Fuelled by Dalekmania, Doctor Who rode a wave of popularity in 1965 that’s rarely been equalled in the programme’s history. The series also began testing the boundaries of its uniquely flexible format, embracing the concept of change...

By PAUL KIRKLEY

Opposite page: Producer Verity Lambert, surrounded by alien delegates on the set of Mission to the Unknown. Top row from left – Sentreal (Pat Gorman), Gearon (Len Russell), Celation (Ronald Rich) and Beaus (Sam Mansary); bottom row – Malpha (Robert Cartland), Verity Lambert and Trantis (Johnny Clayton).

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n a Tuesday in late May 1965, the twin cultural phenomena of Dalekmania and Beatlemania briefly collided on the sun-kissed French Riviera.

A platoon of Skaro’s finest had invaded the Cannes Film Festival to promote their feature film debut, while John Lennon was in town to talk up The Beatles’ upcoming second picture, Help! The previous evening, Sean Connery – James Bond himself – had cruised down La Croisette in a convertible, completing a trio of unassailable icons at the very height of Britain’s Sixties swing.

The fact that both The Beatles and the Daleks were about to blaze onto screens in colour for the first time also feels significant. Two decades on, Britain had finally emerged from the long shadow of the Second World War to embrace a bright, bold, optimistic new space age, fuelled by Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s much-vaunted “white heat of technology”. The Post Office Tower opened in October 1965, and the year in general was marked by a creative explosion in music, art, fashion and film.

That Doctor Who, the little teatime adventure serial created to fill the gap between Grandstand and Juke Box Jury, should be punching its weight (on the home front, at least) alongside Bond and The Beatles is testament to the work of its young producer, Verity Lambert, and her team. And the space year 1965 would prove to be the peak of the programme’s first imperial phase – even if, for now at least, it was the Daleks, and not William Hartnell’s white-haired space wizard, who were indisputably the headline act.

Viewers had been kept waiting the best part of a year for a second Dalek serial, which concluded on Boxing Day 1964.

Below left: The Doctor (William Hartnell) dons an atmospheric density jacket in The Web Planet.

But the metal menaces would be back on screen just five months later in The Chase, then again in October in Mission to the Unknown, before closing out the year with a 12-part epic called The Daleks’

Master Plan – the result of a specific commandment, handed down the mountain by BBC execs, for even more Dalek action.

In cinemas, Dr. Who and the Daleks – which had been quickly turned around over a six-week shoot in the spring – did brisk business during the summer, then returned to screens during the Dalek Invasion of Christmas, when Santa’s sleigh groaned beneath the weight of more than 50 Dalek product lines, crockery, soap and slippers. The Daleks also starred in their own thrillingly retro-futurist, Dan Dare-hymning comic strip in the from playsuits, board games and bagatelles to wallpaper, newly launched TV Century 21, as well as trundling onto the West End stage at Christmas in The Curse of the Daleks.