Deadline is reporting that American actor Mekhi Phifer is to join the cast of Torchwood: The New World playing Rex Matheson, one of the three leads, alongside John Barrowman and Eve Myles.

Mekhi Phifer is best known for his role as Dr. Gregory Pratt on NBC's long-running medical drama ER.

Born in New York, his acting career began when he was selected for the leading role in Spike Lee's Clockers a role for which he won critical acclaim for his performance as Strike, a young New Jersey drug dealer involved in a murder cover-up. He later appeared in the comedy spoof High School High, in the Columbia/Tristar thriller I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and in Soul Food. In 2002, Phifer starred as Future, opposite Eminem, in Curtis Hanson's film, 8 Mile. Phifer's other television credits include leading roles in MTV's film Carmen: A Hip Hopera and in A Lesson Before Dying a role which eearned him an NAACP Image Award Nomination. He was a regular on the Fox crime show Lie to Me.

REX MATHESON

Character are to release a new set of Doctor Who action figures, this time themed around the Pandorica.

There are six figures to collect, and each one comes with a MP3-CD with an audio adaptation of a Doctor Who novelisation (previously released on CD by BBC Audiobooks/AudioGO):

• The Doctor wearing a Fez (Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion - Part One)
• Roman Auton (Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion - Part Two)
• Amy Pond (Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters - Part One)
• Silurian Warrior (Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters - Part Two)
• Angel Bob, with jacket (Doctor Who and the Giant Robot - Part One)
• Damaged Cyberman (Doctor Who and the Giant Robot - Part Two)

The six CDs cases themselves join together to make up the sides of the Pandorica cube itself.


As well as the individual releases, the figures can also be purchased as a complete set.

The Pandorica Wave is due to be released on 20th December 2010.

The Doctor Who News Page is offering readers a chance to win the Eleventh Doctor Christmas Adventure Set which is released next week, in our Christmas Competition.

The set includes two 5-inch action figures: The Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond with police uniform and also features a non-electronic TARDIS with opening front doors.

Five Gift sets are up for grabs.

To be in with a chance of winning, simply tell us your prediction for the total BBC One audience, to the nearest 10,000 viewers, for the Christmas Day showing of A Christmas Carol.

Just to clarify, we are looking for the final confirmed audience as published by BARB in January. This figure includes those who record the programme and watch it within one week and it includes those watching on BBC One HD. It does not include those watching on iPlayer.

Please also give your estimate for the final figure for the BBC Three/BBC HD Christmas Day showing of Doctor Who Confidential. This figure will be used as a tie breaker in the event of a draw for the prize. In the event of a further draw the winner will be chosen at random.

To help you estimate the figure, ratings for the previous episodes of Doctor Who transmitted on Christmas Day were:

1965 - 5.50pm - The Feast of Steven - 7.90 million
2005 - 7.00pm - The Christmas Invasion - 9.84 million
2006 - 7.00pm - The Runaway Bride - 9.30 million
2007 - 6.50pm - Voyage of the Damned - 13.31 million
2008 - 6.00pm - The Next Doctor - 13.10 million
2009 - 6.00pm - The End of Time Part One - 12.04 million

Entries should be sent to the Doctor Who News Page at doctorwhocompetitions@gmail.com - please include your answers, name, address and daytime contact number.

Only one entry is allowed per person.

Entries must be received by 6pm, 25th December 2010 UK Time.

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In the meantime, there are a number of other Doctor Who related competitions online that you might also wish to enter, listed below:

Site	Closing Date	Competition
Toxic Magazine	15th Dec	Win a Nintendo DS and a copy of Evacuation Earth, with the game for five runners up. Registration required, and restricted to under-18s
National Geographic	15th Dec	Win Evacuation Earth with a DSi. This one is open to under 16s
Radio Times	21st Dec	Win a Nintendo Wii console, and a copy of Return to Earh; simply answer 15 questions on television trivia
Love Offers	22nd Dec	Win a sonic screwdriver from Doctor Who
Fortean Times	22nd Dec	Win one of three sonic-screwdrivers
DrWho Online	31st Dec	Win one of three copies of The Complete Series Five boxed set to win.
Eye of Horus	10th Jan	Win one of ten copies of Meglos.
Love Offers	12th Jan	Win one of five copies of Return to Earth.
Webuser	12th Jan	Win one of five copies of Return to Earth Wii games to win.
Whovian Net	n/a	Win one of three copies of the official 2011 Calendar when they reach 1000 Twitter Followers
Eye of Horus	31st Jan	Win one of ten copies of The Mutants.

 

The first part of the Park Entertainment series K9 will be released on DVD in the United Kingdom on the 31st January 2011.

The cover for the release specifies this as the Complete Series 1; however, this is attributed to Channel Five splitting the series into two halves, and will actually only have the first run of episodes broadcast on the channel (see below); a second DVD (the Complete Series 2) is expected to be released on 7th March 2011, containing the rest of the episodes from the series.

The complete series was released as a single boxed set in Australia at the end of September.
K9 was first transmitted in Australia on Network Ten and in the UK on Disney's digital channel XD (though the UK run was incomplete); a second series of the show is currently in development.

Transmission on Channel Five kicks off this coming Saturday from 10:00am, and is expected to reach a wider audience for its 'terrestrial' broadcast. The show will be shown daily over the Christmas period until New Year's Eve. As noted above, the channel is broadcasting the series in two halves, with the rest of the series due on air around Easter 2011.

Five have a special trailer for the series, featuring a voiceover by John Leeson (in his own voice, not K9's!). You can also find the original series trailer from 2009 on YouTube.

For today only you can rent Voyage of the Damned for 13 pence from online video catch up and rental service SeeSaw.

The deal is part of the site's Christmas Advent Calendar which offers episodes at reduced price for one day only. You can rent the episode by clicking here. You get 30 days to start viewing the episode after you purchase it.

You can also rent two other Christmas Specials, The Christmas Invasion (£1.19) and The Next Doctor (99p). SeeSaw also offers some Classic Series episodes for free including The Tomb of the Cybermen.

Doctor Who is the most wanted programme to be transformed into 3D, according to a recent poll by television manufacturer Panasonic. The survey asked which shows the public would most like to see made in the growing format, with the Doctor proving most popular, followed by animated heroes Wallace and Gromit and the anarchic car show Top Gear. The poll also revealed that the 3D viewers would prefer reality show The X-Factor over Strictly Come Dancing, and soap Eastenders over Coronation Street.

Both Doctor Who and Eastenders have already tasted the 3D effect, of course, back in the cross-over special Dimensions in Time for Children in Need in 1993. And for the lead-up to the 2010 series the BBC released the 3D trailer into cinemas, introducing us to the new Doctor, Amy and their enemies.

Tonight the BBC commenced their Christmas idents for the 2010 season on television, launching with the trailer for A Christmas Carol, airing just before Strictly Come Dancing at 6:00pm. This is a shorter version of the preview trailer that was aired during Children in Need back in November, but confirms the time and date of broadcast, previously reported as 6:00pm on Christmas Day.

The trailer is available to watch on the BBC's YouTube channel, and also from the BBC's official Doctor Who site as Day Eleven in their Christmas Adventure Calendar.

The Mara Tales Boxset, comprising the two fifth Doctor Stories, Kinda and Snakedance, will be released in the UK on 7 March 2011.

The remastered discs will feature new CGI for the Mara's manifestation as a snake, as well as documentaries on the making of the series, an interview with Christopher Bailey, the author of the two stories, and deleted scenes.


Also confirmed is the release of the second boxset comprising stories which were released near the start of the DVD run, now remastered and with added extras. Revisitations 2 will be released in the UK on 28 March 2011 and will contain three stories, the Second Doctor Story The Seeds of Death, the Third Doctor story Carnival of Monsters and the fifth Doctor story Resurrection of the Daleks.

For full details of the global DVD release schedule see our product page.

Former Doctor Colin Baker is appearing at the Kennet Centre in Newbury today, signing copies of his books based on his column in the Bucks Free Press, Look Who's Talking and Second Thoughts.

Filming continues on United (a film about the Manchester United team Munich plane disaster in 1958), which features David Tennant as assistant team manager Jimmy Murphy. Last week saw them filming at Carlisle United's Brunton Park, where their media officer Andy Hall said: "A couple of us had the chance to squint at a couple of pages of script that David Tennant was practising and it was powerful stuff. We thought David Tennant wouldn’t speak to us but he talked about Doctor Who and other stuff he has done. I don’t get starstruck often but it’s not every day you are set opposite a Time Lord. He said he was not much of a football fan but he’s from Paisley and said he looks out for St Mirren’s scores." (reported in the News and Star)

Filming also commenced yesterday in Bolton on Exile, a new BBC drama starring John Simm (The Master) and Jim Broadbent (The Doctor, The Curse of Fatal Death); the drama is a psychological thriller about the return of a journalist (Simm) to his hometown to be reacquainted with his father (Broadbent).

David Morrissey (Jackson Lake, The Next Doctor) will be one of the Final judges for the 2010 Costa Book of the Year; the winners are chosen and announced on 25th January 2011.

The Daily Mail has reported that Billie Piper (Rose Tyler) could be about to play Eliza Doolittle in a West End version of George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion. Other members of the cast could be Rupert Everett (reprising his role as Henry Higgins from the Chichester Festival Theatre production), Angela Lansbury and David Jason.

Bonnie Langford: Christmas in New York opens at 59E59 Theaters on the 14th December; part of the Brits Off Broadway festival, the show sees the star (who played Melanie Bush) perform songs from shows she has appeared in, and talk about the people she grew up with in her showbiz career.

Michael Gambon (Kazran, A Christmas Carol) is about to appear in his first US television series in a new drama from HBO called Luck; the show stars Dustin Hoffman, and follows the ins and outs of horse racing.

ABC have confirmed they will be showing the 2010 Doctor Who Prom on Boxing Day at 5pm, the same day they show the 2010 Christmas Special A Christmas Carol.

The BBC Proms are an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events which have been held annually since 1895. Taking place mainly in the Royal Albert Hall in London, the BBC took over responsibility for the Proms in 1927. The first Doctor Who Prom took place in 2008.

The Doctor Who Prom features the music of Murray Gold performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, who record the soundtrack for the television series. The Prom took place Saturday 24 July and was hosted by Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill.

The Prom was shown in the UK last September. It was announced last month that it will be shown in the United States on BBC America on Christmas Day.