"I hate repeats" - The Big Bang
With the revival of Doctor Who in 2005, viewers have become
accustomed to regular repeats of the latest episodes, either on
BBC Three (until early 2016) or cable channels like W (formerly
Watch), Drama and Forces TV. The now defunct BBC Store
(2015-17) and Britbox (2017-2024), Netflix, ITVX and latterly
BBC iPlayer's Whoniverse allowed viewers to rewatch stories ad
nauseum.
The Horror channel (now Legend) meanwhile, began screening
classic series adventures (in episodic and omnibus form) in the
UK at Easter 2014. Since Genesis of the Daleks was last screened
on BBC2 in 2000, the only classic era serials reshown on terrestrial
TV were The Hand of Fear (to mark the death of Elizabeth Sladen in
2011), 100,000 BC in November 2013, and BBC Four's rerun of The
Face of Evil at Christmas 2015.
With the final digital repeat of a twentieth-century adventure (The
Daleks in 2008), a total of eighty-two stories were repeated by the
BBC (including sixty-seven on digital stations), the first being The
Evil of the Daleks in the summer of 1968.
Technically, the single episode An Unearthly Child, became the first
(unplanned) rerun when it was shown just a week after it's original
transmission, prior to The Cave of Skulls. Six other individual
episodes (including the Pilot) have also earned repeat broadcasts.
The Black and White era represents just six complete reruns over
fifty years. Naturally, the Fourth Doctor's tenure saw the most
repeats, followed by the Third, and with the advent of the BBC's
digital TV services, all forty-one Tom Baker and twenty-four
Pertwee serials were chosen for transmission on Prime, between
1995 and 2000. Next, with eight story repeats is the Fifth Doctor,
then Doctors One and Two (three each), and Six, Seven, and Eight
(only one each).
Terrestrial repeats reached their peak in the 1970's, whilst most
digital reruns occured in the 1990's when the programme was
off-air. The most reshown serials by the Corporation are:
- Genesis of the Daleks - 7 broadcasts
- The Sea Devils - 5
- The Daemons - 4
- The Green Death - 4
- Spearhead from Space - 4
- Terror of the Zygons - 3
- Pyramids of Mars - 3
- 100,000 BC - twice
The most repeated single episodes (three times each) are An
Unearthly Child (Pilot) and Part 4 of Remembrance of the Daleks
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