1974 (releases)

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1974 in

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the DWU • production history • vital statistics • releases

In 1974, a number of things set in or relevant to the Doctor Who universe were released or published.

• Jon Pertwee and Elisabeth Sladen recorded a special ten-minute mini-adventure featuring the Third Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and the Daleks for the BBC Radio programme Glorious Goodwood. This appears to be the earliest known original Doctor Who audio story. It was never broadcast, but was eventually included on one of the Doctor Who at the BBC CD releases in 2005.
• Doctor Who received one of its first pieces of major critical recognition when it received the 1974 Writers' Guild Award for Best British Children's Original Drama Script. This fact was trumpeted on the covers of Target novelisations published afterwards.
• 2 January - Voice actor Toby Hadoke was born.
• 5 January - Episode four of The Time Warrior was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 12 January - Episode one of Invasion of the Dinosaurs was first broadcast on BBC1. The episode bore the on-screen title Invasion to preserve the cliffhanger of the first episode. This was the first time since the final episode of The Gunfighters aired in May 1966 that an episode carried a title different than that of the complete storyline.
• 14 January - Actor Paul Whitsun-Jones died.
• 17 January - Target Books followed its successful 1973 reprintings of novelisations from the 1960s with the publications of its first newly commissioned adaptations, Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion by Terrance Dicks, based upon the Third Doctor serial Spearhead from Space, and Doctor Who and the Cave-Monsters by Malcolm Hulke, adapting Doctor Who and the Silurians. Auton Invasion was the first of many Doctor Who novels written by Dicks over the next thirty-plus years and Target continued to novelise Doctor Who adventures for the next twenty years. The practice of giving novelisations titles differing from the broadcast versions continued off-and-on into the 1980s, though it occurred less frequently from the late 1970s.
  • Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion also marked the start of a long and prolific association between Dicks and the world of Doctor Who printed fiction; over the next thirty-five years he wrote not only the lion's share of Target novelisations, but also contributed to most of the later lines of spin-off continuation fiction.
• 19 January - Episode two of Invasion of the Dinosaurs was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 26 January - Episode three of Invasion of the Dinosaurs was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 30 January - Actor Olivia Colman was born.
• 2 February - Episode four of Invasion of the Dinosaurs was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 9 February - Episode five of Invasion of the Dinosaurs was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 16 February - Episode six of Invasion of the Dinosaurs was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 16 - Richard Franklin departed the series as a regular, though he returned later in the season.
• 23 February - Part one of Death to the Daleks was first broadcast on BBC1. This episode was later deleted by the BBC. Although another copy was eventually discovered, this was the most recent episode to have been successfully "junked" by the BBC archives.
• 2 March - Part two of Death to the Daleks was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 5 March - Actor Matt Lucas was born.
• 9 March - Part three of Death to the Daleks was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 16 March - Part four of Death to the Daleks was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 23 March - Part one of The Monster of Peladon was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 30 March - Part two of The Monster of Peladon was first broadcast.
• Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon was first published.
• Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks was first published.
• 6 April - Part three of 'The Monster of Peladon was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 13 April - Part four of The Monster of Peladon was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 20 April - Part five of The Monster of Peladon was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 23 April - Actor Verona Joseph was born.
• 27 April - Part six of The Monster of Peladon was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 28 April - Production began on Robot, the first story featuring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor.
• 1 May - The final studio recording session for Planet of the Spiders and for Jon Pertwee was held. Tom Baker, already in the midst of production of his first story, attended and filmed a regeneration sequence.
• 4 May - Part one of Planet of the Spiders was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 11 May - Part two of Planet of the Spiders was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 18 May - Part three of Planet of the Spiders was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 21 May - Actor Juliet Cowan was born.
• 25 May - Part four of Planet of the Spiders was first broadcast on BBC1.
• 27 May - The edited 90-minute compilation of The Sea Devils, as first broadcast on 27 December 1972, received an unscheduled repeat showing as a replacement for the rained-off Yorkshire -v- Lancashire cricket match.
• 1 June - Part five of Planet of the Spiders was first broadcast.
• 8 June - Part six of Planet of the Spiders was first broadcast on BBC1, concluding the eleventh season of Doctor Who, and ending the Third Doctor era.
• 31 July - Actor Emilia Fox was born.
• The Doctor Who Annual 1975 was published.
• 9 September - Actor Jim Tyson died.
• 22 September - Actor Stephanie Bidmead died.
• 30 September - Actors Tom Baker and Philip Hinchcliffe were interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Good Morning Sou'West.
• 5 October - Actor Marshall Lancaster was born.
• 11 October - Writer Ian Mond was born.
• 17 October - Doctor Who and the Dæmons and Doctor Who and the Sea-Devils were first published.
• 9 November - Actor Ian Hallard was born.
• 20 November - Actor David O'Donnell was born.
• 21 November - Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen was first published. This was the first published novelisation of a Second Doctor story.
• 16 December - The stage play Doctor Who and the Daleks in The Seven Keys to Doomsday premièred at the Adelphi Theatre. This was the first professional stage play to feature the Doctor, and the first Doctor Who-related stage play since The Curse of the Daleks in 1965-66.
• 16 - Voice actor Setsuji Satō was born.
• 28 December - Part one of Robot was first broadcast on BBC1, launching Season 12. Besides properly introducing Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, the episode also saw Ian Marter debuting as new companion Harry Sullivan.