The Evening Standard reports that the new European Union Representative for Foreign Affairs, Baroness Ashton, is the proud owner of a full sized Dalek. The replica was given to her by her husband as a fiftieth birthday present and proudly greets visitors to their home.

Michael Moorcock has written in the Guardian about Doctor Who and his new commission to write a novel for BBC Books first reported here.

BBC Worldwide has won its court case over the administrator of retail chain Woolworths in a dispute over 2entertain, the company which produces the classic series DVD's. BBC Worldwide, which already has a 60% majority stake in 2entertain, now has first option to buy up the remaining shares at an appropriate value. A spokesman for BBC Worldwide told Broadcast Magazine "This latest judgment fully upholds the position we have maintained from the outset, and we now look forward to being able to move ahead with taking full ownership of 2entertain". The dispute is over ownership of the company and will not affect the production of Doctor Who DVD's.

Doctor Who was mentioned in the US TV series NCIS when Tim McGee, the character played by Sean Murray, mentioned that the container trailer they were investigating reminded him of the TARDIS. "A contraption Doctor Who travels in time and space" His companion replies "Doctor Who? Who watches that?"

A revised version of the BBC iPlayer has been launched as a dedicated channel on the Nintendo Wii. The new version is faster and has a full-screen user interface. It is available free from the Wii shop.

Over 12 million tuned into BBC One to see the 3 minute preview of The End of Time on Children in Need last night.

The quarter hour beginning at 8pm had an average audience of 11.9 million viewers on BBC One, the highest peak of the evening on any of the channels. The share was 49.5%. Once the Doctor Who clip had been shown the audience dropped off by 2 million with some viewers switching to ITV1 for Coronation Street. Overall the first section of Children In Need had an average audience of 9.8 million. An additional 260,00 viewers watched the Doctor Who clip on BBC HD, taking the total above 12 million.

Meanwhile the final part of The Sarah Jane Adventures, The Gift, finished its strong run with an audience of 0.8 million and a share of 6.4%, far above the average for the channel at this time.

The special preview clip of The End of Time, shown as part of the BBC Children In Need appeal is now available on the BBC YouTube channel.

BBC America have also posted their clip on their website and revealed that the full episode will be shown in the USA at 9pm EST on the 26th December 2009 a day after the expected UK showing and 1 week after the US showing of The Waters of Mars.


The charity Telethon also featured an appearance from fifth Doctor Peter Davison with a dog and John Barrowman dancing in his boxers.

Episode one of The Gift was watched by 0.8 million viewers according to unofficial overnight figures, again far exceeding the average rating for the timeslot. The audience share was 6.2%.

Final figures will be released in two weeks time.

The BBC official site has confirmed the title of David Tennant's penultimate episode will be The End of Time, Part One. It is the first time since the series returned that a story title has been split into two parts. Previous two-part stories have always had their own title.

BBC Children in Need will feature an exclusive 2-minute scene from the episode on Friday night, at some point between 8.00 and 8.30. The official site has a short audio clip from this scene here.

A photo of David Tennant taken from the Children in Need scene has now been issued.Follow the Doctor Who News Page on

This week’s Doctor Who Adventures magazine is all about The Waters of Mars. The magazine investigates the planet Mars and finds out if it is a place you should visit or avoid. It asks if you were to visit Mars with the Doctor what would you take and gives an essential checklist.

You can meet the brave woman who helps the Doctor – Adelaide Brooke. Discover who she is and how she ended up at Bowie Base. The week’s Top 10 is all about watery moments. Water bombs, raining in reverse and sea monsters; who will come top in this slippery countdown?

Plus…
• Find out how well you know The Waters of Mars in this week’s quiz
• A Doctor Who note book and pencil
• Claim a free Dalek rucksack
• Part 1 of life-size Doctor Who poster

The Wednesday BBC Three repeat of the Waters of Mars was watched by 470,000 viewers according to unofficial overnight figures.

The BBC has confirmed that the animated story, Dreamland, will be shown, complete, on BBC Two on Saturday 5th December at 10am and on the BBC HD channel at a time to be confirmed.

Dreamland which stars the vocal talents of David Tennant, Georgia Moffett, David Warner, Stuart Milligan and Clark Peters, is set in the infamous alien hotspot Roswell and described by writer Phil Ford as 'Doctor Who meets a Fifties monster B-movie'.

The BBC Two showing will follow the story's début on the BBC's interactive services from Saturday 21st November. The six episodes will air on a daily basis and will be available on the BBC website as well as on the Red Button services on Sky and Virgin from 7am on 21 November to 4am on 28 November.

The service will also be on freeview at various times depending on other broadcast requirements.

Planned freeview times are

21 November – 7.00-8.50am, 11.10am-2.20pm, 7.25-10.35pm
22 November – 12.10am-7.50pm
23 November – 12.10am-7.50pm on 24 November
24 November – 10.40pm-2pm on 25 November
25 November – 3-10.15pm, 11.10pm-9.50am on 26 November
26 November – 7.10pm-9.50am on 27 November
27 November – 6.10pm-4am on 28 November

The story will not be available on Freesat.

BBC Worldwide have released a number of Classic Series episodes onto their YouTube Channel.

Stories uploaded so far are

• 1st Doctor - The Edge of Destruction
• 2nd Doctor - The Krotons
• 3rd Doctor - Carnival of Monsters
• 5th Doctor - The Caves of Androzani

The clips are usually blocked in the UK as under the terms of the BBC Charter it is not allowed to operate commercially in the UK. However viewers in the UK can view classic episodes on MSN Video, which is currently showing The Web Planet, The Tomb of the Cyberman and Planet of the Spiders, and BlinkBox which is also showing Tomb of the Cybermen and The Krotons.

The Waters of Mars scored an AI of 88.

The score was the second highest of the weekend, only beaten by Foyle's War on ITV1.

The AI - Appreciation Index - score is a measure of how much an audience enjoyed a programme. The average score for drama is 77. For any programme, a score in excess of 85 is excellent. Any score in excess of 90 is exceptional. Any programme that falls below 60 has received a poor AI.

Meanwhile, Sunday has been dubbed "Super Sunday" by the media, as the total TV audience for peak hours was the highest since January 2000.