The two stories comprising The Mara Tales will be released in North America as separate stories on April 12, 2011. Kinda and Snakedance feature the Fifth Doctor and are released as a boxset in the UK a month earlier.

Meanwhile it has been confirmed that Australia will see the release of the Third Doctor story, The Mutants, on February 3, 2011, just a few days after its UK release.

2|entertain have announced, via their Twitter feed, that they hope to launch a YouTube channel in January on with they will post trailers and additional material made to complement the release of classic Doctor Who DVDs.

For full details of the global DVD release schedule see our product page.

A young Doctor Who fan had his dream come true when he got the chance to meet Matt Smith thanks to Smith's local paper the Northampton Chronicle and Echo.

Alfe Game was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma when he was just five and spent last Christmas in Hospital. He went into remission in the summer and has since dedicated hours of his time to helping children in a similar position to himself, collecting toys for presents for children and designing Christmas cards to be sold to fund presents for friends who have relapsed with leukaemia.

As a thank-you for his hard work, the paper set up a surprise Christmas Eve visit from the Eleventh Doctor, who was born and grew up in Northampton.

After the visit Alfe Game said
Smith told the Chronicle & Echo
More details and a video clip of the meeting can be seen on the paper's website.

The BBC One lunchtime repeat series continued on Wednesday when of the 2007 Christmas special, Voyage of the Damned, had an audience of 1.4 million viewers according to unofficial overnight figures.

The programme which stars David Tennant as the tenth Doctor and Kylie Minogue as Astrid Peth, had a 12.7% share of the audience. The second half of the programme won its timeslot outrating Oliver Twist on ITV1.

The repeat series continues Thursday with The Next Doctor at 2.10pm.

Titan Merchandise have added two new 8" 3/4 length busts to their the Doctor Who Masterpiece Collection.



These are to be released in April 2011 and can be pre ordered in the USA from BigBadToyStore.com

The Tuesday BBC One lunchtime repeat of the 2006 Christmas special, The Runaway Bride, had an audience of 1.5 million viewers according to unofficial overnight figures.

The programme which stars David Tennant as the tenth Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, had a 12.3% share of the audience and won its time slot.

Meanwhile this year's Christmas special, A Christmas Carol has shot to the top of the US iTunes chart.

Doctor Who:A Christmas Carol had an average audience of 727,000 viewers for its first showing on BBC America on Christmas Day.

TV by the Numbers report the figure, which is for the 9-10.20pm showing on the channel. Last year the first part of The End of Time, which was shown the day after Christmas, achieved 671,000 viewers in the same timeslot.

Figures are not yet available for the other showings on the channel.

Doctor Who returns to Italy next month, when the state broadcaster RAI brings the show to their entertainment channel RAI 4 available on digital terrestrial television in Italy and digital satellite television through Tivù Sat.

The channel has acquired all five series of modern Doctor Who as well as the specials. Day and time of broadcast are, at present, still under development but the channel has confirmed via their Facebook page that the series will start sometime in January.

The first three series were previously shown on satellite television in Italy and RAI will be using the same dubbed transmission tapes when they show the series. The fourth and fifth series will be new to the country. The translation is being handled by BBC Worldwide.

For a full roundup of Doctor Who around the world, see our sister site This Week In Doctor Who.

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol achieved an Appreciation Index or AI score of 83.

The Appreciation Index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. Although the score is down slightly on previous years, it was still the second highest AI on BBC One for Christmas Evening with just The Royle Family scoring more with 84.

The Sunday evening BBC Three repeat was watched by 527,000 viewers.

With overnight ratings available for the whole week, Doctor Who finished fourth, with a decent chance of moving up the chart when the official figures are released next week.

John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness) has won the Christmas edition of Strictly Come Dancing. He told the Daily Mail that on the possibility of hosting the dance show: "If [Bruce Forsyth, current host] were to offer those dancing shoes to me, I would gladly take them. It would be an incredible gig.".

Katherine Jenkins (Abigail Pettigrew, A Christmas Carol) was due to sing for the troops with James Blunt in Afghanistan but because of the snowy weather hitting the UK the plane was unable to take off. She posted to her Twitter account: "Am so gutted - words can't describe how disappointed we all are." The BBC have a video of Katherine singing for the troops on board the plane.

Jane Espenson (Writer, Torchwood: The New World) has indicated via her Twitter page that she'll be producing the episodes that she writes for The New World.

David Harewood (Joshua Naismith, The End of Time) has joined the cast of forthcoming US Showtime drama pilot Homeland. Deadline has more information about his role.

Carey Mulligan (Sally Sparrow, Blink) is on the front cover of ELLE UK for January 2011 which features an interview with her. There is a behind the scenes video of the photo shoot for the magazine. Click here for more details about the issue.

Daphne Ashbrook (Grace Holloway, TV Movie) has released her first music CD entitled Grace Notes. It is available to download from iTunes and other online stores. Daphne was talking about her new CD and musical career with The Happiness Patrol podcast.

David Tennant has narrated Polar Bear: Spy on the Ice. The BBC YouTube channel has uploaded 3 preview clips. 1, 2 and 3.

A Christmas Carol has debuted in Australia to good ratings. TV Tonight reports that Carol averaged 880,000 viewers in the five major capital cities, despite stiff competition from the commercial networks. It won its time-slot, was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's top-rating drama of the day and was the eighth highest rating programme of the day overall. Doctor Who at the Proms also rated a respectable 141,000 viewers at the early timeslot of 5pm.

The fast-tracking of the Christmas special has also attracted considerable local media, including a number of interviews with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. Gillan has been interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times, while Smith has spoken to the Herald-Sun, the Sunday Telegraph and the Sun-Herald where he expresses the hope of visiting Australia.

The Sydney Morning Herald has also rated 'A Christmas Carol' its 'show of the week' with Michael Idato writing that it 'is sure to be the firmest and finest footprint in the life of the 11th doctor so far.'

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Boxing Day shoppers and restaurant goers got an unexpected surprise in the middle of Melbourne when the giant screen in Federation Square switched from the end of Australia's tragic day's play in the Ashes to a live feed from ABC TV showing the entirety of the 2010 Christmas Special!