Doctor Who TV Series First Premieres in the United Kingdom (1963)

Doctor Who first appeared on the BBC Television Service at 17:16:20 GMT on Saturday, November 23rd, 1963. The airing began a few minutes later than the scheduled program time because of announcements concerning the previous day’s assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

An Unearthly Child (sometimes referred to as 100,000 BC) is the first serial of Doctor Who. It was broadcast in four weekly parts from November 23rd to December 14th, 1963. The serial introduces William Hartnell as the First Doctor and his original companions: Carole Ann Ford as the Doctor’s granddaughter, Susan Foreman, along with Jacqueline Hill and William Russell as school teachers Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton. The first episode deals with Ian and Barbara’s discovery of the Doctor and his time-space ship, the TARDIS, in a junkyard in contemporary London. The remaining episodes are set amid a power struggle between warring Stone Age factions who have lost the secret of making fire.