BBC Worldwide Australia & New Zealand have announced that the 50th Anniversary feature-length Doctor Who story, The Day of the Doctor, is to be screened in 3D in some 87 cinemas in Australia and 19 in New Zealand.

Sharon Wilson, Head of Marketing, Brands for BBC Worldwide Australia & New Zealand said:

The cinema screenings will be held on Sunday 24th November, the same day as the anniversary is broadcast in those countries, and will also include specially-shot introductions that will be seen by cinema audiences around the world.

.As previously reported, Splendid Chaps is a year-long performance/podcast project to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who hosted by comedian Ben McKenzie (Dungeon Crawl, Melbourne Museum Comedy Tour) and writer John Richards (ABC1 sitcom Outland, Boxcutters podcast).

Described by its creators as part intellectual panel discussion, part nerdy Tonight Show, Splendid Chaps is a combination of analysis, enthusiasm and irreverence. The first episode went to number 1 on the iTunes TV & Film Podcast chart in Australia, and to number 4 in the UK. The podcasts to previous episodes are now available at www.splendidchaps.com or at iTunes.

Tickets are now available for their three live November shows: "What I Learned From Doctor Who", "The Other Splendid Chaps: The Companions" and "Eleven/Future". 

In the first of these three shows, the Splendid Chaps are doing a special bonus episode talking about what they’ve learned from Doctor Who!

Born in part as an educational program, with Sydney Newman wanting no “bug-eyed monsters”, Doctor Who has often sought to educate us about our world – and the Universe beyond it. But over the years, as the traditional educational content about history and science faded away, it still brought us concepts and ideas – Buddhism, mythology, ethics, politics, friendship…there’s so much to learn from the Doctor!

Ben, John and Petra Elliott will be joined by comedian, actor and teacher Rob Lloyd (Who, Me.), and writer and editor Liz Barr (Chicks Unravel Time and its impending sequel) for a discussion of what Doctor Who has taught them. Plus prizes, surprises, all the usual Splendid Stuff, and a live poetry performance from the one and only Emile Zoey Baker!

Space: Toorak/South Yarra Library, 340 Toorak Road, South Yarra
Time: Saturday, November 16 2013, 4:00 PM
Accessibility: This venue is wheelchair accessible.
Tickets: All tickets $10 (plus booking fee where applicable)
Bookings: via trybooking.com, or buy tickets at the door (subject to availability)
Podcast: TBA.

In their second show for November, the Splendid Chaps are back with another bonus episode, this time at the Melbourne City Library as part of its Doctor Who Festival, talking about those other splendid chaps – the companions!

Companion, assistant, sidekick…none of these names really do the role of TARDIS occupant and time-space adventurer justice. In fifty years the Doctor has had almost as many fellow travellers aboard the TARDIS – most human, but also a few robots, aliens and fellow Time Lords. Exactly who counts varies depends on who you ask, but they’ve always been understood to be our point-of-view character; a proxy for the audience who will ask the Doctor to explain what on (or off) Earth is going on. Who are these people? What do they teach us about ourselves, the Doctor, and our changing society? Are they really there to get in trouble, pass the Zeus plugs and make the Doctor a better person, or is there more to them than meets the eye? And how different is the new series’ attitude to its supporting characters?

Ben, John and Petra will be joined by writer, director and podcaster Lucas Testro (Neighbours, Winners and Losers, NonCanonical), and broadcaster, documentary maker and podcaster Marian Blythe (3RRR, Boxcutters 2.0) to talk about the rest of the TARDIS crew. Plus prizes, surprises, loveliness and a live musical performance of a lost Doctor Who classic tune from Emma Heeney!

Space: Melbourne City Library, 253 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Time: Tuesday, November 19 2013, 6:30 PM
Accessibility: This venue is wheelchair accessible.
Tickets: Free! (bookings essential; limited seats available)
Bookings: via webwiredsolutions.com.au or at the door (if seats available)
Podcast: TBA.

Finally, their eleventh and final(ish) major episode brings then to the (still) current Doctor, Matt Smith. Splitting fan opinion on his announcement, in part because of his youth and obscurity, he soon won over audiences with a performance influenced by Patrick Troughton. This was also the biggest time of change in the revived show’s history, with not only a new Doctor, but a new production team, headed by fan favourite writer Steven Moffat, bringing a definite new feel to the show.

As Splendid Chaps draws to a close, the Chaps want to look forward as well as back, and so take as their theme the future. The Doctor in the old series and the new has often looked forward in time, whether a few decades, a few centuries, or even millions or billions of years. How has the show depicted the future? Has it tried to be predictive, or to express our hopes and fears? And what of the future of the show itself? With Matt Smith leaving, what does the future have in store for Doctor Who?

Hosts Ben, John and Petra are joined by comedians Justin Hamilton and Stella Young, plus a new song from Keating! composer Casey Bennetto, backed by their house band The Time Lads. Plus there will of course be prizes, surprises, jokes and more; it’s the end, but the moment has been prepared for! (They have a little something extra up their sleeves…)

Space: ACMI, Federation Square, Melbourne
Time: Thursday, November 21 2013; recording starts 7 PM
Accessibility: This venue is wheelchair accessible.
Tickets: $15 full, $12 concession, $11 ACMI members (plus booking fee where applicable)
Bookings: via ACMI online, or at the ACMI box office (subject to availability)
Podcast: not yet available; released 23 November 2013.

The twenty-fourth in our series of features telling the story of the creation of Doctor Who, and the people who made it happen.

Production on the new series was progressing. The pilot had been recorded, and a revised episode one was being worked on. Meanwhile, the production team were anxiously awaiting news on whether they would be allowed to continue beyond the first story.

On Monday 14th October 1963 - exactly 50 years ago today - the TARDIS team reconvened to start a week of rehearsals leading up to the re-recording of the first episode. They had been given a second chance and this time they had to get it right.

The rehearsal venue was another drill hall, this time in Uxbridge Road, just a few hundred yards west of the Lime Grove Studios. Like the drill hall in Walmer Road, the building no longer exists and this site is now occupied by the London College of Professional Training. The cast had just four days to refine their characters and take on board all the changes requested by Head of Drama Sydney Newman before appearing in front of the cameras once more.

If they were successful, this would be the start of a long journey for the four main cast members. If the series were to continue beyond the initial four episodes, the actors' lives would be governed by a strict schedule. Rehearsals would be Monday to Thursday, followed by a long exhausting Friday in the studio, rehearsing with the cameras all day and then recording on the Friday evening. The weekend would be spent learning the scripts for the next week before the process began all over again on the Monday. The only respite would be when the actor was granted a week's holiday, in which case the character would be written out of that particular episode, or the role would be rewritten to a brief cameo, pre-recorded on film.

One person missing from the reassembled cast was Fred Rawlings, who had played the policeman in the opening shot in the pilot. He was unavailable for the remount and the role was taken by Reg Cranfield, who would therefore become the first actor to be seen in Doctor Who.

While the actors were rehearsing, they were largely unaware of the BBC politics surrounding the programme, and the memo sent by Head of Serials Donald Wilson, asking for some commitment for the series from the powers-that-be.

In response to Wilson's memo, on Wednesday 16th October Controller of Programmes Donald Baverstock decided, having now watched the pilot episode, that he would commit to funding 13 episodes of the new series. It was not an unconditional offer though, and Baverstock was worried about the spiralling costs of a series that required so much attention.

In a memo he asked John Mair, who was the Planning Manager, to state what "extra programme allowance will be required to finance the special effects requirements and the operating effort needed to work them in the studio." Baverstock intended to review the programme's budget by Friday 18th October, as he was due to take three weeks' leave and he wanted to decide on whether he could agree to an increase in budget before his break.

One departure that had already occurred was that of designer Peter Brachacki. Although he had come up with some innovative work on the first episode of the series, the designer and his producer, Verity Lambert, had never really seen eye to eye. Brachacki did not want to work on the series and had no great enthusiasm for the show. In addition, some of his more ambitious designs had failed to pay off. Originally, Brachacki wanted the walls to be translucent and to pulse with light when the ship was in flight. The cost, however, was prohibitive, as was his plan that the ship's controls would be isomorphic, moulded to the Doctor's hands.

So when Brachacki fell ill and it was apparent that he would be out of action for a while, the production team asked for him to be replaced on a permanent basis. His work was split between two designers, Barry Newbery and Raymond P Cusick, who would alternate between stories. Newbery took over Brachacki's designs for the first episode. One of the first problems he had to solve, though, was that the junkyard set and classroom set, used in the pilot episode, had been broken up, despite Lambert asking that they should be kept, so both sets would need to be rebuilt. The TARDIS interior, however, did remain.

Amidst some confusion over the DVD releases of the recovered The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear, BBC Worldwide have confirmed that these will be single disc releases as described by online shopping sites and not two discs as the covers released earlier today indicated.

The BBFC have now classified The Enemy of the World, confirming the running time for the episodes:

Episodes One-Three:
00:23:45:01 DOCTOR WHO - THE ENEMY OF THE WORLD - EPISODE 1
00:23:50:17 DOCTOR WHO - THE ENEMY OF THE WORLD - EPISODE 2
00:23:07:09 DOCTOR WHO - THE ENEMY OF THE WORLD - EPISODE 3

Episodes Four-Six:
00:23:46:11 DOCTOR WHO - THE ENEMY OF THE WORLD - EPISODE 4
00:24:22:05 DOCTOR WHO - THE ENEMY OF THE WORLD - EPISODE 5
00:21:38:11 DOCTOR WHO - THE ENEMY OF THE WORLD - EPISODE 6

No other features have been announced for either this or The Web of Fear at present.


Amazon UK have both The Enemy of the World (25 Nov 2013) and The Web of Fear (24 Feb 2014) available for pre-order; BBC Worldwide have advised that the latter's general release date is currently provisional and may well change.

The BBC Shop is offering the DVDs with exclusive slipcases, and will also be selling a special celebratory t-shirt (artwork to be confirmed).

Nine episodes from the fifth season of Doctor Who and starring Patrick Troughton as the Doctor have been recovered from Nigeria, having been feared gone forever, the BBC announced today.

The previously missing, presumed destroyed episodes hail from The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear, with episodes 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 of Enemy completing that particular story and the return of episodes 2, 4, 5, and 6 of Web meaning only episode 3 of the Yeti sequel is still missing. Episode 3 of Enemy and episode 1 of Web were also returned, but were already held in the archive.

The recovery now brings the total number of missing episodes down to 97 and is the biggest single find in decades.

They - and the relevant stories' already-surviving episodes - had originally gone to Hong Kong but had been "bicycled" on and were discovered at a TV relay station in the city of Jos by Philip Morris, executive director of Television International Enterprises Archives (TIEA), who tracked records of overseas shipments made by the BBC containing tapes for transmission.

All the episodes - including a reconstructed episode 3 of Web - have been remastered and are available to buy via download as of now from iTunes by people in the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, France, and Germany. The third episode of Web has been reconstructed by the BBC Doctor Who Restoration Team, using a selection of the 37 images that were available from the episode, along with the original audio, which has been restored.

In addition, The Enemy of the World will be available to buy on DVD from Friday 22nd November at the Doctor Who Celebration. It will then go on sale to the general public on Monday 25th November, with The Web of Fear to follow in early 2014.

It is unknown exactly when the episodes were found, but in a BBC press release statement, Morris said: Doctor Who News was at the press conference held yesterday in central London to announce the finds, where Deborah Watling, Frazer Hines, and Mark Gatiss were the special guests and screenings of episode 1 of Enemy and episode 2 of Web took place to rapturous applause.

Speaking about the recoveries, Hines told Doctor Who News: At the press conference, Dan Phelan, head of communication for BBC Worldwide, commented on the recent rife speculation, calling it "some 'almost' well-informed, some very wide of the mark." He also told Doctor Who News: A statement from Morris was then read out by Roy Robinson, archive co-ordinator at TIEA, part of which was as follows: A filmed interview with Morris was also shown, in which he said they had been very lucky because the episodes had been kept in optimum condition. He also praised the restoration, recovery, and archive work done by the BBC.

The screening of the second episode of The Web of Fear was introduced by Gatiss, who said: Watling's father, Jack, played Professor Travers in both Yeti stories, and during the question-and-answer panel, she commented on seeing her father again on the screen by simply saying: "That's brilliant!" She also added how Troughton had been like another father and another uncle to her.

Hines praised "the set boys" on The Web of Fear, saying they deserved a BAFTA and commenting that it was so realistic he thought the train lines would be live. He also recalled how Watling teased Troughton as he attempted a South American accent for Salamander in The Enemy of the World, saying that it sounded Welsh, which caused Troughton to slink away somewhat deflated!

Watling said about the episode discoveries: But when it was finally confirmed: Hines added: Stories Hines said he would most like to see returned were The Evil of the Daleks and The Space Pirates (because of the model work), while Watling cited Fury From The Deep, and Gatiss named The Power of the Daleks and The Daleks' Master Plan as his choice candidates for recovery.

In the press statement, Fiona Eastwood, director of consumer products for BBC Worldwide, commented:

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The twenty-third in our series of features telling the story of the creation of Doctor Who, and the people who made it happen.

Production on the new series was continuing, but the process was not without problems. A version of episode one had been recorded,  but was deemed unsuitable for broadcast by the senior managers in the drama department. Changes would have to be made, but the team would be given a second chance.

Any science-fiction series relies heavily on the production's ability to create realistic special effects. A series such as that envisaged by the creators of Doctor Who would need to be able to convince the audience that a whole new universe exists. A universe full of petrified forests and starliners, seas of acid and advanced robots, and all traversed by advanced space-and-time machines. The past would need to be re-created, such as the temples of Tenochtitlan and the prisons of La Conciergerie, as well as a world inhabited by miniature characters.

It would be a tricky task to pull off, even with the might of the BBC operation behind the series. But the feeling in the Doctor Who production office was that various departments were not giving the series the attention it demanded and deserved. One problem had been the work on the TARDIS set, built by Shawcraft rather than the internal BBC Scenic Department. The doors were very unreliable, causing major problems in the recording session the previous week.

The series had still not been commissioned beyond the first four episodes. This was making future planning very difficult, as it was entirely possible that the series would not continue beyond the first story, and so no long-term commitments could be made.

On Thursday 10th October - exactly 50 years ago today - the Head of the Serials Department, Donald Wilson, decided enough was enough. His production team needed some support and the BBC needed to show some confidence in its new sci-fi drama. With this in mind, he sent a lengthy memo to some of the most senior members of BBC management. Included were Controller of Programmes Donald Baverstock, Programme Planner Joanna Spicer, Head of Drama Sydney Newman, and Head of Design Richard Levin.

Wilson made a plea for some confirmation that the series would be allowed to continue beyond the initial four episodes, pointing out that if arrangements were not put in order for future stories then the team would be left with four actors on contract and nothing ready for them to perform.

While discussions were going on at the highest levels about the very future of Doctor Who following its first story, production was continuing on that first story, with three days of filming taking place at Ealing. Supervised by production assistant Douglas Camfield, sets had been rigged on the Tuesday, rather later than planned because of transportation difficulties from Television Centre.

Filming took place from Wednesday to Friday to prepare all the insets that would be needed for the final three episodes of The Tribe of Gum. Sequences involving the paoelthic landscape and the fight in episode four were recorded in this session.

BBC America inadvertently revealed a potential time of broadcast for the 50th Anniversary Special, The Day of the Doctor, when they updated their advance schedules for November online. The (provisional) details indicated that after a week-long celebration of the series, it would premiere on 23rd November at 2:45pm Eastern time, meaning a UK broadcast of the 75-minute special would occupy a prime-time slot at 7:45pm (possibly after Strictly Come Dancing in such a scenario).

However, BBC America have confirmed that the schedule for the week leading up to the anniversary has yet to be finalised, and that the broadcast mentioned above is currently only a 'placeholder' until the BBC lock the exact time down - the BBC themselves are unlikely to confirm such a definite time until much closer to the date (which could be a lead time of just ten days before broadcast!)

As well as episodes and documentaries, other programming planned by BBC America over the course of the week includes: the US premiere of An Adventure in Space and Time (provisionally scheduled for Friday 22nd November at 9:00pm, and not expected to be simulcast with BBC2 in the UK!); Explaining Doctor Who, which UK channel Watch have scheduled for 12th October as part of their Doctor Who Revisited launch day; and other 'talking-head' items including Tales from the TARDIS and a special 15-minute Day of the Doctor Pre-Show (the provisional schedule indicated 7:00pm on the Saturday before a prime-time repeat of the episode).

As noted, all schedules are subject to change.

Faber and Faber have announced a book by Neil Perryman, the author of the popular Wife In Space blog, based around his experiences growing up and living as a Doctor Who fan:


I.B.Tauris have also announced four new Doctor Who related books being released over Autumn:


As well as Doctor Who a new book is being released looking into the four series of Torchwood:


Finally, Pageturner Publishing are releasing a collection of reviews of each episode day-by-day by Will Brooks:

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Obverse Books have published an e-collection of short stories in memory of Doctor Who, Iris Wildthyme and Faction Paradox author Matt Kimpton, who died last year of Cystic Fibrosis. Writers include Stuart Douglas, Nick Campbell, Sarah Hadley, Cavan Scott, Simon Bucher-Jones and Jacqueline Rayner, with all proceeds to go to Cystic Fibrosis charities.

More details on the genesis of the book (which isn't itself Doctor Who-related), and the slightly unusual idea behind it, can be found via Cavan Scott's website, and the book itself can be bought from Obverse (initially as an ebook, with a Lulu paperback to follow).

The award-winning Derek Landy has been named today as the author of the tenth and penultimate short story in Puffin Books' e-range celebrating Doctor Who's 50th anniversary.

The Mystery Of The Haunted Cottage, featuring the Tenth Doctor and Martha, will be published globally on Wednesday 23rd October.
An extract can be read via The Guardian's website.

Landy, who has penned the Skulduggery Pleasant series of children's books, commented: Landy's first book, Skulduggery Pleasant, won the Bord Gais Energy Irish Book of the Decade Award as well as the Red House Children's Book Award, while his second, Playing With Fire, won an Irish Book Award for Children's Book of the Year.

The author and title of the series' final instalment, to feature the Eleventh Doctor, will be announced on Tuesday 5th November. It will be published on Thursday 21st November alongside a paperback anthology of all 11 stories - to be called Eleven Doctors, Eleven Stories and which can be pre-ordered here - plus an audio collection.

A Doctor Who-themed trailer promoting the return of comedy panel quiz show Have I Got News For You has been made available to view online by the BBC.

The trailer, which has been airing on TV, shows the TARDIS arriving in front of the Houses of Parliament - and a visibly aged BBC News political editor Nick Robinson! - in the year 2063 and team captains Ian Hislop and Paul Merton emerging in Fourth Doctor-style garb to glean from a copy of a final print edition of a newspaper what has changed in the world. (Not much, apparently!)


This isn't the first time the show has had such a strong Doctor Who connection - and, indeed, a Fourth Doctor one at that. Tom Baker was the guest presenter on the third edition of the 36th series, which was first broadcast on 31st October 2008. (Staying in the sci-fi world, William Shatner also made a memorable appearance as guest host on the seventh edition of the 43rd series, first broadcast on 25th May 2012.)

Have I Got News For You will start its 46th series on BBC One on Friday 4th October at 9pm, with David Mitchell as the guest presenter and Danny Baker and Cathy Newman as the guest panellists. The series will comprise 11 episodes.