The latest edition of Doctor Who Magazine has confirmed details of the production teams working on Doctor Who as it reaches its 60th Anniversary.

The Anniversary will be marked by three specials, all scheduled to be broadcast in November 2023, the anniversary month of the series. They will star David Tennant and Catherine Tate as the Fourteenth Doctor and Donna Noble. 

Directing the first special will be Rachel Talalay, a name well-known to Doctor Who fans, She directed several stories in the Peter Capaldi era including the conclusions to all three of his series. She directed Twice Upon A Time, the final Capaldi story where the Twelfth Doctor met the First Doctor played by David Bradley.

Special Two will be directed by Tom Kingsley. New to Doctor Who, Kingsley is best known for directing two series of the BBC sitcom Ghosts and the Channel 4 sitcom Stath Lets Flats.

The final special will be directed by Chanya Button. Also new to Who, Button started work in the theatre working at The Globe on London's south bank. Her first feature film was Burn Burn Burn. She directed episodes of Starz drama about Katherine of Aragon, The Spanish Princess as well as Acorn TV's The Whitstable Pearl.

The next full series of Doctor Who will be screened in 2024 and will star Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor. Filming begins this December and directing the first block of the series will be another newcomer Dylan Holmes Williams. Williams's short film The Devil's Harmony won the jury prize at Sundance 2020. He directed two episodes of the Apple TV series Servant. 

Many familiar faces will be involved with the series as it moves into the future. As well as Russell T Davies acting as showrunner,  Julie Gardner, Phil Collinson and Jane Tranter will all act as Executive producers. Att three were behind the return of Doctor Who in 2005. Joel Collins will also act as an Executive Producer. Collins has recently been working for Bad Wolf on Industry and His Dark Materials. 

Looking after the look of the show will be Production Designer Philip Sims. Sims was the supervising Art Director on the sixth and seventh Mission Impossible films as well as Episode IX of Star Wars, Guardians of the Galaxy 9  Avengers:Age of Ultron. The Script Editor will be Scott Hancock, who worked on The Sarah Jane Adventures as well as many scripts for Big Finish. 

Our full guide to Doctor Who can be found here

The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine begins the story of the Fourteenth Doctor, David Tennant.

Although it will be a year until we see his TV adventures, the story continues in Doctor Who Magazine issue 584

A new comic-strip adventure, written by Alan Barnes and illustrated by Lee Sullivan, picks up directly where The Power of the Doctor left off.

Editor Marcus Hearn says

Russell T Davies says

Other highlights of the new issue include:

• Meet the New Team – the producers, directors and other crew members of Doctor Who tell us what they’re looking forward to in the 2023 Specials and beyond.
• Letter from the Showrunner – in the first of his new regular columns, Russell T Davies reveals what brought him back to Doctor Who.
• Production Diary – script editor Scott Handcock provides exclusive updates about forthcoming episodes, direct from Doctor Who’s HQ.
• Reach up for the Sunrise – David Tennant, Russell T Davies, former showrunner Chris Chibnall, directors Rachel Talalay and Jamie Magnus Stone, and CG artist Ben Pickles describe shooting The Power of the Doctor’s regeneration sequence.
• The Strip of a Lifetime – Russell T Davies, Scott Handcock, Alan Barnes and Lee Sullivan on creating the Fourteenth Doctor’s first adventure.
• The Watchers ­– fans who were lucky enough to be granted studio visits in the 1960s and early 70s recall the thrill of watching Doctor Who being made.
• Hack to the Future – an interview with artist Robert Hack about the new illustrated version of David Whitaker’s seminal novel Doctor Who and the Daleks.
• Collectivity: The TARDIS – meet the fans for whom collecting police-box merchandise has been a lifelong passion
• Factory Records – the sets of 1966’s The Power of the Daleks are recreated, providing new insights into this mostly missing story.
• The Fact of Fiction encounters Cybermen and Daleks as it looks back at 2006’s Army of Ghosts.
• Other Worlds – an essential guide to forthcoming stories in the expanded Doctor Who universe.

·       Previews, reviews, news, prize-winning competitions, Time and Space Visualiser, Sufficient Data and more.

Doctor Who Magazine Issue 584 is on sale Thursday 10 November from panini.co.uk and WH Smith priced £6.99 (UK).

Also available as a digital edition from pocketmags.com priced £5.99.

The weekly consolidated ratings for the week 17-23 October have been released by BARB, indicating that Jodie Whittaker's swansong The Power of the Doctor achieved 5.295 million viewers, making it the second most watched programme on the Sunday and the fifth most watched programme overall for the week.

Top of the week went to Saturday's Strictly Come Dancing (which saw contestant Tyler West and dance partner Dianne Buswell performing the Tango to the Doctor Who theme) with some 9.894m, followed by Sunday's Results show with 8.634m; third place went to Channel 4's The Great British Bake Off with 7.794m, and ITV's Doc Martin was fourth with 5.610m.

The episode achieved 5.1m via TV viewing which placed it sixth (with Wednesday's Coronation Street some 46000 viewers more),; however, once other ways to watch were factored in (4-Screen) it enabled the episode to overtake the soap into fifth place by some 45000 extra viewers! Sunday's BBC News at 10 (which featured an interview with David Tennant on his return to the role) which originally was ahead of Doctor Who on overnights eventually settled into 23rd place with 3.919m viewers (very few people tend to watch the news on catchup  unlike soaps and drama!)

Breaking down the ratings, the episode was watched by 2.37m viewers live, gaining another 1.25m/1.34m overnight via TV/4-Screen respectively (VOSDAL). The last seven days saw an additional 1.48m/1.59m catch up on the show.

The position marks the highest place the show has achieved since Whittker's first few episodes back in 2018 (where her debut hit the top spot and the next three episodes all made 4th place). It is also the highest veiwing figure for the show since The Halloween Apocalypse a year ago today.  

The signed repeat of the episode broadcast early Saturday morning on BBC2 was watched by 35000 viewers. 

Figures for other regions include ABC in Australia with 103000 viewers, and BBC America in the United States with 317000 viewers (64th place in the cable charts with a Neilsen 18-49 rating of 0.06).

With the news that David Tennant has returned to the TARDIS as the Fourteenth Doctor, fans will have a chance to get a first look in person at the new Doctor’s costume at London MCM Comic Con.

Viewers to Sunday night's special saw Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor regenerate on screen into David Tennant, who returns for Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary. Tennant last appeared on screen as the Tenth Doctor in 2010.

The Fourteenth Doctor’s costume will be on show at London’s Excel between 28-30th October, where thousands of fans will come together to celebrate all things pop culture. As well as the Doctor’s outfit, fans will get a glimpse of Catherine Tate’s returning companion Donna Noble’s costume too.

Vanessa Hamilton, Director of Brand for Doctor Who, at BBC Studios, said:

Fans will be able to see the Fourteenth Doctor’s costume in person at the Doctor Who stand.

Exclusive items from Forbidden Planet and Titan Merchandise’s Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Collection will also be available for fans to buy. 

As part of the promotion for the new series and the deal with Disney, the BBC have released a video featuring the next Doctor Ncuti Gatwa discussing the role and what he'd like to see and do in his episodes.

Ncuti Gatwa's guide to Doctor Who

The BBC have announced a deal with Disney Branded Television to provide Doctor Who on its streaming platform Disney+ internationally, including a new (but familiar looking!) logo for the series.

Under a shared creative vision, the two organisations will deliver the series using Disney+ as the exclusive home for new seasons outside the UK and Ireland. The announcement was made by the next Doctor Ncuti Gatwa during an appearance on American breakfast show Live with Kelly and Ryan this morning.

The new episodes will premiere on the BBC and Disney+ beginning in late 2023 for fans all over the world.

The show is produced in Wales by Bad Wolf with BBC Studios Production. Showrunner Russell T Davies said

Charlotte Moore, BBC's Chief Content Officer said:

Alisa Bowen, President of Disney+ said:

Ayo Davis, President of Disney Branded Television said:

Rebecca Glashow, CEO, Global Distribution, BBC Studios says:

Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner, Executive Producers and Co-founders, Bad Wolf, said:

The Power of the Doctor achieved an Audience Appreciation Index score of 82.

The appreciation index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. The score, out of a hundred, is compiled by a specially selected panel of around 5,000 people who go online and rate and comment on programmes.

The score of 82 is the highest figure Doctor Who has achieved since the same score was recorded against the 2020 series finale The Timeless Children, with the intervening eight episodes of 2021/22 only averaging 76.6.

Jodie Whittaker's tenure saw the audience appreciation index range from its lowest score of 75 for Once, Upon Time to its highest of 83 with her debut story The Woman Who Fell To Earth alongside Rosa, Arachnids In The UK, and the following season's Fugitive of the Judoon.

The overall average for the whole of the 13th Doctor's era of 31 episodes is 79.6.

You can review the complete list of AIs scored over Doctor Who's history via our guide.

The finale of The Power of the Doctor saw Jodie Whittaker's Doctor regenerate into a surprisingly familiar face in the form of the 10th Doctor David Tennant! The actor was announced as returning back in May 2022 alongside Catherine Tate, reprising her former role as sidekick Donna. At the time showrunner Russell T Davies teased:

However, with Tennant now revealed to be the 14th Doctor, quite why this has occured and how it will lead into the next Doctor played by Ncuti Gatwa remains a mystery, with Davies commenting:

Three specials have been filmed for the 60th anniversary and are due to be shown in November 2023, with Ncuti Gatwa's first official episode to be broadcast over the following festive period.

Issue 583 of Doctor Who Magazine contains an exclusive preview of the final story for the thirteenth Doctor, The Power of the Doctor. 

Highlights of the new issue include:

• Jodie Whittaker (the Doctor), Mandip Gill (Yaz), John Bishop (Dan) and writer Chris Chibnall talk exclusively to DWM about The Power of the Doctor in the 19-page preview. 

• Chris Chibnall signs off as showrunner in his final Production Notes.

• More from Chris, as he braves questions randomly selected from the TARDIS tin.

• A full preview and contents list of the forthcoming Blu-ray box set Doctor Who: The Collection – Season 2.

• A previously unpublished interview with the late Colin Lavers reveals the stories behind the costumes he designed for 1983’s The King’s Demons and The Five Doctors.

• The sets of 1965’s Galaxy 4 are recreated, providing new insights into this mostly missing story.

• The Fact of Fiction travels deep inside the most incredible machine in the universe as it looks back at 2013’s Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS.

• The final part of The Everlasting Summer, a new comic-strip adventure for the Doctor, Yaz and Dan.

• Previews, reviews, news, prize-winning competitions, Time and Space Visualiser, Sufficient Data and more.

PLUS!

• Doctor Who: A BBC Production, a 28-page supplement tracing the behind-the-scenes history of the show and highlighting the BBC executives who have steered its course.

• A diorama of the First Doctor’s TARDIS control room.

• A huge double-sided poster with images from The Power of the Doctor.

• A download code for a complete, 60-minute Doctor Who audio drama.

Doctor Who Magazine Issue 583 is on sale Thursday 20 October from panini.co.uk and WH Smith priced £10.99 (UK). Also available as a digital edition from pocketmags.com priced £9.99.

The Thirteen Doctor’s final battles to be marked with a special home entertainment releases

Jodie Whittaker’s final three episodes as The Doctor will be available for fans to add to their collections this November.

Fans have two options to commemorate the Thirteenth Doctor’s final battles. A standalone release of the regeneration episode, The Power of the Doctor will be available on DVD and Blu-ray, or alternatively a limited-edition Blu-ray Steelbook made up of the three Series 13 specials, Eve of the Daleks, Legend of the Sea Devils and The Power of the Doctor.

The Power of the Doctor (DVD & Blu-ray), to be transmitted later this month, sees the Thirteenth Doctor take on her deadliest enemies in her final battle. The DVD and Blu-ray includes bonus materials:

• The Power of the Doctor – Behind the Scenes
• A farewell to Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill
• Audio commentary

Doctor Who The Series 13 Specials (Blu-ray Steelbook) consists of the three specials that have aired on TV in 2022. The Steelbook includes bespoke never seen before artwork of the Thirteenth Doctor’s final adventures.

Bonus Material includes:

• The Dalek Execution
• The Sea Devils Return
• Becoming Pirates
• The Power of the Doctor – Behind the Scenes
• A farewell to Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill
• Audio commentaries of all three episodes

Both releases will be available for fans to buy from 14th November and is available for pre order on Amazon