The elusive title for the forthcoming Christmas Special has finally been revealed by the BBC, as the official Doctor Who website announces it as A Christmas Carol.

The title is perhaps unsurprising given comments made by Ben Stephenson (Controller BBC Drama Commissioning) back in July, when he revealed the story would be "Doctor Who's clever twist on the much loved A Christmas Carol"!

A preview for the episode is due to be shown on next Friday's Children in Need, and the official site has also reported that another Doctor Who-related item will feature on the show, featuring Matt Smith as "two young fans of Doctor Who have their dream come true..."

Australian sources are reporting that the 2010 Doctor Who Christmas Special will be fast tracked to ABC Television where it will be shown on Boxing Day.

In previous years the Christmas Specials have taken a couple of months to travel down under with The End of Time being shown in the middle of February.

The programme, which co-stars Michael Gambon and Katherine Jenkins, will almost certainly be shown in the UK on Christmas Day, although schedules will not be confirmed until the end of next month. A fast track to the USA and Canada is also likely.

The BBC has released a Drama Showreel showcasing the new drama output coming up on the BBC over the next six months, featuring clips from the 2010 Christmas Special of Doctor Who.


The showreel was previewed at an event marking two years in post for BBC Controller of Drama, Ben Stephenson.

Other dramas featured include performances from the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors:

Christopher Eccleston stars in an episode of Accused, a new drama series from Jimmy McGovern for BBC One.

David Tennant plays Dave in Single Father coming to BBC One on Sunday 10 October.

Matt Smith plays Christopher Isherwood in Christopher and his Kind coming to BBC Two next month.

A number of news outlets have picked up from the Radio Times that the British actor Martin Shaw (The Professionals, Inspector George Gently) turned down the chance to play James Bond in the late 1970s. Digital Journal, however, leads on the fact that Shaw would consider playing the Doctor, albeit if the commitment was a lot less than is currently expected of Doctor Who's leading actor!

Elsewhere in Radio Times, Phil Collinson is interviewed about his plans for Coronation Street as it approaches its 50th anniversary and beyond, which has been reported here. RT attributes Collinson's savviness on Who under Russell T Davies as being part of the reason ITV Studios have entrusted him with Corrie's birthday celebrations, which Digital Journal has picked up on, too.

Steven Moffat, meanwhile, has been talking in Doctor Who: The Brilliant Book and Doctor Who Magazine about the 2010 Christmas special and the cliffhanger between the two 2011 series (Easter and autumn) of  Doctor Who. His comments have already been picked up by a number of outlets, including Den of Geek, Digital Journal and Digital Spy.

Katherine Jenkins has been talking to this week's edition of Radio Times about her role in the Doctor Who Christmas Special.

The 2009 Doctor Who story The Waters of Mars has won the 2010 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.

The story was part of the Specials series covering the gap year between Series 4 and Series 5. It was written by Russell T Davies and Phil Ford and directed by Graeme Harper. The story starred David Tennant as the tenth Doctor along with Lindsay Duncan who played Adelaide Brooke.

The award was announced at Aussiecon 4 in Melbourne earlier on Sunday. The Waters of Mars beat two other Doctor Who stories, The Next Doctor and Planet of the Dead as well as the American series Dollhouse and Flash Forward to triumph at the awards.

The Hugo Awards are given every year for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. Hugo Awards have been presented every year since 1955

The award is the first for Russell T Davies. Doctor Who has previously won three Hugo Awards, all for stories penned by current Showrunner Steven Moffat. In 2006 The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances in 2007 The Girl in the Fireplace and in 2008 for Blink.

Doctor Who has dominated the 2010 Portal Awards, held by Airlock Alpha part of the BlipNetwork.

Doctor Who was named Best Series/Television with 65% of the vote beating Torchwood into second place.

David Tennant was overwhelmingly voted Best Actor/television with a massive 68% of the vote, beating John Barrowman who was in second place with 10% of the vote.

Bernard Cribbins won Best Supporting Actor/Television for his portrayal of Wilfred Mott in The End of Time with 59 percent of the vote. The End of Time was itself voted Best Episode/Television.

Alex Kingston was voted Best Special Guest for her portrayal of River Song in Time of Angels.

The award for Best Actress/Television went to Eve Myles for Torchwood - Children of Earth, beating Karen Gillan into second place

The Gene Roddenberry Award for lifetime achievement was given to Russell T Davies for his work on Doctor Who and Torchwood.

This was the 11th year for the Portal Awards, which started in 1999 as the SyFy Genre Awards. An international nominating committee generated a list of five nominees for each category and readers then had 30 days to vote.

Doctor Who has won seven awards over the years, and is third to Star Trek: Voyager (18 wins) and Farscape (eight wins).

Full list of winners.

What a busy couple of weeks its been. Despite Series 5 of Doctor Who having finished, hardly a day goes by without some sort of Who-related news popping up.

For a fuller round-up, remember to look in on Doctor Who in the Media, but, to whet your appetite, here's a summary.

On Sunday, BBC 1 premiered the long-awaited first episode of Sherlock (see our earlier story), Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss's updated version of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes, Martin Freeman as Dr John Watson and Rupert Graves as Inspector Lestrade. Cumberbatch has created a bit of a stir in the last few days by suggesting, first, telling Digital Spy that he may well be appearing in several episodes Doctor Who, and, then, according to the Sun that he considered becoming the eleventh Doctor before Matt Smith was cast in the role.

Again, according to the Sun, Matt Smith is eager to leave Doctor Who to pursue a career in Hollywood. However, this has been denied by both Moffat, to BBC News, and Karen Gillan, during her visit to Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup Final at Cowdray Park Polo Club! For a less sensational take on this, see this story and this story on Digital Journal.

Nicky Wire, of the Manic Street Preachers, caused a bit of a stir when he blogged on the band's website that he was writing a Doctor Who script. He's since clarified on Twitter that it's fan fiction and not a BBC commission.

Russell T Davies has been speaking to SFX about the fourth series of Torchwood and has also dealt with the rumours surrounding a Johnny Depp as the Doctor Hollywood movie! This story covers the original "exclusive" and RTD's debunking of it.

Finally, there was plenty of press coverage surrounding the start of filming of the 2010 Christmas special (see this Gallifrey Base story), guest-starring Sir Michael Gambon and Katherine Jenkins, including here, here and here.

Happy times and places!

The Time of Angels has debuted in Australia to excellent ratings. TV Tonight reports that the episode averaged 909,000 viewers in the five major capital cities, again despite stiff competition from the commercial networks. For another week it was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's top-rating program of the day, rating higher than its popular Sunday 7pm news and a new episode of Foyle's War. The corresponding Confidential Cutdown also rated an excellent 687,000 viewers in the five major capitals.

Meanwhile, TV Tonight also reports that local pay TV network UKTV will have a special Doctor Who June long weekend, broadcasting the full high definition version of Planet of the Dead, as well as the Confidential Greatest Moments specials. The broadcaster is also holding some competitions, including asking viewers to vote for their favourite 10 episodes at www.bbcaustralia.com.

Update: TV Tonight also reports that Doctor Who has done very well with timeshifted viewers. Victory of the Daleks had the second highest percentage increase for Sunday 2 May, 12.9%, gaining 117,000 viewers for an overall audience of 1.027 million. The Beast Below also gained via timeshifting 12.1% viewers, a total of 954,000 viewers.

The first week in March saw the recording of the French translation of David Tennant's final adventure, The End of Time. The recording took place at the Dubbing Brothers studios in Brussels, Belgium, with dialogue written by François Dubuc, and the session directed by David Macaluso.

The role of the Doctor was assumed by David Manet, who has played both the Ninth and Tenth Doctors throughout the series' return. However, the Eleventh Doctor finds a new 'voice' in the form of Belgian stage actor and dubbing artist Marc Weiss. Similarly returning is Franck Dacquin as the Master - he has been John Simm's 'alternative' since Life on Mars.


There is currently no information as to when The End of Time (or its predecessor The Waters of Mars) will be broadcast in France.