As reported by Dan Hall at Recon last month, the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine has a summary of the DVDs scheduled for the beginning of 2013, which includes the announcement that the recently recovered and restored third episode of the William Hartnell story Galaxy 4, Air Lock, will be released as a bonus episode on the special edition version of Season 1 story The Aztecs.

Other releases lined up for the first quarter include the previously reported Legacy Box on 7th January, the animation-enhanced The Reign of Terror on 28th January, a special edition version of The Ark in Space on 18th February, and the above-mentioned special edition of The Aztecs on 11th March. No features for the DVDs have been announced at present.

In addition, the last 'intact' story of the range, Terror of the Zygons has been announced for June (The Mind of Evil undergoing colour restoration) - features for the final Tom Baker release were unexpectedly revealed by the BBFC back in July.

Finally, DWM also revealed that Jon Pertwee's inaugural story Spearhead from Space is to be released yet again in June, this time taking advantage of the 'classic' series story's unique film recording to produce a high-definition Blu-ray presentation. Features on this release will include an extensive biography on Pertwee and an obituary for his co-star Caroline John, who died earlier this year.

Future History ...

Since our summer update the list of currently unannounced titles has diminished rapidly, with only fourteen episodes remaining to see the DVD treatment:

• The First Doctor: The Tenth Planet - three existing episodes, missing episode four
• The Second Doctor: The Underwater Menace: Episode 2
• The Second Doctor: The Ice Warriors - four existing episodes, missing episodes two+three
• The Third Doctor: The Mind of Evil - all six episodes, episode one is in the process of being colourised

In addition, several special edition versions of previously released stories are expected during the course of the year, including Inferno.

The Legacy Box has now been confirmed to be the first DVD release for 2013, coming out in the UK(R2) on 7th January and in North America(R1) on the 8th. As previously reported, the two-disc boxed set will feature the 'lost' story Shada from Season 17 and the 30th Anniversary celebratory documentary More Than Thirty Years in the TARDIS.

After months of speculation, the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine has confirmed that the main version of Shada presented will be the 102 minute, 1992 VHS release, which included added effects, music, and linking narration by Tom Baker. Though no other R2 information has been released at present, the R1 details indicate that the set will also contain the re-interpreted version of Shada featuring Paul McGann that was produced by Big Finish and released as a Flash animation during the 40th Anniversary for (and still available from) the BBC's official Doctor Who website.

Other features (R1 details) include a documentary on the troubled history of Shada's production, Taken Out of Time, a look at the story's locations in Now and Then, the first part of a feature on Doctor Who's first producer Verity Lambert in The Lambert Tapes - Part 1, memories of the Doctor's honorary companion in Remembering Nicholas Courtney, another companion profile with Doctor Who Stories - Peter Purves, plus Strike! Strike! Strike!, Being a Girl - Women in Doctor Who, and Those Deadly Divas.

The BBC have released a special scene that tells the tale of what happened to Brian Williams after the departure of his son Rory and wife Amy at the end of The Power of Three. The scene was written by Chris Chibnall but never recorded, and is presented now through the use of animated storyboards, featuring the voice of Arthur Darvill.

Executive Producer Caroline Skinner said:

Final ratings data for the week ending 30th September 2012 released by the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board, or BARB, gives Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan a final rating of 7.82 million viewers.

Doctor Who was the thirteenth most-watched programme of the week on British television and the fifth highest rated on BBC One, the same positions as the previous week.

The final rating includes all those who record the programme and watch it within a week. It does not include the BBC Three repeat, where around 300,000 watched. Nor does it include those watching on iPlayer where over 1 million people have accessed the episode so far.

The average rating for 2012 is now 7.96 million, higher than the figure for last year, with the Christmas episode still to be included.

The Angels Take Manhattan has averaged 552,000 viewers in the five major Australian capital cities. It was the top-rating ABC drama of the day and the tenth-highest-rating programme of the day overall. These figures do not include regional and rural viewers, time-shifted viewers, and iView downloads.

Doctor Who dominated the listings for the BBC iPlayer for September, with over 8 million accessing the programme at some point during the month.

Top of the list was the series opener, which has been available for almost the entire month, Asylum of the Daleks with over 2.2 million requests. It was by far the most requested programme on the iPlayer for September.

The next three episodes, available for fewer days, took the next three places in the chart, with Dinosaurs on a Spaceship having 1.8 million requests, A Town Called Mercy having 1.4 million requests and The Power Of Three having 1.3 million accessing the episode.

The highest-rated non-Doctor Who programme was Citizen Khan, which had less than half of the requests for Asylum of the Daleks with just over 1.0 million accessing the programme.

The last Doctor Who episode before the mid-series break, The Angels Take Manhattan, was 7th in the list, with 0.92 million requests, despite only being available for the last 28 hours of the month.

Asylum of the Daleks currently stands as the fifth-most-accessed programme of the year. All Doctor Who episodes are available on the BBC iPlayer until later this evening.

Final ratings data for the week ending 23rd September 2012 released by the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board, or BARB, gives Doctor Who: The Power Of Three a final rating of 7.67 million viewers.

Doctor Who was the thirteenth most-watched programme of the week on British television and the fifth highest rated on BBC One.

The final rating is over 2 million higher than the initially reported overnight figure and includes all those who record the programme and watch it within a week.

The final ratings figure does not include the BBC Three repeat, where around 300,000 watched. Nor does it include those watching on iPlayer where over 1 million people have accessed the episode so far.

Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan had an Appreciation Index or AI score of 88.

The score is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the episode. It is based on a survey of 5000 people. The score of 88 puts the programme into the excellent category.

Doctor Who was the joint highest scorer on the two main channels for the day, along with Casualty.

Doctor Who currently stands at number 21 in the list of top programmes for the week. Final consolidated figures, which include those who record the programme and watch it later, will be released next week.

Speaking at the Recon event today, DVD producer Dan Hall outlined some of BBC Worldwide's plans for releases during the course of next year.

With the exception of one boxed set (believed to be the Legacy set of Shada and More Than Thirty Years In The TARDIS due to come out after The Claws of Axos SE) all releases next year will be individual stories. New titles include Terror of the Zygons, The Mind of Evil and The Reign Of Terror, and there will also be (at least) four Re-Visitations (one of which is the previously announced Inferno).

The recently recovered episode Air Lock from Galaxy 4 is still in the process of being restored, but is hoped to be released alongside another title next year; the status of The Underwater Menace's episode two was not clarified, however.

During a discussion over the animation of The Reign of Terror (episode four being shown at the event), he explained that it was unlikely that more than two episodes could be animated within allocated budgets - though intimated, there were no formal announcements of further forthcoming animated episodes at present.

There was also clarification over the forthcoming Shada release, which will not be a complete version of the story. Hall explained that he felt his role was not to 'create' new (i.e. original) material and this was a decision that would need to be made by the BBC rather than BBC Worldwide - he also thought that such a project couldn't be undertaken to the required BBC quality guidelines within the budgets available to the DVD range. From a personal perspective he believed that editorially it should also remain unfinished, reflecting the series production.


The range is expected to have a story released every three weeks during 2013 leading up to the 50th Anniversary. The first DVDs of this "full schedule" will be announced in the next edition of Doctor Who Magazine.

The Angels Take Manhattan had an overnight audience of 5.9 million viewers, a share of 26.9% of the total TV audience.

The audience increased throughout the episode, as more viewers joined to witness the departure of 'The Ponds', peaking at 6.4 million for the last five minutes.

Doctor Who was the highest rated programme on BBC One for the day, with the other drama of the evening, Casualty, getting 3.7 million viewers.

Highest programme of the day was The X Factor which had 8.7 million watching. Against Doctor Who, ITV 1's Red or Black? had 3.5 million viewers.

With Sunday's ratings still to come, Doctor Who is at 19th place for the week. Final consolidated figures, which will be available next week, should see this position rise.