On November 23, 1963, the first episode of a family science fiction show which would go on to become a global television phenomenon was broadcast.

Doctor Who, the story of an alien traveller in space and time who finds adventure with his granddaughter and companions, had had a fraught beginning, its pilot episode re-shot after performance and technical errors.

Its eventual launch on Saturday 23 November was somewhat overshadowed by the news from America of the assassination of President John F Kennedy the previous day.

Viewing figures for the opening episode, An Unearthly Child, featuring William Hartnell as the Doctor, Carole Ann Ford as his granddaughter Susan, and Jacqueline Hill and William Russell as her teachers Barbara and Ian, suffered accordingly.

Series producer Verity Lambert persuaded BBC bosses to re-screen the first episode before the second was shown on the following Saturday. This enabled Doctor Who’s audience to build and led to an average of six million watching the first four-part serial.

The programme’s following instalment, entitled The Daleks, would consolidate its success with the first appearance of the Doctor’s arch enemies, and launch the BBC’s first ever merchandising boom.

[Read more: December 18, 1952 - Bill and Ben, the Flower Pot Men, first appear on TV's Watch with Mother]

Doctor Who – Did you know?

  • William Hartnell took some persuading to take on the role of the Doctor, as he initially considered the show little more than a children’s programme. In the end, his desire to move away from typecasting as the gruff authority type or heavy led him to accept the part.
  • The original series opener had been intended to be The Giants by BBC staff writer C.E. Webber; when this was rejected for technical reasons, writer Anthony Coburn was forced to make changes to his script for An Unearthly Child to establish the series’ characters for the first time, using a mixture of Webber’s ideas and his own.
  • Coburn came up with the idea that the Doctor’s Tardis should look like a police box – and, in order to avoid suggestions of impropriety, that Susan was his granddaughter, not simply his young female travelling companion.
  • The series, as conceived by the BBC’s Head of Drama Sydney Newman, its Head of Serials Donald Wilson and Webber, was designed to be educational, with the Doctor’s ability to time travel opening up exploration of famous points in history.

William Hartnell (centre) as the Doctor in a 1965 episode of the show

  • The initial recording of the first episode on September 27 was bedevilled by mistakes.  It was re-recorded at Newman’s request on 18 October, with changes having been made to effects, costuming and script. Parts of the original recording were shown in a special 1991 broadcast.
  • An Unearthly Child was technically the name of the first episode of the programme, rather than the first four-part serial as a whole, although the serial has become known by that name. Original BBC publicity releases named the serial 100,000 BC.
  • By the end of the second adventure, a seven-episode series which saw the debut of the Daleks, 10.4 million people were tuning into Doctor Who.
  • It was only when Hartnell grew too ill to continue playing the part that the concept of the Doctor ‘regenerating’ was incorporated into the show.  Character actor Patrick Troughton took over the lead role from Hartnell in 1966.
  • In the first episode, Barbara and Ian taught at Coal Hill School; in the 2014 series of the show, the Twelfth Doctor’s companion, Clara Oswald, was an English teacher at the same school.