The End of Time Part One – New Picture

Thursday, 19 November 2009 - Reported by Marcus

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 Follow Doctor Who News on Twitter




FILTER: - Specials - Online - Series 4/30 Specials

Doctor Who Adventures 142

Thursday, 19 November 2009 - Reported by Marcus
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




FILTER: - Magazines - DWA

Waters of Mars Repeat Ratings

Thursday, 19 November 2009 - Reported by Marcus
The Wednesday BBC Three repeat of the Waters of Mars was watched by 470,000 viewers according to unofficial overnight figures.




FILTER: - Specials - Ratings - UK - Series 4/30 Specials

Dreamland Update

Thursday, 19 November 2009 - Reported by Marcus
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.

Dry Springs, Nevada, 1958. During a visit to a local diner, the Doctor befriends a young waitress, Cassie, and her friend Jimmy. When he stumbles across a strange alien artefact, the Doctor is led to the mysterious Area 51 in Roswell, also known as Dreamland, the most secret base in the USA. There, he has a dark encounter with the sinister Colonel Stark.

So begins a momentous mission for the Doctor who, with the help of his new companions and Jimmy's grandfather, Night Eagle, sets out to rescue the stranded alien, Rivesh Mantilax, and his wife, Saruba Valek, from the threat of the ruthless Viperox, led by Lord Azlok, and the clutches of the American military.

As sunset falls the Viperox battle drones start to attack the US army base. Can the Doctor find a way to halt the seemingly unstoppable aliens in their tracks?




FILTER: - Online - Animation

Classic Series on YouTube

Wednesday, 18 November 2009 - Reported by Marcus
BBC Worldwide have released a number of Classic Series episodes onto their YouTube Channel.

Stories uploaded so far are

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.




FILTER: - Online - Classic Series

Waters of Mars Appreciation Index

Tuesday, 17 November 2009 - Reported by Marcus

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.




FILTER: - Specials - Ratings - UK - Series 4/30 Specials

The Writer’s Tale: The Final Chapter

Tuesday, 17 November 2009 - Reported by Marcus
BBC Books has announced the forthcoming publication of Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale: The Final Chapter by outgoing showrunner Russell T Davies and DWM and Radio Times journalist Benjamin Cook. It will be published in paperback on 14 January 2010.

This is a new and updated edition of The Writer’s Tale originally published last Autumn. The book has been expanded to cover Davies's final year as Head Writer and Executive Producer of the show. This edition will also include new, never-before-published photos from behind the scenes of David Tennant’s final adventures. There are 300 pages of new material taking in events from the entire five years since the show’s return in 2005.




FILTER: - Russell T Davies - Production - Books - Radio Times

Radio 4 documentary to focus on Shada

Monday, 16 November 2009 - Reported by Anthony Weight

A forthcoming BBC Radio 4 documentary is to examine what led to the cancellation of Shada - the six-part Fourth Doctor story originally intended to end Doctor Who's 17th season.

Shelved takes a look at three TV programmes that were made in 1979 but which never aired because of socio-political, industrial or cultural problems. The three comprise a particularly violent episode of ITV show The Professionals, the last episode of BBC series Secret Army, and Shada.

Interviewees for the Shada segment are Tom Baker, director Pennant Roberts and Jeremy Bentham - the Doctor Who historian, author, former associate editor of Doctor Who Magazine and co-founder of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society. The story, which was never completed at the time because of a BBC strike, would have been broadcast in January and February 1980.

The 30-minute documentary is scheduled to be broadcast on Saturday, December 12 at 10.30am, and it is understood it will make a key revelation relating to Doctor Who through documentation unearthed by producer/presenter Shaun Ley. Recording of the documentary took place at the BBC's Westminster studio on Thursday, November 5.

Incoming Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner tried to remount Shada, but those attempts failed and production was formally abandoned in June 1980. In 1992, the recorded footage was released on video with linking narration by Tom Baker completing the story. It was subsequently reworked as an audio play by Big Finish Productions, featuring the Eighth Doctor and with Paul McGann in the lead role. This version was webcast on BBCi in 2003 and broadcast on digital radio station BBC7 in December 2005, with a repeat the following year. The webcast is currently available to listen to on the official Doctor Who website (may only be available within the UK).





FILTER: - Documentary - Classic Series - Radio

Sarah Jane Ratings – Final Figures

Monday, 16 November 2009 - Reported by Marcus
Final figures now available for the third story in Series Three of The Sarah Jane Adventures show that part one had an audience of 1.59 million, a 13% share of the audience, with part two being watched by 1.47 million – a 12% share.

The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith featured a guest appearance from David Tennant. The figures are spectacularly good for BBC One at this time of day and substantially above the initially reported overnight figures. The average audience in this time slot, for this year, is 0.37 million. Over 35% of the audience was in the 4–15 age range, roughly the same percentage other CBBC programmes achieve, indicating the programme is reaching its target audience.

Excluding bank holidays and special events such as the Olympics and the World Cup, the last time a CBBC programme scored higher ratings at this time was an edition of The Basil Brush show on 23 December 2003.

An additional 300,000 have watched the episodes on iPlayer.

Full Audience data for series three is available here.




FILTER: - Ratings - UK - David Tennant - Sarah Jane

Waters of Mars Ratings

Monday, 16 November 2009 - Reported by Marcus

9.1 million watched last night's BBC One showing of The Waters of Mars, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The programme had an audience share of 33.9% and was the third most-watched programme of the day, behind The X Factor and I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, both on ITV1.

The audience built throughout the programme, with 9.6 million watching the final quarter-hour. On ITV1, All Star Family Fortunes had 6.1 million watching at the same time as Doctor Who was on.

An additional 310,000 watched the programme on BBC HD. If confirmed on the final figures this will be the highest ever rating for BBC HD

On BBC Three 590,000 watched Doctor Who Confidential with an additional 100,000 watching on BBC HD. It was the 8th most watched programme on digital TV for the day.

The overnight figures put Doctor Who as the 6th most watched programme of the week. This is likely to rise when the final figures, including those who timeshift the programme, are published in 9 days time.





FILTER: - Specials - Ratings - UK - Series 4/30 Specials