According to BBC journalist Lizo Mzimba on Twitter, the first television trailer for the forthcoming Doctor Who special, "Planet of the Dead", will air on BBC One on Wednesday at 9 pm, just prior to "The Apprentice".

Trailers for the special have already appeared before live audiences at a Wales rugby match and at the "Story of Doctor Who" event at the Celtic Media Festival. However, Mzimba tweets, "You didn't hear this from me. But trailer is a brand new one. It's not the one shown at the Wales V Ireland Rugby or anywhere else."

The BBC Press Office has confirmed that the Doctor Who special Planet of the Dead will air during the week beginning 11th April. Although the series is listed as "unplaced" in the main press release, it also briefly appeared on the page for Saturday's programmes. Final airdate and time slot will be confirmed when the listings are sent to magazines at the end of next week.

Planet of the Dead features David Tennant as the Doctor, Michelle Ryan as Lady Christina and Lee Evans as Malcolm. It is written by Russell T Davies and Gareth Roberts.

The BBC gives the following description for the special:

The Doctor Who Restoration Team have announced the closure of their Technical Forum by 1st April 2009.

The forum has been running for ten years and provided a base for discussion of technical issues related to the restoration of classic Doctor Who episodes for video and DVD release.

In a statement Steve Roberts, who runs the site and is a leading member of the restoration team, cited a number of reasons for the closure. These include incompatibility between the site's original aim of openness and access to the production process and the requirements of operating in a commercial world as well as an increase in the amount of personal abuse in forum postings.

The main Restoration Team site, which features articles on the work undertaken on new DVD releases, will continue as normal.

Posted By Anna Roberts

The Sun has published new photos from the first special, Planet of the Dead. These include Malcolm, played byLee Evans, in an article which also reveals details about a character appearing in another special.

The first photo of the aliens featuring in Planet of the Dead, the Tritovore, also appeared in The Sun today, although the newspaper isn't quite sure yet how their name should be spelt.

The Sun believes Planet of the Dead is scheduled to be broadcast on Easter Sunday, 12th April, although there has be no official confirmation of the transmission date from the BBC as yet.

The Daily Express also speculates that Tom Baker is in discussions regarding a future cameo appearance in the series alongside Matt Smith.

Please note, links contain spoilers

Series four of Doctor Who, transmitted last year on BBC One, has been shortlisted in the Best Drama Series category at the British Academy Television Awards (BAFTAs), the UK's most prestigious television accolades. This is the second time that the programme has been nominated for this award - series one was nominated and won the category at the 2006 ceremony.

The BAFTA website shows that Doctor Who has been nominated alongside Channel 4's Shameless and BBC One stablemates Spooks and Wallander. Spooks and Shameless were also nominated the last time that Doctor Who won the category.

The awards will be presented at a ceremony held in the Royal Festival Hall in London on Sunday the 26th of April.

The nominations for the 2009 Hugo Awards have been announced, and once again Doctor Who has been nominated for the "Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form" category. Two Doctor Who stories received nominations: "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" by Steven Moffat, directed by Euros Lyn; and "Turn Left" by Russell T Davies, directed by Graeme Harper. They will compete against episodes of Lost andBattlestar Galactica, and Joss Whedon's Internet musical "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog".

The Hugo Awards are given each year for the best works of science fiction or fantasy, as determined by the members of the World Science Fiction Society. Doctor Who has won every year since its return to television in 2005: the last three winners have been "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances" (2006), "The Girl in the Fireplace" (2007) and "Blink" (2008), all written by Steven Moffat. Five other Doctor Who stories and one episode of Torchwood have been nominated in the past.

This year's winner will be announced at Anticipation, the 67th Annual Worldcon, in Montreal, Canada in August.

Thanks to Steve Manfred.

The Sun has a story about the companions who will accompany the Tenth Doctor in his last story, and the story's antagonist. The information, if true, may be considered a spoiler; click the box below for details if you wish.

Please note that this has not been confirmed by any official source.

David Tennant will appear in four more special episodes of Doctor Who. One will air around Easter, and the other three will air around Christmas 2009 and New Year's 2010. The last two specials form a two-part story; this is the story which the Sun's news concerns.

Thanks to James Robertson.

The Daily Mirror has reported that one of the Doctor Who specials which will air later this year will be set on Mars. In classic Doctor Who, the recurring monsters known as the Ice Warriors were native to Mars; the planet was also the prison of Sutekh in 1975's "Pyramids of Mars", and in a 1970 serial, human astronauts met "The Ambassadors of Death" on their way to Mars.

The Mirror also reports that the special will star Australian actor Peter O'Brien and actress Gemma Chan as "evil characters" in one of David Tennant's final Doctor Who stories.

The Doctor Who News Page previously reported that The Sarah Jane Adventures had been nominated for a Royal Television Society Programme Award, in the Children's Drama category; the awards were announced on March 17, and SJA lost to junior spy adventure M.I. High.

Finally, the Edinburgh Evening News reports that the Edinburgh police force are planning to bring "Tardis-style" police boxes back into use in the city's downtown. Many Edinburgh police boxes have been converted into coffee shops, but if this initiative goes through others would be used by police, as they were in the 1950s and 1960s.


Thanks to Chuck Foster and "nabusan" of the Doctor Who Forum.

Various DVD sites are listing the 1976 Tom Baker story The Deadly Assassin for DVD release in early May.

The story, written by Robert Holmes and directed by David Maloney, was the third of Doctor Who's fourteenth season. It features Peter Pratt as the Master, as well as Angus MacKay playing Borusa and Bernard Horsfall as Chancellor Goth.

It is only serial of the original Doctor Who series in which the Doctor does not have a companion.

Some sites also have the 1987 Sylvester McCoy story Delta and the Bannermen listed for release in the later part of June. This story was written byMalcolm Kohll and directed by Chris Clough.

Other stories scheduled for release in 2009 are The Keys of Marinus; The War Games and the Dalek War box set (Frontier in Space / Planet of the Daleks).

An additional box set of three stories, and a stand alone release, are also due in 2009.

Director Euros Lyn speaks exclusively to Wired.com about his two upcoming directorial projects: Torchwood: Children of Earth and the two-part finale for the Tenth Doctor.

Speaking of the Torchwood shoot, Lyn said: "It's been an endurance test. It was a 16-week shoot for the Torchwood season - longer than most feature films. But the intensity keeps you focused on the work."

"For the first time, we'll see Torchwood facing a threat from home while they're also investigating an alien invasion. When they try to discover why all the children in the world have suddenly stopped at the same time, Torchwood also has to deal with human beings who are trying to hide a past mistake."

Work on the Doctor Who specials begins immediately after the work on Torchwood wraps. "I've seen the scripts, and they're amazing," he said. "I'm being very careful not to give anything away, but I think fans will be thrilled with David's farewell and how we set up the 11th Doctor."

The article includes the first look at the BBC promo poster for Torchwood (pictured below; click for larger view) as well as a video of the trailer.