Doctor Who: Legacy launches Wednesday

Tuesday, 26 November 2013 - Reported by Chuck Foster
Tiny Rebel Games and Seed Studio have announced the release of their mobile game, Doctor Who: Legacy, this coming Wednesday, 27th November. The app will be free to play, and available for both Android and iOS operating systems.

Doctor Who: Legacy (Credit: DoctorWhoLegacy/Twitter)Build a team of your favourite companions and allies drawn from the extensive and illustrious history of the show; face the Doctor’s most notorious enemies; and relive the Doctor’s greatest triumphs. Doctor Who: Legacy will launch with episodes and characters from the most recent two seasons of the show. Season 5 will be released as further free to play content in the New Year as we go backwards through fifty beloved years of Doctor Who lore.

Visually striking, with meticulous attention to character detail, Doctor Who: Legacy is a feast for the eyes of any fan, and features a brand new score by acclaimed video game composer Chris Huelsbeck as well as the iconic theme song from the show as recorded by Murray Gold.

Lee Cummings, Creative Director and Co-Founder of Tiny Rebel Games, said:
The 11th (or is it 12th?) Doctor’s regeneration is approaching fast. With decades of epic adventures to draw from, Doctor Who: Legacy is a loving homage created by loyal Whovians, and is rich in the show’s creative legacy and fun. Combining easy to learn, hard to master mechanics with beloved characters and cunning villains, Doctor Who: Legacy will be a treat for fans, casual players and even the most hard-core gamers alike.

The game also has a Twitter account, @DoctorWhoLegacy for updates.





FILTER: - Games

The Day of the Doctor makes UK box office top 3

Tuesday, 26 November 2013 - Reported by Anthony Weight
The website Screen Daily is reporting that the 3D cinema showings of The Day of the Doctor, which took place in tandem with its television début on BBC One at the weekend, earned £1.7 million ($2.2 million) in Britain, enough to propel the story to third place at the UK box office for the weekend. The 50th anniversary special was therefore behind only the Hollywood blockbusters The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (£12.2 million) and Gravity (£2.4 million) in this week's chart.

Screen Daily also reports that this is the first week in which releases outside of regular motion pictures, such as one-off specials and live events, have been included in the UK box office chart. The reported figure comes from showings on 450 screens on Saturday.

As previously-reported, The Day of the Doctor was also a success in the television ratings, gaining over 10 million viewers on overnight figures alone - only the sixth episode of Doctor Who to achieve this feat since the series returned in 2005.





FILTER: - Ratings

Christmas reveals The Time of The Doctor

Tuesday, 26 November 2013 - Reported by Chuck Foster
With just under a month to go, the BBC have revealed the title of this year's Christmas Day adventure to be The Time of the Doctor, accompanied by two versions of their festive image representing the Doctor's final outing in the guise of Matt Smith!

Christmas Special 2013 - Promotional Image (Credit: BBC/Ray Burmiston) Christmas Special 2013 - Promotional Image (Credit: BBC/Ray Burmiston)


A teaser trailer for the episode was released at the weekend.





FILTER: - Specials - Time and the Doctor - Matt Smith - Publicity

Canadian Ratings - Day of the Doctor

Monday, 25 November 2013 - Reported by Marcus
Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor was watched by 1.1 million viewers in Canada during its live broadcast at 2:50 p.m. on Saturday, securing the largest audience ever on broadcaster Space.

It was the most-watched entertainment program on Canadian television on Saturday, and among the key demographics it was second only to hockey. Combined with its encore broadcast at 8 p.m, the two-hour special reached nearly 1.7 million viewers overall. The episode is now online now for Canadian viewers at Space.ca.

The episode tied as the most-watched entertainment specialty broadcast in Canada this broadcast year to date. The commercial-free worldwide simulcast of the record-breaking episode made Space the number 1 network overall during the special.

A rare, live weekend edition Space’s flagship original series Innerspace also shattered records drawing 447,000 viewers with its live pre and post specials. With #INNERSPACE trending on Twitter, before and after the screening drew the highest ever audience for INNERSPACE. Throughout the day, Space was the number 1 specialty network with an average audience of 105,000 A25-54 viewers, and 99,000 A18-49 viewers.




FILTER: - Canada - Ratings

Moffat on Doctor Numbering

Monday, 25 November 2013 - Reported by Marcus
Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat has been talking to Radio Times about the future of the Doctor, given the character is now dangerously near the end of his regeneration cycle as spelled out in the 1976 story The Deadly Assassin.

The story stated a Time Lord can only regenerate twelve times, and Moffat considers the Doctor is now in his thirteenth and final body. John Hurt is now officially a Doctor, sitting between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors, and David Tennant used up an extra regeneration during his stay. The writer was clear about the future, and how the Doctor is now at the end of his cycle - something that could cause problems when Matt Smith turns into Peter Capaldi in the 2013 Christmas episode. "The 12 regenerations limit is a central part of Doctor Who mythology - science fiction is all about rules, you can't just casually break them.."

To add to the confusion and despite the number of bodies the Doctor has had, Moffat is clear that Matt Smith is still the Eleventh Doctor. He told a press conference at London's Excel arena that the addition of the John Hurt Doctor to the series does nothing to alter the numbering of the other incarnations.

"He's just The Doctor, Matt Smith's Doctor is the 11th Doctor, however there is no such character as the 11th Doctor – he’s just the Doctor – that's what he calls himself. The numbering doesn't matter, except for those lists that you and I have been making for many years. So I've given you the option of not counting John Hurt numerically - he's the War Doctor."

Moffat also talked of how he found it irresistible to put Tom Baker into the 50th Anniversary story. "Tom didn't want to come and do a long thing and he didn't want to put the old costume on. He didn't want to do any of that, but his agent said that he wasn't against the idea of doing a short appearance."

Baker was the longest-serving Doctor, appearing from 1974-1981. Moffat said it would have been impossible to include all the surviving Doctors in the episode. "You can't have scenes around 11 or 12 people - you can't do it. To have the longest-standing Doctor make an appearance and be the one who briefs the new Doctor on where to go . . . well, it's irresistible, isn't it? You get to hear that voice again! It was just wonderful."





FILTER: - Steven Moffat - Doctor Who - Peter Capaldi - Matt Smith

Day of the Doctor - Appreciation Index

Monday, 25 November 2013 - Reported by Marcus
The Day of the Doctor scored an Appreciation Index figure of 88 for its broadcast on BBC One on Saturday.

The Appreciation Index, or AI, is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. The score puts the programme firmly in the "excellent" category, and is particularly impressive given the large audience. The score was the joint-highest for Saturday on the five main channels.

Sunday's BBC Three repeat of The Day of the Doctor had an overnight audience of 0.64 million viewers, where the programme won its timeslot. The broadcast peaked at 0.76 million.

The Saturday showing of Doctor Who Live: The Afterparty had an audience of 1.34 million watching, but a rather poor AI of 69. The Sunday repeat had 0.22 million watching.

Sunday saw I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! take top slot in the overnights with 10.6 million watching, pushing Doctor Who into fourth place for the week. Final figures will be released next week, and are likely to see Doctor Who very near the top of the chart for the week.




FILTER: - Doctor Who - Ratings - UK

Day of the Doctor - A Hit Down Under

Monday, 25 November 2013 - Reported by Marcus
Australian Doctor Who fans set their alarms and tuned in to ABC1 as Doctor Who: The Day Of The Doctor was simulcast to 94 countries around the globe over the weekend.

Doctor Who pulled in a massive 1.95 million viewers nationally, 1.36 million at 7.30pm on ABC1 and a further 0.59 million for the live broadcast on ABC1, which went out at 6.50am in Sydney and 3.50am in Perth.

The live screening achieved a 5 city metro overnight average audience of 424,000 viewers and a total TV share of 37.1%, while the repeat broadcast achieved a 5 city metro average audience of 922,000 viewers and a total TV share of 16.1%. The repeat was second in its timeslot to 60 Minutes on Channel 9. Across both the live and repeat broadcasts, the programme reached 1.5 million viewers, or 9.3% of the 5 city metro population.

In addition, there were 51,000 plays via iview.

An Adventure in Space and Time, which followed the episode, had 0.94 million watching, a 5 city metro average audience of 633,000 and a total TV share of 13.5%.

Brendan Dahill, Controller ABC1, paid tribute to the series and its makers.
It's clear that The Doctor is adored by millions of people around the globe and we're thrilled that ABC TV was able to be part of this phenomenal global broadcast, bringing the Time Lord's 50th anniversary adventure to fans in Australia.




FILTER: - Doctor Who - Ratings - Australia

Anniversary episode awarded Guinness World Record

Sunday, 24 November 2013 - Reported by John Bowman
Last night's simultaneous broadcast of The Day of the Doctor to 94 countries has been officially named the world's largest-ever simulcast of a TV drama.

A Guinness World Records certificate was presented to showrunner and episode writer Steven Moffat today at the Doctor Who Celebration at the ExCeL Centre in London by Craig Glenday, the editor-in-chief of Guinness World Records, who said:
Who else but the time-twisting Doctor could appear in 94 countries at once?! This outstanding achievement is testament to the fact that the longest-running sci-fi TV show in history is not just a well-loved UK institution but a truly global success adored by millions of people.
Accepting the award, Moffat commented:
For years the Doctor has been stopping everyone else from conquering the world. Now, just to show off, he's gone and done it himself!
Tim Davie, BBC Worldwide's chief executive officer, said:
We knew we were attempting something unprecedented in broadcast history, not only because Doctor Who is a drama, unlike a live feed event such as a World Cup football match or a royal wedding, but because we had to deliver the episode in advance to the four corners of the world so that it could be dubbed and subtitled into 15 different languages.

If there was any doubt that Doctor Who is one of the world's biggest TV shows, this award should put that argument to rest - and how fitting for it to receive such an accolade in its 50th year.
The BBC said that more than 1,500 cinemas around the world showed the episode, with fans in Sweden and Norway, where there was no client broadcaster, petitioning their cinemas successfully to show the episode, while in Argentina they persuaded a major cinema chain to "simulscreen" the episode. Over in the USA, there was a sell-out of 10,000 cinema tickets in 28 minutes with no advertising or marketing, while Germany saw one of its biggest cinema chains - Cinemaxx - reporting that the episode was the fastest non-movie pre-sale in its history.

Guinness World Records has also compiled a list of the programme's other achievements.




FILTER: - Steven Moffat - Awards/Nominations - WHO50

John Hurt Doctor added to line-up picture

Sunday, 24 November 2013 - Reported by John Bowman
A BBC image of the 11 Doctors that was released last month has been updated, adding the John Hurt version of the Doctor between the Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston incarnations.


Other tweaks have included replacing the profile picture of McGann's Doctor. The original image can be seen below.


UPDATE - MONDAY 25th NOVEMBER: A new version of the original image comprising 11 Doctors has also been created to include the replacement profile of Paul McGann's Doctor.





FILTER: - WHO50 - BBC

Deleted scene from The Day of the Doctor

Sunday, 24 November 2013 - Reported by John Bowman
A deleted scene from The Day of the Doctor has been made available to view online by the BBC.

The short sequence shows the three Doctors - as portrayed by Matt Smith, David Tennant, and John Hurt - bickering and with their feet shackled, while being led under guard into the Tower of London.





FILTER: - Online - WHO50 - BBC