Battles in Time Expansion

Thursday, 18 January 2007 - Reported by Jarrod Cooper

GE Fabbri has announced a new expansion set to the Doctor Who: Battles in Time magazine and collectible card series. The new set, The Annihilator Series, will feature 100 new card designs. The Expansion set, which includes images from The Runaway Bride, will be included starting with Issue 12.

“As well as some terrifying Racnoss Empress cards, there are some amazing moving-image ultra rare cards in this set,” says Battles In Time editor, Claire Lister. “We’re lucky that Doctor Who features several monsters that look very different underneath from what you’d expect on the outside, so look out for a Sycorax Unmasking Card, a Dalek Mutant reveal, and a particularly chilling card where Toby Zed becomes possessed by the Beast!”

FILTER: - Magazines

BBC Chief: Dr Who is our creative future

Thursday, 18 January 2007 - Reported by Kenny Davidson

On the day when the BBC's Director General expressed real disappointment at the Government's final licence fee level settlement, which funds the corporation, he also gavea keynote speech on the BBC's creative future. Addressing The Future Of Creative Content Conference, part of the Media Summit 2007 event taking place in London, Mark Thompson gave a detailed lecture, but highlighted only one programme as an example of how the corporation was making its creative future a reality - Doctor Who. This part of his lecture is quoted below.

But it's incredibly important that we don't define "value" solely around productivity or cost-cutting. One of the fundamental lessons we learned from Creative Future was the value you can grow, the audiences you can build, when you think about projects not just in terms of single linear broadcast windows but across different platforms and media.

It will be much harder to justify very high budgets for content that only gets a single outing on a linear channel. But that's no longer the right way to think about content commissioning. In future major projects should extend not just across TV, the web, radio, and mobile but through multiple windows across time and across different business models.

So: Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and BBC Wales build a brilliant sci-fi production factory to deliver Doctor Who. And when I say "factory" I don't just mean physical production, I mean ideas, development, brilliant scripts, design as well. A complete creative operation.

The factory of course makes even better creative and economic sense when you add Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. Doctor Who plays out across BBC and UKTV channels. The Torchwood website is not just commissioned on day one but is out there before the TV premiere. There's a coherent plan in place for the whole audience relationship with the content almost from the start.

Now clearly this kind of 360 degree exploitation could be creatively limiting or tawdry. Commercial priorities could distort the original commissioning intention. But it really hasn't been in this case and that's because we've had totally committed creative leaders at the centre of decision-making at every stage of the process. You'd have to talk to them directly to hear how they've found it, but my sense is that the sheer scale of the possibilities, the potential to link different titles and different platforms has been creatively inspiring and liberating.

FILTER: - Production

Torchwood - Final Ratings

Wednesday, 17 January 2007 - Reported by Marcus

BARB have released figures for the final week of "Torchwood".

The BBC3 showing achieved a rating of 1.23 million viewers and was the most watched programme on BBC3 for the week. Overall it was the second most watched programme on all multi channel TV, being beaten by "Monday night Football" on Sky Sports.

The BBC2 repeat scored 2.14 million and was the 21st in the BBC2 chart.

The final figures show that, after launch, the series settled down with an average audience of around 4 million viewers each week. The Appreciation index for all episodes was above the average for drama and ended with a massive 86 for the final BBC3 programme.

Click on the graphics below for the full details

FILTER: - Torchwood - Ratings - UK

Gunfighters CD release

Wednesday, 17 January 2007 - Reported by DWNP Archive

The BBC has given a few details about the release of the Hartnell story "The Gunfighters" on CD scheduled for 5 February. The release, which features linking narration by Peter Purves, will also include a special interview with Purves on the making of the episode. As a special there is a 10-minute bonus track of the original recordings of Lynda Baron singing "The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon" from the story. This is the first ever release of the soundtrack that is sure to set the toes tapping.

FILTER: - Audio - Classic Series

Raiders of the Lost Archives

Wednesday, 17 January 2007 - Reported by Chuck Foster

ITV broadcast the first part of their new series, Raiders of the Lost Archive, last night; presented by Paddy McGuinness, the show features clips for famous television personalities that were thought to be lost to the archives.

The programme has been made through searches through industry archives and private collections, and the show has also made an appeal for other shows to be returned, in a similar vein to the BBC's own Treasure Huntappeal. This new more general initiative has its own website to accompany the show, and includes a section for the 50 most wanted television shows - of which Doctor Who is listed (number 12 in the alphabetical list). Says the site: "Over 100 episodes of this ever popular series are missing or part missing – all from the black and white 60s era of the show. Doctor Who fans are particularly interested in recovering “The Tenth Planet” Episode 4 which was first broadcast on October 29, 1966. It was the final story of the first Doctor, William Hartnell’s era and the first story to feature the Cybermen. Patrick Troughton also makes his first, uncredited appearance as the Second Doctor. Many classic gems now survive only as soundtracks and photographs. Additionally, some Jon Pertwee 70s episodes made in colour only survive in b/w. Do you have “The Web of Fear” episodes 2-6 or “Fury from the Deep”?"

The next show will feature a very young David Tennant (above) in an early television appearance!

FILTER: - David Tennant

"Survival" coming to DVD

Wednesday, 17 January 2007 - Reported by R Alan Siler

BBC DVD/2Entertain has announced full details of the DVD of "Survival", which will be hitting the British retail shelves in a 2-disk, heavily specials-laden release on 3 April 2007. The final story of the original Doctor Who series, "Survival" (starring Sylvester McCoyas the Doctor, Sophie Aldred as Ace, and Anthony Ainley as the Master) is also the 40th Classic Doctor Who DVD release.

Special features include:

Disc 1

Main commentary withith Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred and script-editor Andrew Cartmel.
Second commentary (episode three only). Fan commentary from the winners of a recent Doctor Who Magazine competition.
Cat Flap - a two-part documentary covering the making of Survival. Part One covers set-up and pre-production, Part Two covers shooting and post-production. With Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Lisa Bowerman, Will Barton, Sakuntala Ramanee and Adele Silva, script editor Andrew Cartmel, director Alan Wareing, visual effects assistant Mike Tucker, composer Dominic Glynn and costume designer Ken Trew. Narrated by Paul Ewing.
Deleted and Extended Scenes - material from the first edit of the story that didn't make the final cut, plus comparisons of some of the scenes before and after the video effects were added.
Out-takes and comedy moments from the production of the story.
Continuities and trailers from the original BBC1 transmission.
Photo Gallery - production and behind-the-scenes stills from the making of the story.
Isolated Score - option to view the story with synchronous isolated music.
Radio Times listings in Adobe pdf format for viewing on PC or Mac.
Programme subtitles and subtitle production notes.

Disc 2

Endgame - Why was Doctor Who cancelled at the end of Season 26? What might have been in store for the Doctor and Ace if the series had continued into Season 27? With Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred, script editor Andrew Cartmel, writers Ben Aaronovitch and Colin Brake, BBC Head of Drama Series Peter Cregeen, composer Mark Ayres and visual effects designer Mike Tucker. Narrated by Paul Ewing.
Search Out Science - a schools programme featuring the Doctor and Ace, with Stephen Johnson and K9.
Little Girl Lost - A retrospective look at the development of Sophie Aldred's character, Ace, from her first story, Dragonfire through to her last, Survival. With Sophie Aldred, creator Ian Briggs and script editor Andrew Cartmel.
Destiny of the Doctors - Anthony Ainley's last appearance as The Master, in these links from the 1997 computer game.

For complete details on the release, please visit the Restoration Team's website.

FILTER: - Classic Series - Blu-ray/DVD - Radio Times

Billie in the Charts again

Wednesday, 17 January 2007 - Reported by Kenny Davidson

Billie Piper could make a big impact return to the top 40 charts on Sunday, and all without singing a note.

Radio 1 breakfast presenter Chris Moyles announced to his listeners on Monday that he was planning to conduct a test to see if he could exploit a change in the way the charts are counted, where downloads are included alongside singles.

He played Billie's 1999 hit Honey to the Bee, which charted at number 3, to see if hearing the old hit would encourage people to download it and get it into the charts.

And download sales have already picked up with the song making it into the Top 75 midweek chart and today climbing into the iTunes Top 20.

This high profile marketing has somewhat eclipsed the similar promotional campaign we reported on last week. That campaign, started in our forums and echoed on many Dr Who sites since, is promoting downloads of the song Love Don't Roam, from the Dr Who Soundtrack album. Undeterred, and with all the enthusiasm of fandom, that purchasing drive continues all this week.

FILTER: - People - Billie Piper

Paul Cornell at London Event

Wednesday, 17 January 2007 - Reported by Mike Doran

Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell will be a guest at the monthly meeting of the British Science Fiction Association, in London, on the evening of Wednesday 24th January, where he will be interviewed by science fiction critic and fan Graham Sleight. The meeting is upstairs at a pub called the Antelope on Eaton Terrace (nearest tube Sloane Square). The interview starts at 7pm, but fans will be milling about downstairs from 5pm.

As well as being the writer of the episode "Father's Day" from the 2005 Doctor Who series and two episodes of the upcoming 2007 series Paul has written many Doctor Who books and audios as well as other novels and comic books.

FILTER: - People

BBC Online Drama Awards - clean sweep for Dr Who

Monday, 15 January 2007 - Reported by Kenny Davidson

The results have been published for the BBC website's Best Drama Awards for 2006. The awards have been comprehensively won by Doctor Who, where it won each category with a clear majority of votes cast. The site features quotes from voters and video clips. The votes are revealed over a number of pages, but are summarised below.

Best Drama:

1: Doctor Who (31.33%)
2: Robin Hood (19.38%)
3: Jane Eyre (12.08%)
4: Life on Mars (6.37%)
5: Holby City (5.29%)

Best Actor:

1: David Tennant (39.96%)
2: Jonas Armstrong (13.25%)
3: Toby Stephens (10.49%)
4: Richard Armitage (4.97%)
5: John Simm (3.09%)

Best Actress:

1: Billie Piper (42.74%)
2: Ruth Wilson (16.01%)
3: Lucy Griffiths (11.03%)
4: Amanda Mealing (5.65%)
5: Lacey Turner (2.69%)

Favourite Moment:

1: Rose's exit [Doctor Who] (27.25%)
2: Jane and Rochester's Reunion [Jane Eyre] (4.11%)
3: Daleks v Cybermen [Doctor Who] (4.08%)
4: Ruth's exit [Spooks] (2.49%)
5: Robin hears Marian accepting Guy's proposal [Robin Hood] (2.05%)

Best Drama Website:

1: Doctor Who (36.90%)
2: Robin Hood (18.17%)
3: Spooks (6.79%)
4: EastEnders (6.70%)
5: Torchwood (6.45%)

FILTER: - Awards/Nominations - Series 2/28

Torchwood BBC3 Success

Monday, 15 January 2007 - Reported by Marcus

Final figures give "Torchwood" nine of the top fifteen ratings for programmes shown on BBC Three in 2006. The programme is by far the most successful ever shown on the channel.

Before "Torchwood" the record for the highest audience for the channel, was held by an episode of "Little Britain", shown on 19th October 2004, with 1.90m viewers.

Torchwood had the second highest ratings on all Multi Channel Television shown during 2006, just being beaten by "Terry Pratchetts Hogfather" which got 2.65 million viewers.

Top BBC3 Programmes for 2006

1 Torchwood 22/10/06 Sunday 21:00 - 2.56m
2 Torchwood 22/10/06 Sunday 21:51 -2.52m
3 Torchwood 29/10/06 Sunday 21:59 -1.77m
4 Torchwood 05/11/06 Sunday 22:00 -1.39m
5 Torchwood 26/11/06 Sunday 22:00 -1.31m
6 World Cup 2006: Post-Match Croatia v Australia 22/06/06 Thursday 21:49 -1.28m
7 Torchwood 12/11/06 Sunday 21:59 -1.26m
8 Spooks 16/10/06 Monday 22:26 -1.23m
9 Torchwood 19/11/06 Sunday 21:59 -1.22m
10 EastEnders 21/09/06 Thursday 21:59 -1.13m
11 Torchwood 03/12/06 Sunday 22:00 -1.12m
12 EastEnders 16/02/06 Thursday 22:00 -1.12m
13 60 Seconds 22/10/06 Sunday 22:39 -1.10m
14 Spooks 17/09/06 Sunday 22:29 -1.09m
15 Torchwood 10/12/06 Sunday 22:00 -1.07m

FILTER: - Torchwood - Ratings - UK

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