Alert: BBC Wales Today will cover the press launch this evening at 6.30pm UK time; those who receive the broadcast can tune in for a special preview tying into the press launch.

Meanwhile, coverage of Tuesday's press event has been sporadic due to the press embargo in effect until late tonight (after which we expect a flood of press coverage, which of course Outpost Gallifrey will report to you). Here's a small sample of what's been issued so far:

Today's edition of The Sun has a brief picture story on last night's press launch of the new series. Headlined "It's Doctor Who And The Bra-Dis", the half-page piece has a main picture of David Tennant and Billie Piper and draws attention to the fact that Piper is wearing a see-through top as she "cosies up to" Tennant. It says Tennant "who has taken over from Christopher Ecclestone [sic] as the Doctor . . . has already appeared as the Timelord in a Christmas special" and adds that "Camille Coduri, who plays (Piper's) screen mum Jackie Tyler and Noele [sic] Clarke - boyfriend Mickey Smith - also attended the Cardiff screening." Coduri and Clarke are also pictured. Both pictures are in mono in the newspaper, but the web piece has them in colour.

Coverage, concentrating on David Tennant and Billie Piper arriving at the launch, continues in the UK press with an article in the Daily Star [not yet online] and at U.TV, as well as a piece in the Daily Express noting Maureen Lipman's guest appearance in the series.

Evening Times notes that ""fans today get a sneak preview of amazing scenes from the first episode of the eagerly-awaited new series. The hit TV show - the first full series starring Scots actor David Tennant as the Doctor - will return on BBC1 in the spring. In the opening episode, the Tardis lands in the distant future of New Earth. ... Later in the series, fans will see Phoenix Nights star Peter Kay joining the Tardis. Kay will play "cold and powerful" character Victor Kennedy in episode 10. He landed the role after sending a fan letter to writer Russell T Davies saying how much he loved the first series. However, Kay will be swapping his trademark gags for serious acting. Other guest stars who have signed up to appear in the new series include Maureen Lipman, Pauline Collins and EastEnders actress Tracy-Ann Oberman."

Hello Magazine says that "Billie Piper is fond of describing herself as 'low-maintenance', but at the press launch for Dr Who's second season the actress was looking decidedly sexy in a combo of a sheer taupe-coloured top and white trousers. Her co-star, gorgeous Scottish actor David Tennant, had likewise gone for casual chic in a trendy jacket and jeans. The pair regularly stop traffic in Cardiff where most of the series is filmed. Just last month, for an episode set in the 1950s, diversions were placed in streets near the shoot so modern cars weren't caught on camera. Billie also surprised locals by dressing up in a puffball skirt, zip-up jacket and headband, looking for all the world like an extra out of Grease. Meanwhile, David was sporting sideburns and a Teddy-Boy quiff, which were still in evidence at this week's screening. The second series got a boost when acting veterans Pauline Collins and Maureen Lipman announced they're joining the show's line-up, along with comedian Peter Kay and Tracy-Ann Oberman, last seen doing time for the murder of Dirty Den in EastEnders. Pauline portrays Queen Victoria, while Maureen battles the Time Lord as an invading alien who occupies TV sets. The comedienne was thrilled with her role. 'I had to respond to commands such as: 'OK Maureen, now could you give us 15 seconds of having every last drop of energy sucked out of you?',' she enthused. 'It was great! This will earn me my entire year's worth of street cred!'"

Also, BlogCritics discusses the April 15 announcement. "After the long wait between episodes, the question still needs to be asked: Can David Tennant's Doctor take center stage? In the very first season in 1963, The Doctor (then played by William Hartnell) was more of a background character whose companions were at the forefront of the action while the Doctor figured a way out of the situation given in an episode. Later on, the producers of the series found a way to manage the characters so that both would be allowed ample screen time. Series 1 felt more like a return to those early years, which is fine, but not for every episode. When Tennant took over the role from Christopher Eccelston (who did the Doctor for Series 1) in 'The Parting Of The Ways,' it finally seemed like an actor had stepped in with enthusiasm and interest in the character. As luck would have it, we got our chance a few months before Christmas with the mini-segment 'Children-In-Need' special. Now with this excitement and joy with a new Doctor at hand, we had to deal with whether the result was worth it. For the CID special, I didn't feel it. ... With that out of the way, and April 15th approaching, I can only hope that the show returns to it's full glory and allows it's main hero to take center stage."

(Thanks to Steve Tribe, John Bowman, Paul Engelberg)

The BBC-imposed press embargo of midnight Wednesday night on detailed reports from the Tuesday evening Doctor Who press launch in Cardiff has passed, and already there have been a number of articles posted in advance of the deadline, reproduced below. We'll keep you posted all evening with the (expected) flood of news reports (the article's already been updated several times since its initial posting):

Piper Stays, Tennant... Maybe

The Press Association newswire has two lead articles about the press launch, the first of which notes that David Tennant "has signed up for the third series of Dr Who, it was disclosed today. Speaking about the final episode of the second series, portentously entitled Doomsday, Billie Piper, who plays the Doctor's sidekick Rose Tyler, told reporters she would be returning for series three. 'There are lots of places for Rose to go,' she said. Tennant, 34, who last year became the tenth Doctor following Christopher Eccleston's surprise departure, appeared more circumspect about his contract, saying: 'Mine's not as simple as that...' On making the show, he said: 'I have had a ball ... I might still be here in 40 years.' But a spokesman for programme makers BBC Wales later confirmed to the Press Association that Tennant was 'committed to Dr Who through 2007' for the third series."

"The stars were speaking at the launch of the second series at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff, which saw a screening of the first episode called New Earth. The episode sees the Time Lord and Rose share a kiss, but the scene has a twist as Rose's body has been taken over by Lady Cassandra, a survivor of the human race who featured in the previous series. Asked if there were any nerves about the kissing scene, Piper joked that 'we did not do tongues' and said they had been eating egg and cress sandwiches. She said they only had three attempts at the scene. 'It's not the last kiss of the series,' Tennant added. Paying tribute to the script writing, he said: 'Each script that we get is more funny and wilder and more inventive than the last.' He said reading the scripts was 'never a chore' because they were all written by the 'cream' of British television writers. 'Each one's a page turner,' he said."

"Piper, 23, said the final episodes of the last series 'completely blew my mind'. She said she had been quite 'shocked' by the latest scripts, describing them as 'really dark' but 'in a good way'. Tennant described an episode of the second series, called Love and Monsters, which features comedian Peter Kay as 'unlike anything you'll have seen in Dr Who before'. The pair both paid tribute to Kay, who wrote to script writer Russell T Davies to get a part in the new series. Piper said she had to pinch herself between takes to stop laughing while Tennant said the comedian seemed to see destroying takes as 'a badge of honour'. Piper added: 'I love his 'Dalek bread' gags.' The new series also sees Rose's boyfriend Mickey Smith join the TARDIS, something which Rose is not so keen on as she likes to keep the Doctor to herself, Piper said. Talking about how he would categorise his portrayal of the Doctor, Tennant said: 'I would leave that to other people.' He said he was working with a 'blank canvas,' adding: 'You're not obliged to take on a character that already exists. It's not like James Bond or Tarzan or Sherlock Holmes.' He said every Dr Who fan he had met so far has been 'completely charming'. Piper described the new Doctor's character as 'more emotional'. Asked if he was tempted to keep his native Scottish accent for the show, Tennant said: 'Russell did not want to do a touring the regions thing,' and said he had used a similar accent to the one he used in Casanova. The pair said they had managed to have a social life while working. While Tennant has been staying in a flat in Cardiff Bay, Piper has been in a hotel, enjoying 'telly, beans on toast, the usual,' after working 12 and 13-hour days. 'My boyfriend comes down quite a lot - not as much as I'd like him to, but enough,' she said. Tennant said it was 'not a problem', being separated from his girlfriend. Asked if the pair wanted to make a bid for success in Hollywood, Piper said: 'I'm loving what's going on here at the moment', while Tennant said he had never had a 'five-year plan'. 'There's some great stuff on telly at the moment,' Piper added."

A Female Doctor? Not Ruling It Out

Also on the Press Association newswire: "Executive producer and script writer for Dr Who, Russell T Davies, said he would not rule out reincarnating the Time Lord as a woman. Mr Davies said he would 'have the nerve' to have a woman playing the role. And he said it would also be possible to have a Welsh Doctor, such as the actor Michael Sheen, whom he described as 'brilliant'. Asked if he had a 'wish list' of talent for the show, Mr Davies said: 'I would love to get a gripping American star like Sigourney Weaver. You often get an actor who says, 'I would love to be in it', and then you have to speak to the agent.' He said he initially thought a hand-written letter he received from comedian Peter Kay, begging him for a part in the show, was a 'joke'. 'It said 'Yours sincerely, Peter Kay. PS garlic bread'.' An episode of the new series has been written by Matthew Graham, co-creator of the hit BBC show Life on Mars. Stephen Fry has also been pencilled in to contribute to the third series, Mr Davies said. Speaking at the launch of the new Dr Who series at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff, the script writer said there was not a deliberate attempt to put over a message, but added that swearing, violence and blood were off the agenda. 'We would never have a human shoot another human, for example,' he said, unlike in shows such as EastEnders."

"The first episode of the new series, which sees 'specially grown' plague carriers in a futuristic research laboratory, had drawn parallels with the subject of animal testing. Mr Davies said he drew his inspiration from newspapers, grabbing what is happening now and placing it in a science fiction setting. 'Dr Who has always tapped into classic British horror,' he added. He said he liked to keep the relationship between the Doctor and his sidekick Rose 'on its toes' and said they were 'best friends'. A kiss between the pair in the fist episode of the new series is 'a bit of a gag' and there is another kiss with a twist in the fourth episode, he said. Mr Davies said there was a 'natural chemistry' between David Tennant and Billie Piper, but if the characters they play ever consummated their relationship: 'I think that would kill it dead.'"

BBC News also reports on this item, along with The Sun (although mistakenly attributing the "40 years" comment to Piper), CBBC News, The Guardian, two articles at icWales here and here, plus The Scotsman,The Telegraph,Times Online, WaveGuide, and in the Daily Mail with a small picture gallery.

BBC Wiltshire Interviews

BBC Wiltshire has extensive coverage of the launch, featuring interviews with cast and crew. "Journalists from all over the country joined the cast and crew of Doctor Who at The Millenium Centre on Cardiff Bay for a screening of the first episode in the new series entitled 'New Earth'. Particularly apt as filming for the episode actually took place in the foyer of the building! 'New Earth' is a typically frothy, lightning-paced tale from the pen of series head writer Russell T Davies. ... Then came a jaw-dropping three-minute reel of clips showcasing the rest of the series. The highlights included squid-like aliens The Ood, shiny, unison-marching Cybermen, huge airships hovering above London, an astonishing CGI werewolf and Rose and returning classic series companion Sarah-Jane Smith engaged in an amusingly bitchy stand-off."

BBC Wiltshire also has a Q&A posted with David Tennant and Billie Piper. Says Tennant, "The worst bit of that was before we started, all the hoo-ha that comes with this show. The fact that everyone is so fascinated by it. Obviously that partly makes it the most wonderful job in the world but it also makes it the most terrifying job in the world. When I finished my first day of filming I remember going home to collapse because of the amount of nervous energy that had been building up in the months previous to getting going. I suppose it could have been awful but I've been so welcomed by this extraordinary crew. ... I think the scripts have moved on, it's a natural progression. The scripts were so brilliant last year and I didn't think we could top them. The last two episodes last year just blew my mind and I didn't see how we were going to do that again. But the genius that is Russell T Davies came up trumps as ever and has produced some amazing work. But yeah, they are scary and there's so much going on this year. Truly quite terrifying." Says Piper, "There's loads of places for Rose to go, she’s only 20! She’s got some time in her yet. ... We're not talking about that [the fate of the Doctor and Rose at the end of the season], it’s worth waiting for, so just be patient! It’s a real cliffhanger. These scripts are so special and unique."

The report features interviews with stars Noel Clarke and Camille Codurias well as writers Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat and Matthew Graham, all of which can be listened to via their website (they're in RealPlayer format and need that plug-in). Also part of the BBC Wiltshire article is a brief paragraph with spoilers, which we've moved down into the spoiler section below (click on the spoiler tag at the bottom of this article to read it).

First Episode Review

One reporter who attended the screening, Caleb Woodbridge, who writes for the Cardiff student paper Gair Rhydd, noted in a blog post this evening that "One sign of Doctor Who's success was that the launch for series two wasn't just ten journalists and a sausage roll. No, a whole crowd of reporters and journalists turned up, eager to cover the event. There's plenty I could say about the press launch, but I'll cut to the chase: is the second series as good? ... Russell T Davies once again captures the sheer joy of the Doctor's travels. From the opening moments, it's clear that the Doctor and Rose love travelling the universe and also each other. Just platonically? Well, the more squeamish fans can keep telling themselves that, but decide for yourself! There is plenty of humour, even outright comedy. While some of the humour in the last series was at times a bit forced - farting aliens and the like - here the laughs emerge from the characters of the Doctor and Rose. The season opener leaves us assured that these are the Doctor and companion we know and love from last year. But a dark secret lies at the heart of events, one that raises complex moral questions, and some of the themes echo last season's The End of the World. But the story doesn't bog itself down in philosophising - once the dastardly goings-on are revealed, we move into a good solid base-under-seige plot. The tale has some genuinely disturbing monsters that will hopefully end up being much imitated in the playground come Monday lunchtime. There are also some not-too-subtle hints to the future. One particular subplot ends with a scene that is basically a great big raspberry to the audience saying 'Hah hah! You'll have to keep on watching - and you can start speculating now!' David Tennant's Tenth Doctor also shows himself to be something more of an action man than his predecessor, and when he gets angry at the things he discovers, he boils with righteous indignation. From this episode, he looks set to be something more of an action man than his predecessor, flinging himself into the action of the episode. The episode isn't without its flaws - various plot points go unexplained or underdeveloped, and we only see a very limited corner of New Earth, though this leaves plenty of scope for return visits. Most of the effects are worthy of the big screen, but a few don't quite live up to the same standard In turns hilarious, creepy and strangely moving, a solidly entertaining start to the Doctor's adventures. And just wait until you see the trailer for Tooth and Claw!"

Trailers Set for Saturday

Outpost Gallifrey has learned that a new trailer for the forthcoming second series is set to debut this Saturday, April 1, at some time in the early evening on BBC1.

Broadcast Alert: GMTV Thursday Morning

GMTV, we have also learned, will feature a segment on tomorrow morning's program that was shot at the Cardiff Exhibition. Viewers should tune into GMTV on Thursday morning to watch the Doctor Who segment. David Tennant and Billie Piper, meanwhile, will appear on the Friday morning edition of GMTV in a live interview segment. There is currently no word on the timing of either of these two Doctor Who appearances on the morning program.

BBC Wales Today Update

Yesterday evening's BBC Wales Today report from the press launch is now available on the BBC News Media Player, where it can be seen in Windows Media as well as Real Player and in a larger size and better quality than the Wales Today Real file; it's located here, although the link might not work for some (pending a proper link on the BBC News site, the easiest way to access it is to open the News Player and search for 'David Tennant' or 'Billie Piper'.)

More Coverage

Today's Independent says that "the writers of BBC's hit revival of sci-fi classic Doctor Who plan to mix current affairs and television nostalgia with plotlines inspired by subjects ranging from the MRSA epidemic to Hammer Horror films. The second series of Doctor Who, starting on BBC1 on Easter Saturday, takes the time lord to places he has never been. For the first time, the Doctor, played by David Tennant, falls in love and ponders God's existence. In a further break from tradition, the chief scriptwriter Russell T Davies said he 'wouldn't think twice' about casting a woman in the lead role when the Doctor next regenerates, adding that he would love Sigourney Weaver, star of the Alien film trilogy, to appear. ... Piper refused to comment on speculation she is planning to leave the show. But insiders said she was likely to leave early in the third series. She was upset not to have been nominated for a Bafta. 'I was hoping to be there... because I love the Baftas. I would be lying if I said it didn't mean anything... but I'm 23 and I've got the rest of my life to do it,' she said."

Outpost Gallifrey will keep you up to date on further news reports that come down the wire following the end of the press embargo on the launch. (Photos in this article used in the press are copyrighted to the BBC.)

Catching up with the past six days' worth of news while your editor has been away from his desk:

Series Two

'Doctor Who - The countdown starts here!' says the cover of the new edition of Radio Times (1-7 April), heralding the return of the magazine's regular 'Doctor Who Watch' feature. This week, it's a full-page article, 'It's not long now...', illustrated with a full-length shot of David Tennant. The feature comprises an interview with Phil Collinson, with the series producer discussing what the production team has learnt from Series One: 'Loads [...] we're much better at anticipating what problems are going to come up, and how elaborate a shoot actually is. So we're able to plan ahead more. And we've got the added bonus of a new Doctor [...] But really, it's business as usual for us.' Collinson also comments on alien planets and how to realise them: 'we're going to go to two alien planets [...] 'New Earth' is set on an alien planet, which has an Earth colony so we can always refer it back to Earth [...] And then further down the series we have two episodes that are set on a very, very distant planet that's very, very different. [...] There will be a big green-screen element, so we can change the colour of the place and paint unusual things into the skies [...] And just by bringing in physical effects - wind and rain - we can make it a much more exciting environment.' Radio Times also promises future features on the Cybermen, Sarah Jane Smith, K9, 'Catnuns... and much more!' And the listings confirm BBC Four's double bills of 'The Green Death' from Monday 3 April, with a rerun of Series One beginning on BBC Three weekdays from Thursday 6 April.

TV presenter Alistair Appleton is the latest name to be associated with the new series; according to Appleton's website, "In quite the most exciting TV job he's ever done, Alistair is set to appear in the penultimate episode of DR WHO this summer! Playing himself he comes to a messy end at the hands of a classic TV baddy."

British musician Kurgan Merrick will record a new version of the series soundtrack according to a report this weekend inThe Mirror. "Our Tardistastic insider reveals: 'It will be darker than ever before - in fact it's menacing and quite scary. 'The new theme tune is a lot slower than the one currently used. It sounds a bit like a distorted choir.'"

The Watford Observer has spoken to two schoolchildren who are taking part in CBBC's forthcoming Totally Doctor Who. 'Tom and Tony, who both go to Sir William Ramsay School, Rose Avenue, Hazlemere, are so crazy about the scarf-wearing Timelord that they shoot their own Dr Who-style films on a video recorder, taking on the roles of the aliens the doctor encouters.' Tom was chosen, says the paper, after the BBC read about the full-scale TARDIS his parents gave him for Christmas, and the pair have been filmed making their Who-inspired home videos.

The Daily Star says that "Doctor Who star Noel Clarke is set to enjoy a kinky threesome on the show - with Billie Piper and her TV mum. The hunky actor, who plays Rose's boyfriend Mickey Smith, says his character has been 'sexed up' for the new series, which starts next month. And he reveals that Mickey harbours a secret fantasy to bed both Rose, played by 23-year-old Billie, and her telly mum Jackie - actress Camille Coduri, 40. Noel, 30, said: 'Mickey gets very sexy in this new series. He's a completely different person from the lad stuck in a wheelie bin in Episode One of the first series. And he and Rose's mum Jackie certainly get on. They didn't interact much at the start - but that has changed now. He even tells Rose, 'I go round your mum's every Sunday now . . . she cooks my dinner . . . talks about you non-stop'. You know, I think he's secretly giving her one. It's his plan. It's like a fantasy thing - having a mother and daughter at the same time. 'He's working up to it slowly.' Noel is also excited about becoming the Doctor's new travelling companion, joining the Time Lord (David Tennant, 34) and Rose on some of their intergalactic adventures. He tells the new Doctor Who Magazine: 'When the show's writer Russell T. Davies told me what he wanted to do with my character, I was like, 'Hell, yeah! I'm not going to miss this for the world'. 'Russell is a genius and I think fans are really going to like this new series.'"

The Sun today has a two-par piece on the new series, saying the first episode is set on an alien planet, with the Doctor and Rose visiting a colony of Earth to find a 'plague farm', evil cat people and former adversary Cassandra (Zoe Wanamaker). It adds that the show returns next month and mentions the series launch is tonight 'so expect some gossip'.

Today's Media Guardian has some interesting notes about tonight's press launch: "Seeing as it is their job to promote a programme about time travel, perhaps the BBC's Doctor Who PR team could learn how to tell the time. A press invite to tonight's launch in Cardiff includes an embargo until '00hrs 29th March'. In other words, midnight tonight. 'Oh no,' says a spokeswoman. 'The embargo is midnight on Thursday.' Ah, but wouldn't that be 00hrs 30th March? 'No, it's 00hrs 29th/30th March'. Which of course, isn't a time at all. Hacks travelling to Cardiff expecting to see their stories in print, or online, tomorrow should perhaps give the press office a call. Now, after Monkey, when the big hand points to the 12..."

The official BBC Doctor Who website has changed and now has a picture of the Doctor and Rose together with a sample of one of Murray Gold's recurring melodies from the last series.

Broadcasting

According to some TV listings services, BBC Three will be rerunning the whole of Series One in six and a half double bills from 7pm on weekday evenings. The repeats begin on Thursday 6 April with 'Rose' and 'The End of the World' and are scheduled to finish with 'The Parting of the Ways' on Friday 14 April. In addition to this, Sunday 9 April will see a three-hourDoctor Who Night from 7pm to 10pm. Although its content is unconfirmed, the limited information available includes credits for David Tennant, Billie Piper, Noel Clarke, Camille Coduri and Penelope Wilton, so it's likely that 'The Christmas Invasion' will form part of the theme night's programmes.

David Tennant and Billie Piper will appear on ITV1's GMTV on Friday 31 March (between 8.30am and 9.25am) - 'Exclusive interviews with dashing David Tennant and sidekick Billie Piper', according to the GMTV website.

Russian TV station STS TV has bought Series 1 (and apparently Series 2) of the new Doctor Who, according to "This Week in Doctor Who". Series 1 will air weekday afternoons at
4:30PM starting this Monday, 27 March.

BBC Experience This Weekend

The BBC Experience 2006 will feature an exhibition of Doctor Who items including Daleks, Cybermen, K9 and the TARDIS, etc., this weekend at Gloucester's GL1 Leisure Centre on Sunday, accoridng to the BBC Gloucester website. Meanwhile, Newsquest Media Group reports that "Doctor Who's dreaded enemies the Daleks descended on Cirencester" on Saturday, and "Sci-Fi fans were treated to the spectacle as the telly stars promoted their appearance at the forthcoming BBC Experience 2006. Event producer, BBC Radio Gloucestershire's Vernon Harwood, said: 'Since the return of Dr Who to our screens, The Daleks and Cybermen are in great demand throughout the galaxy but Sci-Fi fans were pleased to see they gave the Doctor the slip to appear in Cirencester.' The BBC Experience 2006 gives people a chance to look behind the scenes of their favourite BBC TV and radio shows."

People

March 21's Daily Record says that David Tennant "has no plans to pen his autobiography. An ever-modest David said: 'Never say never, but I don't think that I have a particularly interesting life. 'I think people would be very bored of me. Maybe when I'm 75. I don't really know. Ask me again then.' David has also admitted that his parents tried to put him off acting when he was younger. He said: 'They were always suggesting other careers for me to do. They tried to put me off acting. It's understandable though, because acting is a foolhardy career. They are very supportive of me now though.'" Also, according to this week's Star magazine (3 April, page 89): "Doctor Who star David Tennant gets creative in the kitchen for BBC2's Ready Steady Cook on 12 April. He said of the experience: "It was the tardis dish I've ever cooked in my life". Boom, boom... "

The Harrods department store is using Billie Piper in their latest poster ads, which can be seen on the London Underground. They've asked a range of celebrities what's the one thing they would most like from the shop; says Piper, "Two scoops of chocolate, a scoop of vanilla, loads of whipped cream, hot chocolate sauce and chocolate sprinkles. Does that count as one thing? Ice cream is my thing. Can't help it. Making up my own flavours would be great. You have personal shoppers, don't you, could they sort it out? Maybe jammy dodger flavour ...why are you looking at me like that?"

The Western Mail features an article about the BBC Wales series "Belonging" which stars Eve Myles: "Eve Myles is no stranger to juicy roles after lengthy stints with the RSC and National Theatre as well as appearances in TV dramas such as Doctor Who and soon as a lead character in its sister show aimed at adults, Torchwood. She describes her role as Ceri as 'a diamond job.' ... The read through is a day when cast and crew gather to run through scripts. It usually happens in a nondescript meeting room at BBC Wales' Llandaff headquarters, and it's a chance for the gang to reunite and catch up on news. But it's also a pressurised process, according to Eve Myles. 'I'm terrified at the read through,' she says. 'You go in and it's so exciting to see everybody. You're sitting with 20 or 25 people including the whole cast, make-up, costume, crew, producer. There's a lot of pressure on you as an actor to make it work, because if you don't make it work it will get changed. It's probably the ugliest part of the production - it's not like we've got anything to prove to each other, but it's still a really nerve-wracking experience

Jean Marsh ("The Daleks' Master Plan," "Battlefield") and Simon Williams("Remembrance of the Daleks") are currently starring on stage in the west end with Alan Bennett's "The Old Country". Also, Martin Jarvis("Vengeance on Varos") is currently on stage with Diana Rigg in "Honour" for an limited run.

Michael John Attwell died on 18 March according to an obituary in theIndependent: "He also took two roles, 18 years apart, in Doctor Who, as Isbur, one of the alien race from Mars, in 'The Ice Warriors' story (1967), and Bates, one of the Cybermen's slaves on their home planet of Telos, in 'Attack of the Cybermen' (1985)."

Bruno Langley is mentioned on Yahoo News (with a brief reference to Doctor Who) regarding his tour with A Taste of Honey.

Publishing

A postscript to last autumn's regular news of the sales and chart success of Panini's Doctor Who Annual 2006. Last week's trade magazine The Bookseller published its chart of Top 20 Children's Hardbacks (52 weeks ending 31 December 2005), and the annual is placed at no. 14, with total sales of 82,040, a level of sales similar to those for a number of Lemony Snicket titles and perennial kids' favourite The Very Hungry Caterpillar (the runaway no. 1 was, of course, the latest Harry Potter novel, with almost 3 million sales - nothing else is in that league).

The controversy caused by the recent promotion of The Science of Doctor Who by Paul Parsons in BBC Focus magazine (OG news, 21 March) is covered by BBC News in an article entitled 'Doctor Who book furore rumbles on'. According to the report, the BBC has now stated that the matter is 'being reviewed as a matter of urgency', because magazine editor Parsons may have broken BBC editorial guidelines in promoting his own book. "A BBC spokeswoman said that with the new TV series of 'Doctor Who' to be broadcast next month, the April issue of Focus has 'The Science of Doctor Who' as a feature with an angle suitable to the magazine's popular science and technology content. 'Given that Paul is a Doctor Who expert, it was only natural that he write this article. 'The Science of Doctor Who' is offered as a gift to new subscribers in the April issue on the subscriptions page and in the editor's letter,' she said." Also reported at Brand Republic.

Meanwhile, today's Daily Telegraph today has a lengthy article by Parsons looking at the 'real science' behind the TV series. "Is there any real science in the TV series? Paul Parsons examines what's possible. So, beware that your garden doesn't rise up and bite you... To fans of Doctor Who, which returns to BBC1 next month, the good doctor couldn't possibly exist without his Tardis. After all, time travel makes the programme tick. But isn't Doctor Who stretching reality a bit too far? What about all those futuristic baddies and technology? A close parallel between real science and fiction has remained with the programme for more than 40 years - ever since the first episode went out on November 23, 1963, the day after President John F Kennedy was shot. The doctor has fought genetically modified Daleks; encountered nanorobots that can heal your every ill; owned a robot dog (20 years before Sony); and explored a virtual-reality world called the Matrix back when Keanu Reeves was knee-high to a memory card. The new series, with Scottish actor David Tennant playing the eponymous Time Lord's 10th incarnation, sees the return of his old adversaries the Cybermen. These hybrids of man and machine were created in 1966 by the show's then science adviser, Dr Kit Pedler of University College London. Fascinated by new developments in transplant surgery, Pedler imagined the Cybermen as a race that had given themselves so many cybernetic implants that little of their original bodies remained. So what about the science in the show - time travel, sonic screwdrivers, cosmic empires? And what is the big deal about hiding behind the sofa…?" Read the full article at the site.

In America

TV Guide magazine reviewed "The Unquiet Dead": "Having gone into the future, our Geordie-or-somwhere-else-in-Northern-England-voiced doctor boogied into the past with Rose. Incidentally, I thank the folks who pointed out that the doctor does not have a Cockney. As John Lennon sang, I should've known better. My only defense is that my computer was giving me fits, causing my brain cells to click together like one of those swinging marble novelty items that sits on the desks of bored executives. (As much as I like the attention, please don't inundate me with pedantic e-mails about the history of swinging marble thingies.) The TARDIS was playing games of her own. Instead of going to 1860 Naples, like the doctor programmed her to, it deposited the Time Lord and Rose in 1869 Cardiff. Notice how the doctor made Rose change her clothes ('You'll start a riot, Barbarella!') without bothering to change his own? Apparently, leather jackets and T-shirts don't raise eyebrows among the 19th-century Welsh. I loved how Rose tentatively placed a footprint in the snow as if she was leaving her own imprint on the past. A lovely touch. I wonder if the TARDIS is drawn to trouble because it dispatched the pair just as corpses began roving about the streets of Cardiff. Merry Christmas, everybody. The mystery involved a seemingly haunted undertaker and a very Scrooge-ish Charles Dickens, who was flabbergasted by the starstruck doctor ('I'm your No. 1 fan!'). Christopher Eccleston has a knack for overplaying a scene without overstaying his welcome the awful pun ('I love a happy medium') came with a delightful knowing wink. Billie Piper plays the straight woman, but Rose is so well developed that Piper turns even the most obvious scenes (e.g., talking with Gwyneth about a lad's 'bum') into little gems. Most importantly, the producers (Russell Davies I'm sure made this a priority) have done a terrific job maintaining the doctor's balance of genius and humility. He makes mistakes and people don't always walk away. The doctor wanted to let the gaseous creatures keep the corpses ('It's like recycling') until they could build their own bodies, but he was duped and Gwyneth died. 'There are more things dreamt of in Heaven and Earth than we will ever know,' Dickens reminds him. 'Even you, Doctor.' The coda was perfect Dickens runs through the streets shouting yuletide greetings. But what else can we expect from the new Who, a mind-bending adventure with a heart amidst the delicious rapid-fire dialogue. This is as good as sci-fi -- and Sci Fi -- gets."

Another article on the US broadcast of the new series - and the DVD releases of the original - at Now Playing Mag: "Now that Britain's beloved Doctor Who has found a home on an actual American TV network (albeit a basic cable net), it seems that the treasured titular time traveler may finally have a chance to break out in the U.S. as a full-fledged icon and escape the dubious trappings of convention halls and late-night, sweaty chat-room sessions. Now Playing recently spoke with some of the folks at the BBC who are orchestrating the Doctor's American invasion on the Sci Fi Channel and on DVD, and we discussed the future of the character - and his past, as well, of course. 'Securing a TV platform for Doctor Who [in America] is great news as the exposure from the TV broadcast, combined with joint BBC Video/Sci Fi marketing initiatives, will ensure maximum exposure for both the TV broadcast and the DVD release,' says Burton Cromer of BBC Worldwide Americas. 'It will also enhance the popularity of the show, as it will introduce Doctor Who to a whole new generation of fans.' The deal with the Sci Fi Channel was only just announced in January, but it quickly led to a rescheduling of the DVD release of the first series (or season, for us Americans) of the new Who. Originally planned for February, the series one box set is now slated for a July bow in the States. 'Doctor Who: The Complete Series One will be released on July 4th, directly following the airing of the final episode on the Sci Fi Channel,' says BBC Video's Laura Palmer. 'This very special collection has over four hours of DVD extras.' In the meantime, those looking to catch up on old school Who will have the continued DVD releases of the earlier episodes of the show to rely on. While the current incarnation starring Christopher Eccleston is being referred to as 'series one,' in fact the show dates back to 1963. The new BBC Video release Doctor Who: The Beginning is a great way to dive into the past of the Time Lord known as the Doctor, and even though this collection represents the earliest adventures of the character, it's taken quite some time to get the episodes out on DVD. '[That's] really for a couple of reasons,' explains Steve Roberts of the Doctor Who DVD restoration team. 'The DVD releases worldwide are driven from the U.K. release schedule, and these three stories were only released in the U.K. on VHS about five years ago. As we're selling mostly to fans who will have bought these VHSs anyway, we're making a conscious decision to leave a gap. Secondly, with the recent transmission and release of the new series bringing a whole lot of new fans to the show, it felt like the right time to show them how it all began.' Roberts adds that despite the episodes on The Beginning being some 43 years old, there weren't really any huge technical hurdles when it came to bringing them to DVD. 'The original 16mm kinescope camera negatives made for overseas sales still exist. We've had a lot more problems on some of the newer stories, to be honest!' he says, while adding that extra features haven't been a problem for the older releases either, despite their age. 'Actually, a surprising number of the cast and major production personnel from the very beginning are still very much alive and kicking - and in some cases still working in film and TV! One reason for this was that the original production team and cast were generally in their twenties, with the exception of [original Who actor] William Hartnell, so they're now only in their sixties or seventies. We basically have to take each show [one] at a time and look at the possibilities. In most cases there are enough people still around to make a specially-shot feature a possibility, but if not we can fall back on video of convention appearances, material from television archives, etc.' Alas, don't expect DVD releases of full seasons of the show to become a regular thing, despite the series one set. BBC prefers to release the Doctor's older adventures in more of a 'greatest hits' sort of fashion. 'It looks like we will be doing an arc box set every year though, along the lines of those arcs we released on VHS,' says Roberts. 'Our main aim is to try to present a good mix of stories from throughout the show's history, mixing both the ‘classics' and the less well known stories to try to keep fans happy while giving them a chance to experience these less well known titles earlier than we did for VHS. … I realize that this is contrary to the current practice of complete, extras-light season box sets of other TV series, but Doctor Who is such a unique series that BBC Video believes that each story deserves the space to tell its own tale.' Bottom line: The BBC has high hopes for Who's American coming out party. 'The new series will introduce a whole new fan base to the elements in Doctor Who which carry over from series to series - the quirky attitude, the imaginative monsters, the entertaining variety of experience that time/space travel affords,' says Palmer. 'And [we hope] that the new fans will seek that experience with other Doctors.'"

A note to US viewers: The documentary 'Over the Edge' that is on the third disc of the new DVD release The Beginningcontains rather large spoiler clips for both 'Boom Town' and 'The Parting of the Ways'. Any new US viewers who are watching the show on Sci Fi for the first time should avoid watching this documentary until they've seen the complete first season.

Miscellaneous

Doctor Who is up for two Spacey Awards, viewer-given awards from the Canadian SPACE network which has shown the classic series; the website ishere. Doctor Who is up for the "Favourite TV Show" award while Rose Tyler is nominated for "Favourite New TV Character".

The 1976 Splink road safety film featuring Jon Pertwee has been voted 15th favourite public information short in an online poll at the BBC News Magazine website. The film was among 22 featured on the site last month to mark the 60th anniversary of the UK's Central Office of Information. The full story and list of votes can be found at BBC News. Nearly 25,000 people voted in the poll. The piece adds: 'The National Archives has launched a new website to mark the anniversary, which makes many public information films available, including all those featured in our festival and 67 others . . . Films can be viewed online or downloaded to devices such as video iPods or PSPs.'

Last week's edition of the free UK newspaper Metro featured a "60 Second Interview" with cryptozoologist Richard Freeman and how he got into his career path: "In two words - Doctor Who. I grew up when Jon Pertwee was in the lead role in the 1970s. He was incarcerated on Earth, so the monsters always seemed more scary. I was already interested in animals and that got me interested in reading about monstrous creatures.'"

The Dalek cakes that have been widely reported are available in Sainsbury's and soon will be available in Tesco and Asda, according to the manufacturers. "Our aspirations are to produce this cake for as long as the BBC enjoys its success with the series of Doctor Who and will be linking with all the key features for this brand."

The Milton Keynes Citizen reports that a local man "hopes to exterminate the competition in the London marathon...by running as a Dalek! Bob Johnson, of Keynes Close, Newport Pagnell, is piecing together the full-size legendary Dr Who robot in time to battle his way through the crowds in the April 23 event. But despite his evil exterior, Bob assured the Citizen it will all be for a good cause. Bob said: 'I'll look like an idiot, I know, but I'm hoping to raise over 5,000 for Willen Hospice so it's well worth it!' The computer simulation and engineering expert is a regular participant in the marathon, but never has he undertaken the race carrying such a gruelling load. Bob said: 'I've certainly bitten off more than I can chew this time! It's been a nightmare putting the metal parts together but there are a number of small problems still to contend with. One is running 26.2 miles in the first place, another is running it in an outfit weighing 30lbs and finally, I'll be trying not to fall over in the crowds!' "

The Daily Record on March 23 noted that Doctor Who made the top 20 in a survey of 8-12 year olds by a soft drink firm on their 'all time top heroes'.

Also: the Mirror covers the BAFTA award nominations.

(Thanks to Paul Engelberg, Steve Tribe, Chuck Foster, John Bowman, Peter Weaver, Dion Page, Graham Kibble-White, Benjamin Elliott, Bill Albert, Neil Marsh, Craig Brierley, Matthew Godley, and Adi Himpson)

Three set reports from the past week's filming (most of it last Wednesday and Thursday) in Wales, courtesy readers Emma Sandrey, Paul Mount and Timothy Farr; click on the spoiler tag to reveal the text.

Outpost Gallifrey has been informed that, as we first reported some time ago, the press launch for series two has indeed gone ahead tonight with a screening of "New Earth," the first new episode due on 15 April. As noted in the MediaGuardian report (see the "Series Two" section of today's TARDIS Report column), there is a press embargo until tomorrow night on any reports coming out of the event, but we hope to keep you updated on what we find out... so far, in attendance (according to Outpost reader reports) we can confirm have been David Tennant, Billie Piper, Noel Clarke, Camille Coduri, director Graeme Harper, writers Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat and Paul Cornell, actors Nick Briggs and Annette Badland, Mike Tucker of the effects team, producers Phil Collinson and Julie Gardner, among others. More soon.

Classic Series Broadcasting Update

Radio Times has now confirmed that repeats of the Jon Pertwee serial The Green Death will form part of BBC Four's season of programmes from and about 1973 (to tie in with the channel's screening of Life on Mars). From Monday 3 April to Wednesday 5 April, the six-part story will be shown in three double bills from 7.10 to 8.00pm, according to this linkand this.

BBC Focus Controversy

As reported by Outpost Gallifrey on 17 March, the April edition of BBC Focus dedicates its cover and a large article to the forthcoming book The Science of Doctor Who, with free copies of Paul Parsons' book going to the magazine's subscribers. Today's Media Guardian, however, reports that the "extensive coverage" has come in for criticism - because the magazine is edited by Paul Parsons himself - but that "the BBC has defended" Focus and its editor. A BBC spokeswoman is quoted as saying that there are "viable commercial and editorial reasons" to support the coverage, that Paul Parsons is a Doctor Who expert so a natural choice to write the magazine article, and that "all profits [from the magazine's sales] are returned to the BBC for the benefit of the licence fee payer." The full article is available at their website; it's also been reported at The Independent.

Other Items

BBC New Media has begun to unveil its plans for the development of the BBC's online presence, and a report today from BBC News highlights the intention to allow seven-day online access to television programmes "like Doctor Who." "Ashley Highfield, director of the BBC's new media division, shared a platform with Microsoft boss Bill Gates at a technology conference in Las Vegas. Mr Highfield said the BBC would work with technology firms like Microsoft. He also showed off the BBC's Integrated Media Player (iMP), designed to allow users seven-day access to TV shows. The iMP, which uses peer-to-peer technology to distribute BBC content across the internet, has been undergoing extensive user trials. 'Audience needs are changing. They want to consume media on their own terms, anytime, anyplace, anyhow,' Mr Highfield told the audience at the Mix06 conference. 'If we want to stay relevant in the digital age, the BBC must respond to this challenge by some seriously good technological innovation, resulting in products like the iMP, through partnerships such as this one with Microsoft.'"

Sci Fi Wire, continuing their daily coverage of Doctor Who with featurettes, reports that "Russell T. Davies, executive producer of the new Doctor Who, told SCI FI Wire that his revival of the long-running British SF drama was bolstered by a team of writers committed to the show's success. 'None of them had written for the program before,' he said in an interview. 'But they had started their own television series and written their own dramas, and they'd also commentated on Doctor Who in the absence when it was off the air. They were very well-known for it, and you needed people who knew all those tiny details that make all the difference in telling a science fiction story. For example, the Doctor can't do magic, and it's very easy for new writers to assume that the Doctor and the Tardis can do anything, because the program is a very free-format. He can travel in time and space and land anywhere, but there are actually very strong limits within that as to what you can do and how an adventure works, so I'm glad we went for people who were well-versed in that sort of storytelling, because I didn't need to have script meetings in which I was telling them how the science fiction of Doctor Who worked. In addition to writing half of the first 13-episode season himself, Davies came up with basic storylines and settings for the remaining scripts, which were divided up according to the writers' individual strengths. 'Mark Gatiss, for example, is one of the writers and stars of [the British sketch comedy show] The League of Gentlemen, which is a marvelously dark and gothic comedy. I knew he had a great love of Victoriana, so when we had an episode set in the Victorian era with Charles Dickens ['The Unquiet Dead,' airing on SCI FI March 24], it was absolutely automatic that we give it to Mark. Steven Moffat is the writer who invented Coupling, and he's brilliant at structure and plot, so he was the only writer outside of myself to be given a two-parter ['The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances,' airing later this season], because they're very difficult to construct.' A relatively new writer, Rob Shearman, had previously written an audio play feature the Doctor's most famous nemeses, the Daleks. 'You could not get a cleverer, more intelligent and exciting take on the Doctor's old enemies than that,' Davies said. 'As a matter of honor, I felt we had to offer [the episode 'Dalek,' airing on SCI FI April 14,] to him, and it was a very big chance for Rob, writing a big piece of adventure television for prime time BBC1, and he did it magnificently. So all these decisions just made sense, really, and again, we've done that with the second [season].' Davies has written several scripts for season two, which is the final weeks of production back in the United Kingdom, and he has brought in Gatiss and Moffat as well as a group of new writers for the remaining episodes. 'They're very carefully chosen, because Doctor Who is so unique and it's so different every week. Each episode even has a different style, so you need to balance the writers and work out where their episodes play within the overall season, so we plan it all out very carefully.'"

Another report on Sci Fi Wire says that "Euros Lyn, who directed the Doctor Who episode 'The Unquiet Dead' (airing on Sci Fi Channel March 24 at 9 p.m. ET/PT), told SCI FI Wire that it was an enjoyable challenge to create the period adventure with a guest appearance by Charles Dickens. 'There were lots of things we wanted to do in the episode,' he recalled in an interview, 'including lots of crowd duplication shots in the theater. But knowing we had to get the dramatic scenes done first and get the story covered, we had to leave big-scale shots to the end of the day, which meant we sometimes didn't get them. Sometimes we'd reach the end of our day, and some of those grander shots fell off the list, so that was tough. We also had big snow scenes with paper snow in whipping wind, with horse-drawn carriages and lots of extras, and those were really tricky to achieve as well, so there were lots of big set pieces that were a real challenge.' In 'The Unquiet Dead,' the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose (Billie Piper) travel back to Cardiff on Christmas Eve of 1869, where they discover the bodies of the dead are being possessed by the alien Gelth. Their main ally against the creatures: a world-weary playwright named Charles Dickens (Simon Callow). 'It was brilliant to get him,' Lyn said about the casting of Callow. 'He's an actor of such great stature and experience, and the work that he's associated with is work of quality. The secret to getting him interested was the script. He read the script and loved it, but he's also a Dickens freak. He loves everything about Dickens and has written books and performed one-man shows about him, so the material was of great interest to him, and I think that helped. Yes, it's Doctor Who, and yes, it's popular drama, but it also has an erudite and classical dimension to it.' The director is currently working on another history-based episode for season two, which begins airing in Britain in April. 'The Girl in the Fireplace' is set in 18th-century France and guest-stars Sophia Myles (Tristan and Isolde) as the French noblewoman Madame du Pompadour. 'They're very different episodes, but that's one of the brilliant things about Doctor Who: Every episode is a genre piece and utterly different to each other. It's like starting again every time; virtually nothing is current from one episode to another. One day you could be shooting on a set 2 billion years in the future, and the next morning you're stepping onto a set in 1879. So that's wonderful.'"

The Capital Times of Wisconsin says of the new series, "And it's really quite a hoot, faithful to the goofy charm of the original series while doing the serious upgrading and improving that was so desperately needed. Right from the opening credits, which use the spacey original theme music and show the Doctor's TARDIS, which looks like a 1950s emergency phone booth, winging through space and time, you know you're in good hands. For the uninitiated, the Doctor is a renegade space/time traveler who zips through the cosmos battling bad guys, trading quips with aliens and otherwise having a grand old time. ... In the first of last Friday's two episodes, the Doctor met up with Rose while trying to save London from being overrun by sentient department store mannequins. You see, this alien consciousness was able to animate plastic, using the London Eye Ferris wheel as a transmitter, and ... you know, not many 'Doctor Who' plots hold up on paper. Just know that everybody seemed to be having a good time, and this is that rare science-fiction show that not only puts an emphasis on comedy but is also pretty funny. I don't know who Piper is, but she's pretty great as Rose, sometimes gobsmacked at the wonders that the Doctor shows her and other times amusingly unfazed. She and Eccleston develop great chemistry: part father-daughter and part friends, with maybe a little sexual tension thrown in for good measure, quite quickly. The second episode was even better, as the Doctor and Rose whisk forward a few million years to watch the destruction of the Earth with a roster of VIAs (Very Important Aliens), who for some reason decide to commemorate Earth's passing by playing what they think is one of our world's great pieces of art: the '80s pop hit 'Tainted Love' by the group Soft Cell. Fans used to getting their fix of gritty, violent science fiction every night from 'Battlestar Galactica' (which coincidentally is also a remake of a cheesy old sci-fi series) might have a little trouble to adjusting to the whimsy of 'Doctor Who.' But I'll bet even they'll catch the groove of this amiably daffy show, and Sci-Fi will have another remake on its hands that tops the original. What's next, an Emmy-quality reimagining of 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century'?"

(Thanks to Steve Tribe, Paul Engelberg, Peter Weaver, Cliff Chapman, Paul Hayes)

Series One in America

Today's Sci Fi Wire on the Sci-Fi Channel's website, says that "Russell T. Davies, executive producer of the new Doctor Who and the guiding force behind the BBC's successful revival, told SCI FI Wire that the series found its footing very quickly in the first season and hasn't slowed down since. 'I think the learning experience is overstated by fandom,' said Davies, who is currently overseeing production of season two, which is being shot in Cardiff, South Wales. 'I think it's very much fandom's attitude to sit there with [season] one and say, 'Ah, well, they're learning!' Frankly, we hit the ground running and were a success right from the start, so there's truly not a single episode that I'm not proud of.' Doctor Who, which starred Christopher Eccleston as the alien Time Lord, debuted on BBC1 in March 2005 to stellar ratings and respectable reviews. ... Davies is pleased with the direction that was established early on. 'I'm aware of all sorts of faults and bits that I'd write differently and things like that,' he conceded. 'But it's more important to not underestimate the massive success that this was in terms of getting, like, a 44 percent share from the very beginning and coming back with a new Doctor and again getting a 45 percent share on Christmas Day, which is extraordinary. So the learning experience is overrated in terms of talking about how in hindsight we learned this or that, when actually we very confidently knew what we were setting out to make right from the start and we made it.' Davies said that the technical part of production started out slower. 'Because that amount of [computer visual effects] and green screen had never been attempted before in Great Britain,' he said. 'I actually think the amount of CGI in this is unparalleled in any television production I've seen so far. There are up to 100 shots per episode, which is extraordinary and different every week. It's not like you're shooting a monster with a laser gun and then every week, you shot that monster with that same effect, with that same laser gun. Here, there's a different monster every week, with a different laser gun, on a different planet with different explosions, so learning how to do that, we're all convinced that we could plan World War III if anybody needed a strategy planned.' Davies added: 'Doctor Who is also a program made on location, and that's very rare for this sort of show. Everyone was fully expecting it to be much more of a studio show, as science fiction tends to be, but we've got a very brilliant designer, Edward Thomas, who persuaded us to take an awful lot of outdoor locations. Even the interior of spaceships: in episode two ['The End of the World'], there's an interior of a spaceship called Platform One, which is actually a temple in the middle of Cardiff, and it looks extraordinary. It looks like the most beautiful spaceship in the world, so we have a very clever team, pushing stuff in different directions that we had never been in before. So, yes, we did learn from all of that. But now that we're faced with [season] two, we don't want to repeat ourselves, so we're pushing in all sorts of different directions again so that we get something new.'"

TV Guide Magazine, in their Monday morning 'Watercooler' segment, showered the new series with praise. "'Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!' So concludes the first exchange between feisty Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) and her new acquaintance, the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston). Although Rose doesn't know what this cockney dude has to do with the sudden rash of killer mannequins roving around the basement of a Harrods-type department store, at least she could take solace in knowing that this man saved her from their murderous clutches. Yep, Whovians, the Doctor is back on American TV after a 10-year hiatus, and he's sporting a leather jacket and plenty of 'tude. Say, can anyone remember the other Doctor who began his stint battling the Autons? (Answer later.) The ho-hum plot -- the Autons want to wipe out the human race, again -- served as salad dressing for the episode's real function, which was to reintroduce us to our favorite Time Lord. Veteran Whovians and novices learned the following: Gallifrey went up in flames due to a civil war (although it remains to be seen if the Master and the Rani are still about); the Doctor is still half-human (the continuity of the 1996 Paul McGann turkey still applies); the sonic screwdriver is as indispensable as ever; Rose ranks with Jamie, Leela and Ace as the Doctor's toughest companion; conspiracy theorists are on to the Doctor (if only Clive had pictures of the Doctor's other selves, the joke would've been perfect). Anyone remotely familiar with Who knows how cheap it used to look (part of its charm, actually), but now the Beeb has gotten wise and produced it on film, which only enhances the show's signal strengths -- its strong characters and resourceful storytelling. (Before I forget, the answer to the trivia question: Jon Pertwee.) The throwaway moments were the choicest -- the Doctor leafing through the magazine; battling the animated plastic arm as Rose prattles in the foreground; Rose's flirtatious mum. They perfectly balanced the fantastic, even absurdist nature of the adventures. This was even more evident in the second episode, a tale worthy of the late Douglas Adams. Not only did we learn that the TARDIS (love that retro blue police box!) alters brain waves so as to facilitate communication with other species, but we found that the Doctor could alter Rose's cell phone so she could call her mum from five million years into the future! Someone slow down the spinning of my head. OK, so I'm not wild that humanity will eventually wind up as a hide that needs moistening (I call it the Katherine Helmond-circa-Brazil theory of evolution), but at least I won't be around for it. I will, however, be around for Doctor Who for as long as Sci Fi continues to air it, and I hope that will be for a very long time. Welcome back, Doc!"

Slate.com writes, "The pilot of Doctor Who ... combines themes from all kinds of media experiences: the chick lit of self-actualization, the Kim Cattrall vehicle Mannequin (1987), and Norman Mailer's patented rants against plastic. Rose Tyler, our heroine, has a tedious job at a London department store, a tacky home life with a fantastically nattering mother, and a complacent romance going with a sweet and contemptibly dopey boy. She begins her transformation one day around closing time. Down in the basement, she attracts the unwanted advances of a posse of homicidal mannequins, a crew that the audience could find menacing only because the effects look so cheap that their very awkwardness is a freak-out. Nonetheless, Rose is executing some commendable woman-in-peril shrieks when a middle-aged fellow swoops in to the rescue. He's full of ready quips and interdimensional know-how, and the writers do not intend for his goofy charm to obscure his dashing melancholy. This is the Doctor, an enigmatic figure doomed to cruise through space-time helping various civilizations out of very silly scrapes. In the pilot, there is some kind of molten glob beneath London threatening to use its telepathic command of synthetic materials--witness the mannequins--to destroy the city. The second episode, set on a spaceship in the distant future, concerns a baddie who wants to spoil a viewing party for the explosion of the sun. This new Who, constructed by the BBC, is a revamp of the classic science-fiction series. It merits, limits, homages, and heresies are doubtlessly the subject of robust conversation in certain circles that I'd rather not get too familiar with, but to my novice's eye, it's pretty decent hokum--fast, corny, genial, honest in its schlock. And though it's got the time-travel hook of the original and abounds with galactic mumbo-jumbo and spiffy gadgets, it reads less like speculative fiction than romance. Billie Piper--a British pop star soon to be adorning screensavers at finer engineering schools everywhere--brings limitless pluck to her portrayal of Rose. In Spice Girls terms, the character is two parts Sporty and one part Baby--but, more to the point, she's a post-Buffy the Vampire Slayer figure, a self-possessed wiseass who entertains some ambivalence about her supernatural gig. She's on equal footing with Christopher Eccleston, who plays the Doctor as a notably alienated alien, a sweetheart full of secret sorrows. Yes, the show tells its fan-boy audience, there's a plump-cheeked gal out there for you. The two of you can talk about the end of time until the end of time. This is geek love."

In various reviews, the New York Daily News said of the series, "It's not as cheesy as the original, but also not as charming." The Hartford Courantsaid that "The stories may seem a little silly (the first foes are mannequins that come to life) but it's fairly lively and fun."

Other Press Items

The Huddersfield Examiner notes that writer "Mark Gatiss is very proud to have been made an honourary doctor of letters from Huddersfield University. Especially as he now gets to call himself Dr Gatiss. The title lends him an air of mystery, perhaps like the villains of his all-favourite Boys Own stories or, indeed, a particular hero, Dr Who. 'The last time I had to tick a box to say whether I was Mr, Mrs or Miss, I put Dr,' he explains. Before I rang the League Of Gentlemen star, I was warned to give him his proper title. Plain old Mark, it seemed, wasn't grand enough. But it turned out my source had mistaken his dry humour. 'You don't have to call me Doctor,' he insists. But you can tell he likes it. Mark Gatiss and League co-writer Jeremy Dyson are the big names at the Huddersfield Literature Festival, which opens today. Their appearance tomorrow at 8.45pm, in the Milton Building at Huddersfield University, is purely a question and answer session, with no readings from either author. Meeting his public is something the 39-year-old particularly likes. Frequently asked questions can include anything from: 'What's your favourite poem?' to inquiries about Dr Who - he's co-written an episode for the latest series. As the festival's about books and not TV or film, it's expected he'll be talking about his second novel, The Devil In Amber, out in December. It's the second in a trilogy - 'When they're all written and released, I'll be able to keep reissuing them in box sets forever' - about wit, dandy and rake Lucifer Box. The first, The Vesuvious Club, was set in Edwardian London. This time it's in the 1920s, another of Dr Gatiss' favourite periods. 'It's a detective story with a feel of The 39 Steps. Lucifer's older, he's got a lot of younger competition. 'There are lots of Satanists and Nazis - a perfect combination. 'The third book will be in the 1950s and be like an early Ian Fleming.' But that's a long way off yet, as the second is not yet ready to see the light of day. 'I'm still editing and rewriting,' he says. 'And that's the part of the process I like best. Working out a story and writing it can be a slog, real donkey work. 'A process of hacking and excavating. Very tough. 'But rewriting is all about refining.' Dr Gatiss writes in a back room of the new home he shares with his partner in Islington. They've just moved, and the builders are in. I can hear their dog, Bunsen, barking as we talk on the phone. I tell him I saw his old house pictured in a Sunday supplement a while ago, all red walls and taxidermy. 'Yes,' he says. 'I always wanted to live in a Victorian laboratory, so I created that room. But I found I didn't use it for anything other than showing people, and letting them go: 'Wow!' and for photoshoots ... So now I've put my odd things all around the house.'"

The Scotsman noted that series one and two actress Zoe Wanamaker"is nervous. Wearing a pale blue, high-necked sweater and a trim, grey suit, she is using a small rolling machine to assemble a brown cigarette. With sharp, birdlike movements, she completes the job, lights up and puffs away. She is clearly uncomfortable about the prospect of being interviewed, but submits to the process with grace, thoughtful pauses occasionally interrupting the flow of conversation as she ponders long and hard over her answers. 'I haven't seen it at all,' she says, when asked what she thinks of Cards On The Table, the Poirot mystery she stars in. 'I don't like watching myself,' she continues. 'I start looking at stuff that I really shouldn't be, thinking: 'I ought not to be standing like that, I wish I'd done it this way' and so on. ... Talking of prime characters, last year Wanamaker notched up something of an honour by portraying the first new monster to menace Doctor Who following the series' triumphant return to BBC One. The good news is, her character Cassandra will be back for a rematch when the show returns to our screens in the spring. 'It's fabulous!' she enthuses, when asked what it's like to be a Who baddy. 'It's such fun! It's such a credit to Russell T Davies and the producers. I think what they've achieved is brilliant. I think Cassandra's a naughty, naughty girl. That's what's such fun about her. She's cheeky. She's not evil, she's just naughty.' Alas, she's sworn to secrecy when it comes to talking about just what the vain 'last human alive' gets up to this time around, but she is prepared to reflect upon what the role means to her. 'It's like being a baddy in a Bond film,' she muses. 'It's that sort of television equivalent, I think. I desperately wanted her to come back. It's a character you can bring something to, twist it around and make something funny. She reminded me of Joan Rivers and that extraordinary woman who changed her face a million times to look like some sort of tiger. And it was extremely witty to do. After so many plastic surgeons, liposuction and all that she's ended up just a flat piece of parchment. I think that's fabulous. A fantastic invention. That's the best thing about science fiction, it's really basically fairy stories come to life, but they're great fun.'"

Last Friday's Mirror says that "You might think he'd be a bit tied up playing Doctor Who, but David Tennant has gone and landed the lead in a new drama special for ITV. The dashing Scot will play an eccentric Englishman in an adaptation of HG Wells's The History Of Mr Polly. The 'comic romp' follows Alfred Polly as he bemoans his life as a miserably married shopkeeper in the 'beastly silly wheeze of a hole' that is Fishbourne. He sparks arguments and slapstick calamity wherever he goes and eventually decides to end it all - in the most amusing (failed) suicide bid ever attempted. And not a Tardis in sight..."

Greg Dyke writes in today's Independent, "So what happened to Dr Who? Why didn't it win the RTS award for the best drama series at the ceremony last week? Of all the difficult things to pull off in television, radically re-launching a much-loved series is just about the hardest to do and the BBC team who made Dr Who did it brilliantly. So why didn't they win? Could it just be that snobbery came into it and the judges couldn't bring themselves to give the award to a drama that was so obviously populist? What was ironic was that the winner, Bodies, also came from the BBC but not everyone was celebrating its success. The series was commissioned as a BBC 3/BBC 4 co-production but was cancelled after the arrival of Roly Keating as controller of BBC 2. The writer Jed Mercuria was highly critical of Keating's decision so he must have felt pretty smug after the award. Meanwhile, we wait to find out if BAFTA will give Dr Who the award it so surely deserves."

Eve Myles has been voted Wales' number one bachelorette in the Wales on Sunday newspaper. "There was only one winner – stunning Torchwood actress Eve Myles," says the paper. "Eve, 27 from Ystradgynlais said: 'I'm so chuffed, I can't stop blushing. This is a real honour for me and I'm genuinely absolutely delighted.' Brunette beauty Eve has just landed a plum TV role starring alongside John Barrowman in Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood. She's also setting screens alight in BBC Wales soap belonging."

The Sunday Mail says that "No Angels star Louise Delamere reveals her long friendship with new Dr Who David Tennant but insists they are just good friends - despite being snapped hand in hand on the red carpet at a film premiere".

Wales on Sunday has picked up elements of a New York Times interview with Russell T Davies, in which he discusses his initial concerns about casting Billie Piper ('then we ... discovered she was brilliant') and 'rules out nudity in the new series' ('go and see a flasher movie').

An interview with actress Tamsin Greig (from last year's "The Long Game") appears in this weekend's Sunday Times: "...I went to Cardiff as well, to do a bit of Doctor Who. That was one of the most terrifying experiences. Trying to remember lines when you can't remember to wash. And some of the lines have sci-fi words like ‘introspike' in them.' Then she suddenly cackles. 'That's why you'll find, if you look quite closely, the three parts are actually all the same person. One has a lollop and a hair clip, one has her hair on the other side, and that's about it.' ... 'From April, she joins Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen and Judi Dench in the Royal Shakespeare Company's Complete Works Festival, the company's bold attempt to perform or host every one of Shakespeare's plays. Greig plays Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing ('the Emma Thompson part, who I will be stealing every gag off') and Constance in King John. '"

South African Airways has been showing the second episode of series one - 'The End Of The World' - this month (March) as part of the inflight entertainment among the TV options on its Boeing 747-400 flights between London Heathrow and Johannesburg. It is not known if the carrier is showing this or any other episode on other long-haul flights, or for how long it will be showing, or if others will be shown in subsequent months. However, it appeared to be unedited, including the 'Next Time . . . ' trailer for 'The Unquiet Dead' at the end of the episode. Curiously, 'The End Of The World' was described as 'comedy/drama' in the South African Airways inflight entertainment guide AirScape. Readers of Benjamin Elliott's This Week In Doctor Who section of Outpost Gallifrey will know that various episodes are also being shown by Thomsonfly Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic Airways, British Midland Airlines, British Airways and Air New Zealand.

Hemel Today says "Two, not one, of the Dr Who Daleks visited Hemel Hempstead in 1964 we have discovered. Interest has been high after a Dalek expert spotted a picture of one of what he believes to be the original six 'true' Daleks in the Local History section of the hemeltoday website. It was in a section of 1960s pictures and was of the Access Equipment Christmas Party of 1964 at Adeyfield Hall in Hemel Hempstead. The expert, who is trying to find out what happened to the original six 'true' Daleks, contacted hemeltoday and we managed to dig out the original negatives of the visit and today sent him full size images."

(Thanks to Paul Engelberg, Steve Tribe, Peter Weaver, John Bowman, Ian Golden)

More media coverage from this evening of the US premiere of the series today:

Zap2It, in an article being printed Sunday in the Los Angeles Times, notes that "Once upon a time, there was a BBC science-fiction series called "Doctor Who" whose special effects were of the bubble-gum-and-rubber-band variety and whose basic premise sounded as cheesy as the show looked: A wanderer from the distant future fights intergalactic evildoers while traveling through space and time in a machine that is camouflaged as a London police box. Uh, right. Yet somewhere along the line, 'Doctor Who' became the longest-running sci-fi series in TV history (26 years), spawned several movie spinoffs, a mini-publishing empire, audiotapes, memorabilia, conventions, you name it. Now, after being off the air for 17 years, a new 'Doctor Who' series, first seen on the BBC last year, comes to the Sci Fi Channel on Friday (March 17). And therein lies a tale. When 'Doctor Who' first appeared on the BBC in 1963, it was a show for older children that aired late on Saturday afternoons. But quicker than you can say 'Daleks' -- the race of robots who became the title character's chief nemeses -- the program became a national sensation. The reasons were soon evident. The doctor's ability to go backward and forward in time meant that story lines were highly flexible. Although obviously a kids' program, 'Doctor Who' also had a wink-wink sense of humor that appealed to adults. Then there were the seven actors who played the doctor, who tended toward the warmly avuncular. And because Doctor Who takes on traveling companions from the places he visits who then join him on his adventures, the show could bounce its protagonist off against an ever-changing roster of foils. Plus, 'Doctor Who's' cheesy look actually worked in its favor. 'It was shameless about its shortcomings,' says Russell T. Davies, executive producer and head writer of the new series. 'They did intergalactic wars and invasions of the Earth with $2. Somewhere, by accident, they captured something very true about the world, that the future is very clumsy and nailed together. There is something beautifully normal about the 'Doctor Who' universe.' Los Angeles resident Shaun Lyon, who wrote 'Back to the Vortex,' a book about the new series, and whose Outpost Gallifrey (gallifreyone.com) is the premier 'Doctor Who' website in this country, echoes this 'It's the story line, stupid' sentiment by noting that America's most popular science-fiction program also had similarly cheesy production values. 'If you look back at the original 'Star Trek,' you'll see the same thing -- bad special effects,' Lyon says. 'The appeal is in the storytelling, even if there are no $10 million visual effects budgets. It's the stories, the characters, the actors themselves.' Although the series has been seen on PBS over the years, 'Doctor Who' never really developed a massive fan base in this country. Competition from shows like 'Star Trek' certainly held it back, and its chintzy foreign flavor didn't always translate well. But it did acquire a rabid cult following that now sponsors several 'Who'-oriented conventions (last month's L.A.-based Gallifrey One conclave was the 17th annual). But as with 'Star Trek,' 'Doctor Who's' 1989 demise did not end the appetite for it. So when veteran British TV writer Davies ('Queer as Folk') pitched the BBC a new version of the venerable doctor, the network went for it. 'I knew it could work again,' says Davies, 'that there was a new generation that could enjoy it. But I wasn't certain what the BBC wanted, whether they wanted an ironic version late at night. What they wanted was 7 o'clock prime time on a Saturday, which was how I wanted to bring it back. There hadn't been a sci-fi show on prime time in Britain for over 20 years, since 'V.' ' Davies understood that the fan community would want to have a say in the series' new direction, but he completely ignored the sci-fi message boards, claiming, 'It's the most stupid thing you can do, and people are seduced into believing that the most creative thing you can do is engage with your online fandom.' He also instinctively realized that the 21st century version of the doctor would have to be hipper, smarter and sexier than any previous incarnation. 'I decided to write it like anything else I'd write,' he says. 'I write character, I write funny, I write dramatic, and there's no way science fiction can't be the same thing. You just have to not steep it in nostalgia and not write techno-babble either.' Gussied up with state-of-the-art special effects and the kind of self-referential story lines that both kids and adults appreciate, the new 'Doctor Who' debuted on the BBC in March 2005 and proved an immediate smash hit (the series is in production on its second season). When he was developing the show, says Davies, 'I was thinking of 'Toy Story.' We were specifically aimed at getting a family audience, which people said didn't exist anymore. It was simply following the pattern of the old 'Doctor Who,' which was quietly witty while appealing to kids at the same time. The Pixar art of aiming at adults and kids is really difficult, but that's the path I tried to follow.'"

About.com: "After being a smash on English TV, the latest incarnation of Dr. Who comes to America on SCI FI Channel tonight at 9 PM ET. For those who don't know, Dr. Who (so named because his real name is just too weird for us puny humans to pronounce) is a Time Lord, traveling around time and space with a human companion at his side. Rose works in a shop and is bored out of her mind when along comes a Time Lord with his promises of great adventure (after working with Rose to save the Earth). He delivers. This time around, The Doctor is being played by Christopher Eccleston, who brings a TARDIS-load of energy and humor to the role. Billie Piper brings, thank goodness, a lot more than 'spunk' to Rose. She's fun and funny in her own right."

The North Adams Transcript: "The two-hour American premiere of the revived "Doctor Who" (Friday, March 17, at 9 p.m. on the Science Fiction Channel) may be first honest opportunity this long-running British series has really had to appeal to Americans -- that is, beyond the usual oddball cultists. In its current incarnation, the show is accessible and fun, with just enough darkness to add to the tension and intrigue. ... As helmed by the versatile Russell P. Davies, creator of "Queer As Folk," this 2005 version has the Doctor appearing out of nowhere in a department store basement in order to save Earth from a bunch of killer mannequins. ... The series captures, with a great degree of sincerity, the same rollicking male/female adventure dynamic that films like "Austin Powers" lampoon -- if the Doctor and Rose aren't the John Steed and Emma Peel of our time, then I don't know who are -- and it's this dynamic that makes the series shine. The Doctor, a displaced alien whose only remaining calling in life is to show off his knowledge of the universe, and Rose, a bored teenager desperately looking for a better way to live, not only need each other, but love each other's company. It's an infectious relationship that rarely succumbs to the typical romantic television cliches. This is a tale of equals with different strengths. Davies has transformed the old children's show into a fairly sophisticated drama that manages to hold different levels of interest for all ages. The show is also high on satire and, throughout its 13-episode run, examines political and social issues -- nationalism, isolationism, consumer culture, war, class, sexuality, and justice -- with great humor. There are also echoes of 9/11, the war in Iraq, and the corporate-controlled media, as well as natural human complacency in regard to the big picture. 'Doctor Who' is clearly one of the smartest TV shows around, but it doesn't decrease its enjoyment level through heavy-handedness. There are still plenty of aliens and monsters and space ships -- and, in the Doctor, we oddballs still have a hero we can believe in."

The Kansas City Star: "The British cult classic sci-fi series that periodically used a new actor to play the good doctor begins a 13-episode run with Christopher Eccleston as the traveling time lord in some 2005 episodes. The previous Dr. Who, of course, was the guy who played Screech on “Saved by the Bell.” (Well, we might be misremembering that particular piece of trivia, but with Daleks menacing everybody, what’s the difference?)"

SyFy Portal says that "New 'Doctor Who' Is Not So Niche-y" in an article that features interview clips from various Russell T Davies comments over the past year.

North Jersey Media Group notes that "Christopher Eccleston becomes one of the many actors to play the droll time traveler on the small screen in this remake of the long-running sci-fi series. Eccleston's Doctor finds his ideal traveling companion in shopgirl Rose Tyler (pop star-turned-actress Billie Piper)."

Now Playing magazine is reprinting reviews by Arnold Blumberg from last year in conjunction with the broadcast of the show.

Doctor Who is one of the three Daily Picks on the TiVo video recording network.

(Thanks to Paul Engelberg, John Mitchell, Scott Alan Woodard and Lewis Beale)