Welcome to TME’s guide to the the ephemera of the Doctor Who universe. Once a home to a guide to random TV appearances, we’ve now brought in radio appearances and other footage to create a comprehensive chronological guide to what was happening in the Doctor Who world when we weren’t watching the episodes. References, jokes, interviews, skits – it’s all here!
The ‘TV only’ version of the guide was last updated in 2010. Some of the pages are still available (via the menu at the top) in 5-year blocks. We’re currently rebuilding these in ‘Doctor specific blocks’ with enhanced visuals, new information, and hundreds of new entries.
The rules for this section are somewhat flexible, but we’ve tried to be consistent…:
| What’s out | What’s in |
|---|---|
| The actual episodes broadcast in the regular timeslot 1963-1989, 2005-date, The Five Doctors, The TV Movie, and the 21st Century Christmas Specials (including re-edits) | Mini-episodes, barely-canon skits, and continuity (including re-edits) |
| Broadcast interviews (video and audio) that refererence Doctor Who | |
| Fictional shows (video and audio) referencing (directly or indirectly) Doctor Who | |
| Raw footage used to make up a broadcast episode of the series | Raw footage used to make up any of the above |
| Amateur footage of the making of the show | Amateur footage of events |
| Convention footage | |
| Straight-to-video features focussing on Doctor Who | Extracts from straight-to-video features, and trailers made specifically for home video |
There is also a ‘Beyond the TARDIS’ section containing:
- Appearances of the main cast in other shows/films, where those productions are not readily available on DVD/BD
- Appearances of the main cast in other shows/films, where those productions were released as bonuses on Doctor Who releases
- Re-used effects, props and costumes that were not intended to reference Doctor Who
This guide is likely to always be “work in progress” to an extent, as we’re still trawling through our personal collections to make additions – we currently have around a number of uncatalogued items pending – and there’s always new items coming to light!
Pages from Ceefax
Launched in September 1974, Ceefax was developed by BBC engineers looking at ways of providing subtitles for the blind or partially-sighted by sending computerised signals on a subcarrier along with the picture and sound information provided on broadcasts. By the early 80s, it had turned into a large regularly-updated repository of news, sport, weather, TV listings and other “magazine-style” features.
As a schedule-filler in the 80s, a show called Pages from Ceefax was often broadcast at unusual hours on BBC2, displaying random pages from the service along with light music. Fan recordings of these still exist today which, along with high quality offair VHSs of TV broadcasts (which also ‘captured’ the Ceeefax signal unintentionally) provide some records of otherwise transitory data.
Ceefax was finally closed down in 2012 as part of the analogue switchoff, as broadband internet and an interactive BBCi service provided much more comprehensive capabilities.
We present below several pages, including some remastered versions.
Other
In the first few seasons of Noel Edmond’s quiz show Telly Addicts (1985-98), a TARDIS could be seen in the studio background. More recently, a Cyberman poster could be spotted in Hollyoaks in one of the regular characters’ bedrooms. Neither of these have been included in our guide as they both made repeated (and admittedly background) appearances.
