The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine introduces the readers to the fifteenth Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa.

The bumper edition includes a 32-page mini-mag of the original Star Beast comic strip and a double-sided poster.

The issue also includes a special offer to download a free audio drama featuring the Fifth and Seventh Doctors.

This issue’s features include:

• An in-depth interview with new doctor Ncuti Gatwa.

• Exclusive previews of new episodes The Giggle and The Church on Ruby Road with Russell T Davies.

• Mum and grandma of new companion Ruby (alias Michelle Greenidge and Angela Wynter) on joining the show in this year’s Christmas Special.

• The final interview with much-loved national treasure Bernard Cribbins.

• The Diary of the Meep! A minute-by-minute account of the irrepressible Miriam Margolyes’ journey to becoming the Meep.

• Further Than We’ve Ever Been Before – DWM’s Emily Cook on the set of Wild Blue Yonder to discover its VFX secrets.

• A very special comic strip adventure featuring the Fourteenth Doctor and Donna…

• 80s director Andrew Morgan remembering his time on Doctor Who.

• A glimpse behind the scenes on 60s Doctor Who.

• Letter from the Showrunner – Russell T Davies is in the festive spirit, and even lets a few secrets about the next series slip.

• Production Diary – script editor Scott Handcock on how production on Doctor Who has reached its busiest point yet!

• The Fact of Fiction – all you could ever want to know about the 2015 series finale Hell Bent.

• Gallifrey Guardian – all the latest official news.

• Other Worlds – the essential guide to new stories in Doctor Who’s expanded universe.

• Reviews – The Underwater Menace animation, Frazer Hines’s Evil of the Daleks and action figures!

• The fiendishly festive DWM Christmas quiz!

Doctor Who Magazine Issue 598 is on sale Thursday 7 December  from panini.co.uk and WH Smith priced £10.99 (UK). 

Also available as a digital edition from pocketmags.com priced £9.99.

The first special starring David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor, The Star Beast, had an official 7-day rating of 7.61 million viewers in the UK.

The rating is the highest figure for Doctor Who since The Tsuranga Conundrum in 2018.

Doctor Who was the 10th most-watched programme on British Television for the week, behind seven episodes of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and two of Strictly Come Dancing.

The official rating includes those who recorded the programme and watched it within a week.

Globally the episode is the 61st watched movie on Disney+. It has been most successful in Australia, New Zealand and Turkey.

The Appreciation Index, a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the episode, was 84.

The second episode, Wild Blue Yonder, had an overnight rating of 4.83 million, third for Saturday behind the dancing and grub-eating reality shows. 7-day figures will be released next week. Its Appreciation Index was 83. 

The BBC has released details of the Christmas episode of Doctor Who, The Church On Ruby Road. 

New images have been released from the story where Ncuti Gatwa, takes over the TARDIS for his first adventure. The Fifteenth Doctor will be joined by Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson, as she makes her debut as the Doctor’s companion.

Airing on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, the episode sees the Doctor come face-to-face with the mythical and mysterious goblins as his life collides with Ruby Sunday.

Little is known about Ruby Sunday as she was abandoned on Christmas Eve as a baby. Now living with her mum, Carla and grandmother, Cherry,  her world is about to be turned upside down when she encounters the Doctor and the two set off on their first adventure together.

Alongside Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson is Davina McCall who will be playing herself as she joins the cast alongside Michelle Greenidge as Ruby’s mum Carla, Angela Wynter as Ruby’s grandmother Cherry and Anita Dobson as Mrs Flood.

Davina McCall said:

Russell T Davies, Showrunner adds

Doctor Who continues this Saturday with the second in the series of three specials made to mark Doctor Who's sixtieth anniversary.

Wild Blue Yonder can be seen on BBC One in the United Kingdom at 6.30 pm. It will be released on Disney+ and the BBC iPlayer at the same time.

Wild Blue Yonder stars David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble. It is written by Russell T Davies and directed by Tom Kingsley for Bad Wolf Productions and BBC Studios.

Where are the Doctor and Donna?  Where has the TARDIS dropped the Doctor and Donna this time?... ✨ Watch a preview from the upcoming 60th anniversary special 'WILD BLUE YONDER'!

The BBC has confirmed that Doctor Who will be back on BBC One on Christmas Day for the full debut episode starring the Fifteenth Doctor Ncuti Gatwa. 

Doctor Who will be a key part of the BBC offering over the festive season with Gatwa taking control of the TARDIS in his first adventure following Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary celebrations.

Charlotte Moore, BBC’s Chief Content Officer says:

Doctor Who: The Star Beast had an overnight audience figure of  5.08  million viewers in the UK. 

Doctor Who was the second most-watched television programme on Saturday night behind Strictly Come Dancing which had 7.67 million watching. ITV had 4.83 million watching the reality programme I'm a Celebrity Get Me out of Here. 

The figure shows a large increase over the previous season of Doctor Who with The Power of the Doctor having an overnight figure of 3.710 million. 

The figure is an estimate of the number of people who watched the programme on the day of transmission.  It will be updated next week to include those who watch the programme on catch-up services. 

The Appreciation Index for the episode, a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme, was 84, the highest score since World Enough And Time in 2017.

The new episode was available globally on Disney+ where it is currently classed as the 3rd most-watched film worldwide. It is currently in first position in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Turkey. 

As the world gears up for Doctor Who mania, BBC Studios has launched The Official Doctor Who Podcast to accompany the latest episodes of  Doctor Who.

The Official Doctor Who Podcast is a three-way panel discussion between author and columnist Juno Dawson, pop culture TikToker and movies podcaster Tyrell Charles, and cosplayer and digital creator Christel Dee, with exclusive insights from showrunner Russell T Davies. Each week the team will be reacting to the latest episode, discussing their thoughts, and diving into upcoming theories!

Watch the trailer here:

The 30-minute podcast will drop weekly straight after each Doctor Who episode airs on the BBC starting on Saturday 25th November, and can be found on all major podcast platforms globally and BBC Sounds (UK only). It will also be broadcast globally in a video version on the Doctor Who YouTube channel.

Doctor Who writer and showrunner Russell T Davies said:

 BBC Studios’ digital content development director, Chris Allen said

 The Official Doctor Who Podcast is produced by James Goss for BBC Studios Digital. The executive producers are Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner, Madi Woodstock and Chris Allen.

Viewers watching the repeat of the 2013 docu-drama on the origins of Doctor Who, An Adventure in Space and Time, were treated to a surprise appearance of the Fifteenth Doctor as played by Ncuti Gatwa. 

The programme originally featured a cameo from the incumbent Doctor in 2013, Matt Smith, but the producers have taken the opportunity to update the ending to reflect the show in 2023

An Adventure in Space and Time 60 years on and the Doctor's legacy continues... вќ¤пёЏвќ¤пёЏвћ•рџџ¦

Today, 23rd November 2023, marks 60 years since the first episode of Doctor Who was transmitted. 

That first episode, An Unearthly Child, was broadcast at 5.16 pm on BBC Television where it was watched by 4.4 million viewers.

Since that first episode was screened the series has become a global success, holding a number of Guinness World Records and becoming one of the BBC's best-known brands. 

Overall 871 episodes of the series have been broadcast, not including spin-offs and special celebrity episodes. To watch every single episode back to back would take 17 days, 23 hours, and 54 minutes. Unfortunately, 97 episodes are currently missing from the BBC archive although the audio exists from all episodes. 

13 people have taken on the lead role in the series, William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi and Jodie Whittaker.

Today we pay tribute to the thousands of people who have worked on Doctor Who and made it the success it has become, as well as the millions of fans around the world who follow and support the adventures of the excentric Time Lord. 

And we look forward to the future, with three special episodes and a brand-new Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa, taking us into Doctor Who's 7th decade. 

BBC Radio 2 is marking Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary with a number of special programmes available worldwide on BBC Sounds.

Over two new shows, Jo Whiley takes a trip through the Whoniverse to discover the amazing stories behind the rise, fall, and subsequent resurrection of a British institution.

The Classic Years 

• Whiley hears how the changing attitudes of Britain have been reflected through the TARDIS in a tale that features Dalekmania, Dad’s Army, Mary Whitehouse, Ridley Scott, the Cybermen, Hans Zimmer, the Beatles and the JFK assassination.  
• With new and archive interviews from Doctors and companions past and present, including Peter Capaldi, Patrick Troughton, William Hartnell, Tom Baker, Jon Pertwee, Sophie Aldred, Bonnie Langford, Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy, Louise Jameson and showrunner Russell T Davies

The Modern Era

• In the concluding part of this documentary, Whiley finds out how despite being cancelled by the BBC, the combination of its fan base, a drinks party and a forgotten BBC sitcom combined to help bring one of Britain's greatest cultural institutions back to our screens.  Along the way we hear never before heard tales from the teams behind the hugely successful reboot including Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat and Chris Chibnall, plus Doctors and companions past and present including Matt Smith, David Tennant, Jodie Whittaker, Christopher Eccleston, Peter Capaldi, Sophie Aldred, Bonnie Langford, Ncuti Gatwa, Sylvester McCoy, Matt Lucas, John Simm, Billie Piper and Kylie Minogue.

Meanwhile, former Doctors, companions, and alumni of the series, introduce the music that has soundtracked their lives and careers, and talk about their involvement with Doctor Who in a series of 9x My Life In A Mixtapes, featuring:

Peter Davison (the fifth Doctor) 
Sylvester McCoy (the seventh Doctor) 
Janet Fielding (Tegan) 
Bonnie Langford (Mel) 
Sophie Aldred (Ace) 
Nicholas Briggs (Voice of the Daleks, Cybermen and numerous other monsters) 
Segun Akinola (Doctor Who composer during the Jodie Whittaker era) 
Ruth Madeley (Doctor Who newcomer)
Plus from the archives, Spiderman star Andrew Garfield (who guest starred in Doctor Who in 2007). 

The music of Doctor Who is celebrated in a special concert, recorded at Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff,  featuring the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Singers conducted by Alastair King. 

The music includes composer Murray Gold's best-known Doctor Who themes, the classic years of Doctor Who are also featured by the Radiophonic Workshop's Mark Ayres and Peter Howell. And there are brand new works premiered including The Woman Who Fell to Earth, a full-length suite composed by Segun Akinola and three of Murray Gold's new works, heard here for the very first time before making their debut in the new season of Doctor Who in 2024.

All episodes of Radio 2 Celebrates Doctor Who at 60 can be found here

And in a bonus episode of the ‘Zoe Ball and Friends’ podcast, David Tennant and Russell T Davies join Zoe to look ahead to the show’s 60th anniversary celebrations