Series Four of Doctor Who will debut tonight Friday September 19th on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation at 9:00pm EDT across Canada (9:30pm in Newfoundland). In some markets this will put Doctor Who in direct competition with Series Two ofTorchwood which is currently running on " style="color: rgb(44, 111, 154); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">SPACE.

The CBC is launching Series Four with Partners in Crime. At this time there is no word on if or when the 2007 Christmas special Voyage of the Damnedwill air on CBC.

The CBC have updated their Doctor Who Websitefor Series Four.

Posted By John Bowman

Silva Screen Records is to release music from Series Four of Doctor Who in mid-November.

A news item on its website says the tracks, composed by Murray Gold, will include Song Of Freedom - the choral piece that marked the Daleks' defeat in Journey's End. The Doctor's Theme is another of the tracks, but no other titles are known yet.

The exact date of the CD's release has still to be announced.

Posted By John Bowman

Doctor Who Magazine reaches its 400th issue today in style, with eight extra pages and an exclusive photoshoot withDavid Tennant.

"I bought the first issue, in 1979," he tells DWM. "I just thought, at last! Why's this not happened before now? I was delighted."

Asked if he thinks the magazine could run for another 400 editions, Tennant replies: "You know, I'm tempted to say, 'If the television series continues,' but Doctor Who Magazine thrived when the series was nowhere to be seen, to be fair, so I can see no reason why it won't run and run. But hopefully the series will be there with the magazine, side by side, all the way. That's how it should be. Yeah, with me on the cover! Forever . . . "

Also in issue 400:

Executive producer Russell T Davies looks back over the past five years, in his most candid DWM interview ever

An exclusive competition where the prize is the chance to become a DWM reporter and go on the set of the TV series

Discover what dangers lie ahead for the Bannerman Road gang as DWM talks to writer Phil Ford and previews the new series of The Sarah Jane Adventures

Former editor Gary Gillatt takes an affectionate look at just what makes Doctor Who the best TV show ever

The Watcher casts a nostalgic eye over the past 400 issues as he charts the surprising, amusing and often bizarre history of Doctor Who Magazine

The Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker, joins The Time Team to watch the end of the epic 1986 adventure The Trial of a Time Lord

It's the start of a new era for the comic strip as the Doctor discovers a familiar face aboard a prison in space - Part One of Thinktwice is by Dan McDaid, with art by Martin Geraghty

A free, double-sided poster featuring an exclusive image of David Tennant on one side and every single cover of DWM on the other.

Posted By John Bowman

Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook will be signing copies of their forthcoming book, Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale, at bookshops in England and Wales next month.

The dates, venues and times are as follows:

October 8: Waterstone's, Piccadilly, London, 6pm

October 9: Waterstone's, High Street, Birmingham, midday, and Waterstone's, Trafford Centre, Manchester, 6pm

October 10: Borders, Bristol, 12.30pm, and Borders, Cardiff, 5.30pm.

Only copies of the book will be autographed.

The 512-page tome is published by BBC Books on September 25.

Posted By John Bowman

The specially commissioned episode of Torchwood that was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 last Wednesday as part of Big Bang Day will be released by BBC Audio tomorrow.

Lost Souls will be available in CD and download formats.

The CD, which is 75 minutes long, will feature a bonus programme, Torchwood: All Access - a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the TV show - which was first broadcast on BBC Radio Wales and has interviews with Russell T Daviesand members of the TV series cast and crew.

The download will not have any extra material.

Russell T Davies's comments from his new book, excerpted in today's issue of The Times and reported yesterday on the Doctor Who News Page (see below) have been widely reproduced across the British media today. The two main angles being focused on are Davies's suggestion of actor Russell Tovey (Midshipman Frame in "Voyage of the Damned") as a possible Eleventh Doctor, and his idea of basing the 2008 Christmas special around an appearance by Harry Potter author JK Rowling.

BBC News, CBBC Newsround, Digital Spy, The Mirror and The Guardian, amongst many others, all make the Tovey casting suggestion the focus of their story, with Guardian columnist Daniel Martin suggesting that the next Doctor "...has to be someone with a massive future who's never had their one defining part."

Under the headline "Dr exterminates role for Rowling", The Sun make JK Rowling's non-appearance in the programme their focus of the story, as does another piece in The Guardian. Here Lindesay Irvine points out that: "it's not entirely certain that Rowling was tapdancing at the idea herself."

Meanwhile, The Times themselves have published the second part of their preview of "The Writer's Tale".

Doctor Who's Australian ratings continue to impress on Sunday evenings. Midnight averaged 1,095,000 viewers in the five major capital cities, whileTurn Left rated even more with 1,169,000. The latter episode being the Time Lord's best Aussie ratings since the record 1.248 million for 'Voyage of the Damned', 'Left' even beating Channel Seven's high-rating 'Dancing with the Stars'. The Confidential Cutdown versions of 'Look Who's Talking' and 'Here Come the Girls' also had excellent ratings gaining 853,000 and 941,000 viewers respectively, the latter being the programme's best Australian ratings ever.

Meanwhile, in the local media, Russell T. Davies has told Michael Idato of The Sydney Morning Herald that 'there is a fundamental format to Doctor Who, which should never change-he's a wanderer...You're never changing the character, you're just putting more and more material into it and a bigger range of emotions...It's not like I think of 13 ideas and pick the ones I want, it's about thinking which writers will do what ideas well and keeping things spinning...In each season you want a historical story, a futuristic story, a modern-day story; some which are funny, some which are dark and there are some things you want to revisit. There are certain tent poles in the series that help you know where you are'. He also says of his successor Steven Moffatt that while 'he's famous for writing episodes that explore darker aspects of the story...he's also written some of the wittiest dialogue...Steve will do a brilliant job.' CitySearch previews 'Turn Left' writing that 'it makes for engrossing, tense and sometimes jaw-dropping television. Tate pretty much carries this episode on her own, and what a great job she does, too. It's around about this episode that all her critics should be quietly retracting their earlier comments.' Meanwhile Pat Sheil also of 'The Sydney Morning Herald', previews The Stolen Earth and laments that while the new series has 'lost its sense of the ridiculous' this episode is 'a hoot.'

Meanwhile, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has confirmed that it is showing the full 65 minute episode version of 'Journey's End' with the 25 minute Confidential Cutdown at the later time of 10.45pm on Sunday 28 September.

Thanks to the contributors to the Australian forums

The Times newspaper in the UK has today published on its website a series of extracts from "The Writer's Tale", the forthcoming book by Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook about the making of the new series of Doctor Who. The book is due to be released in the UK on September 25th.

The same newspaper has also made a news story out of the extracts, focusing on Davies's suggestion of Russell Tovey as a candidate for the Eleventh Doctor, and the fact that he considered attempting to get Harry Potter authorJK Rowling to appear in the 2008 Christmas special.

Further extracts will be published in Wednesday's paper.

Thanks to PolyG on the Doctor Who Forum

Posted By Brigadier Bill

With some people camped out overnight and some 270 people lined up outside, 6,000 tickets for Hamlet starring David Tennant at the Novello Theatre in London sold out in under three hours, BBC Newsreports.

"We're very pleased that the play is accruing so much interest," an RSC spokeswoman said.

Tennant has been playing the title role with the RSC at Stratford-upon-Avon. It transfers to London in December for a short run.

Some tickets for the Novello performances will be available at the box office on each performance day for that day only.

"The great news for us is that it's encouraging that younger contingent of theatre-goers, which is one of our real aims. David has been wonderful in encouraging those people to come," the spokeswoman said.