16 February - TV: The Visitation Part 2 was first broadcast.
 * 22 February - TV: The Visitation Part 3 was first broadcast.
 * 23 February - TV: The Visitation Part 4 was first broadcast.
 * 1 March - TV: Black Orchid Part 1 was first broadcast. This was the first purely historical story since The Highlanders.
 * 2 March - TV: Black Orchid Part 2 was first broadcast.
 * 8 March - TV: Earthshock Part 1 was first broadcast.
 * 9 March - TV: Earthshock Part 2 was first broadcast.
 * 15 March - TV: Earthshock Part 3 was first broadcast.
 * 16 March - TV: Earthshock Part 4 was first broadcast. Matthew Waterhouse left the series, with his character, Adric, becoming the first companion to be killed off since Sara Kingdom. Part 4 ended with the series' first and only silent credit scroll.
 * 22 March - TV: Time-Flight Part 1 was first broadcast. Part 1 featured the first mention of UNIT since TV: The Seeds of Doom.
 * 23 March - TV: Time-Flight Part 2 was first broadcast.
 * 29 March - TV: Time-Flight Part 3 was first broadcast.
 * 30 March - TV: Time-Flight Part 4 was first broadcast. Part 4 concluded Season 19 (which, thanks to the two-a-week broadcast schedule, had begun only three months earlier). The ending left viewers wondering whether Janet Fielding had left the series (she hadn't).
 * 6 April - Paul McGann made his TV acting debut on "Whistling Wall", an episode of Play for Today.
 * 15 April - PROSE: Doctor Who and Warriors' Gate was first published.
 * 22 April - Actor Harold Goldblatt died.
 * 12 May - Incidental music composer Humphrey Searle died.
 * 18 May - BBC Broadcasting Research issued a Viewing Panel Report gauging response to Season 19 of Doctor Who, which had seen the show change its broadcast scheduled to twice a week, as well as introduce a new Doctor, Peter Davison. As a whole, the season received a Reaction Index of 66, with the new Doctor and the timeslot change generally accepted.
 * 19 May - Writer Elwyn Jones died.
 * 20 May - PROSE: Doctor Who and the Keeper of Traken was first published.
 * 29 May - Actor Anita Briem was born.
 * 3 June - Actor Sebastian Armesto was born.
 * 17 June - Actor Arthur Darvill was born.
 * REF: Doctor Who: The Making of a Television Series was first published.
 * 19 July - Actor John Harvey died.
 * 22 July - PROSE: Doctor Who and the Leisure Hive was first published.
 * 29 July - Actor Dominic Burgess was born.
 * The Doctor Who Annual 1983 was published.
 * The K9 Annual 1983 was published, the first and only annual to be based upon the aborted K9 and Company spinoff.
 * 19 August - PROSE: Doctor Who and the Visitation was first published. This was the first Fifth Doctor story novelisation to be published. Beginning with this release, Target Books established the controversial practice of using photographic covers for stories featuring the Fifth Doctor rather than commissioning artistic covers as had been the practices to this point. Artistic covers continued for adaptations of previous Doctors' stories.
 * 2 September - An American named Tom Baker died. Although unrelated to Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor, at least one reference book later erroneously indicated that it was the Doctor Who Tom Baker who had died on this date.
 * 16 September - PROSE: Doctor Who - Full Circle was first published.
 * 22 September - Actor Billie Piper was born.

Fall

 * John Nathan-Turner received approval to produce a ninety-minute twentieth anniversary special episode for broadcast in 1983 and began feeling out the interest of Doctor Who actors, including Tom Baker. At the time, the special carried the working title The Six Doctors, and Robert Holmes was commissioned to write the script; he subsequently left the project and Terrance Dicks wrote the script.
 * 10 October - Actor Laidlaw Dalling died.
 * 21 October - PROSE: Doctor Who - Logopolis was first published.
 * 28 October - Actor Matt Smith was born.
 * 4 November - Actor Talfryn Thomas died.
 * 7 November - Actor John Bay died.
 * 18 November - PROSE: Doctor Who and the Sunmakers was first published. This was the final Target Books novelisation release to use the title form Doctor Who and....
 * 23 November - Actor Raymond Westwell died.
 * 29 November - Actor Gemma Chan was born.
 * 30 November - Actor Eric Thompson died.
 * REF: The Second Doctor Who Quiz Book was published.
 * REF: The Doctor Who Crossword Book was published.
 * 4 December - Actor George Tovey died.
 * 6 December - Actor Ryan Carnes was born.
 * 21 December - Actor Edmund Bailey died.
 * 24 December - TV: A Girl's Best Friend was rebroadcast on BBC2.

Unknown dates

 * Magnet Books, a subsidiary of Methuen Children's Books, published Doctor Who Quiz Book of Dinosaurs by Michael Holt, the first of a series of four in the Doctor Who Quiz Book series (not to be confused with a similarly titled, concurrent series by Nigel Robinson). These illustrated paperback books (published in the same format as Target Books novelisations) contained original short stories featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan Jovanka that set up short quizzes related to the subject matter of the book. The remaining three books in the series were published in 1983.
 * The first edition of The Doctor and the Enterprise by Jean Airey was published; this unauthorised crossover between Doctor Who, Star Trek and Darkover became a cult classic in this initial small-press publication and an edited version was published in 1989 by Pioneer Books.