Join us as we explore the connections between the London Eye, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and Doctor Who, marking the 20th anniversary of its television relaunch on 23rd March 2005. Plus, discover a great place to eat while you’re visiting the Southbank!
The London’s Eye 25th Anniversary
The 9th of March 2025 marks the 25th anniversary of the first paying passengers to take a trip on the Southbank’s iconic London Eye. This famous giant observation wheel, located on the Southbank of the River Thames, has become one of London’s best-known landmarks since it opened to the public in 2000.
From Temporary to Iconic
Originally called the Millennium Wheel the Eye, as it is now better known, was actually officially unveiled by Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on New Year’s Eve 1999, but it didn’t open to the public until March 2000 due to a technical hitch with its thirty-two air conditioned capsules.
Designed by the husband-and-wife team of Julia Barfield and David Marks of Marks Barfield Architects it stands at 135m (443ft), which is about the size of 64 red telephone boxes balanced on top of each other, making it the highest observation wheel of its type in Europe.
Originally the Eye was given a five year lease at its location on the Thames by Westminster Bridge and was only intended as a temporary attraction. However, it proved so popular that Lambeth Council, the local authority responsible for the South Bank, granted it permanent status in July 2002.
A quarter of a century on it is now London’s most popular paying tourist attraction, pulling in an average of three million visitors each year.
The London Eye in Doctor Who
The month of March also marks a key 20th anniversary of another British cultural icon, science fiction series, Doctor Who, which was relaunched on the 23rd of March 2005, having been famously cancelled by the BBC in 1989.
Show runner Russell T. Davis chose the London Eye as one of the central locations for the showʼs opening episode, which introduces Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) as the new companion of the timetravelling Doctor (Christopher Eccleston).
The pair must do battle against the Nestine intelligence, which has set up its base under the Eye and is in league with Autons (animated shopfront dummies) in a fiendish plot to conquer London and the world.
For dramatic effect against London’s night sky Davis was given permission to temporarily double the number of lights which illuminate the Eye in the evenings. The series returned to the same location in its fourth episode ‘Aliens of London‘, when an alien space craft crash lands into the Thames in front of the Eye.
The London Eye in Movies and TV Shows
The Eye has made several other appearances, including in ‘The Bells of St Johns‘ during Matt Smithʼs tenure as the Doctor. The episode introduces Jenna Louise Colman as the Doctor’s latest travelling companion, Clara Oswald.
The pair materialise in the Tardis on the South Bank not far from the Eye, where tourists mistake the eccentrically dressed Doctor for a busker. Permission was again given for the show to adapt the lights on the Eye for the 2023 60th Doctor Who anniversary when they were reconfigured to replicate the blues, purples and golds of the dimensional vortex the TARDIS travels through on its voyages through time and space. The TARDIS itself made an appearance on Southbank as part of the celebrations.
Recently, in the Ncuti Gatwa episode ‘The Devil’s Chord‘, the Eye and nearby County Hall were shown in a scene depicting an apocalyptic future. Behind the scenes of The Devil’s Chord. The Eye has also been used as a location in big screen blockbusters. In 2007’s ‘Fantastic Four – Rise of the Silver Surfer‘ the heroes battle the alien villain Silver Surfer who is attempting to create a swirling black hole in the Thames at the exact spot in front of the Eye that the spacecraft crashed in Doctor Who’s ‘Aliens of London’.
Staying with Superheroes the publicity poster for ‘Spider Man Far from Home‘ (2019) depicts the costumed crime fighter perched on top of the Eye. It was a case of art depicting reality because in 2004 a ‘Father’s for Justice’ protester dressed as Spider Man caused the attraction to be shut down and cordoned off by police when he scaled the structure.
The Eye also turns up in the Harry Potter universe when it makes an appearance in ‘The Deathly Hallows – Part Two’ (2011). So keep an eye on the Eye because, who knows, you may find yourself in the midst of a TV or film set the next time you are on the South Bank.
A Taste of London near the Eye
If you are visiting the London Eye, a good place to eat and sample the cuisine of Londonʼs large Polish community is Mumuska! Which is on Eddington Street, SE1, to the side of the famous street art gallery at Leake Street Arches.
