Both Doctor Who Magazine and Doctor Who Adventures not surprisingly feature next Sunday's special, The Waters of Mars, in issues published today.

Doctor Who Magazine 415 talks to Lindsay Duncan, who plays Captain Adelaide Brooke of Bowie Base One, who reveals in an interview what was it like working with David Tennant? “His energy levels are so high. You think, oh God! In terms of my character, but also in terms of myself, the actor, I desperately wanted to keep up with him, but I have to admit it – I can’t run as fast as him! But I gave it a good shot. I didn’t want Adelaide to drop the ball. I didn’t want her to show any kind of weakness...”

Also in the magazine Russell T Davies pays his own personal tribute to former Doctor Who producer, director and writer Barry Letts in Production Notes. The magazine reveals the the long-awaited results of the competition to ‘Be a Doctor Who Magazine reporter’, and follows the winner as she gets to go behind the scenes of the series – and chat to David Tennant and Russell T Davies! In the latest comic strip the Doctor and Majenta uncover the terrifying secret behind the apparitions in the London Underground and in Without You Neil Harris asks how different would things be if the TARDIS hadn’t taken the Doctor on some of his adventures?

The magazine takes a look at stories that nearly made it onto TV that are now being made at last. Scripts featuring Sil, the Ice Warriors, the Celestial Toymaker and many more are now being realised on audio. The Watcher continues his essential guide to the Time Lord’s many incarnations and uncovers everything you ever needed to know about the northern Ninth Doctor and the Fact of Fiction looks at Douglas Adams’ memorable Fourth Doctor story from 1978 – The Pirate Planet.

The magazine for younger readers Doctor Who Adventures 141, also takes a sneak peak at Sunday's special with pictures of some of the scariest monsters ever and their own interview with actress Lindsay Duncan who tells the magazine all about Adelaide and why she’s different from previous people who’ve teamed up with the Doctor.

Also this week a preview of the next episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures, three posters and a free Doctor Who notebook and pen.

Not to be outdone, Radio Times has launched a new gallery of pictures from Sundays special.

Big Finish have announced a new range of audio adventures based on "lost stories" of Doctor Who - the series has launched this month with audio adaptions of the Sixth Doctor's adventures after Revelation of the Daleks, the unmade Season 23, kicking off with Graham Williams' The Nightmare Fair.

Big Finish plan to release another series of stories next year, following the Seventh Doctor's adventures post-Survival - these are made in collaboration with the then script editor Andrew Cartmel. Says range producer David Richardson:
The twenty-seventh season would also have introduced a new companion in the form of safe-cracker Raine; the character has been cast, with the identity to be revealed next year.

The early years of Doctor Who will also be represented, with two boxed sets covering the first two Doctors. The Hartnell Years will feature the scripts of Moris Farhi, "Farewell Great Macedon" and "The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance", both of which were published recently by Nothing at the End of the Lane; these will be presented as audiobooks with narration by William Russell and Carole Ann Ford, with a guest actor to portray Alexander the Great in the former. The Troughton Years will feature adaptations of "Prison in Space" by Simon Guerrier from Dick Sharples's original script, plus an audio version of Terry Nation's unmade US TV Dalek pilot show, "The Destroyers". The two boxed sets are expected to be released in November and December next year respectively.

Writing in the latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine, Russell T Davies confirms that the preview of the Christmas special, to be shown on this year's Children in Need programme, will not be the pre-titles sequence, but rather a specially packaged clip from the story. This is because the pre-titles sequence from the story is too plot-heavy to work as a standalone preview.

The title of David Tennant's penultimate episode has still not been revealed, but according to Davies it will be six words long, the longest title yet. Final casting for the final episodes took place as late as October, when what is described as a "wonderful and distinguished" Hollywood actor provided the voice for one of the aliens in the story. The voice will be used in the trail for the Christmas episodes which will air directly after The Waters of Mars.

In the run up to the UK showing of The Waters of Mars, David Tennant has been co-hosting the breakfast programme on Absolute Radio. To celebrate the fact, the station mocked up a TARDIS façade for the front of the station.

In the first programme Tennant announced that he is to auction off his own bed live, which is in is own words "a nasty old bed that's seen some action." All proceeds of the auction will be going to Children in Need.

Tennant will be with the programme for the rest of the week, and a podcast of the first programme can be heard via the Absolute Radio website, along with a photo gallery and a video diary.

Former Production Unit Manager Christopher D'Oyly John has died.

D'Oyly John worked on many stories from the classic era of Doctor Who. He was an Assistant Floor Manager on the William Hartnell story The Ark, before working as Production Assistant on several Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee stories.

As Production Unit Manager, he worked on six Tom Baker stories working with producer Philip Hinchcliffe on some of the most-loved stories in the series history, including The Robots of Death and The Talons of Weng-Chiang.

His work outside of Doctor Who included The Bill, Poldark, House of Elliot and EastEnders.

He died peacefully at his home in Eastbourne on 21st October.

Assistant Floor Manager
• The Ark

Production Assistant
• The Macra Terror
• The Invasion
• Doctor Who and the Silurians
• Inferno
• The Curse of Peladon
• The Mutants
• Carnival of Monsters
• Death to the Daleks

Production Unit Manager
• The Masque of Mandragora
• The Hand of Fear
• The Deadly Assassin
• The Face of Evil
• The Robots of Death
• The Talons of Weng-Chiang

The latest edition of DWM clarifies the UK DVD release schedule for the first quarter of 2010.

Following the release of the Peladon Boxset on 4th January and the fourth Doctor story The Masque of Mandragora on 8th February, March will see no fewer than five stories released.

On 1st March the two First Doctor stories The Space Museum and The Chase will be released. A promo for this story was cleared by the BBFC last month. Just four weeks later the Myths and Legends boxset will hit the shops. This is now confirmed as including the Third Doctor story The Time Monster, and the Fourth Doctor stories Underworld and The Horns of Nimon.

The Kameleon Boxset and Time and the Rani, both of which are listed for sale on several DVD sites, have been pushed back to later in the year.

A full release schedule can be see in the sidebar on the right.

The British Board of Film Classification has today passed the extras for the second Peladon story, The Monster of Peladon, set for release in the UK in January.

• The Peladon Saga: Part Two: The Monsters and the Monarchs
• Where are they now?
• BBC News: Jon Pertwee races Lord Montagu
• Easter Egg No2
• ON Target - Terrance Dicks
• Deleted Scene
• Photo Gallery

Extras for the first Peladon story were cleared last week.

With a new episode of Doctor Who just five days away, the programme returns to the cover of Radio Times this week.

The magazine takes a look at the special and contemplates whether The Waters of Mars may be the scariest adventure that the intrepid Time Lord's ever had. Russell T Davies explains just why he's ladled on the fear.

Over the years Doctor Who has featured on the cover of the magazine over forty times; the first time it was accorded this honour was in February 1964. There is a full gallery of the covers on The Radio Times website.

The Waters of Mars will come to Canadian Television on Saturday 19th December when it premiers on SPACE at 9pm ET. This is the same date the special will be shown in the US on BBC America.

The final two specials are expected to be shown over the Christmas holiday.

The Waters of Mars is now scheduled in most of the English speaking world with premiers confirmed in Australia, Canada and the United States, all less than 6 weeks after the special has premièred in the United Kingdom.

The Guardian newspaper in the UK has published an obituary for actor Timothy Bateson, who died in September at the age of 83. Bateson enjoyed an acting career stretching from the 1940s to the present decade, and in 1955 appeared in the first London production of the play "Waiting for Godot". He appeared in Doctor Who only once, in the 1978 serial The Ribos Operation, where he portrayed Binro the Heretic. In this role he took part in the scene where Binro explains that be believes there are other planets and other stars; this is frequently regarded as one of the most memorable scenes from Doctor Who, most recently acclaimed as such in Doctor Who Magazine's "200 Golden Moments" special edition. The serial, along with the others in the 1978 "Key to Time" series, is due to be re-released on DVD next week, following its previous limited edition issue.



Image courtesy of the Doctor Who Image Archive

Speaking at the Missing in Action convention, the actor Nicholas Courtney reported that he has just recorded a commentary for the seventh season story The Ambassadors of Death, alongside other members of cast and crew including Terrance Dicks, Peter Halliday and Derek Ware.

It should be remembered that commentaries are often recorded way in advance of DVD release (years in some cases!), so this is no indication that the story is currently scheduled to appear in the shops soon!

Restoration Team member Steve Roberts recently discussed the colour recovery process at a talk for the Doctor Who Information Network, during which he reported that recovery work hadn't been undertaken on the story at that point.