The BBC have provided more details of the Doctor Who element to this year's Children in Need telethon.

The annual event takes place this Friday, and the Doctor Who segment is due to start just after 8pm. Matt Smith and Karen Gillan will welcome viewers into the TARDIS for some fun and games and visits from some special guests. The highlight will be a preview of this year's Christmas Special, A Christmas Carol.

Children in Need can be seen on in the UK on Friday on BBC One and BBC One HD and later on the BBC iPlayer.

In a clip programme on BBC Three, Children in Need: The 50 Greatest Moments, Time Crash, the moment the Fifth Doctor met the Tenth Doctor, originally transmitted as part of the 2007 Children in Need programme, was voted ninth.

Doctor Who Executive Producer, Piers Wenger has been talking to Collider about the plans for the series as it enters its 48th year.

The series returns this Christmas with a special entitled A Christmas Carol. Wenger describes the story as riffing on the Dickens tale. "There’s no one called Scrooge in it and it’s not set on Earth, but there are familiar archetypes from that story within it that will please fans of Dickens’s original."

Wenger also talked about the first story of the 2011 series, parts of which will be filmed in Utah. He described the story as "Doctor Who’s love letter to the States. It’s all about taking the show out to the States and seeing what Doctor Who will feel like set in America and in some very iconographic parts of the American landscape."

This week's edition of the Radio Times features the results of their recent companion poll; the list is compiled from over 3000 votes made online (see below).

Also, as well as the exclusive posters advertised previously, there is a new Companions Special available to order; the 164 glossy magazine contains a profile of over forty companions from 1963 to the present day, articles by "the companions in their own words", plus never-before-seen photographs and material from the Radio Times archive.


The Radio Times is out in the United Kingdom today, Tuesday 16th November.

The Companions volume can now be ordered online

Matt Smith has been confirmed as a guest on the Tuesday edition of the CBS chat show, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. On Twitter Ferguson said the show will be a Doctor Who Special complete with Daleks. The show is being recorded Tuesday afternoon in Los Angeles for transmission at 12.35am (ET).

Smith will also be a guest on the Nerdist Podcast, hosted by the comedian Chris Hardwick. The podcast is free to download on iTunes.

Meanwhile Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston has been promoting his appearance in the BBC One drama series Accused. In an interview with the Scottish Daily Record, he criticised the desire for fame encouraged by programmes such as The X Factor.Eccleston was asked about his time on Doctor Who and why he left so soon.
However Eccleston was less willing to discuss Doctor Who when talking to The Daily Telegraph.

The current series of The Sarah Jane Adventures continues to top ratings with the first part of story four, The Empty Planet, topping the chart and becoming the most watched programme ever on the digital Children's channel CBBC.

According to BARB, part one of the story had 0.99 million watching with part two getting 0.81 million viewers. The story just beat last weeks Death to the Doctor, which had 0.96 million viewers.

The Alien Files had 0.49 million watching.

The Empty Planet was repeated later in the week on BBC One and figures for these showings will be available later this month.

Final Ratings - Series Four
-	-CBBC-	-BBC Two-	-BBC One-	-Total-
The Nightmare Man - 1	0.59m	0.28m		0.87m
The Nightmare Man - 2	0.67m	0.38m		1.05m
The Vault of Secrets - 1	0.73m		0.43m	1.16m
The Vault of Secrets - 2	0.61m		0.49m	1.10m
Death of the Doctor - 1	0.92m		0.48m	1.40m
Death of the Doctor - 2	0.96m		0.47m	1.43m
The Empty Planet - 1	0.99m		TBC	TBC
The Empty Planet - 2	0.81m		TBC	TBC

The Director of Photography on the Australian K9 series, Tony O'Loughlan, has been awarded two Bronze awards at the 2010 Queensland and Northern Territory Cinematographer Awards held in Brisbane last Saturday.

The awards were for Episode 23, Angel of the North and Episode 26, The Eclipse of the Korven.

The series, created by Bob Baker and Paul Tams, was shown on the TEN network in Australia and in Europe on the Disney XD channel. The series is due to make its terrestrial début in the UK on Five this Christmas.

A second series is currently in pre-production.

Fans in London can meet the team behind the series at a special event at The Who Shop in Upton Park on Saturday 11th December. Bob Baker and Paul Tams will be signing exclusive merchandise from 1pm to 4pm.

Tenth Doctor David Tennant is to star in a new BBC drama based on the true story of Manchester United's legendary "Busby Babes", the youngest side ever to win the Football League.

United is a BBC Two film which portrays events set around the 1958 Munich Air Crash that claimed eight of the team's number number and the extraordinary spirit of a city that rebuilt the side in the wake of the disaster.

Tennant will play coach Jimmy Murphy, alongside Jack O'Connell (Skins, Dive) as Bobby Charlton, the youngest of the Babes, and Sam Claflin (Pirates Of The Caribbean, Any Human Heart) as star player Duncan Edwards. The film draws on first-hand interviews with the survivors and their families to tell the inspirational story of a team and community overcoming terrible tragedy.

The drama is written by Chris Chibnall, who wrote last year's two part Doctor Who story The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood as well as the 2007 story 42, and who has also written numerous episodes of Torchwood. It is directed by James Strong who has directed several episodes of Doctor Who and Torchwood.

Simon Heath, Executive Producer, World Productions, says:
United starts filming later this month in and around the North East of England.

Limited numbers of preview tickets for The Doctor Who Experience, will go on sale next Monday 15th November at 9am GMT.

The new Doctor Who exhibition is set to open at London's Olympia on 20th February 2011.

Special preview days are planned for the 17th, 18th and 19th February 2011 allowing fans to experience the adventure before anyone else. In addition to being the first through the doors of the Doctor Who Experience, preview ticket holders will also receive special Doctor Who Experience limited edition merchandise created especially for these dates.

Tickets are only available from doctorwhoexperience.com/priority. They come in two versions, The Sonic Screwdriver (standard) ticket will include a special limited edition of the Doctor Who Experience souvenir brochure with a unique souvenir ticket while the TARDIS (enhanced) ticket will include all of the above, plus an exclusive preview edition laminate & lanyard set and a limited edition Doctor Who lithograph.

The sixth edition of The Finished Product is now available.

This issue looks at the relationship between Big Finish and Doctor Who Magazine, speaking to many of the people who have been involved over the years, including Gary Russell, Alan Barnes, Conrad Westmaas and Tom Spilsbury.

There is a feature on the DWM exclusives which haven't been covered by The Inside Story book, starting with The Veiled Leopard, including the thoughts of Sophie Aldred, and Cuddlesome, including a plot breakdown of the Audio Visuals original which many readers won't have heard, and then The Mists of Time and Freakshow.

The Companion Chronicles specials continue with The Three Companions, before the issue is rounded off with interviews on how Spare Parts was developed into The Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel, with exclusive interviews with Marc Platt, Gary Russell and Tom Macrae.

Email thefinishedproduct@hotmail.co.uk for more details.

The elusive title for the forthcoming Christmas Special has finally been revealed by the BBC, as the official Doctor Who website announces it as A Christmas Carol.

The title is perhaps unsurprising given comments made by Ben Stephenson (Controller BBC Drama Commissioning) back in July, when he revealed the story would be "Doctor Who's clever twist on the much loved A Christmas Carol"!

A preview for the episode is due to be shown on next Friday's Children in Need, and the official site has also reported that another Doctor Who-related item will feature on the show, featuring Matt Smith as "two young fans of Doctor Who have their dream come true..."