A revised version of the book Fifty Years in Time and Space: A Short History of Doctor Who is now available at a special price for readers of Doctor Who News.

Complete with a new cover, from Doctor Who Magazine illustrator Roger Langridge, the book has been updated following its initial publication last year. Written by Frank Danes, Head of English at The King's School, Ely, in Cambridgeshire, the book tells the story of Doctor Who from 1963 to 2013, covering the action on screen and behind the scenes.

The initial edition was well recieved and reviewed in many papers including The Southland Times of New Zealand who said

The book retails at £11.95, but United Kingdom readers of Doctor Who News can order a signed copy for just £8.25 including postage. Overseas readers can order the book for £15 including postage.

Orders should be sent to the publisher at info@stmarkspress.com, please mention you saw the item on Doctor Who News to apply the special offer.

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine harks back to the Seventh Doctor's era as former script editor Andrew Cartmel examines how the series was reinvented for a new generation.

In issue 473, published tomorrow, Cartmel catches up with the writers that he employed, with Stephen Wyatt, Malcolm Kohll and Ian Briggs revealing what it was like to write for the show and discussing how they feel their stories paved the way for the modern reinvention of the programme. Briggs says: Also in the new edition:

• Producer Marcus Wilson looks back at his work on Doctor Who, including The Time of the Doctor and The Day of the Doctor
• Showrunner Steven Moffat answers readers' questions
• DWM pays tribute to the life and times of the late Christopher Barry, one of Doctor Who's most prolific directors
• Clive Doig talks to Toby Hadoke about working on the earliest episodes of Doctor Who
• The Fact of Fiction takes a detailed look at the 1969 Ice Warriors adventure The Seeds of Death
• The Doctor and Clara's latest comic-strip adventure - The Blood of Azrael - continues
• The Time Team watch the Tenth Doctor meet an old friend - and some even older enemies - in The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky
• Jacqueline Rayner sees Doctor Who's special effects in a whole new light in Relative Dimensions
• The Watcher exposes the remarkable relationship between Doctor Who and the Eurovision Song Contest in Wotcha!
• Reviews of the latest DVDs, CDs and books
• Competitions, puzzles and more

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is to mark 50 years of Doctor Who in comic-strip form this year as part of its line-up of events.

The festival is taking place at various venues in Kendal, Cumbria, from Friday 17th to Sunday 19th October, and with Doctor Who believed to be the longest-running licensed science fiction comic strip globally, it will be paying tribute to this format.

The first Doctor Who comic strip appeared in issue 674 of TV Comic, cover dated 14th November 1964, with the adventure The Klepton Parasites that unfolded over ten weeks (although a spoof, called Doctor What And His Time Clock and featuring a William Hartnell lookalike, appeared in Boys' World between 30th May and 3rd October 1964).

Doctor Who would go on to appear in - take a deep breath, folks! - Countdown, Countdown for TV Action!, TV Action in Countdown, TV Action + Countdown, TV Action, TV Comic Plus TV Action, TV Comic Plus Tom and Jerry Weekly, Mighty Midget Doctor Who Comic, Mighty TV Comic, and TV Comic With Target before its move to Doctor Who Weekly in 1979, with DWW eventually becoming Doctor Who Magazine. It is also in comic-strip form now in the UK in Doctor Who Adventures, which began in 2006, and has been published as a comic strip in the USA by IDW, with Titan recently picking up the licence.

Dez Skinn - the first editor of Doctor Who Weekly - will be giving an insight into the publication's evolution, including meeting with the BBC and touring the country with Tom Baker, in The First Doctor of Doctor Who at the town library on Friday 17th October at 7pm - the exact 35th anniversary of the cover date of the first edition of DWW.

Also on the festival programme is Doctor Who: 50 Years in 50 Minutes on Saturday 18th October, which is being held at the library as well. Starting at 5.30pm, this will have a panel, hosted by former DWM editor John Freeman, that will comprise artists Mike Collins and Martin Geraghty plus writers Scott Gray, Nick Abadzis and Robbie Morrison.

Others appearing at the festival who have a Doctor Who connection will be the artists Dave Gibbons, Mark Buckingham and Gary Erskine plus cartoonist Kev F Sutherland.

Doctor Who dominates the nominations for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form Programme in the 2014 Hugo Awards.

Not only are the two episodes The Day of the Doctor and The Name of the Doctor nominated, but so is the docu-drama based on the origins of the show, An Adventure in Space and Time, and the spoof anniversary drama featuring Doctors 5, 6, 7 and 8, The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.

Doctor Who's head writer and executive producer, Steven Moffat, said: Nominations Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

• An Adventure in Space and Time, written by Mark Gatiss, directed by Terry McDonough (BBC Television)
• Doctor Who: "The Day of the Doctor", written by Steven Moffat, directed by Nick Hurran (BBC Television)
• Doctor Who: "The Name of the Doctor", written by Steven Moffat, directed by Saul Metzstein (BBC Televison)
• The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, written & directed by Peter Davison (BBC Television)
• Game of Thrones: "The Rains of Castamere", written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss, directed by David Nutter (HBO Entertainment in association with Bighead, Littlehead; Television 360; Startling Television and Generator Productions)
• Orphan Black: "Variations under Domestication" written by Will Pascoe, directed by John Fawcett (Temple Street Productions; Space/BBC America)

Doctor Who has been nominated for a Hugo most years since the series returned in 2005. Previous winners include Neil Gaiman for The Doctor's Wife, Steven Moffat for The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink, and The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang and Russell T Davies and Phil Ford for The Waters of Mars. Last year, despite being nominated for three episodes, the show lost out to Game of Thrones when the awards were announced.

Also nominated this year is Queers Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the LGBTQ Fans Who Love It, edited by Sigrid Ellis & Michael Damian Thomas and published by Mad Norwegian Press, in the Best Related Work category, while The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who, written by Paul Cornell and illustrated by Jimmy Broxton, has been nominated for Best Graphic Novel.

Also nominated, in the Best Fancast category, is the podcast Verity!, named after Doctor Who's first producer and billed as Six Smart Women Discussing Doctor Who. The podcast is the first Doctor Who podcast to be nominated for the award. The producers told Doctor Who News: "We are thrilled to be nominated for our work during the anniversary year."

The 2014 awards will be presented at Loncon 3 - the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention - to be held at ExCeL in London between Thursday 14th and Monday 18th August, with the awards themselves being presented on Sunday 17th August.

Horror Channel's Who on Horror schedule in the UK has been released with classic Doctor Who episodes airing from Good Friday. The run will commence with the very first episode of Who in its original four parts on the Friday at 7pm before the Who on Horror themed weekend featuring stories from each of the first seven Doctors begins.


After the special weekend, episodes settle into a weekday showing from Monday after, with a story each from the First, Second and Third Doctor for the rest of April.


The full and future schedule can be found via This Week in Doctor Who.

Idents and commercials have been created depicting the cell animation advertised while billboards and posters promoting the campaign have been seen in London.


The arrival of Doctor Who on the Horror Channel reflects the science-fiction, action and fantasy genres seen on the channel's available line-up, including Xena: Warrior Princess, Wonder Woman and The Twilight Zone.

Director of Programming Alina Florea commented on the latest signing in a press release:
A special press launch took place yesterday at The Ivy in Leicester Square in the presence of the Fourth Doctor himself, Tom Baker. Doctor Who News was invited to the launch and a report of the day will be available soon.

UPDATE - 18th APRIL: Our report of the press launch, including pictures, can now be read here.

Print subscriptions are now open for the two new Doctor Who comic series Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor and Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, which will be published on July 23, 2014.

Please note that although these titles are available in print and digital in the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, due to rights issues, only digital copies will be available in the UK and Eire.

A book that takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the era of the Seventh Doctor is to be brought out in July 2014 by Miwk Publishing, with the authors' profits going to the Alzheimer's Society.

Wallowing In Our Own Weltschmerz is being written by Andy Davidson, Chris Orton, Andrew Orton, Steven Duckworth, Robert Hammond and Matthew West – a fanzine collection of writers known as "Auton" – with the cover designed by Andrew Orton.

"Auton" dates back to 1989 and since then has produced "nineteen and a half" fanzines and two books.

(Editor's note: "Weltschmerz" is German for "world-weariness".)

As one of the highest rated shows on television today, and with four (or five!) new Doctors under its belt, it's perhaps hard to imagine a time when Doctor Who was simply one of the thousands of series that had once flourished but ultimately been consigned to the great script book in the sky. But in the mid 2000s this was how the series was regarded by many, and the brave effort by the BBC to bring it back exactly nine years ago was very much a gamble - how would the 'old-school' fans receive it, and what would a 'modern' audience make of a time-traveller in a police box?

Of course, Doctor Who did have an advantage in that it was a show that was still remembered outside of its core fan base, the general public at large were aware of "Dr Who", his iconic TARDIS, and the Daleks. This helped to lend a sense of curiosity at what the new face behind the show, celebrated writer Russell T Davies, would do with the Doctor, who would be played by an established television and film actor in the form of Christopher Eccleston, not to mention the inclusion of the press-attraction of former teenage pop-star turned actress Billie Piper.

A teaser trailer on New Year's Day 2005 formally introduced the return to the general public, but it wasn't until March when the promotional gears were turned up to maximum with a host of trailers ("Do you want to come with me?") and programmes to build up interest in a way not witnessed again until the 50th Anniversary last year.

The three principal names appeared on a variety of news and magazine programmes in the lead-up to the premiere: Christopher Eccleston was a guest on the ever Who-friendly Blue Peter on the 21st March, and then came face-to-face with 'himself' on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross on the 25th; Billie Piper appeared on Parkinson on the 19th; and Russell "TV" Davies appeared on the Breakfast couch on the 11th, on BBC2 Wales's On Show on the 17th, and with Phil and Fern on This Morning on the 23rd. The press preview on the 8th March was covered widely in the media, and led to recorded interviews with the stars popping up on Breakfast and GMTV during that week. Special programmes during the period included: Matthew Sweet looking forward with a little trepidation on how the show's return would fit in culturally on The Culture Show on the 17th; Ian Rankin, Bonnie Greer and Professor John Carey discussing the series' merits on Newsnight Review on the 18th; and BBC Radio 2 presenting Project: Who? on the 22nd. Doctor Who wasn't the only programme on the way - Doctor Who Confidential was also to premiere at the weekend on BBC Three, and executive producer Mark Cossey chatted to Rufus Hound on the channel's Destination Three about what to expect from the behind-the-scenes series.


Then, suddenly, it's the 26th March. As the early evening inexorably approaches, appetites are whetted with a special preview (and countdown) in A New Dimension, an excruciating wait through Graham Norton's Strictly Dance Fever ... and then, at 7:00pm, the BBC One "Tap Dogs" ident commences, with the announcement fans have been waiting over fifteen years for:

45 minutes later and an unprecedented ten million viewers - and 43.2% of the audience - have watched Rose run to the TARDIS and off into adventures with the Doctor; the final figure rose to 10.81m (44.8%) and achieved seventh place in the TV charts, only beaten by the soap juggernauts Coronation Street and EastEnders. A week later, a further series has been commissioned (not to mention a new Doctor on the cards!), and the longevity of a modern Doctor Who is assured ...

A new book drawing analogies and parallels between the world of Doctor Who and the Syrian conflict is now available.

The Doctor, The Eye Doctor and Me is written by Aboud Dandachi, a Syrian activist and refugee from the city of Homs, The book is a unique interpretation of Doctor Who as it marked its fiftieth anniversary, and a first-hand account of the most devastating period in Syria's modern history.

It is both the story of one person's journey through the different stages of the Syrian conflict, and the lessons and insights into the meaning of the events of that journey as gleaned from parallels and analogies with one of the century's most remarkable cultural achievements.

The book is available for free at the following eBook stores;

• iTunes
• Barnes and Noble
• Smashwords
• Amazon.UK
• Amazon.COM

More details on the official Facebook page.

Titan Comics has released more details about its forthcoming range of adventures featuring the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, including the covers for the first issues.

As previously reported, the publisher secured the rights to bring out the series in a deal with BBC Worldwide Americas. The company has now said that the range will launch on Wednesday 23rd July with covers by Alice X Zhang.

The second arc will be by fellow series architect Robbie Morrison (Drowntown, Nikolai Dante, The Authority).
A series featuring the Twelfth Doctor will follow in due course.