BBC Worldwide have announced the release of the Complete Series Seven Boxed Set on DVD and Blu-ray in the United Kingdom for the 28th October 2013.


Note: this set does not include the 2011 Christmas Special, The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe.

BBC Entertainment & Events is piloting a new show paying tribute to 50 years of Doctor Who.

The show will feature special guests and clips from Doctor Who and is looking for fans to be part of the audience. The show records at the BBC studios in Elstree on Sunday 4th August at 6pm. The production team is encouraging audience members to come dressed as their favourite Doctor, companion or character from the series but stress this is not compulsory.

Tickets, which are free, can be obtained from the BBC website. Under 18s must be accompanied by a parent or guardian and the minimum age is 10.

An exhibition of rare photos of Sophie Aldred taken during the time she played Ace opposite the Seventh Doctor on TV is to be held in London later this year.

Sophie's World, featuring hitherto-unseen images by Steven Cook, is to be hosted by Orbital Comics and Gallery, in Great Newport Street, from Thursday 5th to Monday 30th September and will be free to view.

The negatives have been missing for 22 years but high-resolution prints are currently being made from them.

A free-to-attend exhibition launch party, with Cook as the guest of honour, will be held on Thursday 5th September from 7.30pm. Meanwhile, Aldred will be signing prints at the venue on Saturday 7th September from midday to 3pm.

.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 on sale for their Eighth Doctor show! Their eighth major episode brings them to the Doctor of the show’s “middle period” between classic and new Who - Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor. A cult figure thanks to his starring role in Withnail and I (alongside alternate Ninth Doctor Richard E Grant), McGann was a popular choice and garnered much kudos for his performance – but almost nothing else about the American co-produced telemovie seemed to please audiences on either of the Atlantic, and no new series was produced. It’s a weird moment in the so-called “wilderness years” between old and new Who.

It is also National Science Week, so Splendid Chaps are also looking at science in Doctor Who. Ostensibly science fiction, and starting out life with an educational remit, Doctor Who originally alternated between trips to historical events and sci-fi tales that were meant to teach us about science. But amongst the mad scientists, wobbly grasp of concepts like “black hole”, “neutron” and “constellation”, and the rather more fantastical bent of the post-2005 show, does Doctor Who actually depict real science in any meaningful way? Does it champion the idea of being “sciencey”? What does it get wrong, what does it get right, and what can we learn from it about science in either case?

Hosts Ben McKenzie, John Richards and Petra Elliott will be joined by a panel of actual scientists including biologist and geneticist Jack Scanlan. Plus a musical performance, and all the usual prizes and surprises!

Space: upstairs, Bar Open, 317 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Time: Sunday, August 11; recording starts 5 PM
Accessibility: Splendid Chaps regret that this venue is not wheelchair accessible
Tickets: $15 (plus booking fee where applicable)
Bookings: via trybooking.com or at the door (subject to availability)
Podcast: not yet available; released 23 August 2013.

The latest edition of Doctor Who Magazine, released Thursday, looks back ten years to the time when it had just been announced that Doctor Who was to return, and asks was the series nearly stopped before it could begin?

In the first part of a look back at how and why Doctor Who was recommissioned back in 2003, the magazine talks to the people who ensured its successful comeback, including the then BBC Controller of Drama Commissioning Jane Tranter, writer Russell T Davies and BBC Wales' Head of Drama Julie Gardner who tells the magazine: Also in this issue.

• Doctor Who’s showrunner and head writer Steven Moffat presents the three pieces that he wrote for the actors that have auditioned for the role of the Twelfth Doctor.
• Doctor Who author Bob Baker looks back on his career in an interview and speaks of his most famous contribution to the Doctor Who universe: K9, the Doctor’s robotic dog.
• As we await the announcement of the new star of Doctor Who, journalist Claire Budd and novelist Una McCormack go head-to-head to debate the burning question: Is it time for the Doctor to become a woman?
• Arriving in the far future, the Fourth Doctor, Harry and Sarah discover that the last survivors of mankind are about to face the deadly, parasitic Wirrn! The Fact of Fiction looks back to one of Doctor Who's all-time great adventures – The Ark In Space – and reveals some surprising new facts
• It’s 2010, and the dawn of a new era as Matt Smith makes his début as the Eleventh Doctor. The show may have a new leading man and a new style, but it’s still Doctor Who in the latest instalment of the ongoing cruise through Doctor Who history in Countdown to 50.
• The Time Team take a trip to pre-war England as Chris, Emma, Michael and Will settle down to watch the two-part Tenth Doctor story Human Nature/ The Family of Blood and find that the formidable Family of Blood and their sinister Scarecrow servants are following the Doctor’s trail.
• Clara’s lunch date with the legendary pilot Amy Johnson has been rudely interrupted by two identical copies of themselves… made from sand! Meanwhile, the Doctor is having trouble with his own doppelganger, and the real enemy is about to make its entrance. The latest comic strip adventure A Wing and a Prayer – written by Scott Gray with art by Mike Collins – continues.
• Change is an essential part of Doctor Who and has allowed the series to constantly reinvent and reinvigorate itself for 50 years. And, as Jacqueline Rayner tells in this issue’s Relative Dimensions, this means that the series can be a useful tool when teaching children that nothing lasts forever
• Jon Pertwee is the Doctor, as former Doctor Who Script Editor Andrew Cartmel reviews the new Blu-ray release of the Third Doctor's classic 1970 début adventure Spearhead From Space
• The Watcher takes a look at Doctor Who episode titles in A History of Doctor Who in 100 Objects, and discovers that the names of colours have become a recent trend

Plus all the latest official news, TV and merchandise reviews, previews, competitions and a prize-winning crossword.

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

With the production team now working hard on the new science-fiction series, thoughts in the BBC turned to how the series would be promoted.

It was on Tuesday 23rd July 1963 - exactly 50 years ago today - that Richard Bright, the Television Publicity Organiser, circulated a memo to members of his department. He attached the format document for Doctor Who that gave a brief rundown of how the series would be broadcast, referencing The World of Tim Frazer, a Francis Durbridge crime series that had aired in 1960. The format document gave the planned recording times and indicated the series would start mid-November. The date of the first episode was now planned to be broadcast on Saturday 16th November, having recently been pushed back a week thanks to unplanned coverage of athletics from Moscow earlier in July, which had knocked the schedule back a week..

• Story 1: Written by Anthony Coburn. Directed by Waris Hussein
Four Episodes. The story begins the journey and takes the travellers back to 100,000BC and Palaeolithic man. In this story the 'ship' is slightly damaged and forever afterward is erratic in certain sections of its controls.
• Story 2: Written by Anthony Coburn. Directed by Rex Tucker
Six Episodes. This story takes the travellers to somewhere in the 30th Century, forward to the world when it is inhabited only by robots.
• Story 3: Written by John Lucarotti. Directed by Waris Hussein
Seven Episodes. The travellers join the explorer Marco Polo on his Journey to Cathay.

Bright gave his team some details of the people behind the new series. While the press department was being briefed on the new serial, a new dispute was being settled by Ronald Waldman, the General Manager of Television Enterprises, and R G Walford, the Head of Copyright. It involved a company called Zenith Film Productions Ltd which had contacted the BBC, claiming the idea for Doctor Who had originally come from them. Their claim related to a puppet series they had proposed to the Corporation called The Time Travellers, which the BBC had turned down because of its similarity to Doctor Who. Zenith now claimed that the BBC had stolen the idea and used it to create their own series. On Thursday 25th July, Walford wrote to the company to refute the allegations. The BBC did offer Zenith a special ex-gratia payment of 100 guineas as an offer of goodwill, on the understanding that it was without prejudice and that the offer made no admittance of legal liability.

Doctor Who once again had a presence at this year's San Diego Comic Con. Fans in the packed Hall H were treated to an exclusive screening of a trailer for the 50th Anniversary episode as well as a trailer for An Adventure In Space and Time.

Steven Moffat told fans who saw the trailer to not leak any audio or video footage of it or there would be no more exclusives at the convention in future years.

The panel was hosted by Craig Ferguson and consisted of Matt Smith, Jenna Coleman, Steven Moffat, Marcus Wilson, Mark Gatiss and David Bradley. Before the panel took place, Smith disguised himself as Bart Simpson as he wandered the convention floor while talking to Doctor Who fans in an American accent.

The cast and crew had a busy few days doing lots of interviews. A selection of these are below.

As part of Entertainment Weekly's Star Portrait series, Smith, Coleman, Gatiss and Bradley had their pictures taken for the publication.


Karen Gillan shocked fans at Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy panel by showing off a new look. The actress will be playing Nebula in the film which required her to shave her hair off. She was wearing a wig before she took it off at the panel. The video footage of that is viewable here. She was also there taking part in interviews for NTSF:SD:SUV. A clip featuring Gillan in one of the episodes can be viewed here.

John Barrowman was also at the convention as part of the Arrow panel. In an interview with That Hashtag Show he discussed Doctor Who and said he would like a female Doctor. During the fan questions of the Doctor Who panel, Moffat was asked why Captain Jack wasn't in the 50th Anniversary episode, to which he replied: "How do you know what is or is not in the 50th? I've lied my arse off for months - you know nothing, so don't make presumptions."

The BBC have officially announced that the Doctor's greatest enemy will return to Doctor Who in the 50th Anniversary Special, releasing a number of photos portraying them in a "blaze of glory":


The episode's writer, Steven Moffat, said:

The actor David Spenser has died at the age of 79.

Spenser appeared in six episodes of Doctor Who, playing the young Tibetan Monk Thonmi, who helped the Second Doctor fight the Great Intelligence in the 1967 story The Abominable Snowmen.

Born in British Ceylon, Spenser began his acting career at the age of 11, working for BBC Radio on Children's Hour. He became a household name in the 1940s when author Richmal Crompton cast him as William Brown in the first radio adaptation of her series of short stories Just William. As a member of the BBC Drama Repertory Company, he went on to play some of the great Shakespearean and other classical roles on radio, including Romeo to Judi Dench's Juliet.

Spenser moved into television in 1950 and appeared in many well-known productions, including playing Hurree Jamset Ram Singh in Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School and Saint Mark in the 1960 production of Paul of Tarsus, which starred Patrick Troughton as Saint Paul. He played the Prince of Morocco in The Merchant of Venice, with Maggie Smith and Frank Finlay. Other roles included parts in Dixon of Dock Green, Play for Today and Z Cars.

In 1987 he formed Saffron Productions Ltd with his long-term partner Victor Pemberton, making a number of documentary films, including Gwen, A Juliet Remembered and Benny Hill: Clown Imperial for the BBC.

Spenser died yesterday in Spain.

The BFI today announced details for its celebratory screenings marking the eras of the Eighth and Tenth Doctors - with both happening within a week of each other but in reverse order.

The Tenth Doctor will be honoured on Sunday 29th September at 2pm with the Series 4 two-part finale The Stolen Earth and Journey's End, while the sole TV outing - so far - for the Eighth Doctor will be shown on the big screen on Saturday 5th October at 10am.

The adventures are being shown at BFI Southbank as part of the organisation's Doctor Who At 50 season.

The Series 4 finale episodes - written by Russell T Davies and directed by Graeme Harper - first aired on 28th June and 5th July 2008 respectively, and saw the universe crumbling and a number of planets, including Earth, having been stolen by Davros as part of his plot threatening the whole of reality. Julian Bleach took on the mantle of the Daleks' creator, with all the companions seen in the revamped series uniting with the Doctor to defeat the evil, mad Kaled scientist and the Daleks.

Meanwhile, the big-budget TV Movie - written by Matthew Jacobs and directed by Geoffrey Sax - originally aired in the UK on 27th May 1996 (although it had its global TV premiere in Canada on 12th May 1996, having been filmed entirely in the country) and saw the Seventh Doctor regenerate into the Eighth. It also featured the return of the Master - this time played by Eric Roberts - and a new-look TARDIS interior, in an adventure set in San Francisco on the eve of the year 2000 and with the whole of Earth at stake as the Master attempts to take the Doctor's remaining regenerations.

Tickets to both events will be issued via a ballot system through the members' section. Separate ballots are being held for each event but the same dates will apply for both. BFI Champions can enter the ballots on Monday 5th August and members from Tuesday 6th August. The ballots will close on Friday 9th August and will be run over the weekend of 10th and 11th August, with all entrants being notified on Monday 12th August whether they have been successful or not.

All tickets reserved for Champions and members via the ballots will be held for claiming by them until 8.30pm on Friday 16th August. Any that are unclaimed by then will be released for public sale on Saturday 17th August.

The guests for both events will be announced in due course.