50th

Telepaths. Scientific troubleshooters. A "mature male" costar instead of an ancient amnesiac fugitive lead. Man, Doctor Who could have been just a random, forgotten sci-fi trivia piece.

So first and foremost, props to Sydney Newman, for focusing on the "mature male costar" in the original treatment and telling the production team to do something more interesting with the character.  Yes, originally the character who became Ian Chesterton was envisioned as the lead. The Doctor ain't no sidekick! Additional props to Sydney Newman for rejecting the backstories the original production team came up with, meaning that for the first six years of the show, we had no idea who the Doctor was, where he came from, or why he left. This gave the various production teams a huge sandbox to play in. Additional additional props to Sydney Newman for hiring Verity Lambert as the show's first producer.



Secondly, props to Ray Cusick for creating the Daleks. Okay, yes, Terry Nation wrote the cyborg fascists and scribbled a note about ballet dancers, but Cusick brought them to life. (And the obligatory trivia: Cusick was a replacement for the original production designer, who quit at the last minute: a guy named Ridley Scott. You might have heard of him.) The Daleks are, in Britain, more famous than Darth Vader. Props to Verity Lambert for ignoring Newman's "no bug-eyed monsters" ultimatum and putting them in the show anyway.

Thirdly, props to Innes Lloyd for not casting a Hartnell lookalike when it was time to retire the First Doctor. Props to David Whittaker for not writing Troughton's first story as an as-by-the-numbers-as-you-can-get script. Props to Patrick Troughton for proving that an entirely different character works as the Doctor.

Props to Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks for creating the Master. Props to Begonia Pope for accidentally thinking she was supposed to use all the wool she was provided with to knit a certain scarf. Props to Robert Holmes for writing, either in whole or in part, such memorable serials as Genesis of the Daleks, Pyramids of Mars, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, and The Caves of Androzani. Props to Eric Saward for pushing the boundaries of the Doctor's character. Props to John Nathan-Turner and Andrew Cartmel for learning from their mistakes and turning the show around in its final two seasons. Props to Philip David Segal, Matthew Jacobs and Geoffrey Sax for bring the Doctor back, even if it was just for one adventure. Props to Russell T. Davies for bringing the Doctor back, for reals this time. Props to Steven Moffat, because no matter what you think of his career as a showrunner, he gave us "Blink," the best episode since The Caves of Androzani, Part Four.

And, finally, Rest In Peace...

• Douglas Adams (Writer, City of Death)
• Anthony Ainley (The Master II) 
• David Brierley (K-9 II)
• Peter Bryant (Producer)
• Douglas Camfield (Director, The Invasion &c)
• Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart)
• Michael Craze (Ben)
• Ray Cusick (Designer)
• Roger Delgado (The Master I)
• Delia Derbyshire (BBC Electronic Workshop - Theme Tune)
• Ron Grainer (Composer) 
• Peter Hawkins (Dalek and Cybermen Voices)
• Adrienne Hill (Katarina)
• Jacqueline Hill (Barbara Wright)
• Robert Holmes (Writer, The Caves of Androzani &c)
• Bernard Horsfall (Actor, The Mind Robber &c)
• Caroline John (Liz Shaw)
• Verity Lambert (Producer)
• Barry Letts (Producer)
• Innes Lloyd (Producer) 
• David Maloney (Director, Genesis of the Daleks &c)
• Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan)
• John Nathan-Turner (Producer)
• Terry Nation (Writer, The Daleks &c)
• Sydney Newman (Head of Drama, Creator)
• Michael Sheard (Actor, Pyramids of Mars &c)
• Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith)
• Roy Skelton (Dalek Voices)
• Dennis Spooner (Script Editor)
• Mary Tamm (Romana I)
• David Whitaker (Script Editor)
• John Wiles (Producer)
• Graham Williams (Producer)
• Michael Wisher (Davros)

and

• William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, and Jon Pertwee (The Doctor)