The BBC have announced that, as with many years in the past, Doctor Who will feature as a part of its annual Children in Need fund-raising evening:


Last year, the Doctor's costume was auctioned for the charity, raising £50,000.


Children in Need takes place this year on Friday 16th November.

The first part of Series 7 is due to be released in the UK on the 29th October, and will come in two flavours. Both versions feature the five episodes shown so far (Asylum of the Daleks to The Angels take Manhattan), the UK mini-episode Pond Life, and also the two special 'prequels' that were originally exclusive to iTunes:

• Asylum of the Daleks: The Doctor receives a message from a mysterious hooded stranger – a woman called Darla Von Karlsen wants to meet him...
• A Town Called Mercy: Civil war has ravaged the Kahler race, but a team of scientists has found an advantage. The Gunslinger is born.

In addition, a limited edition "Weeping Angels" release also contains the documentary The Science of Doctor Who, which delves into whether the scientific concepts of the series live up to reality.


Both the standard (DVD/Blu-ray) and limited edition (DVD/Blu-ray) versions are available for pre-order.

It might seem enshrined in tradition, but the Christmas Special is seldom confirmed to be on Christmas Day itself until just a few weeks before broadcast. This year, however, the BBC have announced some ten weeks in advance that Doctor Who will indeed feature in the line-up for the festive evening, which it hopes will help settle the audience in front of BBC1 with their turkey sandwiches for the duration!

The time of the episode has yet to be announced, but will slot into the usual late afternoon/early evening line-up, which this year includes the Pixar Oscar-winning film Up as well as the usual instalment of Walford mayhem in EastEnders. The prime-time 9:00pm slot this year falls to the popular new series Call the Midwife, which is expected to go head-to-head with the ratings winner of last Christmas, ITV1's Downton Abbey. The main evening viewing on BBC1 is rounded off with The Royle Family at 10:00pm.

The as-yet-untitled hour-long special set in Victorian times will be Matt Smith's third Christmas outing, and sees the debut of Jenna-Louise Coleman as the new regular co-star; the episode also guest stars Richard E Grant. In addition, the episode will see the return of several of the Doctor's compatriots from last year's A Good Man Goes To War, with Neve McIntosh, Catrin Stewart and Dan Starkey reprising their roles of Vastra, Jenny and Strax respectively. The episode is written by Steven Moffat and directed by Saul Metzstein.

Into 2013 ...

The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine has summarised the expected running order of the remaining eight episodes of the current series to be broadcast in 2013, and also confirmed that fantasy author Neil Gaiman - who suggested he was writing a script last month - has indeed done so.

Episode	Writer	Director	Guest stars
2013 #1 |	Steven Moffat |	Colm McCarthy
2013 #2 |	Neil Cross |	Farren Blackburn
2013 #3 |	Mark Gatiss |	Douglas Mackinnon |	David Warner and Liam Cunningham
2013 #4 |	Neil Cross |	Jamie Payne |	Dougray Scott and Jessica Raine
2013 #5 |	Steve Thompson |	Mat King |	Ashley Walters
2013 #6 |	Mark Gatiss |	Saul Metzstein |	Diana Rigg and Rachael Stirling
2013 #7 |	Neil Gaiman |	Stephen Wolfenden
2013 #8 |	Steven Moffat |	tbc

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.

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.