BBC Sources have indicated that next year's series of Doctor Who, the first with the thirteenth Doctor, will be broadcast in the Autumn of 2018.

New showrunner Chris Chibnall is currently still working on season three of his ITV crime drama Broadchurch , which is currently being edited and will premiere in the UK on 27 February.

Chibnall told RadioTimes.com that he has not yet been able to fully dedicate himself to Doctor Who. After finishing work on Broadchurch he intends to take a holiday before launching into Doctor Who.

Chibnall will lead the team searching for the new Doctor, although the choice will need to be agreed by the BBC director of content Charlotte Moore and head of drama and former Doctor Who Executive Producer Piers Wenger. It is expected that a new Doctor will not be announced before the Autumn, with the new Doctor making their debut at the end of the 2017 Christmas Special.

Sources told RadioTimes that the first Chibnall series will begin filming at the start of 2018 for transmission in the Autumn.

Series 10 of Doctor Who, the last full series starring Peter Capaldi. is currently in production and will begin transmission on 15th April.

The BBC has announced the return of an old enemy of the Doctor in the upcoming series of Doctor Who



Series 10 starts on 15th April.

A roundup of competitions that readers may enter over the next couple of weeks:

BBC America have announced that Doctor Who returns to the channel on Saturday, April 15 at 9/8c.

The announcemnt follows the news from the BBC that the series will return to BBC One on the same day, for Peter Capaldi's last run as The Doctor.

The Doctor Who broadcast will be followed by US premiere of the Spin-Off Series Class at 10/9c.

The actor Philip Bond has died at the age of 82.

Philip Bond appeared in five episodes of the second Doctor Who story, The Daleks, first shown in 1963/4. He played the role of Ganatus, a member of the Thal expedition who traveled with Ian and Barbara on their expedition to enter the city via the mountains. During the journey, Ganatus witnessed the death of his brother, an experience which brought him closer to Barbara.

Bond was second choice for the role, cast when the original choice Dinsdale Landen became unavailable. He accepted immediately, being friends with both producer Verity Lambert and fellow actor William Russell.

Philip Bond had a prolific career in British Television, appearing in over 70 series over a 50 year period.

His best-known role was probably playing Albert Frazer in the 1970s BBC drama The Onedin Line, where he appeared in 24 episodes. Other roles included parts in Walk a Crooked Mile, 199 Park Lane, No Hiding Place, Sherlock Holmes, The Avengers, Justice, Z Cars, The Main Chance, The Children of the New Forest, An Englishman's Castle, Shoestring, Only Fools and Horses...., The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Casualty and Midsomer Murders.

Bond's was the father of the actress Samantha Bond who played Mrs Wormwood in The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Philip Bond died suddenly last Tuesday while on holiday on the island of Madeira. He is survived by his long-standing partner Elizabeth, his children Matthew, Samantha and Abigail and his Grandchildren.

German company Polyband is going to release An Unearthly Child on DVD. It will be Volume 1 of a new range called The Classic Episodes and be released on 28th April 2017. 

The DVD will be identical to the UK version that was part of The Beginning boxed set, adding German subtitles to the features. Since the early serials have never been broadcast in Germany there is no German dubbing available for this story.

Polyband promotes the release with the following statement:

German: Ein nebeliger Abend, ein Polizist geht Streife in seinem Revier ... ein verlassener Schrottplatz ... und eine Polizei-Box, die geheimnisvoll surrt und brummt. Diese Bilder sind heute Kult. Sie sind die Anfänge einer Serie, die nun schon seit mehr als 50 Jahren produziert wird und Generationen von Zuschauern prägen sollte: DOCTOR WHO - AN UNEARTHLY CHILD ist der erste, aus 4 Teilen bestehende Handlungsbogen der Serie DOCTOR WHO und eröffnet die 1. Staffel. Die vier Folgen wurden erstmals zwischen dem 23. November und 14. Dezember 1963 ausgestrahlt. Mit brillantem Erzähltempo und erstaunlicher Überzeugungskraft lädt AN UNEARTHLY CHILD behutsam in die Welt von  DOCTOR WHO ein. Bereits wenige Minuten nachdem man die sichere Umgebung der Coal Hill Schule verlassen hat, befindet man sich mit dem ersten Doktor (William Hartnell) sowie seiner Enkelin Susan (Carole Ann Ford) inmitten der ersten Reise durch Zeit und Raum mithilfe einer blauen Polizei-Box, der legendären TARDIS.

English: A foggy evening, a poilce officer walks around in his area... a junkyard... and a Police Box that makes strange mysterious noises. These pictures are cult today. They are the beginning of a TV show which is in production for over 50 years now and has impressed many generations of viewers: DOCTOR WHO - AN UNEARTHLY CHILD is the first four part serial of DOCTOR WHO and is the opening to the very first season. These four episodes were first broadcast between 23rd November and 14th December 1963. Featuring a brilliant pace and impressive imagination AN UNEARTHLY CHILD introduces you well to the world of DOCTOR WHO. After only minutes of leaving the safe environment of Coal Hill School you find yourself with the first Doctor (William Hartnell) and his grandchild Susan (Carole Ann Ford) travelling through space and time with the blue Police Box, the famous TARDIS.

The director Rodney Bennett has died at the age of 81

Rodney Bennett directed 10 episodes of Doctor Who.

His first outing was on the two part 1975 story The Sontaran Experiment, the first Doctor Who story to be filmed entirely as a Television Outside Broadcast. The production, filmed on Dartmoor, was disrupted when the leading actor, Tom Baker, broke his collarbone during filming, necessitating the actor wearing a neck brace under his scarf.

He returned to the studio for his next production The Ark In Space, which was shown before The Sontaran Experiment despite being filmed after it. The story is widely regarded as a classic, with both Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat citing the story as one of their favorites from the original run of the series. The story enjoyed some of the highest ratings in the programmes history, with 13.6 million tuning in for episode two.

Rodney Bennett's final story for Doctor Who was the 1976 story The Masque of Mandragora. Filmed largely at the welsh resort of Portmeirion, the story also marks the first appearance of the TARDIS' secondary console room.

Rodney Bennett had a long career with the BBC first working in Radio. He moved into Television in the late 1960's, working first in the Schools department. He happened to be in the right place when the regular Z-Cars director fell ill, giving him a chance to move into mainstream drama. He went on to work on such series as The Legend of King Arthur, Sense and Sensibility, Dombey & Son and Doctor Finlay.

In 1980 he directed the BBC Television Shakespeare version of Hamlet in which he cast Derek Jacobi as the eponymous Dane, alongside Patrick Stewart and Lalla Ward. In 1993 he directed the ITV production of The Darling Buds of May in which he cast a relative unknown called Catherine Zeta Jones.

He received two BAFTA nominations for Monsignor Quixote and The Legend of King Arthur.

Rodney Bennett was born March 1935, died January 2017.

You can read a full obituary by Toby Hadoke, who interviewed Rodney Bennett for the Big Finish Who's Round series, at tobyhadoke.com.

Toby has also compiled a tribute to those from the world of Doctor Who who died in 2016 which can be viewed on YouTube.

The Doctor Who Christmas Special, The Return of Doctor Mysterio, had an official rating of 7.83 million viewers, according to data released by BARB.

The rating is over 2 million higher than the initial overnight figure and includes all those who recorded the programme and watched it within 7 days. The figure is slightly higher than the 2015 Special, The Husbands of River Song, which has 7.69 million watching.

Doctor Who finished 9th for the week.

Viewing across the board was slightly down on last year, with Call the Midwife topping the list with 9.21 million watching. Mrs Brown's Boys, Strictly Come Dancing and The Christmas Bake Off all rated highly. BBC One dominated the top of the chart meaning ITV only managed to get Coronation Street into the Top Ten. The annual Christmas message from The Queen was shown simultaneously on BBC One, ITV 1, and Sky 1, giving it a total rating of 8.76 million.

Against Doctor Who, Emmerdale had 6.21 million watching, while on Channel 4, the film Home Alone had 3.19 million. BBC Two was showing a repeat of The Morecambe and Wise Show which had 2 million watching and on Sky1 The Last Dragonslayer had 0.72 million.

Since the series returned in 2005 there have been twelve Christmas day episodes, the most successful being the 2007 episode starring Kylie Minogue, Voyage of the Damned.



The late night, signed repeat of The Return of Doctor Mysterio, shown at 2.30am Friday Morning, had an overnight estimate of 0.061 million watching.

Doctor Who: The Return of Doctor Mysterio had an Audience Appreciation or AI score of 82.

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.

The score is identical to that received by last year's Christmas Special The Husbands of River Song.

The highest score of the evening once more went to Call the Midwife on BBC One which scored 88.

This item contains spoilers.

Press reaction to this year's Christmas Special, The Return of Doctor Mysterio, is overwealmingly positive with most reviewers enjoying the first new Doctor Who to hit screens this year.

"The happiest, most heroic Christmas special in years" is is how The Telegraph describes the episode with much praise going to the lead actors. "Capaldi was charismatically mercurial, switching between silliness and sadness. Nardole, who could have been a mere stop-gap until new companion Bill arrives next year, worked well as an affable comic stooge – with the added ability to put his finger on the painful truth of the Doctor’s loneliness and grief"

Praise for the actors was also abundant in Radio Times who called the episode "a beautifully packaged hour of uplifting escapism". "The scenes between the Doctor and eight-year-old Grant (Logan Hoffman) are delightful, allowing Capaldi to work some grandfatherly charm and tottering eccentricity. Canadian actor Justin Chatwin looks great as both the lackadaisical nanny and rippling Ghost, while Britain’s Charity Wakefield is lovely as his Lois-Lane-alike".

A charming and funny festive special is how Digital Spy heralds the story, with much praise for the script by showrunner Steven Moffat. "It's one of the most richly comic episodes in recent memory, employing witty wordplay, great sight gags and even a joke about Pokémon Go."

The script also wins plaudits from the Los Angeles Times. "The episode plays very much to Moffat’s strengths. He has a talent for fast-paced farce, with characters going in and out of doors and portals in space and time —the episode’s central engine, the difficulties of managing a secret identity, is a classic situation-comedy situation — and for crafting banter of both the light and glancing kind and of the kind that intimates deeper feelings below."

The Guardian appreciated the move away from the traditional, overly Christmas type of episode. "There are only scant, functional references to Christmas in The Return of Doctor Mysterio. Rather, it channels the classic 3.10pm movie of yore – specifically, the Richard Donner/Christopher Reeve Superman films. And for that, it ranks in my personal top five of Christmas Doctor Whos."

GamesRadar feels the episode sets the right tone from the start. "The pre-titles sequence is a charmer, establishing the wry, buoyant tone. Logan Hoffman’s winning as the young, comic-crazed Grant Gordon while the Doctor’s sniffy take on superheroes is good value, particularly the sly line where he wonders if Spider-Man’s radiation-imbued superpowers are “vomiting, hair loss, death”. That’s dark for Christmas."

Cartermatt enjoyed the comedy in the story. "Everything that we saw between The Ghost and Lucy was ridiculous, but also incredibly funny. The exchange where he was going to reveal his secret identity to her while she realized how amazing Grant was to her was amazing, especially when he chickened out of making the move when he realized that she admired Grant’s “honesty.”"

IGN is less enthusiastic about the story calling it an OK return for the Doctor. "Its most effective moments land with the few brief times when it connects to that tale or the Doctor’s past, with the rest of the superhero-themed segment feeling slightly detached and less relevant"

AV Club is also less impressed "On balance, The Return Of Doctor Mysterio is just about fine. It’s probably a lesser episode than The Husbands Of River Song, but it also has a better sense of its overall purpose than that episode did, which careened from cartoonish to tragic with minimal warning."

Nerdist appreciated the central theme of the episode. "The Return of Doctor Mysterio is exactly the kind of adventure story we need for a Christmas Day. It tells us we don’t need superpowers or a mask and cape to be heroic, and that the bravest thing you can do is speak your mind and stand up to the bullies of this world. That’s what Doctor Who is, and I for one have badly needed it."

Finally, Den of Geek was impressed by the directing. "Visually, director Ed Bazalgette is immediately on board with the style of the piece. His comic book-into-real-life opening was quite lovely, but also there’s the segment where he splits the screen. This is an old Hitchcock trick, of course, but when the Doctor starts to edge over the line of his split, then the comics aesthetic clearly came to mind too."

Our own review of the episode can be found in Doctor Who Reviews