The actor Jimmy Gardner has died at the age of 85.

Jimmy Gardner had two roles in Doctor Who. In 1964 he played the role of Chenchu, the manager of the way station at Tun-Huang, in the fourth story of the series Marco Polo. He returned to the series in 1978 to play the role of Idmon in the fourth Doctor story Underworld. Idmon was a Trog on the planet formed around the P7E, and the father of Idas. He tried to encourage the other Trogs to rebel, but was arrested by the Guards and selected for sacrifice. He was rescued by the Doctor and escaped his planet's destruction on board the R1C.

Gardner had a long eventful life. He was a war hero, a survivor of two shipwrecks and numerous escapades on land. After the war he trained as an actor at The Central School and had a long career in television, film and stage. He appeared in many classic TV series including The Forsyte Saga, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Dixon of Dock Green, Z Cars and The Onedin Line. In film he worked on Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and had his most notorious role as Ernie the bus driver in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Independent Obituary

The BBC Press Office has released details for the eighth episode of the new series, The Hungry Earth.

The Chris Chibnall story is scheduled for Saturday 22nd May. It stars Meera Syal, Robert Pugh and Samuel Davies.

This week's Doctor Who Adventures looks back at all the frights in the Angel-packed episodes.

Alex Kingston, who plays River Song, tells all about her mysterious character. Find out what she thought of Matt Smith the first time she met him and what she thinks River’s secret is.

Also in the magazine Matt Smith talks about the episodes with the Weeping Angels and how they were the first story he recorded in his exclusive diary.

Behind the scenes inside the TARDIS! Check out all the levers, switches and gizmos in the Doctor’s amazing spaceship.

Plus:

• Preview of episode six, The Vampires of Venice
• Doctor Who bag!
• The chance to win your own life-size Weeping Angel
• 10 terrifying facts about the Angels

Doctor Who will move back to 6.25pm for the UK premier of Episode Seven, Amy's Choice.

The schedule for the 15th May sees the programme keep its usual place in the schedules, sandwiched between All New Total Wipeout and Over The Rainbow. On ITV viewers can see You've Been Framed! Funniest 100 while BBC Two has Young Musician of the Year. Channel has Channel 4 News, with Five showing the film The Missing, a modern Western with Tommy Lee Jones, Cate Blanchett and Val Kilmer.

Full series information can be found here.

The Daily Mail has provoked a comment on the new series from an organisation with a long track record of expressing concerns about the classic series, Mediawatch-UK.

Mediawatch is the successor to the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, the organisation founded by Mary Whitehouse in 1965. Whitehouse was extremely critical of Doctor Who during the period produced by Philip Hinchcliffe between 1975 and 1977. She made complaints about several of the serials during this era, particularly The Ark in Space, Genesis of the Daleks, The Brain of Morbius, The Seeds of Doom and The Deadly Assassin.

The latest comment comes in a Daily Mail article which claims 'dozens' of fans are upset with the BBC, accusing the production team of trying to 'sex up' the programme to attract more adult viewers. The main focus of the complaint is the final scene in Flesh and Stone, a scene which the Daily Mail was convinced would worry viewers when it previewed the episode last Saturday. In the article, Vivienne Pattison, of Mediawatch UK, is quoted as saying "I have to say the scene was slightly out of place in a children's programme. I thought it sailed pretty close to the wind."

The BBC is also quoted in the article, confirming that it had received 43 complaints about Saturday's episode. A spokesman said "Millions of Doctor Who fans watched and enjoyed last Saturday's episode, including the lighthearted and humorous scene in which Amy kissed the Doctor."

The Doctor Who Proms have sold out on the first day of ticket release. The two proms will take place in July at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Tickets went on sale Tuesday morning and the event was sold out by lunchtime. Over 500 Arena and Gallery tickets will be available on the day to members of the public queuing at the Royal Albert Hall. The Saturday Prom will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and recorded for future broadcast on BBC Three.

Discworld creator Terry Pratchett has questioned Doctor Who's Sci-Fi credentials. Talking to SFX magazine, the best selling author admits he finds the series very, very entertaining, with "its heart in the right place" but thinks "its head is often in orbit around Jupiter". "I just wish that it was not classified as science fiction. Doctor Who’s science is pixel thin."

Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston has said he will like to turn his hand to comedy. Eccleston who has recently completed a John Lennon biopic for BBC4, told the Radio Times he had not worked since last year as he selects his TV roles so carefully. "I'm more slapdash about the film choices I make, whereas I choose my TV projects very carefully. But it's a tough time and I haven't worked since December because I'm choosy. I would actually like to do comedy for the rest of my life and surprise everyone and myself."

Final figures for The Time of Angels published today by BARB show the story was watched by 8.59 million viewers.

The figure is, once more, much greater than the initial overnight figure, indicating many record the programme for watching later.

The programme got 8.13 million viewers on BBC One, where it was the fifth most watched programme for the channel for the week. An additional 0.46 million watched on BBC HD. When the figures are added together it gives Doctor Who a total of 8.59 million viewers and makes it the eighth most watched programme of the week.

The BBC Three Sunday repeat did not appear in the top ten for the week for the channel. The HD showing of Confidential did make it into the HD chart with 0.092 million watching, 9th for the channel for the week.

Flesh and Stone scored an Appreciation Index figure of 86.

The AI or Appreciation Index or AI score is a measure of how much an audience enjoyed a programme. The score was the highest of the day on either of the two main channels.

Sunday's BBC Three the Doctor Who repeat was watched by 0.63 million and was the eighth most watched programme on multi channel television. It had a remarkable AI of 91, although it should be noted AI figures for the minority channels are usually higher than those for the main five.

Satuday's Doctor Who Confidential had an audience of 0.52 million with the cut down repeat on Sunday being watched by 0.32 million viewers.

The BBC have uploaded the Graham Norton reference to Nortongate to their YouTube site.





The full programme, which features Karen Gillan as a guest, can be seen on BBC One Monday evening.

Victory of the Daleks has debuted in Australia to excellent ratings. TV Tonight reports that the episode averaged 915,000 viewers in the five major capital cities, despite stiff competition from the commercial networks including Masterchef Australia and the annual Logie Awards (the major Australian TV awards). The Daleks proved popular, with Doctor Who improving its ratings by 64,000 viewers from the previous week's episode. Again it was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's top-rating program of the day, rating higher than its popular Sunday 7pm news. (By comparison, the final of the mini-series Burn Up only rated 375,000 viewers for the ABC in the following 8.30pm timeslot.) The corresponding Confidential Cutdown also rated a respectable 523,000 viewers in the five major capitals.