Issue #4 of Doctor Who Adventures from BBC Magazines, the children's magazine for fans of the show, will be out on 17 May, and we have a preview below; click on the thumbnail for a larger version. (Thanks to Naomi at BBC Magazines)

According to several sources, BBC Video may be releasing The Hand of Fear starring Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen (in her final performance in the classic series until "The Five Doctors") on DVD in the UK on 24 July, followed by The Mark of the Rani starring Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant with Anthony Ainley and Kate O'Mara on 4 September. This is after the release of Inferno starring Jon Pertwee on 5 June and in-between select releases of Series Two DVD sets on 10 July (Volume 3), 7 August (Volume 4) and 18 September (Volume 5). This information was recently communicated to various dealers of Doctor Who merchandise by BBC Worldwide, though it still remains unofficial and unconfirmed in the meanwhile.

This week's Programme Information from the BBC Press Office previews the episode The Idiot's Lantern on 27 May with an interview with Mark Gatiss on page 11 of the Features article (note: PDF file); the article includes at least one picture spoiler. Says Gatiss on how the story came about, '[Lead writer] Russell [T Davies] asked me to do a Fifties story. It was originally meant to be much more rock 'n' roll but everyone loved the notion of the Coronation – it's one of those big, gettable 'front-of-the Radio-Times' ideas so we settled on 1953. I've always loved old TV and the early BBC days at Ally Pally so it was lovely to use all that – and very appropriate to have a monster that gets at you via your telly! It's a very atmospheric episode and Euros [Lyn], the director, has shot it in a semi-noirish, Fifties style which is terrific.' Gatiss says his writing on the series is 'a dream come true. Last year it was so unreal, this year everyone's found their feet a lot more, I think, but because the show's an established hit there's that extra pressure to top the success. It's just brilliant to be part of a vibrant, modern show that's still absolutely the Doctor Who we grew up with and loved.' Gatiss notes that he loves 'the historical stories. They were always my favourites in old Doctor Who. I'm hoping that the 'Gatiss by gaslight' becomes an annual fixture! I wouldn't rule out doing a modern-day story but I do have so much fun popping back in time. Having said that, I didn't know as much about the Fifties as I do about Victoriana so I had to do quite a bit of research, but that was delightful. So many people remember the Coronation. I talked to my Dad and some older friends and they all have a version of the 'everyone crowded into one room' story which is at the heart of the episode.' He notes that 'You have to be much more aware of the feel of the whole season. You don't want the leads to be jarringly different in each story just because there's a different writer. What's great about this season is that there's so much variety, with lots of different types of adventure: scary, funny, sad and some that are very, very moving.'

The Programming Information document (also PDF) for Saturday 27 May shows the episode returning to the 7pm timeslot. Details on the episode are noted below.

Issue #370 of Doctor Who Magazine will be released on May 25, and we have an early preview below; click on the thumbnail for a larger version of the cover. (Thanks to Tom Spilsbury/DWM)

Final viewing figures for the season's third episode, School Reunion(broadcast on April 29), are in: according to the BARB, with timeshifted viewings taken into account, the episode was watched by an average of 8.31 million viewers, the twelfth most watched programme of the week and the fifth highest ranking television show. This is an upwards adjustment of approximately 700,000 additional viewers. Also, BBC3 repeat of "School Reunion" on Friday night May 5 was watched by 430,900 viewers (2.8% audience share), seventh for the evening on the non-terrestrial channels, peaking at 471,200 viewers. Interestingly, the earlier repeat of "School Reunion" on Sunday April 30 achieved a massive Audience Appreciation Index (AI) score of 89.

Meanwhile, the latest transmitted episode this season, The Girl in the Fireplace broadcast last Saturday (May 6), achieved another high initial AI figure of 84, the second-highest ranking of Saturday evening. The Sunday evening (May 7) repeat of the episode on BBC3 was watched by 686,000 viewers (3.5% audience share) according to Viewingfigures, peaking in the five-minute intervals at the end of the transmission to 878,000 viewers, ranked fifth in the non-terrestrial channels for the evening. The installment of "Doctor Who Confidential Cut Down" that immediately preceded it had 299,000 viewers (1.8% audience share). The AI ranking for the Saturday night episode of "Confidential" (May 6) was 82. (Thanks to 'Shaun Lyon,' Andy Parish)

Ratings for the ninth episode of the first season of the new series, The Empty Child, on US television on the Sci Fi Channel, have come in: the telecast had a household rating of 1.04 with an average of 1.2 million viewers, a drop of a tenth of a million viewers and the lowest broadcast of the new season to date. (The broadcast took place on Cinco de Mayo, however, with viewing levels possibly affected in the evening; ratings on the broadcast networks were also noticeably down that night.) Season-to-date, Sci Fi reports that Doctor Who is currently averaging a 1.29 household rating and an average audience of 1.5 million viewers for the season.

Doctor Who was the main winner at tonight's prestigious industry awards, the BAFTA Awards (or British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards), taking all three of the awards for which it was nominated.Billie Piper and a Dalek accepted the award for Best Drama Series, as well as the Pioneer Audience Award for best television programme of 2005. Russell T Davies won the Dennis Potter Award for outstanding writing for television, which was presented to him by a kilted David Tennant. Davies is reported as saying, "We were told that bringing it back would be impossible, that we would never capture this generation of children. But we did it."

The BAFTA Awards ceremony will be televised from 9pm on Monday on ITV.


The show's success, alongside a number of other BBC successes, dominates much of the early coverage of the awards ceremony, with a two-minute report appearing on BBC News 24 and BBC One's evening news (also available online at BBC News); this report includes a brief clip of the Dalek arriving for the ceremony and David Tennant speaking to reporters on the programme's "cross-nation appeal". The Guardianappears to be making Doctor Who's awards front-page news, with "Doctor Who finally materialises on red carpet as TV series scoops drama prize" concentrating on the supposed previous lack of industry awards for the series, discussed by Russell T Davies in a recent Guardian podcast. (In fact, the series has won several industry awards, as previously reported by Outpost Gallifrey, although it missed out at the Royal Television Society Awards in March.)

In related news, actress Anna Maxwell Martin, who played ill-begotten employee Suki Macrae Cantrell in last season's The Long Game, won the Best Actress award for her role in BBC One's Bleak House, which also won the award for Best Drama Serial.

The results have also been reported in a second story by the Guardian, as well as The Independent, The Scotsman, The Times, Times Entertainment, The Sun, The Telegraph, This Is London, GMTV,icNetwork,NewsWire, Ireland Online, Breaking News, Irish Examiner, Evening Echo, Ananova, Newsquest.

ITV.com, ITN and Channel 4 News also cover the story but leads with the ITV network's only success of the evening, The X Factor.

TV, Radio Coverage: Tonight's evening news bulletin on BBC One at 10.30pm had a short report on the BAFTA winners towards the end of the fifteen-minute programme. There were no clips from the actual ceremony, only from the winning shows and behind-the-scenes and red carpet moments, the main event doubtless embargoed until the ITV1 broadcast tomorrow, but it was still a nice little report. Presented by reporter David Sillitoe, he opened by saying that Doctor Who was "the big winner" of the night, over a clip of the TARDIS crash-landing from The Christmas Invasion. There was a clip of David Tennant saying to the gathered press that the show had "a cross-nation appeal... unlike anything else I've ever been involved with." There was then coverage of some of the other winners, before Sillitoe finished by comparing the two main winners of the night, Doctor Who and Bleak House, describing them as "two dramas there were a gamble, but both proved that they could strike a chord with the public and the academy." The evening's triumphs for Doctor Who were also covered tonight on the BBC's news and sport talk station, Radio 5 Live, on The Weekend News programme, hosted by Lesley Ashmall and John Pienaar. The report, just after the 9.30pm news and sport bulletin at about 9.37pm. The report was from their man on the spot Colin Paterson, who opened by announcing Doctor Who as the big winner of the night. He happened to have Little Britain's Matt Lucas with him, who he asked about the show's success, although Lucas was somewhat bemused, not having been in the show as Paterson seemed to have thought he was, Paterson having assumed the comic was in it as he'd been in the premiere last year. Nonetheless, Lucas said he was glad that Doctor Who had won. Paterson mentioned that Russell T Davies had won the Dennis Potter Award for Outstanding Writing for Television, before moving onto rounding up the other winners.

Early news of overnight viewing figures for Saturday's new Doctor Who episode The Girl in the Fireplace on BBC1 are in: an average of 7.4 million viewers watched the episode, with an average 36.6% audience share, down only 0.2 million from the previous week's "School Reunion". According to the ViewingFigures report on 15-minute intervals the episode peaked in the final segment (7.30-7.45) to 7.8 million viewers, while the five-minute statistics show a peak up to 8.10 million viewers between 7.35 and 7.40pm right before the end of the episode. The huge climb of viewership between the start of the episode in the five-minute intervals (6.26 million at 7.00pm, to 7.39 million at 7.15pm, over a million extra viewers) suggest that UK audiences were unprepared for the move of the series to the 7.00pm time slot this week, as it had begun at 7.15pm the previous three weeks.

"Doctor Who" was again the #1 rated show on UK television on Saturday both by viewers as well as by audience share.

Meanwhile, the broadcast of the fourth episode of Doctor Who Confidential on BBC3 immediately afterward attracted 724,400 viewers, with a 4.7% audience share. Doctor Who Confidential was #1 for Saturday broadcast on the non-terrestrial channels. (Thanks to 'Shaun Lyon', Andy Parish)