Doctor Who Blog

50 Glorious Years: Episode 13 - 1975

Arguably the one of the best years to be a Doctor Who fan, particularly in the UK, where there were basically two seasons that had most of their episodes broadcast this year. It started with the 2nd episode of Robot broadcast in the first week of January of 1975. A run of 19 episodes continued all the way to the end of Revenge of the Cybermen part 4, before a gap of a few months and a new season of 26 episodes starting in September with Terror of the Zygons and with the calendar year ending off with The Android Invasion part 4.  That’s a total of 35 new episodes that were broadcast in 1975, and that doesn’t even include omnibus-version repeats of The Ark in Space and Genesis of the Daleks both of which were originally broadcast in 1975 as well.

And let’s not just talk about quantity, but quality. In addition to the above stories mentioned (many of which are amongst the greatest of all time in many-a-fan’s opinion), let’s not forget Pyramids of Mars was included in this as well. The quality was no doubt reflected in the soaring popularity of the series. Tom Baker became a house-hold name overnight and the series attained record ratings this year, with The Ark in Space garnering 13.6 million viewers and placing as high as 5th on the weekly chart - the highest chart position the series ever reached in the classic series days (generally speaking top 10 finishes were rare for Doctor Who back then, even when the show was at its most popular).

It wasn’t all happening on screen - Target novels were now coming out more regularly, where fans could re-live some of the latest adventures and classics from the past. The Doctor Who Annual and comic strips were also still publishing. After being relatively quiet since the days of Dalekmania, Doctor Who merchandise was coming more and more to the fore, something that would only increase as the years went by. Thoughts started to develop about another Doctor Who movie for the big screen (which would have been the first in 9 years), but somewhat remarkably, a third motion picture cinema film still hasn’t happened to this day…..

Regardless, 1975 was Doctor Who‘s year, arguably like no other year had been. With all this unparalleled success, Doctor Who was unquestionably the world’s top science-fiction series that was still in production, successfully seeing off competition from Space:1999 despite the larger budget the latter program had. The stories and characters for Doctor Who were simply too good and still stand the test of time. All the years later, there is something to be said about the heady days of 1975.

2 Comments...

Love that photo. 

Is that an Eclair camera?

Posted by Rod  on  05/03  at  09:56 PM

Dr. Who all the way!
randomheads.com/entertainmenthead/top-10-sci-fi-movies-of-all-time/2014/05/24/

Posted by Random Heads  on  05/26  at  12:30 AM

Post a comment

Name:

Email:

Location:

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Submit the word you see below:


Recent Stories

Issue 172

After the anniversary : Enlightenment reviews the anniversary celebrations! Plus…

  • Michael Wisher and Philip Hinchcliffe interviewed
  • The recovered Troughton episodes
  • News and reviews

Download this issue

Issue 171

Their Secrets Revealed : The final reviews for Season 2013! Plus, in this last print issue of Enlightenment before the all-digital era begins…

  • Re-evaluating recovered episodes—you know, hypothetically…
  • The Gazetteer of Doom
  • News and reviews

Myth Makers Presents: Golden Years

Gold represents something long-lasting, something untarnished and unaffected by the passage of time. Myth Makers Presents: Golden Years celebrates the timeless elements of Doctor Who that have appealed to the show’s followers for half a century. Celebrating 50 years of Doctor Who with DWIN’s fiction anthology, Myth Makers!

An important message for DWIN members

Enlightenment will be switching to a digital only publication and membership fees will be ending. Find out more about this important change

New Doctor to be Announced LIVE on SPACE this Sunday!

Who will be the next Doctor? Find out LIVE on SPACE this Sunday at 2pm Eastern, 11am Pacific.


Is something broken?

©Doctor Who Information Network (DWIN) 2009