From the people who brought you Flight Through Entirety.
It’s inevitable, I guess: a new alien or monster or villain débuts in Doctor Who to considerable popular acclaim, and so next year, or the year after, or even later than that, the production team decide to bring them back.
But how do you do that? You can’t just re-do the story they first appeared in and get them to do all the same things as last time, can you? And you can’t put them in a story so different that they lose all the things that everyone loved about them last time. It’s a problem.
In Season 2 of 500 Year Diary, we look at how (and whether) the production team successfully walked this tightrope. All your favourites are here — the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Ice Warriors and the Sontarans, of course, as well as some villains and monsters from later in the show’s history — and even one from its most successful spinoff.
Saturday 21 November 1964
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
The Second Coming,
Episode 1
Sunday 27 April 2025.
This week, we launch the second season of 500 Year Diary with the first of our Second Comings — Doctor Who’s second ever Dalek story, The Dalek Invasion of Earth. How will the Daleks survive leaving their city on Skaro and subjecting themselves to the public gaze just before Christmas?
Saturday 11 February 1967
The Moonbase
The Second Coming,
Episode 2
Sunday 4 May 2025.
We’re walking on eggshells this week as we await the arrival of an army of marching Cybermen, approaching the Moonbase with a dastardly plan to change Doctor Who for ever. For the better, on the whole.
Saturday 25 January 1969
The Seeds of Death
The Second Coming,
Episode 3
Sunday 11 May 2025.
It’s Invaders from Mars this week, as the terrifying monsters we thawed out in 5000 AD last year make an early appearance on the Moon just sixteen years after the visit of the Cybermen. Their goal: to cement their position somewhere on the top ten list of recurring Doctor Who monsters. Jeremy Radick joins us as we try to work out exactly where.