The Doctor Who Restoration Team have provided details of the restoration of the UK January DVD release, Peladon Tales. Full details of the extras are listed on the groups website.

On his website, Tom Baker has confirmed he recently recorded a commentary for the DVD release of the Season 15 story, The Sunmakers, with co-stars Louise Jameson and Michael Keating and Director Penant Roberts. Note that DVD commentaries are often recorded way ahead of release.

Tom Baker's audio story Hornet's Nest will be released as a box set on the 12 January 2010 on both sides of the Atlantic. The recording co-stars Richard Franklin. Parts 4 and 5 will be released in the UK on 3rd December.

ABC Television in Australia have confirmed that although The Waters of Mars will be shown on ABC HD, it will not be the genuine HD copy that will be seen, but a SD copy up-scaled. The reason cited is cost with ABC's Director of Television, Kim Dalton, saying the priority for the network is the development of SD channels rather than the HD one. There will however be a move to develop the HD output in 2010. The Waters of Mars comes to New Zealand this Sunday and to Australia a week later.

The BBC Press Office has released details of the forthcoming radio programme "Who on Who?", to be broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on Tuesday the 29th of December at 5pm. The one-hour programme will feature David Tennant interviewing Russell T Davies about his career and the success of the Doctor Who revival, just days before the broadcast of the pair's final regular work on the programme.

Final figures issued by BARB show the UK premiere of The Waters of Mars was watched by 10.32 million people.

On BBC1 the programme got 9.94 million watching, making it the second most watched programme of the week on the channel, just behind Strictly Come Dancing. However an additional 376,000 watched the simulcast on BBC HD. If these figures are combined then the rating is pushed above ten million and makes the programme the 5th most watched on British Television for the week. It got higher ratings than all the Soaps and was only beaten by the ratings juggernauts The X Factor, Strictly Come Dancing and I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.

If the HD figures are included in the total then the rating makes The Waters of Mars one of only 9 out of 754 episodes of Doctor Who to have made the top five programmes for the week. In terms of raw ratings, it is the episode with the 95th highest rating on first showing. Since the series returned in 2005 only four episodes have beaten this rating.

On Multichannel Television the HD showing is the biggest audience ever achieved by BBC HD, nearly 100,000 higher than the second placed programme. On BBC Three, Doctor Who Confidential was watched by 0.63 million with an additional 100,000 watching on BBC HD. This gave the episode a total rating of 0.73 million and made it the 19th most watched programme on Multi Channel TV for the week.

Bernard Cribbins is to receive a Special Award at this year’s British Academy Children’s Awards, which will take place next Sunday at the London Hilton.

Cribbins, who plays Wilfred Mott in Doctor Who, is receiving the award for his outstanding creative contribution to the industry. The citation says "His name is synonymous with quality, traditional entertainment for children in a career spanning six decades and covering film, television and other entertainment mediums."

BAFTA Chief Executive, Amanda Berry, said:
On television Bernard Cribbins has appeared in many classic programmes including over 100 apperances on Jackanory as well The Good Old Days, The Avengers and Worzel Gummidge alongside Jon Pertwee. He has a long career in British Films starting in 1957 with an appearance in The Yangtse Incident alongside William Hartnell, before moving onto classics such as The Railway Children and three of the Carry On... films. In 1966 he starred with Peter Cushing in the second Dalek movie, Daleks' Invasion - Earth 2150 AD.

Cribbins will be presented with the award by his Doctor Who co-star Catherine Tate.

He said

On Tuesday Bernard Cribbins was a guest on BBC Breakfast and later on BBC Radio Five Live talking about his career.

Cribbins will also be at the BFI Southbank on Saturday 16 January 2010 to discuss his work for children and families in film and television. The event is a co-production by the BFI and BAFTA and will be followed by a screening of Daleks' Invasion - Earth 2150 AD.

Karen Gillan's cousin has won a role in the next series of Doctor Who. Caitlin Blackwood, who is nine years old and comes from Inverness in Scotland, landed the role over hundreds of hopefuls. A pupil at the city's St Joseph's Roman Catholic Primary School, she has just returned from Cardiff, where the first series to star Gillan and Matt Smith is currently being filmed.

Blackwood is quoted as saying: "It was really exciting. Doctor Who was really nice and good fun." Christine Cameron, St Joseph's headteacher, said the whole school was delighted for Caitlin, adding "Everyone involved in the production of Dr Who is impressed with Caitlin, her ability to listen to and follow direction, be flexible in her approach, and get on with new people."

The Inverness Courier has a full report on its website.

It was also announced on the Paul O'Grady show today that actor Meera Syal will appear in two episodes of the new series. Syal rose to prominence as one of the team that created Goodness Gracious Me and became one of the UK's best-known Indian personalities portraying Sanjeev's grandmother, Ummi, in The Kumars at No. 42.

David Tennant shows his versatility with many appearances on British television this Christmas, in addition to his swansong as the Tenth Doctor.

He takes on the role of storyteller for the BBC's channel for pre-school children, CBeebies, where Tennant will read five bedtime stories. Included in the selection is The Christmas Bear by Henrietta and Paul Strickland, which will be shown on Christmas Eve; How High Is The Sky by Anna Milbourne, illustrated by Serena Riglietti; Small Mouse, Big City by Simon Prescott; Emily Brown And The Elephant Emergency by Cressida Cowell and Neal Layton; and Miki by Stephen Mackey.

As previously reported, Tennant's critically acclaimed performance in the title role of Hamlet is also being shown on BBC Two this Christmas, and it has been revealed that the real skull of pianist André Tchaikowsky was used during the filming of the famous "Alas, poor Yorick" scene. The skull was bequeathed to the Royal Shakespeare Company in the hope it would be used on stage. It was used by Tennant in the original Stratford production of the play and also for the London run despite press releases at the time saying the version was a fake. Greg Doran, the plays director confirmed the use of the skull. He explained how important he felt the use of a real skull was to the production. "You can't hold a real human skull in your hand and not be moved by the realisation that your own skull sits just beneath your skin, that you will be reduced to that state at some stage. That is what Yorick's skull does to Hamlet. It reminds him of the very real presence of Death in Life."

Also over Christmas, David Tennant will host a special edition of Never Mind The Buzzcocks, with Bernard Cribbins and Catherine Tate as panellists. He also appears as a guest in Tate's Christmas special.

The third series of The Sarah Jane Adventures ended on a high with Episode One of The Gift getting an AI score of 84 and Episode 2 receiving a score of 87.

The scores are once more way above the average for Children's Television, which is 72.

Final figures now available for story four, The Eternity Trap give Part One an audience of 1.14 million with Part Two getting 0.93 million viewers, an increase of 200,000 viewers over the initially reported overnights.

The BBC Press Office has published its official preview of Christmas programming on the BBC, including a heavy emphasis on the forthcoming two-part Doctor Who special, "The End of Time", which will see the departure of David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. The release states:

Highlights of this year's offering include David Tennant's final farewell in a two-part special of Doctor Who called The End Of Time. The Doctor's oldest enemy – the Master (John Simm) – returns alongside former companion Donna (Catherine Tate) and old favourite Wilf (Bernard Cribbins), as the entire human race faces its last ever Christmas – unless the Doctor can save the day.

A fuller preview of both episodes appears in the Network TV Programme Information release for weeks 51 and 52. This is available here, and contains some minor spoilers. It is also reproduced in the spoiler box below.

The Evening Standard reports that the new European Union Representative for Foreign Affairs, Baroness Ashton, is the proud owner of a full sized Dalek. The replica was given to her by her husband as a fiftieth birthday present and proudly greets visitors to their home.

Michael Moorcock has written in the Guardian about Doctor Who and his new commission to write a novel for BBC Books first reported here.

BBC Worldwide has won its court case over the administrator of retail chain Woolworths in a dispute over 2entertain, the company which produces the classic series DVD's. BBC Worldwide, which already has a 60% majority stake in 2entertain, now has first option to buy up the remaining shares at an appropriate value. A spokesman for BBC Worldwide told Broadcast Magazine "This latest judgment fully upholds the position we have maintained from the outset, and we now look forward to being able to move ahead with taking full ownership of 2entertain". The dispute is over ownership of the company and will not affect the production of Doctor Who DVD's.

Doctor Who was mentioned in the US TV series NCIS when Tim McGee, the character played by Sean Murray, mentioned that the container trailer they were investigating reminded him of the TARDIS. "A contraption Doctor Who travels in time and space" His companion replies "Doctor Who? Who watches that?"

A revised version of the BBC iPlayer has been launched as a dedicated channel on the Nintendo Wii. The new version is faster and has a full-screen user interface. It is available free from the Wii shop.

Over 12 million tuned into BBC One to see the 3 minute preview of The End of Time on Children in Need last night.

The quarter hour beginning at 8pm had an average audience of 11.9 million viewers on BBC One, the highest peak of the evening on any of the channels. The share was 49.5%. Once the Doctor Who clip had been shown the audience dropped off by 2 million with some viewers switching to ITV1 for Coronation Street. Overall the first section of Children In Need had an average audience of 9.8 million. An additional 260,00 viewers watched the Doctor Who clip on BBC HD, taking the total above 12 million.

Meanwhile the final part of The Sarah Jane Adventures, The Gift, finished its strong run with an audience of 0.8 million and a share of 6.4%, far above the average for the channel at this time.