On This Day... 17th April

 

The Doctor and his companions were encountering The Warlords today in 1965, in the final instalment of The Crusade.

Then, in 1971, he and Jo were caught up in the middle of a conflict between colonists and miners in Part Two of Colony In Space.

2010 saw the Eleventh Doctor's rite of passage as he encountered the Daleks for the first time. Luckily for him the good ones got bumped off early, and he only had to deal with the crap New Paradigm - the woefully inept attempt by Steven Moffat to redesign a design classic. This was Victory of the Daleks. The victory proved to be for the more original design, as the New Paradigm were soon after dumped.

At time of writing in 2022, we are just a few hours away from the return of the Sea Devils, after half a century away, in Legend of the Sea Devils.

Today we wish David Bradley a very happy 80th birthday. In 2013 he portrayed William Hartnell in the 50th anniversary drama about the birth of Doctor Who - An Adventure in Space and Time. This came soon after he had played the villainous role of Solomon in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship.

Bradley also voiced the vulture-like Shansheeth in The Death of the Doctor, one of The Sarah Jane Adventures.

It was peter Capaldi who recommended Bradley to play the First Doctor after the idea of a multi-Doctor story had been suggested at a Comic-Con - one in which the latest Doctor met the first. This proved to be in Capaldi's swansong story, Twice Upon A Time. Since then Bradley has played the First Doctor on audio.

One year older than Bradley is Brian Miller, the husband of Lis Sladen. He featured in the series on three occasions - as Dugdale in Snakedance, as Barney the tramp in Deep Breath, and as one of the Dalek voices in Resurrection of the Daleks. He also featured in his wife's series, as fairground caretaker Harry in The Mad Woman in the Attic.

Today would also have been the birthday of Miller's friend Kevin Lindsey, the definitive Sontaran actor.

They all share their birthdays with Arnold Yarrow, who portrayed the diminutive Exxilon Bellal in Death to the Daleks. His birthday cake will have to find room for a whopping 102 candles today!