On This Day... 19th December

 

Again, only a single episode to have debuted on this day. This was the fifth instalment of The Dalek Invasion of Earth - The Waking Ally.

Today's birthday of note is Matthew Waterhouse, who played Adric. He turns 60. Waterhouse was a fan of Doctor Who. Working on the show should have been a blast, but he did not get on well with the stars, both of whom were unhappy at the time for their own reasons. He had been working in the BBC post room when he got the part, having only acted once on TV (in the WWI public school drama To Serve Them All My Days). Once Tom Baker and Lalla Ward left, Waterhouse had to contend with Peter Davison and Janet Fielding. JNT finally accepted that there were too many companions, and so decided to bump one off. The person chosen was Adric - whom writers just weren't getting right anyway.

Waterhouse complained that this would mean he couldn't be brought back (although he was back in the first episode of the next story, and in Davison's last episode). He also claimed that no companion had ever died before, and as a fan he should have known this wasn't true. His autobiography - Blue Box Boy - was written in the third person. He still performs Adric on audio, but is better known now as an author.

Let us also remember the actor Donald Pickering - one of those who appeared in Doctor Who on more than one occasion. He featured in three stories - The Keys of Marinus (1964), The Faceless Ones (1967), and Time and the Rani (1987). He passed away today in 2009, at the age of 76.