Doctor Who Magazine Issue 605 is out today.

Inside this issue

• Previews of the thrilling season finale, Empire of Death, and the new Tales of the TARDIS episode, Pyramids of Mars – a new presentation of a seventies classic!

• The Changing Face of Susan Twist – as the mystery behind her character is resolved, she reflects on her role in the latest season…

• The men from UNIT – Lenny Rush (aka new scientific adviser Morris Gibbons) and Alexander Devrient (Colonel Ibrahim) share their experiences of working on the season finale.

• Indira Varma on playing the Duchess of Pemberton and a bird-like alien Chuldur.

• Access All Areas: Rogue. Join the cast and crew on a night shoot in south Wales, including more from Jonathan Groff about playing the eponymous bounty hunter.

• Access All Areas: 73 Yards. Join Millie Gibson on location and get up close to the mysterious woman who stalked Ruby over the decades.

• Strictly confidential! Shirley Ballas and Johannes Radebe share their delight in being invited to dance in The Devil’s Chord.

• Bang on Target! The authors of the new novelisations discuss how they adapted some of the latest episodes for print.

• Russell T Davies on watching (or trying to watch!) recent episode Boom with his family.

• Meet the crew – an interview with one of the tireless creatives working behind the scenes.

• Loose Ends travels to ancient Egypt and imagines scenes that happened off screen.

• The Fact of Fiction – a scene-by-scene look back at Eleventh Doctor story Vincent and the Doctor.

• The latest installment of our comic strip featuring the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby.

PLUS!

• Gallifrey Guardian – all the latest news, including details of a wide range of books soon to hit the shelves!

• Reviewed: all the latest audio releases.

• Other Worlds – the essential guide to new stories in Doctor Who’s expanded universe.

• Win Blu-rays, books and audio releases!

Doctor Who Magazine Issue 605 is on sale Thursday 20 June  from panini.co.uk and WH Smith priced £7.99 (UK). 

Also available as a digital edition from pocketmags.com priced £6.99.

Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson, are to appear in a new Tales of the TARDIS with The Doctor and Ruby embarking on a journey to the Pyramids of Mars

Following on from Saturday’s episode, The Legend of Ruby Sunday, in which the Doctor and Ruby came face to face with one of the Doctor’s greatest enemies, Sutekh, played by original actor Gabriel Woolf, the pair are set to take a trip down memory lane in Tales of the TARDIS: Pyramids of Mars.

The brand-new episode will feature an appearance from the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) for the very first time in Tales of the TARDIS.

Originally airing in 1975, the four-part story Pyramids of Mars sees the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) battle the almighty Sutekh. The classic story has been remastered into a feature-length omnibus episode that’s had a cosmic makeover, with updated visual effects. 

Phil Collinson, Executive Producer, says:

Experience the moment the Doctor first met his ferocious enemy Sutekh when Tales of the TARDIS: Pyramids of Mars airs on Thursday 20th June at 8 pm on BBC Four and BBC iPlayer.

Doctor Who season one is now available on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK and on Disney+ in the rest of the world, where available.

The latest special from Doctor Who Magazine, Doctor Who: Print the Legend, is now available.

This lavish, 116-page bookazine from the makers of Doctor Who Magazine is the essential guide to novelisations – hardback, paperback and audio adaptations of television stories.

Highlights include profiles of leading authors, a section on collecting rarities, a look at the recording of the audiobooks and a tribute to illustrator Chris Achilléos.

Exclusives include a previously unpublished extract from The Enemy of the World, the book that legendary Doctor Who writer David Whitaker was working on before his death in 1980.

Editor Marcus Hearn says

Each issue of Print the Legend comes with a free CD audiobook, randomly selected from the BBCAudiobooks Doctor Who range.

Doctor Who: Print the Legend is on sale now from panini.co.uk and WH Smith priced £11.99 (UK).

Also available as a digital edition from pocketmags.com priced £10.99.

William Russell, the actor and one of the original stars of Doctor Who has died at the age of 99.

William Russell played Ian Chesterton in the very first episode of Doctor Who, the teacher who investigated the mysterious pupil at Coal Hill School and who was spirited away in the TARDIS by the first Doctor. 

As one of the original stars of Doctor Who, Russell was a huge part of the initial success of the show, who, along with Jacqueline Hill playing Barbara Wright, often bore the weight of keeping a long-running weekly show on the straight and narrow. 

Russell stayed with Doctor Who for its first two years, appearing in 78 episodes. His last appearance was in The Planet of Decision, the final episode of The Chase, broadcast on the 26th June 1965.

He recreated the character of Ian for the Big Finish audio series. In 2022 he brought the character back to the Television series with a cameo in the final thirteenth Doctor story The Power of the Doctor. He holds the Guinness World Record for the longest gap between TV appearances of an actor playing a television character. 

William Russell was born as William Russell Enoch on the 19th of November 1924.  He studied at Wolverhampton Grammar School and Oxford University before doing his National Service in the Royal Air Force where he became involved in organising entertainment. 

After university, he gained a place in a repertory company and thus began a 70-year career as a successful actor.  He began his career with the stage name Russell Enoch, later changing it to William Russell at the request of Norman Wisdom when they made a film together in 1955. He was known to his fellow artists as Russ. 

His real success was in television where he was a presence in so many well known British dramas. His first credited appearance was in Gift Horse in 1952, a time when all television drama was transmitted live.

By 1956 he was a leading man, playing a swashbuckling knight, the title character in ITV series The Adventures of Sir Lancelot. When the series was sold to the US, the first British TV import to be shot in colour for an American audience, Russell rode down Fifth Avenue on a horse in full regalia. 

A year later he was on BBC Television playing Dickens Nicholas Nickleby in a ten-part series. 

Movie work including a role in the war movie The Great Escape where he played Soren. He met his first wife, the French model and actor Balbina Gutierrez on a location shoot in Malta for the film 1954 They Who Dare

By the time he was offered the role of Ian Chesterton, he was established as a reliable character actor. His experience was vital in the series which was recorded as live with one episode produced each week. With William Hartnell sometimes struggling to remember his lines, the onus of keeping the show running often fell on Russell with improvisation and adlibbing needed to ensure plot points were explained and the episode was recorded successfully.

After he left Doctor Who Russell was a constant presence on British television with roles in series such as Dr. Finlay's Casebook, Harriet's Back in Town, Crown Court, Van Der Valk, Strangers, Disraeli, Shoestring Testament of Youth, The Professionals, The Black Adder, Robin of Sherwood, Coronation Street, Casualty, Poirot, and Heartbeat. 

William Russell was present at many conventions and was always very proud of his work on Doctor Who. 

Russell is survived by his second wife, Etheline Lewis, a doctor, whom he married in 1984, and their son, the actor Alfred Enoch, and by his children, Vanessa, Laetitia and Robert, from his marriage to Balbina, which ended in divorce, and four grandchildren, James, Elise, Amy and Ayo.