To celebrate 50 years of Doctor Who,  John Richards (creator/writer of the ABC1 sitcom Outland, Boxcutters podcast) and Ben McKenzie (Channel 31′s Planet Nerd, Dungeon Crawl, ‘patron saint of geek comedy’ – T-Squat magazine) have joined forces to host a year-long performance/podcast project, entitled "Splendid Chaps", in Melbourne, Australia.

Each month from January to November 2013 John and Ben will record a live Doctor Who panel discussion – one for each of the eleven Doctors – with a different theme, special guests, musical and comedy performances and loveliness. These will also be edited into podcast episodes, released on the 23rd of each month.

The first event on 13 January will discuss the first doctor and features special guest Alexandra Tynan (nee Sandra Reid), the woman who designed the Cybermen back in 1966. She’ll be joined by writer and filmmaker Lee Zachariah (ABC2′s The Bazura Project, Hell Is For Hyphenates podcast); broadcaster and host of 3RRR FM’s LiveWire, Nerida Haycock; announcer Petra Elliot and Ben and John as hosts. The musical guest (singing a Who-related number) will be comedian and cabaret artiste Geraldine Quinn.

The forum will be held on Sunday 13 January 2012 at 5pm at the Annexe, Bella Union, Trades Hall, corner of Victoria and Lygon Streets, Melbourne.  Tickets will be available at the door (subject to availability) or on the web.

As mentioned earlier this month, the BFI plan to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who with special screenings each month next year in the lead-up to the Anniversary itself; the organisation has now announced details about the first quarter of 2013.

As previously mentioned, the season kicks off at the very beginning with William Hartnell's An Unearthly Child on 12th January; this will be followed on 9th February with Patrick Troughton tackling the Tomb of the Cybermen; then in March Jon Pertwee is up against The Master as The Mind of Evil is unveiled in newly restored colour! All stories are accompanied by a Q&A panel, though guests have yet to be announced.


Justin Johnson, BFI Programmer, said:

Doctor Who's executive producer Caroline Skinner said:

In November, the climax of the BFI's celebration will include a special preview of An Adventure in Space and Time , the drama written by Mark Gatiss exploring the personalities that brought the longest running sci-fi series to life.


The stories representing the other eight Doctors will be confirmed next year.

The Radio Times has launched a new campaign to find any of the episodes of Doctor Who that are still missing from the BBC's Archives. At present there are 106 still to be recovered, and though some are unlikely to ever resurface there is continued hope that at least some of those lost William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton adventures might yet be enjoyed once more.

The magazine's historian Ralph Montagu was involved with the discovery of last year's recoveries, Galaxy 4: Air Lock and The Underwater Menace: Episode Two:

You can find the list of missing episodes via our Doctor Who Guide.

The cover art for January's DVD release of The Reign of Terror has been designed by Lee Binding, who has published the clean version of his artwork via the Tea Lady Design Facebook page. The cover is presented below alongside the North American (R1) version.


Commentary for the existing episodes are provided by Carole Ann Ford (Susan), with cast members Neville Smith (D'Argenson, episode one), Jeffrey Wickham (Webster, episode two), Caroline Hunt (Danielle, episode three) and Patrick Marley (soldier, episode six), plus on the production side by Timothy Coombe (Production Assistant). Meanwhile, actor Ronald Pickup (Physician) features on the animated version of episode four, whilst episode five takes up the search for missing episodes with hunters Paul Vanezis and Philip Morris.

The DVD will be released for Region Two on 28th January 2013, and for Region One on 12th February 2013.

The BFI Southbank in London is to mark Doctor Who's 50th anniversary by showing stories from each Doctor throughout 2013.

According to the latest BFI booklet, there will be something from Doctor Who every month up to and including November.

The first screening in the celebratory season will be of the programme's first adventure, An Unearthly Child, directed by Waris Hussein and starring William Hartnell, Carole Ann Ford, Jacqueline Hill, and William Russell. It takes place on Saturday 12th January at 3.30pm and there will also be guests, although they are yet to be confirmed.

Tickets go on sale to the general public on Tuesday 11th December at 11.30am, and bookings can be made via the relevant BFI programme page.

Details and dates of future screenings in the season are yet to be announced.

The British Board of Film Classification have listed features to be included on the DVD release of William Hartnell adventure The Reign of Terror, due out on 28th January.

FEATURE LIST ONE:

00:25:02:12  DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD - 
             THE MAKING OF THE REIGN OF TERROR
00:04:09:05  THE REIGN OF TERROR - PHOTO GALLERY
00:03:36:19  THE REIGN OF TERROR - ANIMATION GALLERY

FEATURE LIST TWO:

00:01:02:00  DOCTOR WHO - THE FIRST DOCTOR RETURNS -
             THE REIGN OF TERROR (TRAILER)

Commentaries have been passed on all six episodes, including the two animated episodes four and five.

The Season 3 episode Air Lock that was recovered last year is to be shown in full on the big screen in London next month.

It will form part of the first session of this year's annual BFI event Missing Believed Wiped, entitled The Weird And The Wonderful.

An excerpt from the Galaxy 4 episode was shown as a surprise part of last year's BFI showcase of recovered TV material, as was the screening in full of episode 2 of The Underwater Menace, whose recovery had similarly been kept under wraps until then. Both episodes were shown in full in Cardiff in May.

In addition, the second and concluding session of this year's Missing Believed Wiped - Music And Entertainment - will include the recovered March 1966 edition of BBC TV's youth culture show A Whole Scene Going that features a location report from the filming of Daleks - Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.

Tickets to both sessions of this year's event, which takes place on Sunday 2nd December at the BFI Southbank, go on sale to the public at 11.30am on Tuesday 13th November.

As previously reported, Air Lock is to be a bonus episode on next March's special edition DVD release of The Aztecs.

A fan-written biography on First Doctor William Hartnell is now available as an e-book.

The 6,500-word booklet, first available last year, looks at Hartnell's earliest years and those of his ancestors, going right back to the 1500s. There are a few surprises and a lot of interesting personal and social history throughout the journey. The PDF file is available via eBay.

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The first issue of Fan Fiction Illustrated, the 'zine that will give fan writers and artists a place to showcase their comic strips, etc, is now accepting pre-orders via Indiegogo.com.

Former Doctor Who script editor Andrew Cartmel is writer and script editor of the 'zine, and will be producing new stories based on his masterplan for Doctor Who for the first time in comic strip form. The first issue will feature 4 stories:

• Andrew Cartmel's 7th Doctor & Ace adventure "Phantom Freight"; art by Emerson Dimaya
• Paul Cooke's "The Cabe" - a prequel to Terror of the Zygons; art by Adrian Salmon
• Mike Dwyer's 5th Doctor & Peri adventure "Phantom of the Space Opera"; art by Flavio Bezerra
• Plus a Ducktor Who adventure authored by "Lord Aylesbury Mallard" and illustrated by "Vincent Van Duck"

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A new blog, The Doctor Who Book Project, reviews all of the Doctor Who books published in the Wilderness Years, by one fan who's intimately familiar with them and another who really only got into the series when it came back in 2005.

Tomorrow (20th August) see the the final complete Doctor Who adventure featuring William Hartnell as the First Doctor, arrive on DVD. In order to promote the release of Planet of Giants, BBC Worldwide have uploaded a couple of preview clips to their YouTube channel; in the first item, Carole Ann Ford talks about working on the serial, whilst the second item sees the late producer Verity Lambert discussing her thoughts about the Doctor's personality and William Hartnell's portrayal.


Other recent features uploaded by BBC Worldwide include the original theme music, planning a regeneration, evolving the Second Doctor, recollections on The Enemy of the World, and the casting of Peter Cushing and Roy Castle in Doctor Who and the Daleks.

Planet of Giants:

The British Board of Film Classification has passed the special features for the forthcoming DVD release of the final complete William Hartnell story to be released, Planet of Giants:

00:28:01:16 DOCTOR WHO - CRISIS
00:24:31:18 DOCTOR WHO - THE URGE TO LIVE
00:08:27:11 REDISCOVERING THE URGE TO LIVE
00:15:17:10 SUDDENLY SUSAN
00:13:58:23 THE LAMBERT TAPES - THE DOCTOR
00:03:20:22 PLANET OF GIANTS - PHOTO GALLERY

As previously reported, the release will feature a recreation of the original four-part story based on the original scripts and featuring newly recorded dialogue and animation. The commentary by Clive Doig, Brian Hodgson, Sonia Markham and David Tilley was also passed on 6th June.

A clean version of the cover art by Lee Binding for the DVD has been published via the Tea-Lady Design Facebook page.

Future Release Updates:

Lee Binding has reported that an announcement about The Ambassadors Of Death will be made in the next week or so. The graphic designer recently completed the DVD cover, saying: "Ambassadors sleeve submitted to @classicdw. No Liz Shaw on the front, sadly. No decent pics. Rest: kinda classy, which is nice. « I'm sure the usual #doctorwho ming-mongs will complain anyway. 'It's not GREEN. Ambassadors is a GREEN story!' *rolls eyes* «" Meanwhile, an image of the colourisation process for the story undertaken by Richard Russell was shared on Twitter by Stuart Humphryes (aka @Babelcolour), who himself is working on episode one of The Mind of Evil.

Brian Hodgson recently mentioned that he had recorded a commentary for the incomplete Patrick Troughton adventure The Moonbase. It is currently unknown if this is for a Revisitations makeover of the 2004 Lost In Time collection of existing, isolated episodes, or if it will form part of a special release of the story with an animated reconstruction of the missing episodes one and three. The Special Sound Designer also mentioned a commentary for Fury From The Deep, though this seems more likely to be for The Underwater Menace, of which episode two was recovered last year - again, the context of such a release is currently unknown.

Behind The Scenes:

Producer Chris Chapman tantalised the Twitter community this week with updates on extras being made for the series: "Heading back to London after a day of exciting Doctor Who stuff - storyboard complete! « About to start the edit proper on Secret Project 5 (our 31st Who doco) - this one's a bit mad, a bit Louis Theroux and a bit golf-y.. « SP5 is presented by Toby Hadoke and is intended for the same DVD release as SP6 (which hits the edit next week)! «"

Finally, a small event in the history of the range was marked on 29th May, reported by the BBC's Classic Series Twitter feed: "Many thanks to Ed Stradling for all his hard work, as he delivers his final documentary. Hope to persuade him back for the odd special!"