On This Day... 18th June

A day of farewells today - on screen and in real life.

In 1966 Steven said goodbye to the Doctor and Dodo in the fourth and final part of The Savages. 

The actor Frederick Jaeger, who played Jano in this story, passed away on this date in 2004, aged 86. As well as Jano he played Professor Sorenson in Planet of Evil, and K9's creator Professor Marius in The Invisible Enemy. The character Jaeger in The Mutants was named after him.

In 2005 we bade farewell to Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. He regenerated into David Tennant's Tenth Doctor at the conclusion of Parting of the Ways, which brought the revived series' first season to a successful conclusion.

Eccleston declined a return to the role for The Day of the Doctor - necessitating the creation of the hitherto unheard of War Doctor, though he has since agreed to essay the role again on audio. He has ruled himself out of a 60th Anniversary appearance, stating he would only do it if it was him alone, not as part of a multi-Doctor set-up.

Today we especially remember Roger Delgado. It was on this date in 1973 that he was killed in a car accident whilst on location for a film in Turkey. He was 55. 

The definitive Master, he first appeared in Terror of the Autons, and then in all the rest of the stories in Season 8. Realising that his appearances were becoming too predictable he featured in fewer stories after this - two in Season 9 and only one in Season 10 (Frontier in Space being his last story). However, this reduction in appearances led to him wanting to leave, as he was not being offered work due to people thinking he was on the show full-time.

A grand finale was planned for him at the end of Season 11, when the character would be killed off, but events in Turkey meant this was not to be. Delgado's death was one of the reasons that Jon Pertwee chose to leave the series after five years.

His widow Kismet was given the role of a Spider voice in Planet of the Spiders, the story that filled the slot which would have seen Delgado's departure from the series.