Verity

It is especially sad to hear on the 44th anniversary, that Doctor Who's first producer Verity Lambert has passed away. Unlike, say, Star Trek, Doctor Who doesn't have one "creator" -- but her influence is very much still there today, showing up most recently in Human Nature.

It was Verity Lambert, after all, who argued for the first Dalek story with Sydney Newman -- without which it is unlikely Doctor Who would be, well, Doctor Who.

Doctor Who isn't her only work -- her entire
biography is impressive.

The best tribute to her is that the show she helped to create is still going strong four and a half decades along, and that she will be remembered as "Doctor Who's mother" for as long as the concept survives.

As Russell T Davies says: "This is her legacy and we will never forget that."