The BBC Doctor Who website has confirmed that Piers Wenger, currently one of three executive producers on Doctor Who, is leaving the BBC.

Wenger commented:
He replaced Julie Gardner as Head of Drama for BBC Wales in January 2009 and in July of that year became executive producer of Doctor Who and took a central role in the casting of Matt Smith as the eleventh Doctor. His other executive producer credits on Doctor Who include The Adventure Games and Doctor Who Confidential. Away from Doctor Who, he worked on Ashes to Ashes, Christopher and His Kind and Upstairs Downstairs.

In March 2011 Wenger stepped down as Head of Drama but remained at BBC Wales to continue as a creative developer. His position will be filled by Faith Penhale from Kudos in June.


Wenger is leaving the BBC to join Film4 in September, where he will become the senior commissioning executive under Tessa Ross, Channel 4 controller of film and drama, who commented:

His successor as executive producer of Doctor Who will be filled in the coming months by head writer Steven Moffat and the BBC's controller of Drama Commissioning, Ben Stephenson, who said:

Doctor Who will face the double peril of live football and Britain's Got Talent, for the final episode before the mid season break, according to schedules published today.

A Good Man Goes to War, which showrunner Steven Moffat promises will contain a 'game-changing cliffhanger', has been given a 50 minute slot between 6.40 and 7.30pm on Saturday 4th June. It will follow So You Think You Can Dance Live on BBC One and is followed by The National Lottery: Who Dares Wins.

As Doctor Who goes on air, ITV1 will be showing England playing Switzerland with live Football Coverage of the Euro 2012 Group G qualifier at Wembley Stadium, although the match should be over before Doctor Who starts. At 7pm they go into the Britain's Got Talent - Final, the show that has been winning the ratings on Saturday nights, but which has not yet been placed directly against The Doctor. BBC Two will show Dad's Army while The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the film on Channel 4.

The BBC has issued more information about the episode. Steven Moffat has confirmed that everything on the BBC Website is approved and not a spoiler, but those wishing to avoid all information about the forthcoming episode should avoid the news below.

After the controversy raised by Scottish media last weekend over the commercial sale of replicas of the Doctor's coat, Canada's premier news agency Postmedia investigated further from the perspective of the country where replica producer AbbyShot Clothiers are based.

BBC Worldwide spokesperson Emma Finlay clarified that AbbyShot approached them with the proposal:
The agency also confirmed that the adapted jacket worn by Matt Smith for the current series was not a Chinese replica as intimated in the earlier reports, but was actually tailored into a warmer version for the actor by a Saville Row shop - though using a substitute for true Harris Tweed. The replica being produced by AbbyShot is a wool-acrylic blend based on that design.

Last year, AbbyShot received a Canadian SME Innovator of the Year award from Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters. The company specialises in making screen-accurate representations of popular iconic clothing seen on television and in movies.

Matt Smith appeared on the The One Show this evening, where he chatted about finding football more nerve-wracking than the BAFTAs, his stunt work in Doctor Who, and of course next week's The Almost People - as much as could be revealed at any rate - during which he also described the Doctor as the "cleverest and vainest man in the world, sadly". The item was accompanied by a previously unseen clip from Saturday's episode.

When asked if he's carrying on in the role, Matt answered he would be for the foreseeable future, and on next season: "I hope so! If not then I'm panicking!". A short Q&A session occured at the end, in which Matt said Day of the Moon was his favourite episode (so far!), the Silence were the scariest monster, and the Silence/Weeping Angels as his favourite (host Matt Baker also commented on how he'd been lambasted by fans for calling the character "Doctor Who" when soliciting for the questions Twitter earlier in the day!).

The programme is available to watch in the UK on the BBC iplayer for the next seven days.

---

 :
The BBC have now the made the clip available to watch online:

 

BARB have now issued final ratings for the week ending 15th May making Doctor Who: The Doctor's Wife the 14th most watched programme of the week.

The show was once again the highest non-soap drama of the week. It was knocked a couple of places down the chart by the new series of The Apprentice and by the Eurovision Song Contest.

The chart does not include iPlayer figures where over 1 million have already accessed this episode.

The Rebel Flesh had an Appreciation Index, or AI score of 85.

The score is once more in the excellent category with the highest rating of Saturday going to Casualty with 88.

Two programmes got more than six million watching on Sunday, pushing Doctor Who into 21st place for the week on the overnight figures. This will certainly rise when final figures are released next week.

The BBC Three Sunday night repeat had 0.5 million viewers, a 2.1% share of the audience.

Today's Sunday Mail has reported that the jacket worn by Matt Smith's Doctor in the current series of Doctor Who is a Chinese remake of the Harris Tweed one from last series.

A BBC spokesperson told the paper that: "the tweed changed because they needed a warmer jacket for outside filming"; back in June 2010, Smith himself told the Sun newspaper: A spokeswoman for BBC Worldwide told the paper that the decision to drop Harris Tweed was taken by programme makers, adding: "we've had no input into the jacket design." Ann MacCallum, Managing Director of the Isle of Lewis mill which makes Harris Tweed said: "the BBC told me Matt wanted something different for the new series."

Lydia Walton, a spokesman for Harris Tweed Scotland said: Western Isles MP Angus MacNeil told the Mail:
The BBC has granted a license to AbbyShot Clothiers, a Canadian company who make screen-accurate TV and movie clothing, who will sell the the official replica jacket through various affiliates. AbbyShot has previously made the official replica of the tenth Doctor's coat and the red leather jacket worn by Martha Jones.

Fashion expert Tessa Hartmann said:

The replica is currently available to pre-order from the Forbidden Planet website.

The Doctor's Wife had a final official rating of 7.97 million viewers, a 34.7% share of the audience.

The final rating includes those who record the programme and watch it within seven days.

Full ratings, which will reveal the chart position of the episode, should be released tomorrow.

Series 6 of Doctor Who premiered on Prime in New Zealand on Thursday. Throng NZ reports that The Impossible Astronaut was watched by 146,520 people between 8:35pm and 9:30pm. Doctor Who was beaten in the 8:30pm slot by Lorraine Kelly's Big Fat Challenge on TV One with 377,900 viewers, No Ordinary Family (TV2, 276,940) and Bones (TV3, 293,010).

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol had its New Zealand debut on Prime on 30 January and had 85,130 viewers.

Part two of the story, Day of the Moon will broadcast on Thursday 26 May at 8:30pm.

5.7 million viewers watched episode five of Doctor Who: The Rebel Flesh, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The story, written by Matthew Graham, attracted 29.3% of the overnight audience and was the second most-watched programme of the day. The most-watched programme was Britain's Got Talent with 10 million watching.

Doctor Who had a million more viewers than the third placed programme Casualty. Against the Doctor, Sing If You Can on ITV had 4.1 million watching. 0.84 million watched Doctor Who on BBC One HD.

The BBC One audience once more peaked when Doctor Who was on, rising to 5.9 million during the programme and dropping to 2.8 million as Doctor Who finished.

Doctor Who currently stands as the 19th most watched programme of the week.

On BBC Three Doctor Who Confidential has 0.57million viewers, a 3.1% share of the audience.