Fans in London were given a special preview of the penultimate episode of the current series of Doctor Who, The Pandorica Opens, at BAFTA earlier this evening. The screening was attended by Steven Moffat, Matt Smith and Karen Gillan who answered questions at the end of the screening.

Introducing the episode Ben Stephenson, Controller, BBC Drama Commissioning, paid tribute to the current prodcution team. In a speech which left no doubt to the high regard the series is held in by BBC Management, he paid particular tribute to Steven Moffat saying how no other broadcaster in the UK or the USA had such a brilliant writer producing such high quality family drama. He called The Pandorica Opens a tremendous piece of television.

Following the episode a wide range of questions were put to the team. Matt Smith revealed he had had initial doubts about the way he was playing the Doctor and often spoke to his dad for advice. He was delighted when a six year old, dressed in tweed jacket and bow tie presented him with a gift of a picture. Smith revealed he had been to a costume fitting for the next series earlier today and he was looking for something warmer to wear in the future.

Steven Moffat was asked about Steven Fry's comments yesterday, where he described Doctor Who as Children's Television. Moffat said Doctor Who always was, and always will be, family television. Designed for that special period when both children and their parents could watch together. When asked about the move of viewers from watching the programme as broadcast to watching later, either on harddisk or via the iPlayer, he called on BBC One controller Jay Hunt who was also in the audience. She confirmed the BBC was aware of the massive reach the programme had and said she didn't mind when they watched it as long as they did.

He paid tribute to the classic series, singling out Waris Hussein who was in the audience. Hussein directed the very first episode of Doctor Who, screened in November 1963. Moffat called it a wonderful half an hour of television and urged anyone who had not yet seen it to view it.

The Pandorica Opens has its début on BBC One and BBC HD this Saturday evening.

The first four episodes of Doctor Who to première in May, were the top four most requested programmes for the month on the BBC iPlayer according to BBC iStats.

Top of the list was episode 7, Amy's Choice, with nearly 1.4 million requests. Episode 5, Flesh and Stone was second, followed by Episode 6, The Vampires of Venice and Episode 8, The Hungry Earth. The four episodes were the only programmes during the month, to have over 1 million requests each.

Episode 9, Cold Blood, came in at number 8 despite only being available for the last two days of the month.

Overall Doctor Who was the second most requested programme of the month with over 6.5 million requests for one of the nine episodes available. The top programme was EastEnders with over 8 million requests, although these were spread over 33 episodes. Doctor Who had the highest downloads per episode.


Episodes of the current series are available in the UK on the BBC iPlayer from transmission date until Saturday 3rd July.

The new Radio Times features an interview with former Doctor Christopher Eccleston. The article focusses on his role as John Lennon in the BBC film Lennon Naked (BBC4/BBHD, 9:30pm Wed 23rd), but he also discusses his departure from Doctor Who after just the one series:


The Radio Times (19-25th June 2010) is out now.

The new issue of the Radio Times (week commencing 19th June) joins the collection of those that feature Doctor Who on the cover; this issue promotes Karen Gillan, who is interviewed inside the magazine about playing the part of Amy Pond, and acting alongside Matt Smith.


This year has previously seen Radio Times covers for The Eleventh Hour and three versions for Victory of the Daleks.

Final figures for Episode Ten, Vincent and the Doctor, published by BARB show the story was watched by 6.76 million viewers.

On BBC One the programme got 6.29 million watching where it was the second most watched programme for the channel for the week, just being beaten by Tuesday's EastEnders. An additional 0.47 million watched on BBC HD and when added together the programme totalled 6.76 million viewers.

Final figures for ITV1 HD are not available, so a full top thirty programmes of the week can't be calculated. Doctor Who stands at 18th for the week without HD figures added. If HD figures are included, it will almost certainly rise one place to be the 17th most watched programme of the week.

The BBC Three Sunday repeat did not rank high enough to get into the top 30 for the week.

Full ratings for the series so far can be found in Gallifrey Base.

Character, makers of the successful Doctor Who figures, are to release a new, combined set featuring all eleven Doctors, presented in a "TARDIS" box. All of the figures are newly moulded with different costumes/head sculptures to those previously released individually or in other sets.

The set will also be released in the USA by Underground Toys.


The Eleven Doctors set is due out in the UK in August.

The Appreciation Index figure for The Lodger was 87, joint highest of the series so far.

The Appreciation Index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. Any score over 85 is considered excellent.

The Sunday repeat on BBC Three was watched by 0.45 million viewers, winning its timeslot amongst the multi-channel stations.

With Sunday's overnight figures now available, Doctor Who is currently 41st for the week. This should rise considerably when the final figure is released next week.

Doctor Who Confidential recieved an AI of 81 on Saturday and the Sunday repeat was watched by 0.21 million viewers.

Cold Blood has debuted in Australia to good ratings. TV Tonight reports that the episode averaged 814,000 viewers in the five major capital cities, again despite stiff competition from the commercial networks. However, it was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's second highest rating program of the day, coming second to a new episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot. The corresponding Confidential Cutdown also rated a strong 589,000 viewers in the five major capitals.

Meanwhile, TV Tonight also reports that the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art, based in Sydney, will hold a number of Doctor Who 'inspired' short courses over the winter holidays.

The Doctor's friends unite to send him a terrible warning; the Pandorica - which is said to contain the most feared being in all the cosmos - is opening. But what's inside, and can the Doctor stop it?

Doctor Who got an audience of 4.6 million viewers for episode eleven, The Lodger, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The series held up well against its strongest opposition of the series so far, as it faced the build up to England's first match in the Fifa World Cup.

On BBC One it has an average of 4.31 million watching with an additional 0.25 million watching on BBC HD. The share was down to 22.3% with most viewers choosing ITV1's football coverage which, against Doctor Who, peaked at 11 million in the fifteen minutes before the game.

The England v USA match had an average audience of 13.2 million and easily is the most watched programme of the week. It peaked at 19.4 million at 9pm, with over 1.7 million watching on ITV1 HD. The other match of the day, Argentina v Nigeria, had 4.7 million watching. The post match show, James Corden's World Cup Live, got 5.9 million watching, pushing Doctor Who down to fourth for the day and 35th for the week, so far.

Doctor Who is likely to get a substantial boost when the final figures, including details of those who recorded the programme for later viewing, are released next week.

On BBC Three, and directly up against the football match, Doctor Who Confidential had 0.25 million watching, a 1.0% share. An additional 0.14 million watched on BBC HD.