Trivia
# Georgia Moffett, daughter of Peter Davison, who starred as the Doctor from 1982-1984, auditioned for the part of Rose. She later got the part of Jenny in the fourth series.
# Christopher Eccleston, largely unfamiliar with Doctor Who because he was never a fan of the “Doctor Who” (1963), prepared for the role of the Doctor by watching the DVD of “The Talons of Weng-Chiang”, a Tom Baker adventure originally broadcast in 1977.
# Special effects man Mike Tucker who is responsible for the model work and director Graeme Harper are the only crewmembers to have worked on the original show.
# On Saturday 5 March 2005 (some three weeks before its TV debut), a rough-cut version of episode one, “Rose” was leaked onto the Internet by an unnamed employee of a third-party contractor to CBC in Canada. The person responsible had their employment immediately terminated. The version is mostly similar to the broadcast version – the most notable difference is that instead of using Murray Gold’s new version of the theme song, a remixed version of the original was used instead
# Because of the varying technical and logistical demands of the 13 episodes of the first season, filming was broken into five production blocks. Episodes 1, 4 and 5 formed block one, and was filmed between July and September 2004. Block 2 comprised episodes 2 and 3, and was filmed between September and October 2004. Block 3 contained episodes 6 and 8 filmed between October and December. Block 4 was split into two sub blocks, 4A and 4B due to the large visual effects demands of episode 7 which on its own became block 4A, filmed between December 2004 and January 2005. Episodes 9 and 10 made up Block 4B, filmed from December through February 2005. Episodes 11-13 formed Block 5 filmed from February until March 2005.
# Producer Russell T. Davies had Christopher Eccleston’s name on a shortlist for the role of the Doctor but didn’t really think that he would accept the role. Coincidentally, Davies soon received an email from Eccleston asking if he could audition for the part.
# Colin Baker, the sixth actor to play the Doctor in the original series during the 1980s, said he was ecstatic on hearing that Christopher Eccleston was cast as the Doctor, as he feared it would be very easy to cast someone in the role who just would not suit the part.
# Penelope Wilton, who played Harriet Jones in episodes “Aliens of London” and “World War Three” of “Doctor Who” (2005), was offered a part in the original “Doctor Who” (1963) series as Lady Pienforte in the episode “Silver Nemesis”. The part was taken by Fiona Walker.
# Tom Baker and Colin Baker were considered for guest parts.
# When the first series was being made, television pirates were desperate to acquire the preview tapes. One of the people in the office had the idea of labeling the tapes with the anagram “Torchwood” rather than “Doctor Who”, as a security measure to disguise the tapes when they were delivered from Cardiff to London. Writer Russell T. Davies liked this idea so much that it later inspired him to use it as a title when creating the spin-off series, “Torchwood” (2006).
# A planned spin-off, “Rose Tyler: Earth Defence”, was canceled during pre-production in August 2006, as Russell T. Davies realized that it would render the goodbye between The Doctor and Rose at the end of season 2 meaningless and would be one spin-off too many, after “Torchwood” (2006) and “The Sarah Jane Adventures” (2007).
# Several episodes begin with the exact same sequence: a view of the earth’s moon, then panning towards earth followed by a fast zoom down to London. Episodes in which this opening was used include “Rose”, “The Christmas Invasion”, “Army of Ghosts” and “The Runaway Bride”.
# Despite quite a lot of new scenes being added to episodes in post production during the first season, all 13 episodes ran under the standard length of 45 minutes, so teaser trailers for the next week’s episode were tacked on to bring the length up to standard. This has now become a staple of the series.
# For the first season, producers were fearful of alienating new audiences with references to the original series, such as names and events, so such things were kept to a very bare minimum until audiences adjusted to the mythology. Even the first journey to another planet beyond Earth didn’t take place until season two, which is unusual considering the universe-trotting nature of the original series.
# Except for obvious scenes, most of the location shots are done in Cardiff, Wales in place for London. The one show set in Cardiff, “The Unquiet Dead,” was filmed in Swansea, mainly due to the fact that no buildings currently in Cardiff were built during that episode’s time, 1869.
# Russell T. Davies was sounded out to produce a revival of the series by the BBC One Controller of the time, Peter Salmon, in 1999. Although nothing came of this due to BBC Worldwide’s desire to make a film version of the show, by late 2003 the new Controller of BBC One, Lorraine Heggessey, had persuaded Worldwide to surrender their film ambitions so that she could commission a new television version.
# Christopher Eccleston is the third actor to play the ninth Doctor, and his ninth Doctor is the third version of the character. Rowan Atkinson played the ninth Doctor in the 1999 BBC Comic Relief charity spoof _Comic Relief: Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death (1999) (V)_. Five years later, Richard E. Grant voiced a different ninth Doctor in the BBC web animation _”Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka” (2003) (mini)_. Only Eccleston’s ninth Doctor is “canon”, or official.
# The Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) is the only Doctor to never encounter the Master on-screen. Although the Master wasn’t introduced until the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) stories, the First (Richard Hurndall–for the late William Hartnell) and Second (Patrick Troughton) Doctors have crossed paths with the Master in the 20th Anniversary special The Five Doctors.
# Stephen Fry was set to write an episode for season 2 but due to budget constraints the episode was pushed back to season 3. The script was eventually canceled as Fry didn’t have the time to rewrite the script to accommodate changes such as Rose’s replacement Martha.
# The series is recorded on single camera video and then in post production it is ‘filmised’, a digital process designed to make it look like it was made on film.
# On 29 October 2008, David Tennant announced he was leaving Doctor Who after the 4 specials in 2009.
# Peter Davison (the Fifth Doctor), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith) and John Leeson (K-9) are the only actors to play the same character in both this series and “Doctor Who” (1963).
# On 3rd January 2009, it was announced that Matt Smith would take over from David Tennant in 2010.
# Julie Gardner has said that when he was approached to play the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant seemed slightly hesitant at first, then asked her “But what would my costume be like?”
# Names thrown out who were considered to play the Eleventh Doctor include James Nesbitt, Robert Carlyle, Bill Nighy (who expressed interest), David Walliams (who also expressed interest and came extremely close to being cast, but conflicts with Little Britain USA forced him to turn it down), Harry Lloyd, David Morrissey, Paterson Joseph, David Knijnenburg, Daniel Radcliffe, Catherine Zeta-Jones, John Simm, Russell Tovey, Sean Pertwee, Russell Crowe and Randy Orton.
# Each episode takes approximately 3 weeks to shoot.
# Freema Agyeman, John Barrowman, Naoko Mori, Gareth David-Lloyd, and Eve Myles are the only actors to play the same character in both “Doctor Who” (2005) and “Torchwood” (2006).
# One of the main differences in style from the original series, “Doctor Who” (1963), is that this series is recorded entirely on single camera, whereas studio scenes in the old series were usually recorded on multi-camera. This enables episodes of this series to be edited far better than the old series and allows directors to inject far more energy, pace and action into it. It also means that this series requires more time and money spent on recording it.
# Michael Grade, an outspoken critic of the original series for many years and the former BBC One controller who incurred the wrath of many fans when he took it off the air in 1985 for 18 months, admitted that he was completely won over by this revival of the series, which he described as “a classy, popular triumph for people of all ages and all backgrounds – real value for money for our licence fee payers”.