Discover the behind-the-scenes secrets of the most exciting year in Doctor Who's long history in the latest Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition. Doctor Who celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2013, marking half a century of time-travel adventures. The Year of the Doctor is researched and compiled by Andrew Pixley, and has 100 pages packed with previously unpublished photos, day-to-day details of Doctor Who’s production and hundreds of fascinating new facts.

This essential guide contains in-depth articles on the Paul McGann mini-episode The Night of the Doctor; the 50th Anniversary Special The Day of the Doctor; Matt Smith's final story The Time of Doctor; the drama based on the origins of the series, An Adventure in Space and Time; the hilarious The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot; Doctor Who at the Proms 2013; the Brian Cox lecture The Science of Doctor Who; the documentaries Doctor Who: The Ultimate Guide and Me, You and Doctor Who; Doctor Who Live: The Afterparty; and much, much more!

The Year of the Doctor is in shops now, priced £5.99.

More tickets to a Series 8 launch celebration that is free to attend are up for grabs.

The Twelfth Knight Party is being held in London on Saturday 23rd August, starting at 3pm, with Deep Breath and any accompanying Doctor Who programming broadcast that afternoon and evening being shown live on big screens.

Organised by Jeremy and Paula Bentham together with Tony Clark, the party - which is open to all people aged 18 and over - was announced before it emerged that the series opener would be simulscreened at cinemas. This has led to cancellations for ticket applications for the free event.

Jeremy told Doctor Who News: Food and drink will be available to buy at the venue, which is installing extra 55-inch screens.

To apply for tickets, e-mail Jeremy at jjbentham@aol.com by the revised closing date of Sunday 17th August, using the subject line Twelfth Knight ticket applications and stating your name as well as how many people will be in your group.

Tickets and exact details of where the party is being held will be despatched the next day by e-mail. Please note that admission will be by ticket only.

London Transport links for the weekend are currently reported as being good, although people are still urged to consider their transport options for getting home afterwards, as the event will finish late.

Since the show returned to TV screens in 2005, the organisers have held a series of highly popular event parties in London, most recently the Doc Lands @ 50 Party, which took place on 23rd November 2013 to mark the programme's 50th anniversary.

Animation studio Planet 55 have issued the following statement regarding their involvement with creating animated episodes of Doctor Who:


The release comes as the status of the last expected classic series DVD, The Underwater Menace, remains uncertain.

Can you tell me how to get to Paternoster Row?

Iconic US children's show Sesame Street starts its 45th season on PBS this fall, and it's turning its eyes to the skies by promising spoofs of a number of sci-fi franchises, including Doctor Who.

Sesame Workshop, producers of the series that introduced Bert, Ernie, Grover, Cookie Monster and Elmo to the world recently released a YouTube promo set at "Numeric Con" (a spoof of Comic-Con), where familiar characters don costumes based on Darth Vader, Princess Leia, and other characters. We see one Muppet impersonating Capt. Kirk, another Wolverine, and we catch glimpses of the first-ever Muppet Daleks standing next to a TARDIS-like phone box. Look fast and you'll also spot one of the show's human stars dressed in a very familiar-looking multi-coloured scarf (as a character called Doctor Two).

PBS, of course, has a long association with Doctor Who, as many of its affiliates began airing the Classic Era in the 1970s and '80s, and many also picked up the Modern Era. Sesame Street, meanwhile, seems to be getting a serious attack of the cools in its old age, as the show is planning spoofs of The Avengers and even (though this just sounds wrong, somehow) Game of Thrones.

Check out the minute-long preview in the player below. Sesame Street Season 45 is scheduled to debut on September 15, 2014 on American PBS stations. The Numeric Con episode will air on September 18, 2014, and was previewed at the recent San Diego Comic-Con. Read about that (and why Nerdist host Chris Hardwick thinks Oscar the Grouch deserves a role in Doctor Who) here.

Cineworld West India Quay are offering readers of Doctor Who News two tickets to the screening of Peter Capaldi's debut in Doctor Who, Deep Breath.

The screening takes place on the evening of 23rd August at the cinema in Canary Wharf in London. Winners would need to make their own way to the location. To enter just tell us the name of the previous character played by Peter Capaldi in Doctor Who. Send entries to comp-cineworld@doctorwhonews.net. Competition closes on 15 August 2014.

With less than a month until the début of the twelfth Doctor, online marketplace ebay has compiled a list of the top ten Doctors by merchandise sales on the site.

Top of the list is Doctor number four, Tom Baker, whose seven year tenure in the role created enough memorabilia to outsell the other Doctors by 203%.

The most recent Doctors, David Tennant and Matt Smith fall into second and third place, while Peter Capaldi, who has so far only had a minute on screen, comes in an number 10.

For collectors, Sylvester McCoy – the seventh Doctor – is the most lucrative, yielding the greatest individual return. Items related to his brief stint sell with the highest value, with prices for his figurine peaking at £565.

Top 10 Doctors by sales

1. Tom Baker
2. David Tennant
3. Matt Smith
4. William Hartnell
5. Paul McGann
6. Patrick Troughton
7. Sylvester McCoy
8. Colin Baker
9. Peter Davison
10. Peter Capaldi

eBay Spokesperson, Laura Wilkinson-Rea says,

Hyde Fundraisers is to reveal a new likeness of the Fourth Doctor, as played by Tom Baker, at its charity display at Spaceport, Merseyside.

The new sculpture will be unveiled at 10am on Sunday 3 August and will join the collection of replica characters created to raise funds for BBC Children In Need and other charities.

The Fourth Doctor has been sculpted by Phil Robinson, the man responsible for re-creating the Davros mask for the 2005 stageshow The Trial of Davros. The sculpture will include a replica costume from Season 18 as the Doctor is stepping from the Police Box.

On the day there will also be the chance to meet Robinson and see some of his other sculpted work, meet Hyde Fundraisers and get some photographs.

The official BBC exhibition with genuine props and costumes from the TV series is the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff.

The official Doctor Who Twitter feed has reached the figure of one million followers - and to mark the milestone a special thank-you message has been released.

In the brief video, the character Osgood - as played by Ingrid Oliver in The Day of the Doctor, but sporting a bow tie this time instead of a long, multi-coloured scarf - delivers the message, which incorporates three clips from the series featuring the Doctor expressing his gratitude.



Earlier this month, Doctor Who News welcomed the 100,000th follower to its Twitter feed.

A plaque honouring the first producer of Doctor Who, Verity Lambert, has been unveiled at London's Riverside studios, by the Doctor Who Appreciation Society

The plaque, which marks the achievements of Lambert as a Film and Television producer, will be on display at Riverside Studios until the venue closes for development in the autumn, when it will be placed into storage and then permanently mounted at the new Riverside media centre when completed.

Verity Lambert was Doctor Who's first producer and the first female drama producer at BBC Television. She oversaw Doctor Who from her appointment in June 1963 until the autumn of 1965, guiding the series to a successful launch and laying down the framework of the series which still running today. After she left Doctor Who her credits and reputation continued to rise and she became one of the best known players in the industry. She oversaw such iconic productions as Adam Adamant Lives, Budgie, The Naked Civil Servant, Rock Follies, Rumpole of the Bailey, Edward and Mrs Simpson, Reilly: Ace of Spies, Minder, GBH and Jonathan Creek.

The plaque honouring Lambert was unveiled by Doctor Who's first director Waris Hussein, in a ceremony attended by the two surviving members of the original TARDIS team, William Russell and Carole Ann Ford. The event included a screening of the drama based on the creation of Doctor Who, An Adventure in Space and Time and a compilation of interview material, previously unseen.

Riverside studios in Hammersmith London, were used by the BBC from 1954-1974. Although the first Doctor Who stories were recorded at the nearby Lime Grove complex, the series used Riverside Studio 1 for a number of stories between 1964 and 1969. Verity Lambert produced stories recorded at the site include The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Rescue, The Romans, The Web Planet, The Crusade and The Chase.

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Update: DWAS have released a video of the plaque unveiling by Waris Hussein.