BBC America is to broadcast a special programme on the 21st December to look at the Top Five of several favourite Doctor Who topics:


The Doctor Who Ultimate List of Lists is a show in the channel's The Brit List series, which explores the shared British and American pop-culture.

BBC America has released videos of famous Doctor Who fans - including tenth Doctor (David Tennant - talking about their first memories of Doctor Who. Chris Hardwick of The Nerdist has appealed to fans asking them to tweet about the first time they experienced Doctor Who using the hashtag #newtoWHO.


Asylum of the Daleks premieres on BBC America on September 1st at 9/8c.

BBC America are building up anticipation for the return of Doctor Who with a request for fans to share their first memories of the show:



Meanwhile, the channel continues its new series of documentary specials this coming Saturday with The Women of Doctor Who:
The trailer for last week's documentary, The Science of Doctor Who, is also available to watch on BBC America's YouTube channel.

BBC Radio 4 is to investigate the history of electronic music in Britain, in a new documentary featuring interviews with many past Doctor Who contributers.

A Sound British Adventure is being broadcast next Tuesday, 14 August, at 11.30am. It is presented by comedian Stewart Lee and looks at how, following the end of World War II, a group of electronic pioneers used their army surplus kit to create new sounds and music.

The programme looks at the work of the first commercial electronic music studio in Britain, which was started in 1969 by Tristram Cary, who also wrote incidental music for 48 Doctor Who episodes between 1963 and 1972. It examines the make do and mend approach in the industry which led to Cary's partner, Peter Zinovieff, developing synthesizers from a shed at the bottom of his garden in Putney.

Also interviewed is long time Doctor Who contributor Brian Hodgson, who worked on 321 episodes of the classic series, creating special sounds, most famously the sounds of the TARDIS. In the programme he tells about 1960s experimental and electronic festivals, including The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave (1967) at which The Beatles' electronic piece Carnival Of Light had its only public airing, as well as discussing how the BBC Radiophonic workshop broke new musical ground with Doctor Who.

Experts in the history of electronic music, including author and Doctor Who musician Mark Ayers give the boffins' view and Portishead's Adrian Utley explains why the early forays in electronics are still relevant today.

The programme can be heard on FM in the UK and around the world via the BBC Website.

BBC America are to broadcast four new special documentaries in the lead-up to their premiere of the next series of Doctor Who. Forming part of their Supernatural Saturday themed evenings, the first documentary will be broadcast on Saturday 4th August:


The documentary will be preceded by repeats of last year's documentaries, Best of the Companions, Best of the Monsters and Best of the Doctor from 6:00pm.


The following weeks will see documentaries on The Women of Doctor Who (11th August), The Timey-Wimey of Doctor Who (18th August), and The Destinations of Doctor Who (25th August).

The producer of the behind-the-scenes documentary series Doctor Who Confidential, Zoe Rushton, has confirmed on Twitter that the show will no longer be produced by the BBC. The final edition of the show will be broadcast this coming Saturday at 8:35pm on BBC3 (with Rushton clarifying that previously reported production for a Christmas edition is no longer occuring).

Reasons for the show's cancellation have been cited by the Guardian newspaper as being financial in nature, with the BBC having to engage in several cost-cutting exercises to meet its tighter budget. Part of this initiative has been a 're-alignment' of programming on BBC3, with controller Zai Bennett commenting at last month's Edinburgh International Television Festival that "it's about focusing my budget on 9pm and 10pm; those are the time slots that count. Budgets are tight, so we have to be sensible with the money we have." Further details about BBC3 changes are expected to be outlined by the Director General, Mark Thompson on 6th October.

The BBC Press Office confirmed to us that:

The BBC have released three video clips to introduce the next edition of Doctor Who Confidential, Open All Hours, which is due to be broadcast on Saturday 24th September on BBC3/BBCHD at 8:00pm, straight after Closing Time.



The episode will be available via the BBC iPlayer after broadcast until 8th October.

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The BBC have also released a number of publicity photographs for Closing Time:

The BBC have released three videos clips to introduce the next edition of Doctor Who Confidential, What Dreams May Come, which is due to be broadcast on Saturday 10th September on BBC3/BBCHD at 8:00pm, straight after The Girl Who Waited. It will be available to watch in the UK after broadcast via the BBC iPlayer until 8th October.

The BBC have now announced the titles for the remaining episodes of Doctor Who Confidential (which might be considered spoilers):


Some behind-the-scenes features have recently been added to the BBC's Doctor Who site that tie into the two episodes that have been broadcast so far. Two location featurettes were released for Let's Kill Hitler covering the final day's filming (part one and two) in a cornfield, and a tour inside the robot. Meanwhile, after the first interview snippet with Night Terrors star Danny Mays reported previously, a second interview with the actor has been released, accompanied by an introduction to the story by Matt Smith and Marcus Wilson; there are also two preview clips of Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill discussing the dolls house on location (one, two) via the BBC's YouTube channel.

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You can follow updates from the Doctor Who Confidential team on Facebook.

Wednesdays edition of Radio Four's Thinking Allowed included a discussion on Doctor Who with US academic Marc Edward DiPaolo, who talked about his Journal of Popular Culture article "Political Satire and British-American Relations in Five Decades of Doctor Who."

DiPaolo has analysed the political content of five decades of Doctor Who and concluded the Daleks are obsessed with racial purity and dedicated to a policy of genocide and represent the Nazis and the Jagrafess is a loathsome alien purveying useless information - which he has censored, rewritten and controlled and represents a modern day media mogul. He finds that the Time Lord is a liberal, bohemian, pacifist environmentalist, and definitely anti-American So is Doctor Who a closet radical?

The programme is available worlwide on the BBC iPlayer for the next week. The discussion starts around 13 minutes into the show.