Three new classic stories are due to be released in North America on 4th May according to Warner Home Video. These are the two Third Doctor Peladon stories, The Curse of Peladon and Monster of Peladon as well as the Fourth Doctor story The Masque of Mandragora.

Unlike the UK release, the Peladon stories will be released as two separate titles rather than a box set.

The covers can be seen at TVshowsonDVD.

Doctor Who has once again been successful at the National Television Awards (NTAs), held at the O2 Arena in London this evening and broadcast live on ITV1 in the UK. This was the 15th running of the ceremony, at which television programmes and personalities are given awards voted on by the British public.

The programme has now won the Drama category at every NTA ceremony since 2005, although the awards were not held in 2009. This year it won the audience vote ahead of BBC One stablemate Casualty, Channel 4's Shameless and ITV1's The Bill. The award, presented by England football captain John Terry, was collected by David Tennant, Bernard Cribbins, June Whitfield and Elisabeth Sladen, with Cribbins delivering the acceptance speech. He thanked and praised Tennant and the production team, which he named as the best he has ever worked with in British television.

David Tennant later took the award for Drama Performance, beating competition from Philip Glenister (for BBC One's Ashes to Ashes), David Jason (ITV1's A Touch of Frost) and David Threlfall (Shameless). Tennant also won this category at the 2008 ceremony, and had taken victory in one of its predecessors, the Most Popular Actor category, in 2006 and 2007 - in 2005 this had been won by his predecessor Christopher Eccleston for his role as the Ninth Doctor.

Tennant was presented with his award by Sarah Brown, wife of Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In his acceptance speech, Tennant thanked the audience and praised the incoming team of Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Steven Moffat. He spoke about how much he loves the programme and has done so since childhood, and how he is looking forward to watching as a fan again, not knowing what is going to happen next.

Tennant also presented the award for "Star Travel Documentary" to Stephen Fry earlier in the ceremony. Fry, who guest-starred in the 2001 Doctor Who website audio drama Death Comes to Time, was also later presented with an Outstanding Contribution Award for his work in British television.



A BBC News report and media articles on the event may be found at Doctor Who in the Media.

In what amounts to confirmation that Series Four of The Sarah Jane Adventures has been commissioned, the BBC are recruiting a new producer to take over production of the series. The successful applicant will be based in Cardiff, and assumes responsibility for the programme which begins shooting in March. The series will once again consist of twelve thirty-minute episodes.

Series Three was shown in the UK last Autumn, achieving much higher than average ratings for CBBC. Series Two has just begun broadcasting on BBC Kids in Canada.

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that US network Fox is developing an American version of Torchwood.

According to the site, the project is being developed with the original executive team, most of whom are now based in Los Angeles. The pilot script would be written by Torchwood creator, Russell T Davies, with Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter acting as executive producers. The whole project would come under BBC Worldwide Productions.

Tranter and Gardner moved to the US with a specific brief to develop BBC properties for the American market.

Torchwood has been shown on BBC America where it set viewing records for the channel and has a strong fan base in the US. It is likely that if the series is commissioned some of the current cast would be involved; most likely John Barrowman would reprise the role of Captain Jack.

UPDATE, 20TH JAN:
BBC Worldwide Productions has confirmed to C21 Media that a Torchwood pilot script has been written for Fox, but say it's too early to comment on any further details.

A roundup of media articles on the story can be found in Doctor Who in the Media.

DVD extras for two stories in the forthcoming DVD box set, Myths and Legends, have been cleared by the British Board of Film Classification.

For The Time Monster, 35 minutes of extras have been cleared to accompany the six part story.

• Between Now... And Now! Science and the Time Monster (Featurette) 23'37"
• Episode Three (Restoration Comparison) 3'21"
• Photo Gallery 7'59"

For the four part Horns of Nimon, a total of 48 minutes of extras have been cleared.

• Who Peter - Partners in Time - 1963-1989 (Featurette) 29'55"
• Part Two - Music Demos 2'55"
• Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre (Easter Egg) 1'18"
• Read the Writer - Anthony Read remembers 6'26"
• Photo Gallery 7'51"

Details for the third story in the set, Underworld, should be cleared soon. The box set is released in the UK on 29th March.

The Welsh Government has given the go ahead to develop a new Drama Villiage at a site near Cardiff Bay to be used by BBC Wales.

The proposed centre would accommodate all BBC Drama made in Wales, including Doctor Who and any future series of Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures as well as other drama productions made in the country such as Casualty and the Welsh language soap Pobol y Cwm.. The proposed site is the currently derelict, former dock side land at Roath Basin. The Welsh Government will work with Igloo Regeneration to develop the area and to progress with the building of the BBC Drama Village, which would total 170,000 sq ft of television studios and ancillary accommodation, as well as a new office building.

Menna Richards, Director of BBC Cymru Wales, said "This is a fantastic opportunity to build on the success of BBC Wales drama production and the wider creative industries in Wales."

Current Doctor Who production is based just outside Cardiff at Upper Boat near Pontypridd.

2entertain have given some details of a new 8 part series called Tomorrow's Times looking at contemporary press reaction to the Classic Series of Doctor Who.

The series is produced by Marcus Hern and which will be issued as part of the extras on some future DVD releases. The first part is presented by Mary Tamm who played Romana alongside Tom Baker. A rough clip had been released on the classicdw twitter account.

The Doctor Who Restoration Team have published details for the forthcoming DVD release of The Masque of Mandragora. The article has details about the clean up of the story and full details of the extras included on the disc. The DVD is due for release in the UK in February.

Toby Hadoke's solo comedy show, Moths Ate my Doctor Who Scarf, continues its tour around the UK. Dates have been added for Barnsley, Stockton, Whitehaven, Newport, Pitlochry and Bath. More details here.

Many papers have covered the BBC press release reporting that the BBC iPlayer has reached over 100 million requests since its launch on Christmas Day 2007, and the headline fact that a total of 1.3 million requested The End of Time.

For a full press roundup see our sister site Doctor Who in the Media.

The actor James Cairncross has died at the age of 93. He played the part of Lemaitre in the first Doctor story The Reign of Terror and Beta in the second Doctor story The Krotons.

Cairncross was born in Dunfermline in 1915. He was a well known actor and lyricist appearing in many early television programmes such as Play of the Week and Z-Cars and films such as The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and Tom Jones. He appeared with Ian McKellan in Hamlet and with Michael Redgrave in Twelfth Night. James Cairncross died 17 December, 2009, in Edinburgh.

Scotsman Obituary.

To tie in with the publication of the updated edition of The Writer's Tale, some of Russell T Davies's scripts for the series are now available online.

The episodes are available as a PDF download. Stories available are the Christmas special, Voyage of the Damned; the Series Four stories Partners in Crime, Midnight, Turn Left, The Stolen Earth and Journey's End; and the five specials leading up to the departure of David Tennant, The Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead, The Waters of Mars and both parts of The End of Time.