The Wales on Sunday have reported an actress previously appearing in Doctor Who in the 1980s will be returning to the show, during a summary of cast seen filming last week alongside James Corden in the episode currently being shot by Steve Hughes:
Lynda Baron appeared in the Fifth Doctor story Enlightenment (1983) playing Captain Wrack, and also sang "The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon" that featured throughout the First Doctor story The Gunfighters (1966). Outside of Doctor Who she is probably best remembered as nurse Gladys Emmanuel in the Ronnie Barker sitcom Open All Hours.

Update 9th March: No official confirmation of Baron's casting has been made at present, but the actress has been seen on location.

The penultimate week of Doctor Who on France 4 saw Vincent et le Docteur and Le colocataire watched by 303,000 viewers, an improvement on last week and achieving a share of 1.4% of the total audience.

Danse avec les stars topped the ratings as always on TF1, though lost half a million viewers in total (4.80m, 23.6% share), probably to the successful Le plus grand cabaret du monde on France 2 (4.48m, 21%). A full breakdown can be found at Premiere.

2|Entertain have released a short video on their YouTube channel previewing The Final Curtain, a feature on the upcoming release of Planet of the Spiders, the final adventure of the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee).


The DVD is currently expected to be released on DVD during April.

Steve Hughes has confirmed via his twitter account that he is directing the latest episode of Doctor Who to go before the cameras.

Hughes, who is new to the series, has previously been been lead director on the BBC One drama Land Girls. He has also directed nearly 50 episodes of BBC One's daytime drama, Doctors, as well as episodes of Holby City and and Sky One’s Dream Team.

Filming on the story commenced last night back at the location featured during the first week of production of the revived series, at Howell's Department Store in Cardiff!

Two new titles have been announced by 2|Entertain for the Doctor Who DVD schedule.

This afternoon saw the company reveal that First Doctor story The Reign of Terror would be released sometime next year. This will be the first incomplete story to be released on DVD since The Invasion back in 2006, with episodes four and five still missing from the BBC Archive. It is currently unclear whether this story would receive the same CGI animation reconstruction for the missing episodes like the Troughton tale, a telesnap reconstruction like the VHS release of The Tenth Planet back in 2000, or some other form, with the company merely stating via their @ClassicDW Twitter feed that:

During this evening DrWho Online revealed that the other release to the schedule is the Sixth Doctor adventure Vengeance on Varos, which forms part of the Revisitations strand of previous DVDs receiving a makeover and new lease of life. The announcement of the story follows on from 2|Entertain canvassing for opinion on a potential release when DVD schedules were published by Doctor Who Magazine in January.

France 4 have released a new trailer for this Saturday's episodes, Vincent et le Docteur and Le colocataire; they will be broadcast from 8:35pm (local time).


A repeat of Le Prisonnier Zéro will follow the two new episodes at 10:05pm.


You can follow France 4 via their Facebook page and Twitter feed.

The actor Ernie Hudson has today been reported as having a role in Torchwood: Miracle Day:

The actor has had a prolific career in films and television, having recently appeared in recent television series like Transformers Prime (voice of Agent Fowler), The Secret Life of an American Teenager (Dr Field), Law and Order (Frank Gibson), and Desperate Housewives (Detective Ridley). His sci-fi credentials include appearances in Heroes, Stargate SG-1, as Sergeant Albrecht in The Crow, and Washington in the film Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone.

But he will always be best known as Winston Zeddemore, the fourth member of the team in the extremely successful Ghostbusters, and its followup Ghostbusters II. (A third film has been mooted for production shortly!)

The casting follows on from the announcement at the weekend that Christopher Thomas Howell would also be appearing in the series. The actor reported that he would be filming during an interview with SouthLATVFans.

Another actor rising to fame in the 1980s, Howell is best known for his portrayal of Ponytail Curtis in The Outsiders; he also appeared Tyler in E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, and other films like The Hitcher, Red Dawn and Soul Man. Notable television roles include Kindred: The Embraced (Det. Frank Kohanek), Amazon (Dr. Alex Kennedy), 24 (Barry Landes), and most recently as Officer Dewey Dudek in Southland. He also has a role in the currently filming The Amazing Spider-Man.

Series Five of Doctor Who continued on France 4 on Saturday, featuring Le Seigneur des Rêves and La révolte des intra-terrestres (1+2). The shows achieved 295,000 viewers, a drop of 80,000 since the previous week. This was also reflected in the audience share, down to 1.3% of the total audience.

This week's audience figures for Saturday can be viewed at Premiere, which showed Doctor Who second-from-bottom in the ratings for the thirteen listed channels - Danse avec les stars on TF1 continued to dominate the evening, with some 5.385 million viewers (25.6%) of the audience.
Next week will see just two episodes broadcast:

2|Entertain have announced a new boxed set via their @ClassicDW Twitter feed:
Whilst no other details have been revealed at present, it seems likely that the set will be themed around the Seventh Doctor's sidekick, Dorothy "Ace" McShane.

At this late stage in the release schedule, there are only three other stories featuring the character that have yet to come out on DVD: Dragonfire, Ace's introductory story; The Happiness Patrol, with Helen A, Fifi, and the Kandyman; and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy with the Psychic Circus and the Gods of Ragnarok.

France 4 have released a new trailer for this Saturday's episodes, Le Seigneur des Rêves and La révolte des intra-terrestres (1+2); they will be broadcast from 8:35pm (local time).


You can follow France 4 via their Facebook page and Twitter feed.