Big Finish have announced that an online adventure featuring Bernice Summerfield will be available from September.

Bernice Summerfield or Benny, is a character originally created by author Paul Cornell as a new companion of the Seventh Doctor in Virgin Publishing's range of original full-length Doctor Who novels. Since 1998 Big Finish Productions have been producing officially licensed audio dramas starring the character.

The latest adventure, Dead and Buried, is a 10-minute CGI animated adventure that will be available to view absolutely free of charge. Lisa Bowerman is back playing Benny, who is returning to her roots as an archaeologist – although it isn’t long before she’s being pursued through the ruins of an alien world by a deadly adversary.

Dead and Buried is animated by Alex Mallinson, who has been working on the project for months and says
There’s a glimpse of what’s to come in the teaser trailer, available at the Big Finish website.


The final animation will be available in September, completely free and will lead into the events of Bernice Summerfield 11.1 Resurrecting the Past.

Doctor Who has dominated the 2010 Portal Awards, held by Airlock Alpha part of the BlipNetwork.

Doctor Who was named Best Series/Television with 65% of the vote beating Torchwood into second place.

David Tennant was overwhelmingly voted Best Actor/television with a massive 68% of the vote, beating John Barrowman who was in second place with 10% of the vote.

Bernard Cribbins won Best Supporting Actor/Television for his portrayal of Wilfred Mott in The End of Time with 59 percent of the vote. The End of Time was itself voted Best Episode/Television.

Alex Kingston was voted Best Special Guest for her portrayal of River Song in Time of Angels.

The award for Best Actress/Television went to Eve Myles for Torchwood - Children of Earth, beating Karen Gillan into second place

The Gene Roddenberry Award for lifetime achievement was given to Russell T Davies for his work on Doctor Who and Torchwood.

This was the 11th year for the Portal Awards, which started in 1999 as the SyFy Genre Awards. An international nominating committee generated a list of five nominees for each category and readers then had 30 days to vote.

Doctor Who has won seven awards over the years, and is third to Star Trek: Voyager (18 wins) and Farscape (eight wins).

Full list of winners.

The official site has released details of a new Doctor Who game, Amy's History Hunt, to be released next week.

The game will is not part the Adventure Games series and does not need to be downloaded. It stars Karen Gillan as Amy and features a series of specially shot videos. The challenge is to unlock the Doctor's safe and if you're successful you'll release a special short story by Paul Cornell, writer of Father's Day, Human Nature and The Family of Blood.

Throughout the quest you'll find out more about the Doctor's friends and places he's visited. Plus, you'll get Amy's unique point of view about some of the people she's met during her adventures with the Time Lord.

Cast Update 2nd August

Details are available for Relics of Time, the first episode of the new Tom Baker audio series Demon Quest.

The BBC Audiobook production comes in five parts and is a sequel to Hornet's News released last year. Tom Baker reprises the role of the Fourth Doctor and is joined once more by Richard Franklin and Susan Jameson, reprising their roles as Mike Yates and Mrs. Wibbsey respectively.

The series also features Nigel Anthony as the Wizard and Rupert Holliday Evans and Kate Sachs as the Warriors with with Samuel West, Lorelei King, Jan Francis, Finty Williams and Rowena Cooper.

The series is written by Paul Magrs and the first part is released in the UK on 2nd September and in the US on November 16.

Doctor Who's showrunner, Steven Moffat has confirmed he will be writing five episodes of the next series of Doctor Who to be broadcast in 2011, as well as the forthcoming Christmas Special.

Talking to Den of Geek, Moffat confirmed he will be following the previous pattern established by Russell T Davies, with the Lead Writer penning five of the thirteen episodes in the series.

As previously reported Neil Gaiman will be writing one episode, thought to be the third in the series. Writers have not yet been officially confirmed for the other seven episodes in the series.

Executive Producer Steven Moffat has given an interview to Tom Harris, MP for Glasgow South and Doctor Who fan, conducted on the terrace of the Palace of Westminster. The two have been friends since 1989 when Harris was a reporter on the Paisley Daily Express.

Actor Steve North will be playing a character called Older Benjamin in the 2010 Christmas Special according to his Spotlight entry. North has had roles in Casualty, The Bill and Midsomer Murders.

World music trio Manta recently appeared on ABC Australia's music programme Spicks and Specks playing their version of the Doctor Who Theme, the results of which are on the ABC YouTube Channel.

Details have been released of the 2010 series boxset which will be released in the UK on 8th November 2010 and in North America on November 9, 2010.

Branded The Complete Fifth Series the boxset is available in DVD and Blu-ray formats. In the UK, as well as the general release, a number of sets will be available in the form of a specially limited edition.

Special features include additional scenes written by Steven Moffat and exclusive to DVD.

• Additional scenes: Meanwhile in the TARDIS, written by Steven Moffat and featuring Matt Smith & Karen Gillan, telling the story of what happens between episodes. Why was Amy floating in Space above Starship UK, and what happened after 'that' kiss between the Doctor and Amy?
• Monster Files - The Monster Files will get under the skin and inside the minds of the latest Doctor's most challenging opponents. With previously unseen footage and exclusive comments from cast and crew, the Monster Files take fans old and new even further behind enemy lines.
• Outtakes
• In-vision commentaries
• Video Diary
• Confidential Cut Downs
• BBC Trails and Promos to New Series 5

See our full Release Schedule

What a busy couple of weeks its been. Despite Series 5 of Doctor Who having finished, hardly a day goes by without some sort of Who-related news popping up.

For a fuller round-up, remember to look in on Doctor Who in the Media, but, to whet your appetite, here's a summary.

On Sunday, BBC 1 premiered the long-awaited first episode of Sherlock (see our earlier story), Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss's updated version of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes, Martin Freeman as Dr John Watson and Rupert Graves as Inspector Lestrade. Cumberbatch has created a bit of a stir in the last few days by suggesting, first, telling Digital Spy that he may well be appearing in several episodes Doctor Who, and, then, according to the Sun that he considered becoming the eleventh Doctor before Matt Smith was cast in the role.

Again, according to the Sun, Matt Smith is eager to leave Doctor Who to pursue a career in Hollywood. However, this has been denied by both Moffat, to BBC News, and Karen Gillan, during her visit to Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup Final at Cowdray Park Polo Club! For a less sensational take on this, see this story and this story on Digital Journal.

Nicky Wire, of the Manic Street Preachers, caused a bit of a stir when he blogged on the band's website that he was writing a Doctor Who script. He's since clarified on Twitter that it's fan fiction and not a BBC commission.

Russell T Davies has been speaking to SFX about the fourth series of Torchwood and has also dealt with the rumours surrounding a Johnny Depp as the Doctor Hollywood movie! This story covers the original "exclusive" and RTD's debunking of it.

Finally, there was plenty of press coverage surrounding the start of filming of the 2010 Christmas special (see this Gallifrey Base story), guest-starring Sir Michael Gambon and Katherine Jenkins, including here, here and here.

Happy times and places!

Issue four of the Finished Product, the unofficial companion to the Big Finish audio series, is due for imminent release.

This issue concentrates on the UNIT series, looking at it from inception through to final execution, as well as revealing some ideas for the never-made second series. And lots of the interviewees talk about their memories of David Tennant in one of his final roles before playing the Tenth Doctor.

Interviewees include producer Ian Farrington, writers Simon Guerrier, Iain McLaughlin, Jonathan Clements and Joseph Lidster, directors Edward Salt and John Ainsworth, actors Ian Brooker and Robert Curbishley, as well as sound designer and composer David Darlington.

In addition, there's also an interview with DWM award-winning Big Finish composer Russell Stone.

For more details and ordering information, email thefinishedproduct@hotmail.co.uk.

This month's SFX magazine has a Torchwood cover and inside, there's a four-page feature talking to Russell T Davies about his plans for the fourth series. He also comments on the recent rumours about Johnny Depp starring in a Doctor Who movie.