The BBC Press Office has released details of the new series of The Sarah Jane Adventures, including information on characters and broadcast dates.

The release confirms that the first episode of series two will be broadcast on BBC One on Monday 29th September at 4.35pm. The second episode will then follow on the CBBC digital channel at 5.15pm. This will be the pattern for the rest of the series, with episodes debuting on the CBBC channel.

The run finishes with the BBC One broadcast of episode 12 on Monday 15th December.

The official BBC website for the Doctor Who spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures has made available a newcinema trailer for series two of the programme, which is due to begin broadcasting in the UK later this month. The trailer is only available to view to broadband internet users in the UK.

Posted By John Bowman

The original soundtrack album to Torchwood is now available to download from theSilva Screen Records website.

It features Series One and Two music composed by Ben Foster and Murray Gold and performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and a studio orchestra.

The 32 tracks can be downloaded individually or as a full album.

The CD will be released on September 22.

(With thanks to Ben Dawson and Pierre Schramm.)

Doctor Who Adventures issue 80, is now out across the UK.

PRESS RELEASE

This week in Doctor Who Adventures we’re off to a dangerous world. You’ll find everything you need to know about the mysterious monster that trapped the Doctor when he visited the planet Midnight.

The weird thing is, we never got to find out what the creature looked like – so we’ve got a competition to draw what you think the creature looks like. The winning entry will receive a Dalek Voice Changer Helmet – and have their monster appear in a future issue of Doctor Who Adventures.

The issue comes with a free set of monster pens and stickers – featuring a scary Sontaran and deadly Dalek. There’s another set in next week’s issue too.

PLUS:

• The Fourth Doctor: A look at some of this Doctor’s top moments!
• Four posters! The Midnight gang, the hideous Trickster, Rose and the Ninth Doctor and a brilliant Cyberman poster.
• Win! Part two of your chance to win a Roboform head.
• Ultimate Ood: Concluding part of our guide to the Ood.
• Who knows: Your questions answered.
• Tales from the TARDIS: A shock for Yvonne Hartman and Jackie Tyler in Doomsday!
• Adventure Guide: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?
• Comic strip: Part one of a new adventure for the Doctor and Donna – By Order of the Bonemenders.
• Doctor’s Data: Tim Latimer the psychic schoolboy!
• Time Teasers: Fun puzzles for you to work out!
• Activity: Make a Dalek Caan mutant.
• Woven wordsearch: Solve the clues and win a Doctor Who audio book.
• Win: Monster artwork and Doctor Who storybooks up for grabs!

Doctor Who's unbroken run of million plus ratings continues in Australia despite tough competition from the high-rating '60 Minutes', 'Dancing with the Stars' and 'Australian Idol' on the three commercial networks. Silence in the Libraryrated 1,054,000 viewers in the five major capital cities, while Forest of the Dead rated even more with 1,092,000. The Confidential Cutdown versions of 'Shadow Play' and 'River Runs Deep' also had excellent ratings gaining 770,000 and 732,000 viewers respectively.

Meanwhile, in the local media Ian Cuthbertson of The Weekend Australia describes 'The Unicorn and the Wasp' as 'terrifically entertaining.'CitySearch also previews 'Silence in the Library' while Tim Artlett of The Daily Telegraph, also previewing this episode, writes that 'Doctor Who is very quickly becoming more than just a sci-fi program with retro special effects...Fans won't be disappointed by the fast-moving pace of this episode but will be left waiting for more as it ends on a devastating cliffhanger.' Chris Hook also of the 'Telegraph' writes of 'Forest' that while 'most of the writing in the reimagined Doctor Who has been good...the Moffat-penned yarns have particularly shined.' Canberra Timescolumnist, Michael Ruffles also writes 'that the resurrected Doctor Who is a hit with the kids. Friends have revealed their children, in the late primary school age group, are enchanted by the adventures of the Time Lord and whatever lady he has with him at the time. A group of the young fans even conspired to gather and watch the first three series in a marathon viewing.'

Meanwhile, The South Australian Doctor Who Fan Club reports that pay-TV channel Nickelodeon Australia has bought the first two series of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Secret Diary of a Call Girl starring Billie Piper also makes its debut on Australian TV on Channel Nine on Tuesday 2 September 2008 at 10.30pm.

Thanks to Benjamin F. Elliott, the SFSA and contributors to the Australian forums.

Rob Shearman, writer of the 2005 Episode Dalek, is scheduled to appear this evening on Tuddle Talk, on WTKS 104.1 in Orlando, Florida. The start time of the show is 7pm Eastern Time. Fans around the world will be able to listen via the station's website, and call in via the phone number on the website.

Posted By John Bowman

The new edition of Doctor Who Adventures - out tomorrow in the UK - gives readers the chance to win a Roboform head worth 350 pounds.

The Roboform worked for the Empress of Racnoss in The Runaway Bride, and issue 79 carries the first of a three-part competition for the prize.

Also in the magazine:

•  Free Sontaran notebook and pen
  
•  Find out why Dalek Caan was the maddest Dalek of all time
  
• Actor Ryan Sampson, who played Luke Rattigan in The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky, talks about working with Sontarans and his time on Doctor Who
  
•  More Ood facts
  
•  Tales from the Tardis takes readers back to when Rose first met the Doctor
  
•  The Adventure Guide looks at Warriors of Kudlak from The Sarah Jane Adventures
  
• In part two of comic strip Attack of the Mange Mites, the Doctor has been sucked into space
  
• Doctor's Data is all about Bannakaffalatta - the little cyborg from Voyage of the Damned
  
•  Books and the latest Doctor Who DVD can be won.

Posted By John Bowman

With filming having begun on Series Three of Torchwood, the BBC Press Office today said the team would be engaged in a "battle for the future of the human race against the fiercest force they have encountered".

Co-executive producer Russell T Davies said: "The new series of Torchwood is hugely bold and promises to be bigger and better than ever - the audience is in for an amazing ride.

"This series is one big serial and the most ambitious story we've ever made, and we've got plenty of surprises in store."

Fellow co-executive producer Julie Gardner said: "We hope to make Torchwood a gripping and surprising TV event with storylines that push our team into greater danger and sacrifice.

"Joining our main cast are some fantastic guest artists who will only add to making this unmissable TV."

The guest stars are Peter Capaldi - Caecilius in the Doctor Who story The Fires of Pompeii - playing a civil servant called Mr Frobisher "who is hiding a terrible secret", Paul Copely and Liz May Brice.

The five-part series - called Torchwood: Children Of Earth - is being written by Davies, John Fay and James Moran, and directed by Euros Lyn. Produced by Peter Bennett, it will air over one week next year.

Posted By John Bowman

Doctor Who has been named the show that people would most like to see adapted for the cinema.

A Radio Times online poll in July and August saw some 2,300 readers take part, and they put the revamped series top of their movie hopes. Torchwoodcame ninth.

A breakdown of the figures isn't revealed but Friends came second, Red Dwarf third, Heroes fourth, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fifth, Spooks sixth, 24 seventh, Lost eighth and The Prisoner tenth.

Star Trek was voted the show that had made the most successful move to the silver screen, and Helen Hackworthy, the editor of radiotimes.com, said: "While Trekkers have had a number of big-screen delights, Who fans are hoping that the success of the new incarnation of Doctor Who will see it make the jump to a cinema near them."

The news follows comments made by incoming showrunner Steven Moffat at the Edinburgh International Television Festival at the weekend in which he said he had no objections to a Doctor Who film - but it would have to be "great and fantastic".

Giving cautious backing to the notion, he emphasised that if it did happen filming should not interfere with the series.

In the BBC News report, Moffat said: "I'm not against it. I don't think it's the most important thing for Doctor Who.

"A movie is one 90 minutes a year. So yes, so long as it never gets in the way of the show. If it gets in the way of the show that's appalling.

"It's been in the cinema, with Peter Cushing. It would be good to see it in the cinema so long as it's great and fantastic."

At the festival, Moffat also ruled out having an older actor play the Doctor as and when David Tennant leaves. "It's a practical issue. This is a show that's hard for even the young, super-fit David Tennant to keep up with. It might kill someone over 60," he said.

Doctor Who has been named best programme of 2008 at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, a significant annual gathering of members of the British television industry.

According to the report on the BBC News website, the show's parent channel, BBC One, was named terrestrial channel of the year. Doctor Who Confidential broadcaster BBC Three took the prize for best digital channel.

The winners of these awards are selected by a panel made up of journalists and television executives. This is the second year in a row that Doctor Who has won the award for best programme.