Next Time: Nightmare in Silver

Tuesday, 7 May 2013 - Reported by Chuck Foster
This weekend's adventure for the Doctor and Clara will be Nightmare in Silver, written by Neil Gaiman and directed by Stephen Woolfenden. The episode will premiere on BBC One in the United Kingdom on Saturday at the later time of 7:00pm.

Nightmare in Silver Publicity Poster. Credit: BBC/Adrian RogersHedgewick’s World of Wonders was once the greatest theme park in the galaxy, but it’s now the dilapidated home to a shabby showman, a chess-playing dwarf and a dysfunctional army platoon.

When the Doctor, Clara, Artie and Angie arrive, the last thing they expect is the re-emergence of one of the Doctor’s oldest foes. The Cybermen are back!

The Doctor - Matt Smith
Clara - Jenna-Louise Coleman
Webley - Jason Watkins
Porridge - Warwick Davis
Angie - Eve de Leon Allen
Artie - Kassius Carey Johnson
Captain - Tamzin Outhwaite
Beauty - Eloise Joseph
Brains - Will Merrick
Ha-Ha - Calvin Dean
Missy - Zahra Ahmadi
Cyberman - Aidan Cook

Writer - Neil Gaiman
Director - Stephen Woolfenden
Producer - Denise Paul

Series produced by Marcus Wilson
Executive produced by Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner

This weekend sees the FA Cup Final taking place on ITV, which kicks off at 5:15pm - in principle the game should be over as Doctor Who starts, though extra time could eat into the schedule. BBC2 will be showing Dad's Army from 7:05pm and then The Culture Show from 7:35pm, Channel 4 finishes up a marathon run of Come Dine With Me followed by the News from 7:15pm, and Channel 5's film Jesse Stone: Night Passage finishes at 7:10pm, followed by NCIS.


Internationally, Nightmare in Silver will be broadcast in the United States and Canada on BBC America and SPACE respectively at 8:00pm ET the same evening, and then on Sunday it can be watched in Australia via ABC at 7:30pm, Poland via BBC Entertainment at 6:00pm, and South Africa via BBC Entertainment at 7:00pm. Meanwhile, New Zealand viewers will see Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS this Thursday on PRIME at 8:30pm.

See This Week in Doctor Who for more details on scheduling and repeats.





FILTER: - Series 7/33

Australian overnight ratings for The Crimson Horror

Tuesday, 7 May 2013 - Reported by Adam Kirk

The Crimson Horror has debuted in Australia, averaging 786,000 viewers in the five major capital cities. It was the ABC's top-rating drama of the day and the tenth highest rating program of the day overall. These ratings do not include regional or time-shifted viewers.
Media Links: TV Tonight




FILTER: - Ratings - Broadcasting - Series 7/33 - Australia

The Crimson Horror AI:85

Monday, 6 May 2013 - Reported by Marcus
The Crimson Horror had an Appreciation Index, or AI score, of 85.

The Appreciation Index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. The score, out of a hundred, is compiled by a specially selected panel of around 5,000 people who go online and rate and comment on programmes.




FILTER: - Doctor Who - Ratings - UK - Series 7/33

The Crimson Horror: Overnight Audience Figures

Sunday, 5 May 2013 - Reported by Chuck Foster
The Crimson Horror. Image: BBC/Adrian RogersThe Crimson Horror achieved an overnight audience of 4.61 million viewers, a share of 25.2% of the total TV audience.

The top spots of the day remain consistent, with Doctor Who beaten by the usual suspects for the evening. The highest-rated show continues to be Britain's Got Talent on ITV, with 9.52m (10.13m with +1) watching, capturing a 45.0%(47.8%) share of the audience. The BBC's talent show, The Voice, was watched by 7.99 million (35.3% share). Casualty swapped places with Doctor Who this week to become third, with 4.96m watching (23.9% share).

Final ratings will be released next week, which normally sees a substantial increase in Doctor Who's audience once those who timeshift the programme are factored in.





FILTER: - Doctor Who - Ratings - Series 7/33

An Unearthly Series - The Origins of a TV Legend

Saturday, 4 May 2013 - Reported by John Bowman
Nothing At The End Of The Lane
The tenth in our series of features looking at events leading to the creation of a true TV legend.

The story so far: After a number of meetings and reports within the BBC to decide on a new TV show to fill a scheduling gap late on Saturday afternoons, drama boss Sydney Newman has given the go-ahead for a science-fiction series of serials featuring four time-travellers. One of those travellers will be a mysterious, grumpy, frail, and elderly man on the run and cut off from his own distant civilisation. As the programme - still without a title - takes embryonic form, it has been decided that it will be made at Lime Grove, with recordings starting weekly on Friday 5th July 1963 and the transmission of the first of 52 episodes scheduled for Saturday 27th July.

Round about the beginning of May 1963 - 50 years ago this month - BBC staff director and producer Rex Tucker is placed in temporary charge of the programme while the search is made for somebody to take on the role of producer permanently. Tucker is a BBC veteran who has experience of classic serials and drama for children, and at a meeting with Newman he is told the format of the new series. With them is Richard Martin, who has recently finished the BBC's training course for directors, and the idea is that Tucker will helm the first serial and Martin other early ones.

During later talks, the fledgling show is finally given a name - Dr. Who - with Newman being credited as the person who came up with it

Script writer Cecil Edwin "Bunny" Webber had earlier drawn up an initial character and set-up plan. After some robust feedback from Newman, he now comes up with a draft document entitled General Notes on Background and Approach, aimed at potential writers for the show. Running to three and a half pages, it provides outlines for the four main characters, all of whom apart from the Doctor are given proper names for the first time. It also makes a bold suggestion as to how the space-time machine could be realised, gives the first episode its title, and describes the overall continuity of the series, its format, and what is being looked for in terms of stories.
"DR. WHO"

General Notes on Background and Approach


--------------

A series of stories linked to form a continuing serial; thus if each story ran 6 or 7 episodes there would be about 8 stories needed for 52 weeks of the serial. With the overall title, each episode is to have its own title. Each episode of 25 minutes will begin by repeating the closing sequence or final climax of the preceding episode; about halfway through, each episode will reach a climax, followed by blackout before the second half commences (one break).

Each story, as far as possible, to use repeatable sets. It is expected that BP [back projection] will be available. A reasonable amount of film, which will probably be mostly studio shot for special effects. Certainly writers should not hesitate to call for any special effects to achieve the element of surprise essential in these stories, even though they are not sure how it would be done technically: leave it to the Effects people. Otherwise work to a very moderate budget.

There are four basic characters used throughout:-

CHARACTERS


BRIDGET (BIDDY)
A with-it girl of 15, reaching the end of her Secondary School career, eager for life, lower-than-middle-class. Avoid dialect, use neutral accent laced with latest teenage slang.

MISS MCGOVERN (LOLA):
24. Mistress at Biddy's school. Timid but capable of sudden rabbit courage. Modest, with plenty of normal desires. Although she tends to be the one who gets into trouble, she is not to be guyed: she also is a loyalty character.

CLIFF
27 or 28. Master at the same school. Might be classed as ancient by teenagers except that he is physically perfect, strong and courageous, a gorgeous dish. Oddly, when brains are required, he can even be brainy, in a diffident sort of way.

These are the characters we know and sympathise with, the ordinary people to whom extraordinary things happen. The fourth basic character remains always something of a mystery, and is seen by us rather through the eyes of the other three....

DR. WHO A frail old man lost in space and time. They give him this name because they don't know who he is. He seems not to remember where he has come from; he is suspicious and capable of sudden malignance; he seems to have some undefined enemy; he is searching for something as well as fleeing from something. He has a "machine" which enables them to travel together through time, through space, and through matter.

- 2 -
QUALITY OF STORY

Evidently, Dr. Who's "machine" fulfils many of the functions of conventional Science Fiction gimmicks. But we are not writing Science Fiction. We shall provide scientific explanations too, sometimes, but we shall not bend over backwards to do so, if we decide to achieve credibility by other means. Neither are we writing fantasy: the events have got to be credible to the three ordinary people who are our main characters, and they are sharp-witted enough to spot a phoney. I think the writer's safeguard here will be, if he remembers that he is writing for an audience aged fourteen... the most difficult, critical, even sophisticated, audience there is, for TV. In brief, avoid the limitations of any label and use the best in any style or category, as it suits us, as long as it works in our medium.

Granted the startling situations, we should try to add meaning; to convey what it means to be these ordinary human beings in other times, or in far space, or in unusual physical states. We might hope to be able to answer the question: "Besides being exciting entertainment, for 5 o'clock on a Saturday, what is worthwhile about this serial?"

DR. WHO'S "MACHINE"

When we consider what this looks like, we are in danger of either Science Fiction or Fairytale labelling. If it is a transparent plastic bubble we are with all the lowgrade spacefiction of cartoon strip and soap-opera. If we scotch this by positing something humdrum, say, passing through some common object in [the] street such as a night-watchman's shelter to arrive inside a marvellous contrivance of quivering electronics, then we simply have a version of the dear old Magic Door.

Therefore, we do not see the machine at all; or rather it is visible only as an absence of visibility, a shape of nothingness (Inlaid, into surrounding picture). Dr. Who has achieved this "disappearance" by covering the outside with light-resistant paint (a recognised research project today). Thus our characters can bump into it, run their hands over its shape, partly disappear by partly entering it, and disappear entirely when the door closes behind them. It can be put into an apparently empty van. Wherever they go some contemporary disguise has to be found for it. Many visual possibilities can be worked out. The discovery of the old man and investigation of his machine would occupy most of the first episode, which would be called:-

"NOTHING AT THE END OF THE LANE"

The machine is unreliable, being faulty. A recurrent problem is to find spares. How to get thin gauge platinum wire in B.C.1566? Moreover, Dr. Who has lost his memory, so they have to learn to use it, by a process of trial and error, keeping records of knobs pressed and results (This is the fuel for many a long story). After several near-calamities they institute a safeguard: one of their number is left in the machine when the others go outside, so that at the end of an agreed time, they can be fetched back into their own era. This provides a suspense element in any given danger: can they survive till the moment of recall? Attack on recaller etc.

- 3 -

Granted this machine, then, we require exciting episodic stories, using surprising visual effects and unusual scenery, about excursions into time, into space, or into any material state we can make feasible. Hardly any time at all is spent in the machine: we are interested in human beings.

OVERALL CONTINUITY OF STORY

Besides the machine we have the relationship of the four characters to each other. They want to help the old man find himself; he doesn't like them; the sensible hero never trusts Dr. Who; Biddy rather dislikes Miss McGovern; Lola admires Cliff... these attitudes developed and varied as temporary characters are encountered and reacted to. The old man provides continuing elements of Mystery, and Quest.

He remains a mystery. From time to time the other three discover things about him, which turn out to be false or inconclusive (i.e. any writer inventing an interesting explanation must undercut it within his own serial-time, so that others can have a go at the mystery). They think he may be a criminal fleeing from his own time; he evidently fears pursuit through time. Sometimes they doubt his loss of memory, particularly as he does have flashes of memory. But also he is searching for something which he desires heart-and-soul, but which he can't define. If, for instance, they were to go back to King Arthur's time, Dr. Who would be immensely moved by the idea of the Quest for the Grail. This is, as regards him, a Quest Story, a Mystery Story, and a Mysterious Stranger Story, overall.

While his mystery may never be solved, or may perhaps be revealed slowly over a very long run of stories, writers will probably like to know an answer. Shall we say:-

The Secret of Dr. Who: In his own day, somewhere in our future, he decided to search for a time or for a society or for a physical condition which is ideal, and having found it, to stay there. He stole the machine and set forth on his quest. He is thus an extension of the scientist who has opted out, but he opted farther than ours can do, at the moment. And having opted out, he is disintegrating.

One symptom of this is his hatred of scientist [sic], inventors, improvers. He can get into a rare paddy when faced with a cave man trying to invent a wheel. He malignantly tries to stop progress (the future) wherever he finds it, while searching for his ideal (the past). This seems to me to involve slap up-to-date moral problems, and old ones too.

In story terms, our characters see the symptoms and guess at the nature of his trouble, without knowing details; and always try to help him find a home in time and space. Wherever he goes he tends to make ad hoc enemies; but also there is a mysterious enemy pursuing him implacably every when: someone from his own original time, probably. So, even if the secret is out by the 52nd episode, it is not the whole truth. Shall we say:-

- 4 -


The Second Secret of Dr. Who: The authorities of his own (or some other future) time are not concerned merely with the theft of an obsolete machine; they are seriously concerned to prevent his monkeying with time, because his secret intention, when he finds his ideal past, is to destroy or nullify the future.

If ever we get thus far into Dr. Who's secret, we might as well pay a visit to his original time. But this is way ahead for us too. Meanwhile, proliferate stories.

The first two stories will be on the short side, four episodes each, and will not deal with time travel. The first may result from the use of a micro-reducer in the machine which makes our characters all become tiny. By the third story we could first reveal that it is a time-machine; they witness a great calamity, even possibly the destruction of the earth, and only afterwards realize that they were far ahead in time. Or to think about Christmas: which seasonable story shall we take our characters into? Bethlehem? Was it by means of Dr. Who's machine that Aladin's [sic] palace sailed through the air? Was Merlin Dr. Who? Was Cinderella's Godmother Dr. Who's wife chasing him through time? Jacob Marley was Dr. Who - slightly tipsy, but what other tricks did he get up to that Yuletide?
Newman's scribbled responses are heavily evident, and on occasion he doesn't pull any punches! Nearly half of the "Quality of Story" section is labelled "not clear", he is not so keen on the idea of the time machine being invisible, stating that a "tangible symbol" is needed, and he is completely opposed to the final section about the Doctor's secrets, writing "don't like this at all. Dr Who will become a kind of father figure - I don't want him to be a reactionary" next to the first secret, while the second secret is summarily dismissed with just one word: "nuts!"

One thing, however, that he is enthusiastic about is the time machine's inherent unreliability, writing "good stuff here" next to that section.

On the whole, though, Newman isn't keen on the proposed direction for the series. He writes: "I don't like this much. It all reads silly and condescending. It doesn't get across the basis of teaching of educational experience - drama based upon and stemming from factual material and scientific phenomena and actual social history of past and future. Dr Who - not have a philosophical arty - science mind - he'd take science, applied and theoretical, as being as natural as eating."

While Webber redrafts the format document to bring it more in line with Newman's vision, another name is thrown into the ring as a possible director on the new series. On Thursday 9th May, a memo is sent to script department boss Donald Wilson by children's programmes head Owen Reed (the actual Children's Department having been disbanded by Newman in January) urging him to consider Leonard Chase. Reed says Chase "has worked closely with Webber and has exactly the right flair for bold and technically adventurous 'through the barrier' stuff."

Four days later, it becomes apparent that (for undocumented reasons) the series' start has been put back to Saturday 24th August. On Monday 13th May, Drama Group Administrator Ayton Whitaker sends round a memo saying that recording will no longer begin on Friday 5th July, as was the original intention, but will now commence four weeks later on Friday 2nd August.

Next EpisodeRevision Time
SOURCES: BBC Archive - The Genesis of Doctor Who; The Handbook (Howe, Walker, Stammers; 2005)





FILTER: - The Story of Doctor Who

Kinda on UKTV

Saturday, 4 May 2013 - Reported by Paul Scoones

UKTV


Sunday 5th May sees the broadcast of the four-part 1982 Peter Davison story, Kinda on Australian and New Zealand television. The story is the 19th instalment in the 50th Anniversary season of Doctor Who stories on the UKTV channel.

Kinda is scheduled in New Zealand at 4:15pm and in Australia at 4:20pm. New Zealand has an additional screening on Monday 6th May at 4:15am.

The story was first broadcast in Australia in 1982 and in New Zealand in 1983.

The UKTV billing describes the story as follows:
The TARDIS visits the planet Deva Loka. Nyssa remains in the ship to recover from a mental disorientation & Tegan falls asleep under some wind chimes & becomes possessed by an evil force.
UKTV is showing stories throughout the year in the lead-up to the anniversary in November. Kinda is the first in a set of six stories featuring Peter Davison's Doctor due to be broadcast during May. The rest of the month's line up includes: Earthshock and Snakedance (12 May), Frontios and Resurrection of the Daleks (19 May), The Caves of Androzani (26 May).

Up-and-coming broadcasts from both 20th and 21st Century series of Doctor Who can be found via UKTV's Doctor Who sections for Australia and New Zealand.





FILTER: - Classic Series - WHO50 - New Zealand - Australia

Hide: Final Ratings

Friday, 3 May 2013 - Reported by Marcus

Full ratings data for the week ending 21st April 2013 is now available and gives Doctor Who: Hide an official rating of 6.61 million viewers, a share of 29.2% of the total television audience.

Although the final audience was lower than previous weeks, the episode remained in the top twenty programmes for the week at number nineteen.

On BBC One, Doctor Who was the sixth most watched programme of the week, behind some episodes of EastEnders as well as The Voice and Countryfile.

On ITV the drama starring David Tennant, Broadchurch, had 9.56 million watching once HD and +1 figures are included.

Figures do not include iPlayer viewings, figures for which will be available later.

Full figures for the previous week are still not available, but Doctor Who: Cold War had a final audience of 7.37 million viewers.




FILTER: - Doctor Who - Ratings - UK - Series 7/33

Skaldak arrives at Doctor Who Experience

Thursday, 2 May 2013 - Reported by Chuck Foster
Skaldak at the Doctor Who Experience (Credit: Doctor Who Experience)The Doctor Who Experience have announced that the first monster from the current run of stories has now arrived in their Cardiff exhibition, with the costume of the Martian Grand Marshall Skaldak that featured in Cold War on display from this month.

The Experience is also currently running a 20% discount for students during term time, upon presentation of a valid student card at the box office.





FILTER: - Exhibitions

DVD Update: Cybermen 'invade' Autumn

Thursday, 2 May 2013 - Reported by Chuck Foster
The MoonbaseThe latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine (out today) has confirmed that The Moonbase will indeed have its own DVD release on the 21st October. Originally released as part of Lost in Time in 2004, the existing episodes two and four will be accompanied by animated versions of episodes one and three created by Planet 55 Studios, who provided the animated episodes for The Reign of Terror and the forthcoming The Tenth Planet. No other details have been released at present, though a commentary for the story includes special sound composer Brian Hodgson.

After the announcement last week of its inclusion in Doctor Who: Regeneration, the individual release of The Tenth Planet itself has now been announced for 18th November. Unlike the June collection, this release will feature the usual range of extras that accompany the Doctor Who releases as well as the the new Planet 55 Studios animated episode four (one extra being the original reconstruction of episode four made for its VHS release in 2000).

With these announcements, the release schedule for the year in the United Kingdom currently looks like this:

6th May The Visitation (Special Edition)
20th May Series 7 Part 2 (DVD/Blu-ray)
27th May Inferno (Special Edition)
27th May Dr Who and the Daleks/Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150AD (DVD/Blu-ray) (Aaru movies, released by Studio Canal)
3rd June The Mind of Evil
24th June Doctor Who: Regeneration (coffee-table book/DVD set of The Tenth Planet, The War Games, Planet of the Spiders, Logopolis The Caves of Androzani, Time and the Rani, Doctor Who: The Movie, Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways, and The End of Time)
8th July The Monster Collection (individual themed DVDs: Cybermen, Davros, Silurians, Sontarans, The Daleks and The Master)
15th July Spearhead from Space (Blu-ray)
5th August The Green Death (Special Edition)
26th August The Ice Warriors (animated episodes two+three)
16th September Scream of the Shalka
30th September Terror of the Zygons
21st October The Moonbase (animated episodes one+three)
18th November The Tenth Planet (animated episode four)


DWM also reports that the only other currently known surviving episode, the second part of The Underwater Menace, seems likely to be released in 2014, though its presentation currently remains unknown; Frazer Hines indicated in issue 458 that he had recorded a commentary for the episode/story.




FILTER: - Classic Series - Blu-ray/DVD

Final Australian ratings for Hide

Thursday, 2 May 2013 - Reported by Adam Kirk

Hide has picked up an additional 148,000 time-shifted Australian viewers, giving it a final, or consolidated, ratings average of 795,000 viewers in the five major capital cities.  This was the fourth largest number of time-shifted viewers for a program broadcast on Sunday 21 April. The final or consolidated ratings includes all 'time-shifted' viewers who record the program and watch it within a week.

Based on these final figures, Hide was the second highest rating ABC program of the day and the ninth highest rating program of the day overall (this compares to it being the tenth highest rating program based on its overnight figures of 648,000 viewers). These ratings do not include regional viewers.
Media Links: TV Tonight




FILTER: - Ratings - Broadcasting - Series 7/33 - Australia