With the grand finale of Series Four of Doctor Who only days away, fans are being given two chances to ask questions of chief writer and executive producer Russell T Davies, as the final full series to be overseen by him draws to a close.

The BBC News website will be publishing a question-and-answer feature with Davies at the weekend, and is currently inviting readers to submit questions to be put to him.

Davies will be appearing on ITV1's "This Morning" on Friday, and the programme is also inviting the public to submit questions. Questions can be submitted by e-mailing thismorning@itv.com

Posted By John Bowman

BBC Books has released details about the forthcoming Doctor Who publication The Time Traveller's Almanac.

Billed as 'The Ultimate Intergalactic Fact-Finder', the hardback book explores parallel versions of Earth, counts sightings of Captain Jack Harkness through history, relives the Doctor's encounters with Charles Dickens, Madame de Pompadour and Queen Victoria, tracks the origins of the Family of Blood, the Chula spacecraft and the Vespiform, and focuses on events such as the First World War, the Great Depression and the Battle of Canary Wharf.

From the fall of Troy to the Apollo moon landing, Shakespeare and Agatha Christie to the Gelth and the Reapers, it tracks key events throughout history and includes tales of great lives, explanations of important issues in science, technology and the arts, and retells the stories that have defined each era.

Among the features, it also delves into the eruption of Vesuvius plus the mysteries of Carrionite science, takes a look at the eminent artists of the 16th, 19th and 21st centuries, and examines where the Daleks come from.

Fully illustrated with photos and artwork, The Time Traveller's Almanac, by Steve Tribe, will be published on September 25, 2008.

A special end-of-series party is planned to be held in London on July 5. The free event will be taking place at a gastropub in Clerkenwell.

Says organiser Jason Gorman: "We are planning to screen the series finale, Journey's End, when it is broadcast at 7pm (as currently scheduled!) - we believe it will also be screened just down the road in Trafalgar Square (for Pride London), and we expect many guests to come after that, so the party will just be getting started by 8pm.

"There'll be live music - with a Parisian theme - later in the evening, and we're working on some special video screenings later in the evening that we hope will amuse and divert. The party will probably go on well past midnight.

"Doors open from 5pm and tickets are free. As there are only 50 left we are limiting them to two per person, and those coming need to be 18 or over."

To confirm you want tickets, please contact Jason at the email address finale@parlezuml.com, stating your full name, address (to send tickets to), and contact number (in case the organisers need to contact you urgently).

Update 22 June: all the tickets have now been allocated, and should be distributed in the next week.

The mystery title of Episode Twelve of Season Four, has been released by the BBC Press Office.

Please don't click on the link if you want to avoid spoilers for the episode.

Thanks to Neil Matthews and Jack Martin

Steven Moffat has given his first full-length interview since being announced as the next lead writer and executive producer of Doctor Who to the new issue of Big Issue Scotland, the weekly magazine sold by the homeless in Scotland.

In the interview, Moffat admits that he had to think hard about whether to accept the role, comparing his replacing Russell T Davies with fellow Scot Gordon Brown succeeding Tony Blair as Prime Minister.

"You wouldn’t immediately say yes to that job. You imagine that you would say yes immediately, but it’s a huge job and you have to think about it," he tells the magazine. "I was kind of the other contender, which puts me sort of in the position of Gordon Brown. And look how that turned out. The surly Scot comes in and it all goes to ******."

The full interview is available in Big Issue Scotland, on sale now across Scotland.

Posted By Brigadier Bill

In an interview with BBC NEWS Billie Piper talks about her return to Series Four of Doctor Who. Check out the link for more info but it does contain some minor spoilers.

"I wouldn't have missed this for anything," the 25-year-old told Doctor Who Magazine.

"It means so much to me, this show, and so do the people that make it, so I really wanted to be here for these final episodes."

According to columnist Rich Johnston at Comic Book Resources, Neil Gaiman has already been asked by forthcoming Doctor Who producer Steven Moffat to write an episode of the show in 2010.

Johnston also mentions a couple of rumors flying around that have not yet been comfirmed nor denied. To read the entire article, click here.

The BBC Press Office and various media sources (originally broken by MediaGuardian) have announced thatSteven Moffat is to succeed Russell T Davies as the chief writer and executive producer of Doctor Who when it returns for its fifth series.

The article states that Moffat will replace Davies in 2009, taking over as "showrunner" for the fifth series in 2010. Moffat has been responsible for several episodes of the revived Doctor Who to date, including the BAFTA Award-winning "Blink" and the forthcoming two-parter "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead".

Davies is quoted as saying: "It's been a delight and an honour working with Steven, and I can't wait to see where his extraordinary imagination takes the Doctor. Best of all, I get to be a viewer again, watching on a Saturday night!"

The BBC press release includes a comment from Moffat himself: "My entire career has been a Secret Plan to get this job. I applied before but I got knocked back 'cos the BBC wanted someone else. Also I was seven. Anyway, I'm glad the BBC has finally seen the light, and it's a huge honour to be following Russell into the best - and the toughest - job in television. I say toughest 'cos Russell's at my window right now, pointing and laughing."

Moffat will continue as a director on the board of Hartswood Films, which produced Coupling and Jekyll, where he is also working on a new comedy Adam & Eve with wife Sue Vertue.

Steven Moffat has tonight been awarded the British Academy Television Award (BAFTA) for Best Writer, for the script of his 2007 Doctor Who episode "Blink". The Award was presented at the annual BAFTA Craft Awards ceremony, which honours those who work behind-the-scenes in the industry. Moffat won the award ahead of Jimmy McGovern (for "The Street"), Tony Marchant (for "The Mark of Cain") and Heidi Thomas (for "Cranford"). Full details can be found on the BAFTA website.

One of the highest accolades available to a British scriptwriter, it is Moffat's second BAFTA Award in recent weeks, having also won the BAFTA Cymru (Welsh BAFTAs) scriptwriting category, again for "Blink".

Today's Sunday Mail carries an interview with Douglas MacKinnon, director of just-broadcast episodes "The Sontaran Stratagem" and "The Poison Sky".

Having grown up watching Doctor Who as a young man, and remembering the Sontarans' debut appearance in 1973's "The Time Warrior" starring Jon Pertwee and Elisabeth Sladen, directing these episodes was a dream come true for him.

"To get a two-parter with Catherine Tate and Freema Agyeman and the Sontarans was just fantastic. I'd personally put the Sontarans third after the Cybermen and the Daleks as big legends in the legacy of Doctor Who villains."

MacKinnon, a Scotsman, had nothing but praise for series lead David Tennant: "He's everything people say, generous, kind and, most importantly, a very, very good actor. The thing with Doctor Who is the leading actor sets the pace to an extent and David's enthusiasm for the role is infectious for everyone."

But the production was not without incident: at one point during the shoot, MacKinnon managed to break the TARDIS.

"During filming I was working on the TARDIS and I managed to break the bit in the middle which goes up and down. I wanted it to go too fast for a dramatic scene and it just stopped working. I couldn't believe I'd broken the TARDIS! Thankfully, we managed to fix it half an hour later but I had this surreal phone call with my nine-year-old son Thomas, who is a massive Doctor Who fan, back home in Fife and said: 'You'll never believe what I did today...' And he shouted to my wife Mandy: 'Mum, dad's broken the TARDIS!'"