Next week's adventure for the Doctor and Clara will be Cold War, written by Mark Gatiss and directed by Douglas Mackinnon. The episode will premiere on BBC One in the UK on Saturday at the earlier time of 6:00pm.


This week continues to see the episode between the news and The Voice, with the competition from ITV once again in the form of You've Been Framed. BBC Two offers The Story of Are You Being Served? followed by an episode of the show, whilst Channel 4 has the news followed by Sarah Beeny's Selling Houses. Meanwhile, Channel 5 finishes the film Rocky III and then commences The Magnificent Seven Ride!



Internationally, Cold War will be broadcast in the United States and Canada on BBC America and SPACE respectively at 8:00pm ET on the 13th April, and then on the 14th it can be seen 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 finally gets to see the new series launch with The Bells of Saint John this Thursday on PRIME at 7:30pm.

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

Final ratings data for the week ending 31st March 2013 released by the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board, or BARB, gives Doctor Who: The Bells of Saint John a final rating of 8.44 million viewers.

The final rating includes all those who record the programme and watch it within a week. It does not include the BBC Three repeat, where around 390,000 watched. Nor does it include those watching on iPlayer where over 1 million people have accessed the episode so far.

The rating is the highest the series has received, excluding the Christmas Specials, since the premier of Series Six in April 2011, when The Impossible Astronaut had 8.86 million watching.

Doctor Who was the second highest rated show on BBC One for the week, only being beaten by one episode of EastEnders. It out-rated The Voice by nearly 1 million viewers, even though the two shows were level on overnight estimates. The only show to get a higher rating on ITV was Coronation Street where five episodes scored above Doctor Who. (ITV figures do not include HD viewers).

Full Ratings Data

The BBC have confirmed that actress Jemma Redgrave will return to Doctor Who for its 50th Anniversary Special, reprising her role as UNIT's Head of Scientific Research, Kate Stewart.

The announcement comes as filming resumes in London this week, with the crew spotted at The Tower of London this afternoon - the building was last seen in The Power Of Three as the exterior of UNIT Headquarters. Jenna-Louise Coleman was present at the location, along with actress Ingrid Oliver.

The Rings of Akhaten had an Appreciation Index, or AI score, of 84.

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.

Although the score is slightly lower than recent episodes Doctor Who still scored higher than most of Saturday's output. The highest scoring programmes of the day were Casulty with 87, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway with 88 and Dad's Army with 87.

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 a special bonus show all about Doctor Who books!

Books have always been an important part of Doctor Who, from the Target novelisations of the pre-video recorder age to the New Adventures and Eighth Doctor novels that continued the story after the original series went off air. Ben, John and Petra will be joined by editor and JOY 94.9 host Katie Purvis, and filmmaker, writer and podcaster Dave Hoskin for a discussion and reading of some of these works, plus a look at the stranger end of the publishing spectrum (the Doctor Who Cookbook, anyone?). And there’ll be a special reading from comedian Lawrence Leung!

Splendid Chaps: A Year Of Doctor Who: "Who and Books"

Space: Northcote Library, 32-38 Separation Street, Northcote, Melbourne
Time: Saturday May 4 2013, 4:30 PM
Accessibility: This venue is wheelchair accessible.
Tickets: All tickets $10 (plus booking fee where applicable)
Bookings: via trybooking.com, or buy tickets at the door (subject to availability)
Podcast: TBA.

The Rings of Akhaten has debuted in Australia, averaging 725,000 viewers in the five major capital cities. It was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation'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.

The Rings of Akhaten had an overnight audience of 5.5 million viewers, a share of 28.8% of the total TV audience.

Doctor Who was once more third for the day, although the gap between the series and the programmes at the top of the chart was slightly larger, perhaps reflecting the lighter evenings.

Top of the list was Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway with 7.3 million watching, while The Voice was second with 6.4 million viewers.

Doctor Who once more won the time-slot with You've Been Framed Rides Again! getting 3.4 million watching.

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.

Sunday 7th April sees the broadcast of the four-part 1975 Tom Baker story The Ark in Space on Australian and New Zealand television. The story is the 13th instalment in the 50th Anniversary season of Doctor Who stories on the UKTV channel.

The story is scheduled in Australia at 3:30pm and in New Zealand at 4:00pm. New Zealand has an additional screening on Monday 8th April at 3:55am.

The Ark in Space was first broadcast in Australia in 1976. New Zealand got to see it in 1978.

The UKTV billing describes the story as follows:

The TARDIS arrives on a deactivated space station Nerva otherwise known as the Ark. The Doctor, Sarah & Harry find the last survivors of the human race in suspended animation.

UKTV is showing stories throughout the year in the lead-up to the anniversary in November. The Ark in Space is the first in a set of six stories featuring Tom Baker's Doctor broadcast during April.

The rest of the month's schedule includes: Genesis of the Daleks (14th April), Pyramids of Mars and The Hand of Fear (21st April), and The Robots of Death and City of Death (28th April).

Up-and-coming broadcasts from both 20th and 21st Century series of Doctor Who can be found via UKTV's Doctor Who sections  for Australia and New Zealand.

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.

A video of the guest panel at the BFI's screening of the colour-restored The Mind of Evil is now available to watch online.

The event was held on Sunday 10th March to mark the Third Doctor's era as part of the BFI's Doctor Who At 50 season.

Once the closing titles for the final episode had rolled, director Timothy Combe, script editor Terrance Dicks, and actors Richard Franklin, John Levene, and Katy Manning were welcomed on stage by season co-curator Justin Johnson to talk about their time on the show.


The next event - marking the Fourth Doctor's era - is a screening of The Robots of Death on Saturday 20th April, with Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, producer Philip Hinchcliffe, and visual effects designer Mat Irvine as guests. Although currently sold out, returns and stand-bys are possible.

It will be followed on Saturday 4th May with a screening of The Caves of Androzani, celebrating the Fifth Doctor.