Doctor Who

As originally written, the Daleks and Thals were the victims of an alien neutron bomb attack, but Nation later dropped the aliens and made the Daleks the aggressors.

According to Lambert, "We didn't have a lot of choice—we only had the Dalek serial to go ...

The programme first appeared on the BBC Television Service at 17:16:20 GMT on 23 November 1963; this was eighty seconds later than the scheduled programme time, because of announcements concerning the previous day's assassination of John F.

It was to be a regular weekly programme, each episode 25 minutes of transmission length.

Sydney Newman, the head of drama, was mainly responsible for developing the programme, with the first format document for the series being written by Newman along with the head of the script department (later head of serials) Donald Wilson and staff writer C.

Webber; in a 1971 interview, Wilson claimed to have named the series, and when this claim was put to Newman, he did not dispute it.