Vengeance on Varos will represent the Sixth Doctor's era next month in BBC America's Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited celebratory season.

A documentary entitled Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited - The Sixth Doctor will air on Saturday 29th June at 7.30pm ET/PT, followed by an omnibus edition of the adventure, which was written by Philip Martin, directed by Ron Jones, and originally broadcast in two episodes in January 1985 as the second story in Season 22.

The documentary will see Sixth Doctor actor Colin Baker, both his companion actors Nicola Bryant and Bonnie Langford, and current lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat, among others, examining the Sixth Doctor's adventures and discussing his famous foes, including the universe's most slippery businessman, Sil, who made his first appearance - of two so far - in the story.


BBC America is paying tribute to the programme's 50th anniversary by showing a story per Doctor per month.

Saturday 1st June sees a big screen, one-night only, celebration of Doctor Who's 50th anniversary across Australia and New Zealand.

A double bill of episodes from Series 7, Asylum of the Daleks and The Angels Take Manhattan will screen at 48 cinemas across Australia and New Zealand, including Event, Dendy and Village cinemas in Australia, and Event Cinemas in New Zealand.

This will be the second one-off simultaneous cinema screening in both countries this year. The first was for The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon on 14th March.

On the same night as the cinema screenings, a light show featuring Doctor Who projections will be staged in Sydney.

A series of specially-created 3D-mapped images will be projected on to the façade of Sydney’s Customs House at Circular Quay.

The Doctor Who projections are part of the 18-day Vivid Sydney festival, taking place from 24 May to 10 June. The festival is organised by the New South Wales Government Government’s tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW.

“This is a one-night only celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, and sees Australian creative innovators, The Spinifex Group, working with the Doctor Who team to create projections that will deliver a show-stopping, unique anniversary celebration for Doctor Who’s legion of fans.” - Andrew Stoner, NSW Deputy Premier and Minister for Trade and Investment.

“We are delighted to partner with Destination NSW and Vivid Sydney to bring this unique night of Doctor Who entertainment to life in Sydney. Vivid Sydney is the perfect platform for this Anniversary celebration, which will see the Doctor projected 7m high onto one of the city’s most historic buildings. The Spinifex Group has done a tremendous job of creating a display which makes the most of Customs House’s amazing façade.” - Sharon Wilson, Head of Marketing, Global Brands, BBC Worldwide Australia and New Zealand. 

The last episode of the current series is to have a prequel, it was announced this afternoon.

Entitled She Said, He Said, it has been written by showrunner Steven Moffat and will feature Jenna-Louise Coleman as Clara and Matt Smith as the Doctor.

According to the show's official website, it will be one of the longest prequels the show has had and will look at "how little Clara knows about the Doctor . . . and vice versa."

The minisode will be made available from the official website and via the BBC's Red Button service straight after Nightmare in Silver ends in the UK this coming Saturday at 7.45pm. Series finale The Name of the Doctor airs in the UK on Saturday 18th May, with the time still to be confirmed.

BBC America has chosen Earthshock to represent the Fifth Doctor in its Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited celebratory season.

A documentary entitled The Doctors Revisited: The Fifth Doctor will air on Sunday, May 26 at 8pm Eastern/7pm Central, followed by the four-part story that reintroduced the Cybermen after an absence of nearly seven years.

The documentary will see Peter Davison, Steven Moffat, Hugh Bonneville, Sarah Sutton, and Mark Strickson discussing the Fifth Doctor. It will also feature other as-yet-unspecified contributors.

Earthshock first aired in 1982. As well as the return of the Cybermen, it featured the death of the Doctor's companion Adric, the only long-term television companion to die since the First Doctor's era.

BBC America is paying tribute to the programme's 50th anniversary by showing a story per Doctor per month.

Brian Minchin has been made executive producer on Doctor Who alongside showrunner and lead writer Steven Moffat with immediate effect, it was announced this afternoon.

He replaces Caroline Skinner, who stepped down last month to join BBC Drama Production in London.

Minchin is an executive producer for BBC Wales's drama department, where he has been working on The Game, a new Cold War spy thriller from Toby Whithouse for BBC One, and Wizards vs Aliens, the Russell T Davies and Phil Ford co-creation for CBBC. He has also worked as BBC executive producer on Dirk Gently - based on the novels by Douglas Adams - and Being Human (another Whithouse creation).

He has been a script editor on Doctor Who and was a producer for spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures as well as the UK sections of Torchwood: Miracle Day, and was assistant producer on Torchwood: Children Of Earth.

Having grown up in Aberystwyth, Minchin joined the BBC Wales drama department in Cardiff in 2005 as a script editor working on the BBC One Wales production Belonging, before moving to network dramas Doctor Who and Torchwood in the same role.

He said: Faith Penhale, the head of drama at BBC Wales, said: And Moffat added:

BBC Books has released details of the forthcoming adventure Harvest of Time featuring the Third Doctor and the Master as well as UNIT.

Announced in July 2011, it has been written by Alastair Reynolds, who won a British Science Fiction Association award in 2001 for his novel Chasm City.


The 386-page book, which has an RRP of £16.99, will be published on Thursday 6th June and is available to pre-order.

Reynolds gained a PhD in astronomy and worked as an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency before becoming a full-time writer. His book Revelation Space was short-listed for both the Arthur C Clarke and BSFA Awards, while House of Suns was short-listed for the Arthur C Clarke Award.

The BBC have launched a new Doctor Who related competition for schools, this time focussing on creating music for the show; winners will hear their compositions at the Doctor Who Prom this summer.

The competition is being run in conjunction with BBC Learning and BBC Proms, the aim of which is to produce a new soundtrack for one of the 'clean' clips provided from last Christmas's The Snowmen. It is open to UK secondary school pupils in two categories, aged 11-14 and 15-16, and entries are to be judged by a panel of music education experts appointed by BBC Proms. Winners are to be judged based upon these criteria: Musical idea, Originality, Creative use of soundtrack methods, and Interpretation of action through soundtrack.

Full details, including the terms and conditions, can be found on the BBC's competition page, including an introductory video by composer Murray Gold and arranger Ben Foster on creating music for the series.


BBC Learning have run Doctor Who related competitions for schools over recent years, with their Script to Screen initiatives resulting in the production of minisodes Death is the Only Answer in 2011 and Good As Gold in 2012.

BBC Worldwide/Warner Home Entertainment have released details on a forthcoming DVD release, The Doctors Revisited (1-4), a four-disc boxed set being released as part of BBC America's 50th Anniversary celebration of Doctor Who.

This set features the first four special documentaries broadcast by the channel for William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, each accompanied by the story that illustrated them (The Aztecs, The Tomb of the Cybermen, Spearhead from Space and Pyramids of Mars). As a bonus, each story will also feature an introduction by the show's current lead writer and executive producer, Steven Moffat.

Amazon have made the story available for pre-order, with a release date of 11th June 2013.

The Revisited trailers can be viewed online for the First, Second and Third Doctors.

The Moonbase:

As well as the release above, Amazon have also listed The Moonbase for pre-order! The site describes the release thus:
No other information is known about this item or its features at present, though last year special sound composer Brian Hodgson indicated that he had recorded a commentary for the story.

BBC Careers have published details for the role of Executive Producer for Doctor Who, which was vacated by Caroline Skinner last month.

The role is advertised as a 20 month, fixed-term contract at the Roath Lock Studios in Cardiff, and is described thus:


Job requirements include:


The closing date for the role is the 14th April.

The Amazon-based LOVEFiLM streaming service will be making episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures available to watch, as a new deal has been struck with BBC Worldwide. The package will include shows like The Story of Tracy Beaker, Balamory and Teletubbies.

Chris Bird, Director of Film Strategy at LOVEFiLM, said:

Lisa Rousseau, BBC Worldwide's Head of UK, Ireland and Pan European Television Sales, added: