5.5 million viewers watched episode seven of Doctor Who: A Good Man Goes To War, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The final story before the mid season break attracted 25.4% of the overnight audience.

Doctor Who was the sixth most watched programme of the day with ITV1 taking the top five places and Britain's Got Talent results show winning the day with 12.5 million watching. The new talent show Popstar to Operastar and Euro 2012 Qualifier Live also beat the Doctor, although Doctor Who had higher figures than the football during the period they were both on together. This was after the game itself had finished, while post-match analysis was being broadcast.

The weekly chart was dominated by ITV1 which won every one on the top twenty places, thanks to the daily showing of Britain's Got Talent. Although Doctor Who is currently 28th for the week on overnight figures it is the 3rd most watched show on the BBC for the week.

Official figures for the story, which will include those time shifting the programme and should see the programme enter the top twenty, should be available next Sunday.

The Almost People has debuted in Australia to solid ratings. TV Tonight reports that the episode averaged 718,000 viewers in the five major capital cities. It was the sixth highest rating programme for the day overall (only beaten in its timeslot by the Channel Nine movie, '17 again'). The corresponding Confidential Cutdown also rated a respectable 541,000 viewers in the five major capitals. These overnight figures, however, do not include regional, rural and time-shifted viewers and hence significantly understate the actual national ratings.

The BBC have released a couple of videos tying into the climax of the mid-series finale, A Good Man Goes To War. In the first video, Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill discuss how they learned about the "game-changing" reveal at the end of episode, whilst in the second, director Peter Hoar gives his insight in the form of a in-vision commentary for the the final scene. Please note the videos explicitly discuss the plot of the episode, so will be a spoiler for those who have yet to see it.

The final series of The Sarah Jane Adventures starring the late Elisabeth Sladen is expected to be shown during what has now become its 'traditional' month of October on CBBC and BBC1(HD), reports Doctor Who Magazine.

The titles of the three, two-part stories that make up the fifth series are Sky by Phil Ford, The Curse of Clyde Langer also by Phil Ford, and The Man Who Wasn't There by Gareth Roberts.

The series features the regular team of Daniel Anthony as Clyde and Anjli Mohindra as Rani, with Tommy Knight returning properly as Luke for the final story. Other guest stars announced for this series include Peter Bowles, Christine Stephen-Daly and James Dreyfus. It was produced as part of the same recording schedule as series four by Brian Minchin.

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The BBC will be launching a new theme to their Sarah Jane Academy quiz on the Sarah Jane Adventures website from next week; Alien Encounters "promises fresh challenges and more monsters, including our old friends, the Sontarans!".

Frazer Hines, who played the Second Doctor's companion Jamie McCrimmon from 1966 to 1969, will be performing his one-man show "The Time Traveling Scot" in New York City on Friday, July 8. The performance will be held at The Producers Club Theatre on West 44th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues in Manhattan. The evening will also feature autograph signing and a short Q&A hosted by Ken Deep of Doctor Who Podshock.

The event is hosted by Who York; tickets are available via the Who York website for $25 in advance, and will be $30 at the door.

Yesterday we reported on the three Torchwood novels to be released this summer; we can now confirm the titles of the books as First Born by James Goss, Long Time Dead by Sarah Pinborough, and The Men Who Sold The World by Guy Adams.

The novels are set after Children of Earth, and are a direct prequel to Miracle Day; Davies described the stories in Doctor Who Magazine as being able to "exploit the narrative gap in a way which would be impossible for radio".

The series will be published on a fortnightly basis, but the dates have yet to be confirmed, being dependent upon when Miracle Day is broadcast in the United Kingdom.
(with thanks to Steve Tribe)

A number of Internet Security sites have reported that several marketing scams are in progress using the promise of a clip from this Saturday's mid-series finale A Good Man Goes To War as a premise to visit their sites and potentially collate personal information.

The scams running on YouTube purport to point to a video elsewhere that is too large for the site, but then require the visitor to perhaps fill out a survey or sign up to an offer before gaining access to the alleged clip.

GFI Software security researcher Chris Boyd commented:

Here is a list of the currently known open competitions related to Doctor Who - if you come across any competitions not listed please feel free to let us know!

Doctor Who News	4 Jun	Win one of two "Doctor Hoo" t-shirts from Threadless.
Doctor Who News	11 Jun	Win one of three t-shirts from Qwertee. Open Worldwide.
DW Action Figures Online	12 Jun	Win a Sonic Screwdriver Projector.
BBC	13 Jun	Script to Screen competition. Open to UK primary schools only.
Eye of Horus	25 Jun	Win one of ten copies of Earth Story on DVD (R2). Open Worldwide.
DrWho Online	30 Jun	Win one of three copies of Earth Story on DVD (R2). Open Worldwide
DrWho Online	30 Jun	Win one of three copies of Ghostlight on CD. Open Worldwide
Watch	13 Jul	Win tickets to the Doctor Who Experience. UK residents only.
Eye of Horus	30 Jun	Win a back catalogue of Classic Who Tales on DVD (R2) and Audio. Open Worldwide.
Eye of Horus	25 Jul	Win one of ten copies of Paradise Towers on DVD (R2). Open Worldwide.

 

Qwertee, Europe's largest daily T-Shirt website, have just completed their latest campaign featuring a Doctor Who inspired design, Doctor Pooh, and are offering readers of Doctor Who News a chance to win a t-shirt from their back catalogue!

In order to enter the competition, please answer the following question:


Closing date: Saturday 11th June. Open Worldwide.

Email your answer to this competition address with the subject line "Qwertee Competition" - we will contact the three winners with details on how to choose and receive their prize from Qwertee after the competition has closed.

Please also make sure you follow both DWN and Qwertee on Facebook!

The titles of the three new Torchwood radio plays recorded in May have now been revealed by Russell T Davies in the latest edition of Doctor Who Magazine; these are Submission (Ryan Scott), House of the Dead (James Goss), and The Devil and Miss Carew (Rupert Laight). The three episodes are separate stories, though all based on the theme of possession, and Davies reported their settings ranging from an old folk's home, a haunted pub, and the depths of the Mariana Trench.

The plays are set before Children of Earth and so enables popular character Ianto Jones to have further adventures with Jack and Gwen - voiced of course by his off-screen persona Gareth David Lloyd. The actor had previously been rumoured to be involved with the plays after his band Blue Gillespie had to pull out of Live and Unsigned in May, citing "Gareth has got to go to America for a couple of weeks and the trip unfortunately falls over the time of the gig."

Davies has also reported that Torchwood would team up with UNIT for their first official joint mission!

No transmission date has been announced at present, though BBC Drama indicated that they would be broadcast later in the summer.


As well as the radio adventures, three new novels will also be published during the summer, with Davies explaining that they would "exploit the narrative gap in a way which would be impossible for radio". For more details see our follow-up article.