After the traditional break for Christmas, filming on the next series of Doctor Who resumed this week. Yesterday saw the production team return to the very public location of Roald Dahl Plass - a venue last seen being blown up in Torchwood: Children of Earth!

Not to be put off by the snow that's hit the country this week, both Matt Smith and Karen Gillan were present for filming, alongside the TARDIS and guest star Tony Curran. See the spoiler section for more details on what occured!



Not surprisingly, the media were quick to pick up on such public filming - for a run-down of articles see our Doctor Who in the Media article.

TV Tonight blog reports that Part One of The End of Time will make its Australian debut on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Sunday 14 February 2010 at 7.30pm on ABC1. 'TV Tonight' also reports that Part Two of 'The End of Time' will screen the following Sunday, 21 February 2010, also on ABC1 at 7.30pm.

Thanks to TV Tonight.

The BBC has released a new image on the Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith. The image is available on the BBC Website along with an image of the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors. The new picture forms the basis for the cover to the revamped Doctor Who Magazine which is available in the United Kingdom from today.

The magazine confirms the writers for Matt Smith's first series as the Doctor.

Lead writer Steven Moffat will write six of the thirteen episodes. He will be joined by Chris Chibnall who is writing two episodes and Mark Gatiss, Toby Whithouse, Gareth Roberts, Richard Curtis and Simon Nye all writing one episode each.

Toby Whithouse wrote the Series Two story School Reunion which saw the return of Sarah Jane Smith and K9 to the series. He has also written for Torchwood and created Being Human for BBC Three.

Chris Chibnall wrote the Series Three story 42. He was head writer on Torchwood and has also written for Life on Mars.

Mark Gatiss is one of only three people to have both written and appeared in Doctor Who. He wrote The Unquiet Dead for Series One and The Idiot's Lantern for Series Two. He later went on to appear in the Third Series story The Lazarus Experiment.

Gareth Roberts wrote The Shakespeare Code for Series Three and The Unicorn and the Wasp for Series Four. He co-wrote Planet of the Dead with Russell T Davies. He has also written for The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Neither Simon Nye or Richard Curtis have written for Doctor Who before. Nye was the creator of the long running sitcom Men Behaving Badly, which was based on his first novel, for which he won a Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award and a Royal Television Society Award. He adapted The Railway Children for television in 2000 and has written many pantomimes. Curtis, whose contribution to the series was announced in September, was Oscar nominated for Four Weddings and a Funeral and is the man behind many British comedy films and sitcoms.

The Sunday afternoon repeat of The End of Time, Part Two, was watched by 1.7 million viewers on BBC One. The programme had a share of 9.6% and an AI of 89. The later BBC Three repeat had 0.28 million and a 1% share.

Australia's ABC Television have revealed, via their Facebook page, that they will air the two parts of The End of Time in February.

TV By The Numbers reports that the BBC America showing of The End of Time, Part One had a total audience of 904,000 viewers across the episodes three placings. The rating was down on The Waters of Mars which had 1.1 million watching. It was however the most watched programme on BBC America for the week with Doctor Who: Inside Look coming second with 497,000 watching.

The cover artwork for the Winter Specials and the Complete Specials DVD Box sets is now available. See the product list on the right for release dates.

The soundtrack website Music From The Movies has a new interview with Doctor Who composer Murray Gold, in which Gold confirms that he will be staying on to compose the music for the 2010 series of Doctor Who.

In the interview, Gold discusses composing and recording the scores for "The End of Time" and the other 2009 specials. He also mentions that he has already begun work on a new version of the Doctor Who theme for 2010, and that the forthcoming series will feature scripts by Mark Gatiss and Gareth Roberts.

David Tennant's swansong scored an Appreciation Index figure of 89 on BBC One on Friday.

The Appreciation Index, or AI, is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. A figure of 89 is incredibly high, especially for a programme with such a large audience. The show scored well on all indicators, with viewers marking it as a high-quality programme which they made a special effort to watch. It scored highest with the female audience and with those aged 35-55.

The End of Time - Part Two is the highest scoring of the five specials. Only the last two episodes of Series Four have scored higher on their first transmission.

Earlier in the day, the repeat of The End of Time - Part One, with its lower audience of 2 million, scored an AI figure of 90.

10.4 million people watched the final part of The End of Time on BBC One yesterday, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The programme got a 35.5% share of the total television audience and was the second most watched programme of the day. EastEnders once more took the top place with 11.6 million, the programme benefiting from the Doctor Who inheritance. The later showing of Coronation Street on ITV1 had 9.8 million viewers while its earlier placing got 8.6 million, with Doctor Who beating the soap in the period they were head to head. Doctor Who peaked with 10.87 million watching between 7:45 and 7:50pm.

The rating makes the Tenth Doctor's regeneration the most watched regeration in the series' history.

Doctor Who was also available on BBC HD where a further 389,000 watched the episode.

On BBC Three Doctor Who Confidential had 1.1 million watching with and additional 76,000 on BBC HD, one of the highest ratings for the series and the second highest multi-channel programme for the day.

2 million viewers watched the lunchtime BBC One repeat of The End of Time Part One, where the programme comfortably won its timeslot.

BBC News has published a report on the overnight ratings for the episode, also covering some of the critical and audience reaction to Tennant's departure.

The passing of the Tenth Doctor is covered extensively in Saturday's papers. Beware reviews do contain spoilers of the episodes.

The Times has a minute by minute description of the story which it says is a great entrance and a great exit and has a look forward to the Moffat years while The Mail has a big photo feature on the episode. The Guardian describes the outgoing production team as masters. The Sun claims there was a huge electricity surge in the UK as the population switched on their kettles as the episode finished although The National Grid's website appears to contradict this. The paper's reviewer hated the episode calling it an embarrassing spectacle of overacting.

The Herald thought the story was funny and sad, scary and uplifting, threatening and comforting while The Telegraph felt that David Tennant said farewell to the series in thrilling yet emotional style.

Online, Den of Geek says the episode was an 80 minute exercise in just how much David Tennant is going to be missed and Airlock Alpha says the real heart of the episode was the interaction between Bernard Cribbins and Tennant, with both actors able to turn even the smallest piece of dialogue into something spectacular. SFX gives the episode five stars calling it a great finale with very clever writing, and incredibly sad yet resonant final words.

Matt Smith's local paper The Northampton Chronicle says the new Doctor will make the town proud.

The episode commentary, the last with Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner, is now on the BBC website.

For more press items in the last few days see GallifreyBase's Media Summary.

Following the regeneration of David Tennant into Matt Smith, a section of the official BBC Website has been re-branded complete with exclusive preview of the new series.

The promo, which is now also on the BBC YouTube Channel, has no spoilers from The End of Time.



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BBC News have uploaded this morning's interview with David Tennant. The item contains two clips from The End of Time Part Two, which contain spoilers from Part One.

Tennant later appeared on a BBC Radio 5 Live phono-in, which is available on the BBC iPlayer.

BBC News have also published an article on regenerations past and present.

David Tennant has also talked to MTV about his 'Doctor Who' Mementoes.