Reeltime Pictures have announced the DVD release of the spin-off adventure Downtime, a direct to video production originally released in 1995 and featuring the character of Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, as played by the late Nicholas Courtney.

The story was devised as a sequel to the second Doctor serials involving the Great Intelligence, The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear, and included the return of Victoria Waterfield and Professor Edward Travers, as played by Deborah Watling and her father Jack Watling; it also saw the return of investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith, reprised by Elisabeth Sladen. The video was also notable in introducing the character of the Brigadier's daughther, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, now a firm favourite in the ongoing series of Doctor Who on television.

The character of the Brigadier was created in 1968 for the story The Web of Fear, written jointly by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln, who authorised the original video production. However plans for Reeltime to release the drama on DVD have been contested by the Executor of the Haisman Literary Estate, Haisman's granddaughter Hannah Haisman-Hatt. She posted on Facebook:
Reeltime Pictures have disputed her claim, with a spokesman informing Doctor Who News:

This is not the first time a dispute has arisen over characters and objects created for Doctor Who. In 2013 the son of Anthony Coburn, the writer of the very first story, claimed ownership of the TARDIS.

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A roundup of publicity for the next episode in the current series of Doctor Who, The Woman Who Lived.

The Woman Who Lived: Known Broadcast Details
United Kingdom	BBC One	Sat 24 Oct 2015	8:20pm
United States of America	BBC America	Sat 24 Oct 2015	9:00pm EDT	(1:00am GMT)
Canada	SPACE	Sat 24 Oct 2015	9:00pm EDT	(1:00am GMT)
Asia Pacific	BBC Entertainment	Sun 25 Oct 2015	10:00am SGT	(2:00am GMT)
New Zealand	PRIME	Sun 25 Oct 2015	7:30pm NZDT	(6:30am GMT)
Australia	ABC	Sun 25 Oct 2015	7:40pm AEDT	(8:40am GMT)
Europe (Benelux)	BBC First	Tue 27 Oct 2015	9:00pm CEST
United Kingdom	BBC Two	Fri 30 Oct 2015	1:45am	(British Signed Language)
Finland	YLE2	Mon 26 Oct 2015	6:05pm EEST
India	FX	Sun 1 Nov 2015	11:00pm IST
South Africa	BBC First	Sat 31 Oct 2015	7:30pm SAST
Germany	FOX	Thu 17 Dec 2015	~10:00pm CET	(dubbed into German)

The actor Neville Jason has died at the age of 81

Neville Jason appeared in the 1978 story The Androids of Tara where he played Prince Reynart in the Key to Time story, based upon The Prisoner Of Zenda and directed by Michael Hayes.

Recalling the story he said He appeared in many UK TV Dramas, including regular roles in Emergency-Ward 10, Maigret, Barlow, The Little Ship. Armchair Thriller, Goodbye Darling and Skorpion.

His theatre credits included Publius in Titus Andronicus various roles in The Knight of the Burning Pestle and playing John Fryer in the musical Mutiny!.

In later years he recorded many audio books, including the whole of War And Peace. His recoding of Proust's Remembrance Of Things Past, which he partly translated, comes on 120 CD's.

He is survived by his wife Gillian

Doctor Who: Before the Flood had an official consolidated rating of 6.05 million viewers.

The rating issued by the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board, or BARB, includes all those who watched the programme within one week of transmission. It does not include those watching online via iPlayer

Doctor Who was the 8th most watched programme on BBC Television, and second overall on Saturday. Full data is not yet available for ITV+1, but Doctor Who is expected to be around 21st for the week.

Top of the week was the final of The Great British Bake Off with 15.05 million watching, the biggest audience for any programme this year.

Doctor Who: The Girl Who Died had an Audience Appreciation or AI score of 82.

The Appreciation Index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. The score, out of a hundred, is compiled by a specially selected panel of around 5,000 people who go online and rate and comment on programmes.

With Sunday's overnight viewing figures now available, Doctor Who finished as the 27th most watched programme of the week. Consolidated figures will be published next week.

The Girl Who Died has debuted in Australia, averaging 501,000 viewers in the five major capital cities. It was the second-highest rating ABC drama of the day and the thirteenth highest rating program of the day overall. These ratings do not include regional or time-shifted viewers.

Meanwhile, including time-shifted viewers, Under the Lake averaged 612,000 consolidated viewers in the five major capital cities. With 182,000 extra viewers, it was the highest time-shifted program of the day (the second highest time-shifted program only had an extra 95,000 viewers) and the eighth highest rating program of the day overall. These ratings do not include regional viewers.

The BBC have released clips looking behind the scenes of this weeks episode of Doctor Who, The Girl Who Died.




A full review of the episode can be found on Doctor Who Reviews

This item Contains Plot Spoilers

Press reaction for this weeks episode, The Girl Who Died, is in with The Guardian calling the story and enjoyable daft romp. "Vikings have been a puzzling omission from most of Doctor Who, only cropping up once before The Time Meddler in 1965; so presumably the Doctor is rarely in the mood to tangle with Vikings. Throwing in an electric eel-based attack strategy and the Benny Hill theme music, there’s plenty of fun to be had here before the dark twists of the final minutes."

The Telegraph enjoyed the pace of the episode "The attack and battle sequence zipped through at speed. If it felt a little rushed it didn't hugely matter, as it was clearly setting up for a bigger second half."

The Express found the episode underwhelming, comparing the episode to the series Game of Thrones, in which the guest actor, Maisie Williams, stars. "Maisie was good as Ashildr - the girl who can make her visions come to life - but for the most part it did feel as if she was just playing a viking version of Arya Stark from the HBO fantasy series."

Radio Times, after being critical of the first part of the series this year, enjoyed the episode praising it as a return to a more traditional type of story. "It taps into a very traditional vein but again slyly transcends it, and achieves that holy grail of TV drama – unpredictability." They praise the writer Jamie Mathieson who wrote last year's story Mummy on the Orient Express and who co-wrote this story with Steven Moffat. "It rarely feels predictable. It never bores. I lost count of the times I thought, “Oh, I didn’t expect that.” After a lifetime of watching this series, that’s rare."

The Metro , while disappointed by the premise of the episode, also praised the writing. "Between them, writers Jamie Mathieson and Steven Moffat just about get away with it by not taking it too seriously. The Doctor flounces around, naming the villagers after characters from EastEnders, Scooby Doo, Noggin the Nog and the 1980s band ZZ Top before he finally pulls a rabbit out of a hat – or an electric eel out of a vat – to bring hope to the hopeless."

Digital Spy thought the episode unlike any other in the series history, varying wildly in tone. "It's fast-paced, with sharp, funny dialogue and some great clowning from Peter Capaldi, who seems far more comfortable with this sort of material than he was 12 months ago. Scenes in which hapless Vikings are spooked by false Gods are almost Monty Python-esque" AV Club tells its readers to go and watch the episode immediately. "This isn't an episode where the Doctor pretends to not have a plan right up to the opportune moment. He genuinely has no idea how he, Clara, and a bunch of Norse farmers and fishermen are going to defeat one of the galaxy’s most fearsome warrior races"

TV.com wants to wait until next weeks episode before passing judgement. "The Girl Who Died" appeared to be an open-and-shut, single-hour adventure as the Doctor came, saw, and saved the day, but it was still just setting us up for whatever is to come next week." while Mashable thought Maisie Williams was underused. "Sure, she nailed her speech about not fitting in with either girls or boys, but that was way too short to showcase her talents. As was the whole setup where she effectively challenges the Mire to a duel, and the Mire helmet visualization that kills her."

Den of Geek was slightly disappointed by the character of Ashildr, given the wild speculation over the character's origins that had taken place online. "Once one gets past the fact that Williams is not playing Susan or some other familiar character, it’s easier to embrace the story she’s in and who she is playing: the Viking girl Ashildr. And yeah, Ashildr is pretty important to the Doctor too, it turns out. Or at least she becomes important by the end of “The Girl Who Died."

gamesRadar wasn't convinced by the alien race, the Mire. "The armoured suits are fun, and the make up once their helmets came off well-realised, but there’s no real sense of threat. That’s fitting given that the Doctor's solution hinges on them being all mouth and no space trousers, but it’s hard to believe that he was genuinely troubled by them earlier on."

Indie wire loved the portrayal of The Doctor. Capaldi is having a whale of a time and isn't even trying to hide it. He wisecracks, technobabbles and emotes like the best of them, thankfully securing his place in the pantheon of Really Good Doctors. Now that he's finally come into his own, having been poorly served by last season's patchy writing, he's up there with Baker, Pertwee and Eccleston (yes, I said it).

Finally Wales online had no doubt what the talking point of the episode would be. "At last, we are told exactly why the Doctor chose THIS face. I no doubt believe that this point will be spoken about for many years to come."

You can read the Doctor Who News review in our reviews section.

4.85 million viewers watched Doctor Who: The Girl Who Died, according to unofficial overnight viewing figures.

Doctor Who was the second highest rated show of the day, behind Strictly Come Dancing which had an average of 9.66 million viewers. Casualty was third with 4.61 million watching.

Rugby scored highest on ITV, but with none of the home countries playing, just 4.04 million watched New Zealand defeat France.

The rating, the highest figure for the series this year, was slightly boosted by the late start to the episode, meaning the calculation includes the remnants of the Strictly audience. However detailed figures show the audience rising during the show once the Strictly audience had departed to average around 4.63 million.

Final ratings will be issued next week, which will be based on the exact transmission time for the episode and will include those who record it and watch it later.

Doctor Who is currently the 22nd most watched programme for the week

Candy-Jar Books will be releasing the third story in their Lethbridge-Stewart series of novels, Beast of Fang Rock by Andy Frankham-Allen, later this month; those who pre-order the book before relaease date will also receive an additional free short e-story on PDF, The Cult of the Grinning Man.


As might be discerned from the synopsis, Beast of Fang Rock is a sequel (and prequel) to the Season Fifteen opener, Horror of Fang Rock by Terrance Dicks. Talking about the setting, author Andy Frankham-Allen said:
The book also heavily features one of the principal characters from The Web of Fear, Anne Travers; head of publishing Shaun Russell explains:
The book also has a foreward by the storie's star, Louise Jameson, who played Leela in the original story, had provided a foreward for the book, during which she observed:
Hayley Cox, senior publishing coordinator at Candy Jar Books, also explained how the setting of the lighthouse itself is important:


The book can be pre-ordered from the Candy Jar Books website.