Though Doctor Who wouldn’t make it back to our screens until 2005, its return was properly heralded on March 20th, 2004, when Christopher Eccleston was announced as the Ninth Doctor.

It’s difficult to describe just how momentous this was for Doctor Who fans; though I was never a hardcore fan of the show with encyclopedic knowledge of its history, I’d always enjoyed watching it as a kid and was excited when it got a second chance in 1996, after being cancelled way back in 1989.

The 1996 TV movie, starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, had a proper passing of the torch, opening with Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor (who had the keys to the TARDIS back in 1989 when the show was cancelled, seemingly for good) meeting an unfortunate demise and regenerating into the younger, more classically handsome McGann.

Despite much glossier production values and fancier design than fans were used to, it did have its issues and, unfortunately, was the beginning and end of the road (at least on TV) for McGann’s Eighth Doctor at the time.

Though fans kept Who alive by hungrily devouring novels, comics, audio adventures, web series (including Richard E. Grant in an animated series, Scream of the Shalka, as the ‘official’ Ninth Doctor at the time) and whatever else they could get their hands on, I’m sure I wasn’t alone in assuming that we’d seen the last of Doctor Who on TV.

A very long eight years later (after we’d already waited seven years between the end of the original series and the TV movie), details began emerging about the new Doctor Who.

The first sign that we could be onto something special was the involvement of Russell T. Davies, who had absolutely shaken up and transformed television with his series, Queer As Folk in 1999. On hand as showrunner and head writer, Davies was a lifelong Whovian, even blatantly incorporating Doctor Who references into his groundbreaking 1999 series.

When Christopher Eccleston, already a huge name and a renowned, highly respected actor,was announced as the Doctor, people really began to take notice.

Though, speaking for myself, I wasn’t convinced that ex-teen pop star Billie Piper as his companion, Rose Tyler, would be up to the job, just the combination of Davies and Eccleston was enough to pique my interest.

When NuWho, as it’s been known for some time, debuted in 2005 after months of hype and a really impressive trailer (in its day, though it still holds a certain appeal even now as you can see below), it was clear that we were right about Davies and Eccleston, and wrong about Piper, who was brilliant.

The new show had its faults and teething problems, but for the most part it was a glorious return to form for the Doctor and to this day, the show is still going strong.

Perhaps, arguably, stronger than ever in the wake of its 60th anniversary.

Each new season has built upon the last, production values noticeably improving and those early teething problems with tone and slightly wonky special effects (though if you were ever bothered about dodgy special effects, you could never have been an original Who fan) cleared up, for the most part.

Though we lost Eccleston in the main role far too soon, the succession of Doctors who’ve followed have all been brilliant in their own ways, with ups and downs as different showrunners have taken the reins.

Even actors like McGann got another chance to shine and even regenerate onscreen, though there was a bit of a swerve pulled with that one (and a very satisfying twist it was too!).

It wouldn’t be here, now, with such a strong place in pop culture beyond its dedicated Whovian fan base, if it wasn’t for the ball being kicked back into play in the mid-00s, or not if countless fans, myself included, hadn’t immediately fallen in love with Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor.

He immediately made the role his own; even though it isn’t quite the 20th anniversary of the new incarnation of the show, the anniversary of the announcement of Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor is definitely one worth celebrating.