The BBC has confirmed this year's Doctor Who Christmas special, A Christmas Carol with be shown on BBC One and BBC One HD, on Christmas Day at 6pm.

Final schedules were signed off this afternoon. Doctor Who has been shown at 6pm on Christmas Day for the last two years.

This year Doctor Who will be preceded by The One Ronnie, a variety show starring Ronnie Corbett and will be followed by Christmas Editions of Strictly Come Dancing, featuring John Barrowman, and EastEnders.

The programme has already been confirmed for transmission on Christmas Day in the United States on BBC America at 9pm ET and on Boxing Day in Canada on SPACE at 9pm ET and in Australia on ABC 1 at 7.30pm.

Do not click on the following links, if you want to avoid spoilers for the upcoming series of The Sarah Jane Adventures.

According to slightly inaccurate stories in today's Guardian, Digital Journal and elsewhere, a bit of Doctor Who history is about to be rewritten.

The cause of all the speculation is a throwaway line in Episode Six of the current series of The Sarah Jane Adventures. The episodes were screened at a special preview held at the BFI on London's South Bank Tuesday evening. After the screening Elisabeth Sladen and Katy Manning were part of a panel talking about the series.

A number of news outlets have picked up from the Radio Times that the British actor Martin Shaw (The Professionals, Inspector George Gently) turned down the chance to play James Bond in the late 1970s. Digital Journal, however, leads on the fact that Shaw would consider playing the Doctor, albeit if the commitment was a lot less than is currently expected of Doctor Who's leading actor!

Elsewhere in Radio Times, Phil Collinson is interviewed about his plans for Coronation Street as it approaches its 50th anniversary and beyond, which has been reported here. RT attributes Collinson's savviness on Who under Russell T Davies as being part of the reason ITV Studios have entrusted him with Corrie's birthday celebrations, which Digital Journal has picked up on, too.

Steven Moffat, meanwhile, has been talking in Doctor Who: The Brilliant Book and Doctor Who Magazine about the 2010 Christmas special and the cliffhanger between the two 2011 series (Easter and autumn) of  Doctor Who. His comments have already been picked up by a number of outlets, including Den of Geek, Digital Journal and Digital Spy.

Nominations have opened for the 2011 National Television Awards, with Doctor Who one of 33 nominees in the Best Drama category along with Steven Moffat's other hit from the summer, Sherlock.

Matt Smith and Karen Gillan are both nominated for Best Drama Performance, along with 48 others.

Initial voting is now open until Monday 11 October and the winners will be announced at the ceremony on ITV1 in January. Doctor Who has won the last five awards for Best Drama.

Doctor Who has been awarded Best TV programme at the British Fantasy Awards.

The programme beat Battlestar Galactica, Being Human, Lost and Torchwood: Children of Earth, to win the award for the second year running.

Rob Shearman, writer of the Doctor Who story Dalek, accepted the award on behalf of former showrunner Russell T Davies at a ceremony held at FantasyCon 2010.

Shearman also won the award for Best collection for Love songs for the shy and cynical poduced by Big Finish. Other Doctor Who connected winners were David Howe who won The PS Publishing Best Small Press Award for Telos Publishing, and Neil Gaiman who won Best Comic//Graphic Novel for his work with Andy Kubert on Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?.

The 2011 edition of Guinness World Records contains a whole spread dedicated to Doctor Who with a number of facts and figures on the what is officially the world's Most Successful sci-fi Series.

The show was awarded the title last year based on the show's perfomance in ratings, DVD and book sales, and downloading popularity. It also holds the record for Longest running sci-fi series and Doctor Who Magazine has been named Longest Running Magazine Based on a Television Series.

The book lists other statistics including naming Tom Baker as the longest serving incumbent Doctor, Fraser Hines as the longest serving companion and Matt Smith as the youngest actor to take on the role of The Doctor, something picked up by many papers.

Guinness World Records 2011, published Thursday, is the latest edition of the world's best-selling copyright book. Guinness World Records is the globally-recognised authority on record-breaking achievements.

Doctor Who has been voted best family drama at the 2010 TV Choice Awards.

The event was held at The Dorchester Hotel in London’s Park Lane on Monday evening and Karen Gillan was on hand to accept the award for the programme voted for by readers of the UK's biggest selling magazine.

The awards were hosted by Alexander Armstrong with Emmerdale winning three prizes and EastEnders taking the prize of best soap.

Speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, Steven Moffat has announced that the next series of Doctor Who will be split in two with a 'gamechanging' cliffhanger in episode 7.

"The split series is hugely exciting because viewers will be treated to two premieres, two finales and more event episodes. For the kids it will never be more than a few months to the next Doctor Who! Easter, Autumn, Christmas!!"

The BBC press office describe the split transmission as the result of a request from Steven Moffat to write a new Doctor Who story arc which involves a big plot twist in the middle of the series. "By splitting the series Moffat plans to give viewers one of the most exciting Doctor Who cliffhangers and plot twists ever, leaving them waiting, on the edge of their seats, until the autumn to find out what happens."

The Guardian, who host the annual television festival, have uploaded a video clip of Moffat making the announcement here.

2|Entertain have confirmed the fourth Doctor story The Seeds of Doom, will be released in the UK on 25th October 2010.

This story was originally due for release in 2011. The Revisitations boxset was due in October but has not clear if this has been postponed or if The Seeds of Doom is an additional release.

Originally shown in the first part of 1976, The Seeds of Doom was the final story of Series 13. As well as starring Tom Baker as the Doctor, it features Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, Sylvia Coleridge as Amelia Ducat, Mark Jones as Arnold Keeler, John Gleeson as Charles Winlett, John Challis as Scorby and Tony Beckley as Harrison Chase.

Made in six parts, the story was written by Robert Banks Stewart and directed by Douglas Camfield, and is one of the most fondly remembered stories from the fourth Doctor's era.

As we previously reported Tom Baker has recorded the commentary track for the release along with John Challis and Philip Hinchcliffe, who was producer at the time.

What a busy couple of weeks its been. Despite Series 5 of Doctor Who having finished, hardly a day goes by without some sort of Who-related news popping up.

For a fuller round-up, remember to look in on Doctor Who in the Media, but, to whet your appetite, here's a summary.

On Sunday, BBC 1 premiered the long-awaited first episode of Sherlock (see our earlier story), Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss's updated version of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes, Martin Freeman as Dr John Watson and Rupert Graves as Inspector Lestrade. Cumberbatch has created a bit of a stir in the last few days by suggesting, first, telling Digital Spy that he may well be appearing in several episodes Doctor Who, and, then, according to the Sun that he considered becoming the eleventh Doctor before Matt Smith was cast in the role.

Again, according to the Sun, Matt Smith is eager to leave Doctor Who to pursue a career in Hollywood. However, this has been denied by both Moffat, to BBC News, and Karen Gillan, during her visit to Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup Final at Cowdray Park Polo Club! For a less sensational take on this, see this story and this story on Digital Journal.

Nicky Wire, of the Manic Street Preachers, caused a bit of a stir when he blogged on the band's website that he was writing a Doctor Who script. He's since clarified on Twitter that it's fan fiction and not a BBC commission.

Russell T Davies has been speaking to SFX about the fourth series of Torchwood and has also dealt with the rumours surrounding a Johnny Depp as the Doctor Hollywood movie! This story covers the original "exclusive" and RTD's debunking of it.

Finally, there was plenty of press coverage surrounding the start of filming of the 2010 Christmas special (see this Gallifrey Base story), guest-starring Sir Michael Gambon and Katherine Jenkins, including here, here and here.

Happy times and places!