What's it about? A documentary celebrating 40 years of the Time Lord.
Who's in it? Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and many others.
Tell me more The BBC1 programme features archive clips and a host of original interviews. Among the talking heads is Verity Lambert, Doctor Who's first producer (more recently she's worked on Jonathan Creek and The Cazalets), when those most enduring and popular monsters, the Daleks, first appeared — on 21 December 1963. Was it her intention to petrify Britain's children four days before the arrival of Father Christmas? "I don't think it was," she replies. "It just turned out that way."
Anyway, Lambert contends, "I don't know that the Daleks are as scary as people make them out to be. I think kids really rather enjoyed them. They like to be scared. I certainly don't think that we did anything to traumatise them more than anything else, really."
No more than Santa himself, perhaps? "Well yes, all that coming down the chimney. He's got presents, which makes it better ..."
Fear not, children — for years Daleks couldn't climb stairs, let alone get down a chimney.
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