The cover and contents of the forthcoming two-disc special edition DVD release of The Ark In Space in the UK have been finalised.

All four episodes have been newly remastered, using advances in technology and technique, and are supported by an expanded collection of bonus features.


UPDATE: 11th FEBRUARY: The release date - originally set for 18th February - has been pushed back a week to 25th February.

The BBC have announced that the first of the eight episodes that comprise the second part of Series Seven will premiere on BBC One from Saturday 30th March - back in its 'traditional' Easter weekend slot! Though Doctor Who Magazine had already reported that the series would be on during April, this is the first time the BBC themselves have confirmed the date of a regular series of episodes so far ahead of its intended schedule - normally it is only announced a few weeks beforehand.

The time of broadcast has yet to be confirmed.

Both BBC America and SPACE (Canada) have confirmed that they, too, will launch the second part from the 30th March; no announcements have been made for the series to premiere in the other main countries as yet, though based on recent years they are likely to be close to transmission of the series in the United Kingdom.

UKTV continues its season of classic Doctor Who stories today (20 January) with the broadcast of The Dalek Invasion of Earth at 3:30pm (Australia) and 3:15pm (New Zealand). The six-part adventure is the third of four stories to be screened as part of the channel's celebration of the First Doctor this month.

It follows earlier screenings of An Unearthly Child and The Aztecs and continues with The War Machines next week, on 27 January (AU:4:30pm, NZ:4:15pm).

For New Zealand this is the fourth screening of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and the second time that it has been broadcast to mark a milestone anniversary. It was first broadcast in November 1988 as part of the Doctor Who 'Silver Jubilee' celebration. New Zealand viewers missed out on seeing the story in the 1960s as it was judged by the NZBC censor to be unsuitable for children. It did however screen on Australian television in 1965-66.

UKTV is showing stories every Sunday throughout the year in the lead-up to Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary in November, focusing on a Doctor a month. February is dedicated to the Second Doctor, featuring The Tomb of the Cybermen (3rd), The Dominators (10th), The Mind Robber (17th), and The Seeds of Death (24th).

All up-and-coming broadcasts from both 20th and 21st Century series of Doctor Who can be found via UKTV's Doctor Who sections for Australia and New Zealand.

UKTV continues its season of classic Doctor Who stories today (13th) with the broadcast of The Aztecs at 4:30pm (Australia) and 4:20pm (New Zealand).The four-part adventure forms part of the channel's celebration of the First Doctor this month, which kicked off last weekend with An Unearthly Child and continues with The Dalek Invasion of Earth next week (AU:3:30pm, NZ:3:15pm), rounding off with The War Machines on the 27th (AU:4:30pm, NZ:4:20pm).

The channel is showing stories every Sunday throughout the year in the lead-up to Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary in November, focussing on a Doctor a month. February is, as one might then expect, dedicated to the Second Doctor, featuring The Tomb of the Cybermen (3rd), The Dominators (10th), The Mind Robber (17th), and The Seeds of Death (24th).

All up-and-coming broadcasts from both 20th and 21st Century series of Doctor Who can be found via UKTV's Doctor Who sections for Australia and New Zealand.

The cover artwork for the special edition releases of The Ark in Space and The Aztecs on DVD have been unveiled by designer Lee Binding via the Tea Lady Design Facebook page:


The Ark in Space is due to be released in the United Kingdom on 18th February, with The Aztecs following three weeks later on the 11th March; in the United States, both Ark and Aztecs are due out on the 12th March.

The Snowmen has given BBC America record ratings, with the Christmas Day special being watched by 1.434 million people either live or within seven days.

This was a rise of 54 per cent on the BBC America ratings for last year's Christmas episode, making it the channel's second most-popular programme, beaten only by Asylum of the Daleks, which garnered 1.555 million viewers in September.

Perry Simon, BBC America's general manager, said:According to TV By The Numbers, it was the 70th most-watched programme on cable on the day and 17th in its transmission slot.

Doctor Who has also been voted TV Guide cover of 2012, having made the front last month as last year's Fan Favorite.

Doctor Who: The Snowmen had a final official audience of 9.87 million viewers, according to figures released by the BBC.

The consolidated figure includes those who recorded the programme and watched it within seven days, and is a substantial increase on the initial overnight figure. It makes Doctor Who the fourth most-watched programme of Christmas Day, edging ahead of the Christmas Strictly Come Dancing, which beat Doctor Who in the overnights but lost out in the final figures.

Top of the list was EastEnders, with 11.3 million watching, followed by Call the Midwife, which overtook Doctor Who in the final figures, and The Royle Family.

Coronation Street was the highest-rated programme on ITV1, just failing to reach the heights of The Snowmen and coming fifth in the Top Ten list. Figures do not include the +1 channels, which will bring Coronation Street back above Doctor Who in the weekly BARB figures. Doctor Who also achieved a greater number of viewers than Downton Abbey, ITV1's flagship drama.

The viewing figures are lower than in recent years, where Doctor Who was transmitted in a later timeslot, but higher than the 2005 and 2006 Christmas specials.



Overall in 2012 Doctor Who had an average rating of 8.28 million viewers, higher than last year's figure of 7.75 million.

The BBC also reports that, so far, over 1.46 million have accessed the episode on BBC iPlayer.

The BBC have made some of the press preview Q&A for The Snowmen that took place on the 18th December available to watch online; the session features Matt Smith, Jenna-Louise Coleman and Steven Moffat interviewed by TV reviewer Boyd Hilton, and then taking questions from the audience, including where the idea of Clara came from, a new-look TARDIS, and how long Matt is going to stay as the Doctor!

A full transcript of the Q&A has also been made available by Ian Wylie.

A roundup of selected quotes from the media after the broadcast of The Snowmen on Christmas/Boxing Day. Links to the full review can be found by clicking on the author's name. You can also read our own review here.

Note: reviews can contain spoilers!

UK: The Independent:

Overall Moffat has dished out a stronger offering this year. The story was apparently based on a piece written by Douglas Adams. This may the reason why this year was decidedly more comic than previous Christmas specials. The humour is largely thanks to Strax who provided most of the laughs through his Sontaran view of the human race. But it was also more disturbing in a behind-the-sofa way, even at Christmas a little scare isn’t always a bad thing. The Snowmen has now brought the Doctor out of his state of retirement and ready for action again after such a brooding period.

While the episode was enjoyable the problem was that the story feels truncated and rushed. Granted the time frame leaves little room for dalliances but it would have been nice to have seen more of Simeon’s developing relationship with the Great Intelligence. Grant is brilliant as the villain but more of him would have been even better.

UK: The Radio Times:

Well, hats off to Steven Moffat. He’s just presented us with alternative abominable snowmen, and not only reintroduced the Great Intelligence but also established how this malignant, disembodied force came into being.

There are lots of lovely images (the Jack and the Beanstalk-like spiral staircase leading to the clouds), and my favourite moment being the truly wonderful effect of the camera (and hence the viewer) following the Doctor and Clara directly through the police box doors into the huge Tardis interior. Has this effect ever been achieved before..? I may have forgotten. And how was it done? Where’s BBC3’s Doctor Who Confidential when you need it!

UK: The Mirror:

Suddenly, the Doctor is faced with an intriguing new mystery – one that involves, among other things, soufflés. So where the kids will look forward to it and the fans will discuss it endlessly, maybe the casual watcher will be intrigued enough to follow the Time Lord into his golden year, just to see how the latest curious twist of the twice-dead girl unfolds.

Where this year’s Who snowtacular fails is appealing to the dinner-bloated and mildly disinterested middle viewer. It’ll totally pass by family members who, at 5.15 in the afternoon, just want to sleep for a bit until they feel the need to attack the cold cuts. Through sprout-engorged eyes and a brandy befuddle, it’s a great piece of entertainment but it doesn’t hold up to much sober fanboy scrutiny. It’s miles better than anything else on, but for the casual Christmas viewer there’s little to hold the interest besides noticing how gorgeous the new companion is, and well... maybe the ending.

UK: The Telegraph:

It was an enjoyable enough romp, I suppose, and I imagine that reference-spotters had a field-day. There were nods not only to The Snowman but also to Sherlock – cheekily suggested to have been, in “real-life”, the lesbian Silurian Madame Vastra. The shadow of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw could be detected in the CGI figure of the dead governess, made of ice and snarling “That’s The Way To Do It!”. There were shades of Dickens and CS Lewis and maybe even the smoke-fashioned staircase from the Mary Poppins film too in the episode’s best touch - having the newly refurbished Tardis float above town on a bed of “super-dense water vapour”, reachable only by a vertiginous spiral staircase.

At least twinkly-eyed Matt Smith was on irrepressible form as always, his careworn Doc emerging from ethical hibernation to save the world, again, and exchange repartee with, oh please no, his adopted comedy sidekick Strax (Dan Starkey) of the once terrifying now just silly Sontaran race. The sooner his luscious new companion, revealed as Jenna-Louise Coleman’s Clara – former barmaid and erstwhile Dalek (yes, really) – fills the Pond-shaped void in his life the better but I fear that if Moffat doesn’t rein in his tendencies to make every script a brain-teaser of Sudoku-like complexity, his young audience will melt away, fast.

UK: The Guardian:

Welcome back, Merry Christmas, and wow. The Snowmen was easily the finest Christmas special under this regime. After last year's dog's giblets of an episode, it needed to be, but this poetic romp was actually the best since The Christmas Invasion, and possibly better. It had everything we like about Doctor Who (frights, romance, running, a menacing baddie, lizard people) while being just sentimental enough to tick off a lot of things we like about Christmas.

UK: Crave Online:

Matt Smith was terrific as always, particularly during the inspired bit when the Doctor briefly impersonates Sherlock Holmes. But as the Doctor is won over by Clara, the audience is as well. And when Clara is lost, the Doctor makes the viewers feel that loss as well.

“The Snowmen” was a rousing “Doctor Who” story that feels like it matters in the long term of the series. A new TARDIS, a new opening sequence and a new companion? That’s the start of a new era for sure. And the prospects for it look good for now.

USA: Los Angeles Times:

Clara appears to be a mirror image of the Doctor: fearless, curious and intuitive, a match not only of wits but of shared delight in the power of knowing. That is the perpetual tension that fuels the Doctor. A Time Lord weighted with the wisdom of the ages, believing himself to be the last of his kind, has only his sense of wonder to protect him from the great sorrow born of endless knowledge and experience. Fortunately it is boundless, like his energy, and of all the recent Doctors, Smith best captures the power of willful youthfulness. Not in appearance, though he is the most boyish of the canon, but in resilience, the springiness that allows a child to find miracles in the mundane, to truly believe that today will be better than yesterday.

The world always needs the Doctor, but perhaps never more than on Christmas day.

USA: New York Magazine - Vulture:

There can’t be enough praise showered on Coleman at this point, who is quite simply a breath of fresh air for this series, at a time when it so desperately needs it. I’ve not fallen for a new companion this hard and fast since Rose Tyler, who had the benefit of being there when the series relaunched, so that’s not even a fair comparison. This new girl just devours the camera lens; a more photogenic companion we’ve probably never seen. It was easy to understand the Doctor’s reinvigoration through her, because as viewers we were experiencing the same feelings, and the scene in which he gives her the TARDIS key, only for her to be lost seconds later, was a serious tearjerker; that was more moving than anything in “The Angels Take Manhattan.”

I had mad, crazy love for both “A Christmas Carol” and “The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe,” Moffat’s previous holiday outings, and hoped to feel the same about “The Snowmen,” but ultimately didn’t. Yet this episode held a much different function in the series than either of those entries, coming in the middle of a season as it did. Whereas his first two Christmas specials were entirely standalone tales, this one was anything but, steeped in the ongoing storyline as it was. What worked within it worked very, very well, and what didn’t was disastrous.

USA: EntertainmentWise:

So, there you have it - it was one intense episode full of adventure and tense scenes, but what would Doctor Who be without all of the chaos? In between such madness the Doctor and Clara even managed to find a moment to embrace in a loving/unexpected kiss and joke around with each other, including Doctor Who doing a one man version of Punch and Judy - what more could you ask for? It gave us all a brilliantly entertaining hour on our Christmas day and I am sure it has left most of us wanting to know what happens next! We will just have to wait very patiently for later on into the year.

USA: io9:

... an episode that shows Moffat returning to form with a lot of fun and zaniness bolted onto a pretty successful fairy-tale framework. The overall task of this episode is to relaunch Matt Smith's Doctor with a new(ish) companion and a new(ish) semi-regular supporting cast, and in those terms it works beautifully. The story takes the classic "companion becomes fascinated with the Doctor and learns about him/tracks him down" storyline and does something new and interesting with it. And it advances the Doctor's arc of trying and failing to go it alone, which Moffat has been building since "The God Complex."

USA: Wired:

I came away from this episode with a major question: Is Moffat setting us up for a new Doctor romance? Or is there more to Clara than meets the eye? The flirting between her and the Doctor reminds me a lot of the flirtatious relationship he has with River Song, and I wouldn’t put it past Moffat to be playing us. Given that Clara has a remarkable gift for not dying, could she be regenerating somehow? But then why is this the first time “Clara” has seen the TARDIS in this episode. Then again, we’ve never seen the first time that River saw the TARDIS. In “Let’s Kill Hitler”, she knew the Doctor had a time machine and didn’t have the standard “It’s bigger on the inside argument.”

Despite a few short-comings, this years Christmas outing is a good deal stronger than last years rather disappointing “The Doctor, The Widow, and the Wardrobe.” That was an episode with a lot of promise but a story that never seemed to gel. “The Snowman” had a story that, despite a sentimental ending with a families tears defeating the frozen menace, still held together.

USA: The Examiner:

It was an excellent episode, and it was a nice and welcome Christmas present for all the fans of the show. The biggest mystery of course (besides the fact that the sonic screwdriver can obviously harden clouds enough to walk on) is Clara. How is it possible for her to be the same person? Because based on her name and the words Clara threw at the Doctor, she is one and the same. The past and the future. How is that possible?

Australia: WA Today:

All told The Snowman is a strong Doctor Who episode. Jenna-Louise Coleman, who we first met as Oswin Oswald in Asylum of the Daleks, returns as Clara Oswald, presumably an ancestor. In true Moffat style, we finish the episode knowing a little more, and whole lot less, about her.

Further Reading:

Daily Mail, International Business Times(UK), LSMedia(UK), IGN(UK), Forbes(USA), Wall Street Journal(USA), TGDaily(USA), AssignmentX(USA), ComicMix(USA), Blast(USA), Mashable(USA), Boston Standard(USA), TwitchFilm(CA), The Age(AU), The West Australian(AU)

The Snowmen had an Appreciation Index, or AI score, of 87.

The Appreciation Index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. The score, out of a hundred, is compiled by a specially selected panel of around 5,000 people who go online and rate and comment on programmes.

Doctor Who scored higher than most of the Christmas Day output. The most appreciated programmes were Downton Abbey on ITV1 and Call the Midwife on BBC One, both of which scored 90.

This year's score is higher than the majority of the previous Christmas Day specials, with last year's The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe scoring 84. Only the first part of the Tenth Doctor's swansong, The End of Time - Part One, equalled the score of 87.

An additional 0.56 million have now watched The Snowmen, via the Boxing Day repeat on BBC Three, where it achieved a 2.3% share of the total TV audience.