After the traditional break for Christmas, filming on the next series of Doctor Who resumed this week. Yesterday saw the production team return to the very public location of Roald Dahl Plass - a venue last seen being blown up in Torchwood: Children of Earth!

Not to be put off by the snow that's hit the country this week, both Matt Smith and Karen Gillan were present for filming, alongside the TARDIS and guest star Tony Curran. See the spoiler section for more details on what occured!



Not surprisingly, the media were quick to pick up on such public filming - for a run-down of articles see our Doctor Who in the Media article.

The BBC has released a new image on the Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith. The image is available on the BBC Website along with an image of the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors. The new picture forms the basis for the cover to the revamped Doctor Who Magazine which is available in the United Kingdom from today.

The magazine confirms the writers for Matt Smith's first series as the Doctor.

Lead writer Steven Moffat will write six of the thirteen episodes. He will be joined by Chris Chibnall who is writing two episodes and Mark Gatiss, Toby Whithouse, Gareth Roberts, Richard Curtis and Simon Nye all writing one episode each.

Toby Whithouse wrote the Series Two story School Reunion which saw the return of Sarah Jane Smith and K9 to the series. He has also written for Torchwood and created Being Human for BBC Three.

Chris Chibnall wrote the Series Three story 42. He was head writer on Torchwood and has also written for Life on Mars.

Mark Gatiss is one of only three people to have both written and appeared in Doctor Who. He wrote The Unquiet Dead for Series One and The Idiot's Lantern for Series Two. He later went on to appear in the Third Series story The Lazarus Experiment.

Gareth Roberts wrote The Shakespeare Code for Series Three and The Unicorn and the Wasp for Series Four. He co-wrote Planet of the Dead with Russell T Davies. He has also written for The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Neither Simon Nye or Richard Curtis have written for Doctor Who before. Nye was the creator of the long running sitcom Men Behaving Badly, which was based on his first novel, for which he won a Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award and a Royal Television Society Award. He adapted The Railway Children for television in 2000 and has written many pantomimes. Curtis, whose contribution to the series was announced in September, was Oscar nominated for Four Weddings and a Funeral and is the man behind many British comedy films and sitcoms.

Today sees the Tenth Doctor regenerate into the Eleventh, only the tenth time in Doctor Who's forty-seven year history that the Doctor has regenerated.

It marks the last story for the Tenth Doctor as played by David Tennant, who leaves the series after four years in the role and with 47 episodes under his belt. Tennant departs at the peak of his popularity, and was recently voted the best Doctor ever by the readers of Doctor Who Magazine. His dedication to the role has been tremendous, and he has led the cast of a series that scores incredibly high in the audience appreciation figures. His popularity is such that the BBC made him the centrepiece of its Christmas schedule; he is the first Doctor ever to have featured in a BBC One ident.

Today also marks the end of the Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner era of the series. Gardner and Davies have been involved with the show since the return was first mooted in 2003. Together they have been responsible for the realisation of the revived series and have turned Doctor Who into one of the biggest BBC properties in the first decade of the 21st Century. They have been responsible for 60 episodes and have made Doctor Who must-see television which regularly charts in the top ten programmes of the week. They have cast two Doctors, Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant, and created two spin-offs, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, both of which have had tremendous success and are due to be commissioned for their fourth series.

All three leave a strong legacy for the new production team to build on in 2010 as the series returns with a new Doctor and a new Executive Producer in the Spring.

The press screening for Part One of The End of Time took place in studio TC8 at BBC Television Centre on Thursday evening. This was an appropriate venue, as TC8 was used for many recordings of classic Doctor Who, including a previous regeneration story, Planet of the Spiders, the swansong of Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor.

The screening was attended by Russell T Davies, John Simm and Bernard Cribbins, who answered questions from the audience.

Others at the screening included Catherine Tate, who played Donna Noble in Series 4 and who returns for the special,  David Harewood, Claire Bloom and Alaxandra Moen, as well as Steven Moffat, who has now taken over from Davies as Executive Producer of Doctor Who. Also in attendance, and marking the importance the BBC places on Doctor Who, was the man in charge of the corporation, Director-General Mark Thompson.

Reviews of the evening with reasonably few spoliers can be read on BBC News, in SFX, on freelance journalist Ian Wylie's Blog and on Total Sci-Fi Online.

Interviewed by writer and journalist Matthew Sweet in tonight's edition of Night Waves on BBC Radio 3, new Doctor Who lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat announced the return of a race of monsters to face new Doctor Matt Smith in the next series of the programme in 2010. After discussing various aspects of what it was like being in charge of Doctor Who, at the end of the interview Sweet asked Moffat if he could reveal one piece of information known to nobody outside of the production team, as a "teaser" for the next series. Moffat's answer is given in the spoiler box below.

The BBC Press Office has confirmed the scheduling of The End of Time, the two-part final adventure for David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. Part one will be shown from 6pm to 7pm on Christmas Day, Friday the 25th of December. Part two follows from 6.40-7.55pm the following Friday, 1st January 2010 - New Year's Day.

In other news, the latest edition of Radio Times has confirmed the casting of Claire Bloom and Brian Cox in The End of Time.

Claire Bloom's casting has been rumoured in many press reports over the last few months but this is the first official confirmation from the BBC that she is in the episode. She has a long career in film and Television appearing with Charlie Chaplin in the 1952 film Limelight for which she won the BAFTA for Best Newcomer. She later won the Best Actress BAFTA for the 1986 film Shadowlands. She is a renowned Shakespearian actress who received great acclaim for her portrayal of Ophelia in Hamlet when she was just seventeen.

Brian Cox provided the voice over for the Ood elder seen in the End of Time trail at the end of The Waters of Mars and was the mystery guest star refered to by Russell T Davies in his Production Notes in DWM. Cox is best known for his role as Hannibal Lecktor in the 1986 film Manhunter as well many Hollywood films and also for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He won the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for Nuremberg in 2001.

David Tennant's starring role in Hamlet can be seen on BBC Two on Boxing Day, Saturday 26 December from 5.05-8.10pm. and the Catherine Tate special, Nan's Christmas Carol, can be seen on BBC One on Christmas Day at 10.30pm.

Doctor Who is currently filming in Croatia, the BBC has confirmed. The location work is for Matt Smith's first series as the Doctor, which is being made and promoted by the BBC as Series One.

The programme is currently shooting in the small coastal town of Trogir in Croatia, for an episode due for transmission in the Spring of 2010.

A local blog has posted several pictures from the location shoot here. A very rough translation of the text can be found here.

Additional reports can be found here and here.

John Barrowman has said he expects Torchwood is to return for a fourth series as a full 13 episode run. Speaking on Steve Wright in the Afternoon on BBC Radio 2, Barrowman confirmed he was signed up for the long rumoured return, although a production date has yet to be finalised.

He said there are currently no plans for Captain Jack meet to Matt Smith's Doctor in Doctor Who.

In an interview with the website Bullz-Eye.com, Doctor Who writer Richard Curtis has confirmed the casting of actor Tony Curran in his episode of the forthcoming new series starring Matt Smith as the Doctor. Curtis also confirms the role Curran will be playing in the episode; for the benefit of readers who are avoiding such details this far in advance of the episode being shown, this information is contained in the clickable spoiler box below.

Karen Gillan's cousin has won a role in the next series of Doctor Who. Caitlin Blackwood, who is nine years old and comes from Inverness in Scotland, landed the role over hundreds of hopefuls. A pupil at the city's St Joseph's Roman Catholic Primary School, she has just returned from Cardiff, where the first series to star Gillan and Matt Smith is currently being filmed.

Blackwood is quoted as saying: "It was really exciting. Doctor Who was really nice and good fun." Christine Cameron, St Joseph's headteacher, said the whole school was delighted for Caitlin, adding "Everyone involved in the production of Dr Who is impressed with Caitlin, her ability to listen to and follow direction, be flexible in her approach, and get on with new people."

The Inverness Courier has a full report on its website.

It was also announced on the Paul O'Grady show today that actor Meera Syal will appear in two episodes of the new series. Syal rose to prominence as one of the team that created Goodness Gracious Me and became one of the UK's best-known Indian personalities portraying Sanjeev's grandmother, Ummi, in The Kumars at No. 42.