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.

The actor Derek Pollitt has died at the age of 83.

Derek Pollitt had three roles in Doctor Who. In 1968 he played Driver Evans in the Second Doctor story The Web of Fear. Evans was part of Colonel Lethbridge Stewart's team, and the only survivor, other than the Colonel himself, from a fight with the Yeti. Evans always sang when scared. Pollitt returned to the series in 1970 playing Private Wright, a UNIT officer, in the third Doctor's second story Doctor Who and the Silurians. His final role in the series was not broadcast as he played A. St. John D. Caldera, a neurologist whose mind was stolen, in the cancelled story Shada.

Pollitt had a long association with Llandudno in Wales, where he and his then wife Pamela Rayner ran the Galleon Theatre Company for many years staging plays at the Grand Theatre in the in the 1960s. A keen sportsman, he played a couple of times in the 1960s for the Llandudno Second X1 cricket team and at the age of 64 he did a sponsored walk from John O’Groats to Land’s End to raise money for a London hospital. He died in hospital in Surrey on July 11.

The first Doctor Who Prom of 2010 took place today, Saturday, hosted by Matt Smith and Karen Gillan.

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales, who record the soundtrack for the series, presented a selection of intergalactic music, including Murray Gold’s music from the TV show, plus a selection of classical favourites including Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, Mars from Holst's The Planets and Orff's Carmina Burnana.

Before the concert, Matt Smith said of the Doctor Who Prom:
The concert programme can be viewed on the Proms website, providing full details of the concert, the performers' biographies and an interview with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan.

The programme is now available for seven days on the BBC iPlayer.

Doctor Who Prom - Part One

• Murray Gold - The Mad Man with a Box
• Murray Gold - An Untimely Arrival
• John Adams - Short Ride in a Fast Machine
• Murray Gold - I Am The Doctor
• William Walton - Overture Portsmouth Point
• Gustav Holst - The Planets - Mars
• Murray Gold - Battle in the Skies

Interval Twenty Minutes - Dance of the Daleks
How do you make a sink-plunger seem scary? Matthew Sweet, who spent the Saturday tea-times of his youth peering at the television from behind the sofa, time-travels through Doctor Who's 47-year history to investigate the weird and wonderful soundworld of its incidental music. He talks with some of the composers who have contributed, in very different musical styles, to the enduring success of the programme over the decades.

Doctor Who Prom - Part Two

• Carl Orff - Carmina Burana - O Fortuna
• Murray Gold - Amy
• Murray Gold - Liz, Lizards and Vincenyt
• Richard Wagner - Die Walkure
• Murray Gold - This is Gallifrey / Vale decem
• Murray Gold - Pandorica Suite
• Murray Gold - Song of Freedom
• Ron Grainer - Doctor Who Theme

The Windows versions of the first two episodes in The Doctor Who Adventure Games are now available to download internationally.

Both City of the Daleks and Blood of the Cybermen, are now available globally from Direct2Drive.com, IGN's digital retail game store.

The games are being launched to coincide with the North American season finale of The Big Bang, which airs July 24 on BBC America and SPACE, and with this year's Comic-Con festival. No Mac version has yet been made available internationally.

The games are still available to download free of charge for fans in the United Kingdom. Two more episodes are planned for release over the next couple of months.

For the third month running Doctor Who has topped the monthly iPlayer request charts with the final four episodes of the series being the top four requested programmes for June.

Top of the list was The Pandorica Opens with over 1.3 million requests during the month, followed by The Lodger, Vincent and the Doctor and The Big Bang all with over a million requests. The highest programme, not related to Doctor Who, was Top Gear with 0.88 million requests. During the month Doctor Who had 6.35 million requests in total, shared between 13 episodes, just behind EastEnders which had 7 million requests for one of the 22 episodes available.

Figures for the year so far, give Doctor Who the top nine places in the download charts, and 14 of the top twenty places. The Eleventh Hour tops the list with over 2.1 million requests, by far the highest requested programme in the BBC iPlayer history. Because the whole series was on iPlayer from transmission date until July, the early episodes of the series were available for much longer and therefore had higher iPlayer figures. The final two episodes of the series will get a boost when the July figures are available.
Full ratings for the series can be found in Gallifrey Base.