Big Finish have released details on a special Companion Chronicle for the 50th Anniversary:

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 Books is to bring out a fact-filled Doctor Who publication next month. Entitled Who-ology: Doctor Who - The Official Miscellany, the 384-page hardcover book, compiled by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright, will be available from Thursday 2nd May.

Scott has written books, audio dramas, and comics strips based on series including Doctor Who, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Skylanders, and Judge Dredd. He has also written about the Doctor's adventures in Doctor Who Magazine and SFX.

Journalist and author Wright, who is also a regular contributor to DWM, has written audios, short stories, and comic strips featuring new adventures for the Doctor, along with tie-ins to other series such as The Sarah Jane Adventures and The Power Rangers.

Who-ology is available to pre-order.

Actors Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, and Janet Fielding will join director Graeme Harper and Radiophonic Workshop composer Roger Limb as the special guests at the BFI Southbank big-screen showing of The Caves of Androzani next month.

The four-part story is being shown on Saturday 4th May to mark the Fifth Doctor's era, as part of the BFI's Doctor Who At 50 season.

The adventure saw the Doctor regenerate into his sixth incarnation, played by Colin Baker, and today the BFI revealed that the story picked to mark the Sixth Doctor's era will be The Two Doctors, to be shown on Saturday 15th June at 2pm.

The three-part adventure, written by Robert Holmes, co-starred Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor and was first broadcast in 1985, pitting both Doctors against the Sontarans. It also saw the return of Frazer Hines as Second Doctor companion Jamie. Location filming was carried out in Spain.

BFI Champions and members are entitled to priority booking for the event, whose guests will be announced nearer the time, but because of the overwhelming popularity of the Doctor Who At 50 season a ballot system will be in operation once again for tickets. Two ballots are being run - one each for Champions and members - via e-mail to memberballot@bfi.org.uk. Champions can enter from Monday 6th May, while members can enter from Tuesday 7th May. Champions can enter both ballots.

The ballots will close on Friday 10th May and will be run over the weekend of 11th and 12th May, with all entrants being notified on Monday 13th May as to their success or failure. Any tickets that have been reserved for Champions and members through the ballot will be held until 8.30pm on Friday 17th May, and those left unclaimed will be released for public sale on Saturday 18th May.

However, on Wednesday 15th May the official Doctor Who Facebook page will have a small number of tickets set aside for purchase by members of the public, whereby people will have to correctly answer a question to be in with a chance of booking.

Although all the celebratory screenings have been immediate sell-outs, returns and stand-bys are a strong possibility, so if all else fails do keep checking with the BFI!

.As previously reported, Splendid Chaps is a year-long performance/podcast project to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who hosted by comedian Ben McKenzie (Dungeon Crawl, Melbourne Museum Comedy Tour) and writer John Richards (ABC1 sitcom Outland, Boxcutters podcast)

Described by its creators as part intellectual panel discussion, part nerdy Tonight Show, Splendid Chaps is a combination of analysis, enthusiasm and irreverence. The first episode went to number 1 on the iTunes TV & Film Podcast chart in Australia, and to number 4 in the UK.  The podcasts to the first few episodes are now available at www.splendidchaps.com or at  iTunes.

Tickets are now on sale for their 5th Doctor show!
On Sunday May 19 they’ll be celebrating the era of the 5th Doctor, the cricket-and-celery-loving Peter Davison, and exploring the notion of Fear in Doctor Who. When is Doctor Who scary, and why? Guests will include comedian Tegan Higginbotham (from comedy duo Watson and The Comedy Channel’s Whatever Happened To That Guy?) and horror author Narrelle M Harris. That’s at The Public Bar, 238 Victoria Street, North Melbourne, at 5pm.

Splendid Chaps: A Year Of Doctor Who: "Five: Fear"

Space: The Public Bar, 238 Victoria Street, North Melbourne
Time: Saturday 19 May 2013, 5 PM
Accessibility: This venue is wheelchair accessible.
Tickets: All tickets $15 (plus booking fee where applicable)
Bookings: via trybooking.com, or buy tickets at the door (subject to availability)
Podcast: not yet available, released 23 May 2013.

This weekend's adventure for the Doctor and Clara will be Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, written by Steve Thompson and directed by Mat King. The episode will premiere on BBC One in the United Kingdom on Saturday at the earlier time of 6:30pm.


Continuing last week's line-up, The National Lottery: Who Dares Wins! follows Doctor Who at 7:15pm, with ITV again broadcasting You've Been Framed! Favourites from 6:00pm and Britain's Got Talent from 7:00pm. Similarly, BBC Two remains the same with Flog It! at 6:30pm and World Snooker at 7:00pm, and Channel 4 finishes Come Dine with Me at 6:40pm, with the News then followed at 7:00pm by Sarah Beeny's Selling Houses. This week's film offering from Channel 5 is The Caine Mutiny.


Internationally, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS will be broadcast in the United States and Canada on BBC America and SPACE respectively at 8:00pm ET the same evening, and then on Sunday it can be watched in Australia via ABC at 7:30pm, Poland via BBC Entertainment at 6:00pm, and South Africa via BBC Entertainment at 7:00pm. Meanwhile, New Zealand viewers will see Cold War this Thursday on PRIME at 7:30pm.

See This Week in Doctor Who for more details on scheduling and repeats.

Based on these final figures, Cold War was the top-rating ABC program of the day and the ninth highest rating program of the day overall (this compares to it being the tenth highest rating program based on its overnight figures of 728,000 viewers). These ratings do not include regional viewers.

Hide had an Appreciation Index, or AI score, of 85.

The Appreciation Index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. The score, out of a hundred, is compiled by a specially selected panel of around 5,000 people who go online and rate and comment on programmes.

Doctor Who scored higher than most of Saturday's output. The highest scoring programmes of the day were Casualty with 87, Walking Through History with 87 and The Many Faces of Michael Crawford with 87.

Hide has debuted in Australia, averaging 648,000 viewers in the five major capital cities. It was the ABC's top-rating drama of the day and the tenth highest rating program of the day overall. These ratings do not include regional or time-shifted viewers.

Hide had an overnight audience of 5.0 million viewers, a share of 24.5% of the total TV audience.

Doctor Who was fourth for the day. Its final half hour was opposite Britain's Got Talent on ITV, which was top for the day with 9.7 million watching and 43.9% share of the audience.

The BBC's talent show, The Voice, had 7.9 million watching - a large increase on the previous week. Casualty was third with 5.2 million viewers.

Final ratings will be released next week, which should see Doctor Who substantially increase its rating once those who timeshift the programme are factored in.