By the beginning of the 1970s, the gap between UK and Australian premieres of "Doctor Who" had extended to twenty-one months. Individual episodes were still being shipped from one city to another for local transmission and ABC schedules were also still decided, at least to a limited extent, at a local level. Throughout April and May 1970 the ABC's first "Doctor Who" debut of the decade was The Dominators, first shown on BBC1 in August 1968. By the time the first episode to feature Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor premiered around the country during July and August 1971, the UK/Australia gap had been marginally reduced to eighteen months.