This evening saw press and celebrities gather to see a special screening of the first episode in the new series of Doctor Who, The Eleventh Hour, which took place at the Cineworld in Cardiff. Though the actual screening was restricted to invited guests, there was plenty else to see, including interviews with both Matt Smith and Karen Gillan themselves undertaken by the BBC's Entertainment Correspondent Lizo Mzimba.

UK viewers will get an exclusive preview of The Eleventh Hour from next Wednesday when the first minute of the episode is made available on the BBC Red Button service.

The clip will launch on 24th March and will be available at various times until the series launches at Easter Weekend. On day one the clip is expected to be available from 6am-2pm, from 3pm to 5.50pm and then from 9.10pm onwards.

The BBC red button service can be viewed on digital platforms in the UK. Details on the BBC Website.

The BBC Programme Information site is saying the new series will begin on Saturday 3rd April at 6.25pm.The date and time have not been confirmed by the BBC Press Office and are subject to change. The series is referred to as Series Five on the website and the duration of the episode is noted as 60 minutes.

UPDATE: The reference to Series Five has now been removed from the site and replaced with New Series.

Attendees will be able to see a special preview showing of the new series opener The Eleventh Hour at WonderCon, an event taking place at the Moscone Center South in San Francisco over the 2nd-4th April. WonderCon is an event operated by the company that puts on the annual large-scale media event in San Diego, California, Comic Con International, which BBC America exhibits at annually.
The episode will be shown twice on Saturday 3rd (the same day as the series is expected to start in the United Kingdom), at 6:30pm and 7:45pm.

For full details of the convention see the WonderCon website.

ABC Television in Australia have announced that the new series of Doctor Who is to be made available on their online iView service, a couple of days before broadcast on television. Director of Television Kim Dalton said:Previous series of Doctor Who were available on the iview service, becoming its highest rated programme last year with some 378000 views between April and December. TV Tonight blog reports The Eleventh Hour will make its Australian debut on the ABC on Sunday 18 April 2010 on ABC1 at 7.30pm. It will be available on the iview service from 12am on Saturday 17 April 2010.


Meanwhile, in the UK the BBC's iplayer service still proves very popular, with figures for January showing some 68.2m viewers catching up on television. The 10th Doctor finale The End Of Time Part Two was the second most-watched programme with 831000 requests, with Top Gear performing best overall with some 1.1m requests for its final episode of the current series.

The BBC have issued a press release reporting that in the run-up to Doctor Who airing at Easter there will be a national tour featuring Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. The two stars will travel to five locations in a specially themed Doctor Who bus, and each venue will also feature a regional premiere of the first episode, The Eleventh Hour.

The tour has been arranged in association with BBC Outreach, whose remit is to take the BBC into specific communities and sections of society, and the focus here is to reach relatively under-served communities by the BBC.

The bus will be at the following places on tour:

There will also be three big screen showings at selected BBC locations in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Plymouth and Swansea; these will take place between the 1st and 3rd April.

The events will feature exclusive footage – including the chance to see the Doctor Who trailer in 3D – and giveaways, and fans can also get their photo taken tumbling through the giant vortex. Visitors will also be able to meet monsters.

Says Executive Producer Piers Wenger:

This week saw filming taking place for the seventh and last block of the new series, for episodes 7 and 11. The beginning of the week saw the crew out in a village near St. Athan, whilst the latter half has been spent back on the streets and parks of Cardiff.

It has been reported that ABC in Australia will be showing the new series of Doctor Who from April, though no day has been scheduled at present; Matthew Galvin, from ABC Audience and Consumer Affairs, said:
The news indicates that Australia, Canada and the United States will all show the new series within a few weeks of the UK premiere transmission.

Canadian broadcaster Space have announced that they will be broadcasting the new series of Doctor Who from the 17th April, the same evening as BBC America for the United States. The show will go out at 9:00pm ET.

Three new episode titles have been revealed by Executive Producer Steven Moffat in his Production Notes column in this month's Doctor Who Magazine.

Occupying slots 4 and 5 of the new series will be The Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone. This two-part story is written by Steven Moffat and directed by Adam Smith and sees the return of Alex Kingston as River Song. It was the first story to be recorded. It is stressed that the titles are working titles and may be changed before transmission.

Slot 6 will be filled by Vampires in Venice. This story is written by Toby Whithouse and directed by Jonny Campbell.