The BBC have launched the 2012 Script to Screen Competition which will give one lucky team of primary school children the chance to write their own Doctor Who mini-adventure starring the Eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith.

In 2011 Script to Screen was part of Doctor Who Confidential. The competition was won by the children of Oakley Junior School in Basingstoke, who saw their script, Death Is the Only Answer produced by the BBC Wales team and shown on BBC Three following the 2011 series finale.

The 2012 competition is now open to UK pupils aged 9-11 who are encouraged to collaborate on a script that takes the Time Lord on a new quest travelling through space and time. Bespoke lesson plans and printable Doctor Who resources are also available to inspire children's creativity.

Amy and/or Rory can be included in the script, but no other Doctor Who characters such as River Song.

The competition closes at midnight on 16th March 2012. Resources and an entry form are available on the BBC Schools Website.

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Matt Smith will be appearing on Blue Peter this week to launch the competition - the show will be broadcast today (Thursday) on the CBBC channel at 5:45pm, and then on BBC1 on Friday at 4:30pm. The episode will be available on the BBC iPlayer for a week after broadcast.

The answer to one of Doctor Who's oldest mysteries has been provided on the DVD release of Invasion of the Dinosaurs.

It has long been known that Elisabeth Sladen was not the first choice of actress to play the role of Sarah Jane Smith. For years the identity of the original actress has remained a close secret, known only to members of the production team.

However, the production notes on the new DVD release, compiled by David Brunt, have revealed that the actress first selected to play the role was April Walker. Brunt discovered the name on a stray memo from the BBC files, informing the BBC Finance department to pay the actress when each of the eleventh season stories went into studio.

Walker had a similar pedigree to Sladen at the time Sarah Jane was cast, with small roles in a number of television series including Crossroads, Dad's Army and The Onedin Line.

Walker was cast in 1973 as the Doctor's assistant by then-producer Barry Letts, who was looking for a replacement for Katy Manning, who had left the series at the end of the previous season. Contracts were signed but when Walker met the current Doctor, Jon Pertwee, it became apparent there was a lack of chemistry between the two. Although the pair had worked together on stage about five years previously and got on quite well, she was not the sort of actress Pertwee wanted to play the companion. He felt she was too tall, busty and too much of a dominant performer. Not the sort of tiny girl he could "protect" as the Doctor.

For actors to be replaced after they have been cast is not common, but not unknown. Sometimes the face just doesn't fit and however good the actor is, the production team realise that a replacement is necessary. Letts took the decision to recast the part and eventually selected Sladen, this time with approval from Pertwee. To take the decision to recast the role was a very difficult one for Letts and one he never discussed in public. Walker was paid in full for the Eleventh season.

Following her brief encounter with the Doctor, Walker has gone on to have a long career with over 40 appearances listed on the Internet Movie Database. She is perhaps most well known for playing Jean in the 1975 Fawlty Towers episode The Wedding Party. She also had roles in Anna Karenina, The Two Ronnies, Wyatt's Watchdogs and Minder.

The forthcoming third issue of the Doctor Who production research fanzine Nothing at the End of the Lane will contain Walker's first ever published interview concerning her casting and replacement in Doctor Who. The fanzine is released later this month.

The Tuesday repeat of the Doctor Who Christmas Special, The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe had an audience of 1.1 million viewers according to unofficial overnight figures.

The show had a 9.5% share of the audience available, winning its timeslot. All Star Family Fortunes, which was scheduled against Doctor Who again, also had an average of 1.1 million watching, however Doctor Who had the higher ratings while the shows were pitted against each other.

Meanwhile more details have emerged about the Christmas Day showing. Among children aged 4-15, as well as adults aged 45-54, Doctor Who was the most watched programme on Christmas day. The only group for which Doctor Who lost out to All Star Family Fortunes was viewers aged 65+.

Doctor Who was the only programme on Christmas Day post-3pm which had an exact 50/50 male/female split.

8.9 million watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special, The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe according to unofficial overnight figures.

Doctor Who was the third most watched programme of the day, with the two soaps taking the top two spots with EastEnders winning the day with 9.9 million and Coronation Street just beating Doctor Who with 9.0 million watching.

Downton Abbey took the fourth spot with 8.1 million watching.

Against Doctor Who, All Star Family Fortunes managed 6.1 million viewers.

Doctor Who had one of the the highest audience shares for the day with 34.2% of the available audience.

BBC One took six of the top ten places with ITV1 taking four, a contrast to the previous few years which have seen BBC One dominate the top ten chart for Christmas Day. All viewing figures are considerably down on recent years.

Doctor Who is the fourth most watched programme of the week on overnight figures.

It is important to note that the overnight figures are an initial estimate. Final figures, including those who record the programme and watch it within a week, will be published by BARB in around 8 days time.

The Doctor Who immersive theatre experience, The Crash of the Elysium is to be recreated at the Ipswich Arts Festival from 15th June to 8th July 2012, as part of the London 2012 Festival celebrating the Olympic Games taking place in the summer.

The event was originally created by Punchdrunk for the Manchester International Festival that took place last June/July, and is described as:
The performances will take place at the Crown Car Park, and is sponsored locally by the New Wolsey Theatre; there will be three variations of the show, catering for schools, families with children aged 7-12, and for those aged 13 and older.


Ruth Mackenzie, Director, Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival, said
Ipswich Borough Council Leader David Ellesmere said:
Sarah Holmes, New Wolsey Theatre Chief Executive said:
Councillor Kathy Gosling, Suffolk County Council's portfolio holder for sport, culture, diversity, health and wellbeing, said:
Andrea Stark, Executive Director, Arts Council England, said:


There is a website for the event, though at the time of writing it is not currently active.

We have three copies of the CD up for grabs courtesy of Silva Screen Records. To be in for a chance of winning the competition, simply complete the following verse from the nursery rhyme which was played during the final seconds of Closing Time:

Tick, tock, goes the clock, he cradled and he rocked her.
Tick, tock, goes the clock, ________________________.

Send your answer with your name and address to us at s6cd-competition@doctorwhonews.net, with the subject line Series 6 CD Competition.

This competition closed on the 23rd December 2011

This competition has now closed. Doctor Who News is offering readers a chance to win the Eleven Doctors Action Figure Collector Set, in our Christmas Competition.

The set includes 5-inch action figures of each of the Eleven Doctors.

Five Gift sets are up for grabs.

To be in with a chance of winning, simply tell us your prediction for the total BBC One audience, to the nearest 10,000 viewers, for the Christmas Day showing of The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe.

Just to clarify, we are looking for the final confirmed audience as published by BARB in January. This figure includes those who record the programme and watch it within one week and it includes those watching on BBC One HD. It does not include those watching on iPlayer.

To help you estimate the figure, ratings for the previous episodes of Doctor Who transmitted on Christmas Day were:

1965 - 5.50pm - The Feast of Steven - 7.90 million
2005 - 7.00pm - The Christmas Invasion - 9.84 million
2006 - 7.00pm - The Runaway Bride - 9.30 million
2007 - 6.50pm - Voyage of the Damned - 13.31 million
2008 - 6.00pm - The Next Doctor - 13.10 million
2009 - 6.00pm - The End of Time Part One - 12.04 million
2010 - 6.00pm - A Christmas Carol - 12.11 million


This year's story is broadcast at 7:00pm and faces opposition on ITV1 from All Star Family Fortunes Christmas Special.

Entries should be sent to us at xmas-competition@doctorwhonews.net - please include your answer, name, address and daytime contact number.

Only one entry is allowed per person.

Entries must be received by 7:00pm, 25th December 2011 UK Time.

Doctor Who has topped the list as the most purchased TV Series from iTunes, according to figures released by Apple in the US.

Doctor Who outranked US hits including the Emmy-winning sitcom Modern Family and Glee to become the most downloaded series of the year.

In the UK the current series is more usually watched on the BBC iPlayer, where The Impossible Astronaut is currently the 2nd most requested episode of the year.

In the UK iTunes store David Tennant's swan song as The Doctor, The End of Time Part 2, was the 6th most purchased TV episode of the year.

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Twitter have also been reviewing the year and revealed that Elisabeth Sladen, who died in April, was the one of Twitter’s most talked-about people in 2011.

As the news of the unexpected death of the much loved actress spread around the world, fans took to the blogging site to discuss the news and to pay their tributes to the star, making the Sladen the 6th most discussed actress on Twitter in 2011.

BBC Worldwide have announced the first in a new range of console games:

The game will be released early next year, initially for Sony's Playstation 3 and Vita platforms and a PC version, and is being developed by Supermassive Games for BBC Worldwide Digital Entertainment and Games, and is written in collaboration with BBC Wales.

Both Matt Smith and Alex Kingston have reprised their roles of the Doctor and River Song respectively for the brand new storyline, which is to be presented in high definition, using photo-real graphics, television quality scenes and motion capture to create in-game characters.

Robert Nashak, EVP of Digital Entertainment at BBC Worldwide said:

There is also a dedicated Twitter feed, @DoctorWhoTEC, where more information will be announced as the release date approaches.

BBC3 Controller Zai Bennett appeared on today's edition of BBC1's viewer opinion programme Points of View to discuss the channel's recent commissioning policies, of which the first question raised asked about the cancellation of Doctor Who Confidential:
Bennett responded:

In response to reports by the press recently about a completed version of Doctor Who Confidential having been made for Christmas but not being shown, Bennett replied:

This edition of Points of View is available to watch in the UK via the BBC iPlayer (DWC from 2:12) until 11th December.