Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy will be appearing on GMTV on Friday morning at 8:20am, discussing the show's anniversary and this weekend's UK GoldDoctor Who @40 Weekend. Meanwhile, according to Benjamin Elliott's "This Week in Doctor Who" column today, advance TV listings for December reveal that UK Gold will be ending its weeknight run of Doctor Who stories with the broadcast on Tuesday 2 December (with the second half of "Logopolis"). UK Gold's weekday run began earlier this year and will have consisted of the entire Tom Baker run of stories bar Genesis Of The Daleks and Destiny Of The Daleks. Doctor Who will continue to air on Saturday and Sunday mornings in movie format. (Thanks to Mat Watson at UKTV, Benjamin F. Elliott)

UK Gold presents its Doctor Who @40 Weekend to celebrate the anniversary in just a few short days. The This Week in Doctor Who column -- which we host a mirror of at Outpost Galilfrey -- today has the complete, detailed breakdown of the schedule, which indlues all of the documentaries and inserts that are part of the weekend. Click hereto take a look at the detailed schedule. Meanwhile, Outpost Gallifrey has received word about the content of the original shorts; each will feature interviews with the Doctors where possible along with members of the cast and crew and fans, including Colin Baker, Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Katy Manning, Louise Jameson, Sophie Aldred, Verity Lambert, Nicola Bryant, Nicholas Courtney and Peter Purves, plus the following specials, all presented by K-9 himself!

• 1963 The year of Dr Who: Martin Luther. Aldermaston. Kennedy and the birth of the teatime classic. At about teatime on Saturday 23rd November 1963, a mysterious time traveller known only as Dr Who appeared on the nation's screens ... little did we know that a legend was in the making. This short film looks at the origins of the series in the pursuit of scientific education and awareness. Same timelord time, same timelord channel.
• The Timelady: Arabella Weir is the first female doctor in the latest audio adventure and the subject of the female doctor has been a raging controversy for years ... so why is regeneration among the last bastions of sexual segregation.
• Monstermania: For many of us our first Dr Who was seen through closed hands or from the safe confines from behind the sofa rather than in front of the fire. We take a journey through some of the most popular adversaries from 40 years of time travel.
• Don't Mention Mel: Comedian Andre Vincent recalls his adolescent awakenings alongside various doctor's assistants - Jo (Katy Manning), Louise Jamieson (Leela) and, not forgetting Ace (Sophie Aldred) but strangely steering clear of Bonnie Langford's (Mel).
• The Theme Music: The Chalkenwell Ladies Drum & Bass League on the classic theme music and the contribution of Ron Grainer and Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to electronica.
• The Cancellation Crisis: Paul McGann was the eighth Doctor but does he count and now that the series is coming back what can we expect from the modern day timelord.
• The Timelord's Coming Home: The Doctor stopped in 1987 but why? We look back at the cancellation crisis and the hiatus of the 1985 season and the factors that contributed to the killing of Dr Who and the parallel lives of the Doctor since.

The forthcoming UK Gold Anniversary Weekend will feature, if our information is correct, the following stories selected out of their recent viewers' poll: "The Time Meddler," "Tomb of the Cybermen," "The Daemons," "Pyramids of Mars," "The Caves of Androzani," "Attack of the Cybermen" and "Dragonfire". The stories will be aired over the weekend, with various interviews/features interspersed throughout. Hopefully, UK Gold will avail themselves of restored-quality prints as some of their viewing prints (specifically "The Time Meddler") are "virtually unwatchable". (Thanks to Mark Campbell)

BBC-1 Controller Lorraine Heggessey earlier this week confirmed to various UK listings magazines that when Doctor Who returns to television, it'll be running in the traditional Saturday evening time slot. But, more interestingly, before the new series kicks-off, Heggessey is proposing to run polls in the UK TV listings magazines to find out which Doctor Who stories are the public's favourite (on a Doctor, by Doctor basis). The BBC will then run a repeat of each of the favourites in that Saturday night slot to drum up publicity for the new series. (Thanks to our friends at tv.cream.org)

The British satellite channel UKGold is having two Doctor Who marathon days in May, on May 5 and 26, showing every complete Dalek story. Monday May 5's list is The Daleks (7:20am), The Dalek Invasion of Earth (10:45am), The Day of the Daleks (1:35pm), Planet of the Daleks (3:25pm) and Death to the Daleks (6:05pm). Monday May 26's schedule is Genesis of the Daleks (9:50am), Destiny of the Daleks (12:35pm), Resurrection of the Daleks (2:30pm), Revelation of the Daleks (4:20pm) and Remebrance of the Daleks (6:10pm). These are being broadcast from the standard masters (i.e. no remastering has been done). (Thanks to BBCi, Phillip Madeley)

Who Across America 2000: Plans are underway for a national "Whovians across America" Doctor Who pledge event to be recorded and fed live from Pittsburgh's WQED in October. The marathon may be made available to all the public television stations that carry Dr.Who in the U.S. in late October. (Due to licensing restrictions, only current stations airing Dr.Who in the U.S. are eligible to air the special being packaged exclusively by WQED and BBC syndication sales.) The format calls for two special guests from the classic series to pick two of their own episodes, and fans across the net to vote for their all time favorite episodes with the same actors via an exclusive web-poll.

BBC Canada?: As of early April 2000, the BBC and Alliance Atlantis productions submitted a bid to the CRTC to launch BBC Canada, a digital Cable network. If the bid is approved, BBC Canada would try to launch sometime in 2001. Doctor Who would theoretically be one possibility for broadcast on this station, as it is on BBC America. (Thanks to Benjamin Elliott)

New Word on the TV Movie Rights in America: Some curious news about the rights to rebroadcast the Doctor Who 1996 TV movie with Paul McGann in America. Sources indicate that the US rights to the 1996 film are held by Studios USA (formerly Universal.) FOX's rights to the program expire May, 2000 -- not the previously rumored New Year's eve 1999 expiration. The cost to purchase the rights to the program are, unfortunately, prohibitive for PBS stations (somewhere in the ball park of half a million dollars.) Studios USA, however, is owned by Barry Diller, who also owns the USA Network and the Sci Fi Channel, so it is possible that the movie could turn up on one of those two outlets. (Information courtesy Benjamin Elliott)