In the run up to The End of Time on Christmas Day, the Doctor Who repeats on BBC Three have been scoring high ratings. Tuesday's showing of The Next Doctor had 0.54 million watching, making it the tenth highest-rated multichannel programme for the day. Wednesday's repeat of Planet of the Dead did even better, with 0.69 million watching and was the second highest-rated multichannel programme of the day. The 7pm slot has no inheritance, being the first programme on BBC Three for the day, meaning the audience steadily rose throughout the episode with 850,000 watching by the end.

Meanwhile the BBC has revealed that Planet of the Dead was the ninth most-watched programme of the year on the BBC iPlayer, with 811,800 requests. Torchwood: Children of Earth Part 1 was thirteenth with 559,800 requests. The top programme was Top Gear. The BBC iPlayer has its second birthday on Christmas Day, and is now available on more than 20 different devices.

Radio Times is marking the end of the Tenth Doctor’s tenure with a souvenir of the David Tennant and Russell T Davies years by releasing a 164-page glossy tribute book complete with episode guides and photos shot exclusively for Radio Times, many never seen before.

This book will not be in the shops – available only through an order form in Radio Times magazine or via the 24-hour order line 0844 543 9822 (calls cost 5p per minute at all times from a BT landline). The book is £6.99 including P&P.

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The actor Donald Pickering has died at the age of 76.

Donald Pickering was a well known British actor appearing in many classic television, film and radio roles. His television appearances included The Pallisers, The Avengers, The House of Eliott, All Creatures Great and Small, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, Yes, Prime Minister, The Bittas Empire and Executive Stress.

He is best known to Doctor Who fans for his three appearances in the Classic series. He fist played the role of Eyesen in the 1964 story The Keys of Marinus alongside William Hartnell. Eyesen was the Court Prosecutor, who has succeeded in persuading the Three Judges of Millennium to find Ian guilty of murder.

Pickering returned to the series in 1967, this time with Patrick Troughton, playing Captain Blade in The Faceless Ones. Blade was an airplane pilot at Gatwick Airport whose identity was taken over by a Chameleon.

His final appearance in the series was twenty years later in Sylvester McCoy's first story, Time and the Rani. In this story he played Beyus, the leader of the Lakertyan race, who was forced to serve the Rani alongside his daughter.

Donald Pickering died peacefully at home on 19th December 2009.

The Waters of Mars helped BBC America achieve its highest ever rating last Saturday.

In total over 1.1 million watched the three showings of the Doctor Who special on the channel giving it its highest ever prime time rating and making it 13th highest amongst advertising supported cable networks for ages 25-35.

Richard De Croce, Senior Vice President Programming, BBC AMERICA said

The End of Time airs on BBC America over the next two Saturdays, with Part One at 9pm ET on the 26th followed by Part Two at 8.30 ET on 2nd January.  To mark the importance of the programme to the channel, Doctor Who has taken over the front page of the BBC America website, with video clips and images from the specials.

BBC America has already confirmed that Series One, Matt Smith's first series as the Doctor will air on the channel in the Spring. Previous series have aired first on the Sci-Fi channel, where they got ratings of around 1.5 million.

The British Board of Film Classification has passed a number of extras for the March release of the two William Hartnell stories The Space Museum and The Chase.

The Space Museum

• Defending the Museum - 9'26"
• My Grandfather The Doctor - 10'3"
• The Space Museum - Picture Gallery - 4'24"
• A Holiday for the Doctor - 13'59"

The Chase

• The Thrill of the Chase - 10'24"
• Doctor Who - Follow that Dalek - 11'58"
• Give A Show - Slides - 12'13"
• Shawcraft The Original Monster Makers - 16'57"
• The Chase Photo gallery - 5'7"
• Last Stop White City - 13'14"
• Beyond the Screen - 21'54"
• Easter Egg - 2'48"
• Daleks! Conquer and Destroy - 22'36"
• Untitled - 12' 43"

The stories are due for release in the UK on 1st March 2010.

The Board have also cleared the three documentaries Doctor Who - Greatest Moments, which were shown on BBC Three in the summer. These documentaries appear to be included as extras in the February release of Dreamland.

Torchwood: Children of Earth comes to Australia in January, with the series making its debut on ABC2 on Friday 8th January 2010.

Unlike its original showing in the UK the series will be shown on a weekly basis at 8.30pm.

Children of Earth was first shown in Australia on UKTV in July, the same month as it recieved its premier in the UK and North America.

The BBC has revealed that BBC Three repeats of The End of Time will have available an audio commentary from outgoing executive producers Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner.

The commentary for part one will be available on Freeview, Virgin and Sky on Sunday 27th December at 7pm, while the commentary for Part Two will only be on Virgin and Sky on Sunday 3rd January at 7pm. Neither commentary will be available on Freesat.

The commentaries are expected to be broadcast on BBC Radio 7 and thus will be available worldwide on the BBC i-player. Part One has been scheduled for 3am on 26th December, with Part Two airing at 2.30am on Sunday 3rd January.

In addition, the Christmas Eve, 9am, BBC Three repeat of Dreamland will also have a commentary, this time with writer Phil Ford and the director Gary Russell.

Stewart & Wall Entertainment, the Australian production company which has made the new K9 series, has released a list of episode titles for the first half of the 26-episode season. K9 is expected to air on Disney XD in Europe and on Channel Ten in Australia in early 2010. The titles, revealed on the Stewart & Wall website, can be seen in the spoiler box below:

The flurry of Doctor Who news stories in the run-up to The End of Time has begun. But first, North American viewers will be able to enjoy The Waters of Mars tomorrow on BBC America and Canada's Space channel. In North American media, Canadian entertainment website dose.ca has an interview with Russell T Davies, and The Philadelphia Daily News, The Vancouver Sun and McClatchy News all have interviews with David Tennant.

Tennant is busy in the US filming the pilot for Rex Is Not Your Lawyer, and the Los Angeles Times reports that NBC may pick the series up as early as this spring. For those of you who can't get enough pictures of David Tennant wearing puffy winter coats, there are plenty from Rex filming here. In other Tennant news, the Sunday Mercury has an article titled "7 Things You Didn't Know About Dr Who David Tennant" (though readers of this page probably know most of them). What's On TV has a lengthy interview with Tennant about The End of Time, and BBC Newsbeat interviews Tennant about his forthcoming role in "St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold". Down Under, The Age and The Daily Telegraph (both of Australia) have stories on Tennant's TARDIS exit.

SFX continues its month-long Doctor Who celebration, with more excerpts from their interview with Russell T Davies here (talking about classic Doctor Who and multi-Doctor stories), here (talking about American television) and here (talking about "the scene that gets everyone" in The End of Time). Also on SFX's blog, Phil Ford talks about writing for The Sarah Jane Adventures, Alexandra Moen (Lucy Saxon) answers questions from fans, and the blog's staff compile a list of all the times British tabloids have gotten a Doctor Who story spectacularly wrong. Alexandra Moen is also interviewed at Digital Spy.

Davies tells the Western Mail that his final two Doctor Who episodes will be "like all your Christmas presents rolled into one, right from your big present to the tiniest thing at the bottom of the stocking." The South Wales Echo also grabs a snippet from the Western Mail interview. Davies also talked to BBC News about handing over the Doctor Who reins to Steven Moffat.

Bernard Cribbins will be interviewed on stage at the BFI on January 16. The conversation will be followed by a special screening of the 1966 film Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD, starring Cribbins and Peter Cushing. In the aftermath of Cribbins' recent special BAFTA award, he was profiled in The Independent and interviewed by Ken Russell in The Times.

Claire Bloom talks to The Times about her life and work, including a vague but possibly spoiler-ish mention of her role in The End of Time.

There have been a slew of stories lately about people who've made full-sized Daleks. One in Surrey is covered here, and another (from Birtley in Gateshead) is covered in tech blogs Übergizmo, Geeky Gadgets, Gizmodo and Electricpig. And an Atherton man who's built a full-size TARDIS replica is profiled in The Leigh Reporter (though it isn't clear whether he's built the interior or the exterior of the ship).

Even Christmas pageants can't escape Doctor Who connections this year; pupils in the tiny North Yorkshire village of Ruswarp are putting on a Christmas pageant with a Doctor Who theme, and Noel Clarke (Mickey Smith) is directing the Nativity play at his old primary school in London.

It's not all The End of Time, though; Digital Spy interviews Colin Baker about completing "The Missing Stories" on audio for Big Finish.

The Daily Mail has a general preview of The End of Time, and The Sun has a somewhat spoilery photo of John Simm from the story.

The Sun has an article on Catherine Tate's Christmas special, in which she says that she and David Tennant will be "like the Richard & Judy of Christmas", due to being on UK television so much over the holiday season. Of Tennant's appearances, Doctor Who and Hamlet are listed by The Independent as part of its "Twelve TV Treats of Christmas" list.

The Times includes Tennant's Hamlet in its round-up of the best theatre of the past decade, and the return of Doctor Who in its list of the decade's best television. BBC News has also commissioned a "portrait of the decade", which includes the return of Doctor Who as one of the key cultural events and David Tennant as one of the top 20 people of the decade.

Finally, Paul Cornell, writer of the Doctor Who episodes "Father's Day", "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood" as well as several acclaimed novels, has published a new Doctor Who story on his blog for Christmas. Cornell says that the story is being presented "purely as fan fiction, with no money being made." It's lovely, and you should read it.

Every year there is speculation on which show will top the British TV ratings on Christmas Day. Fans and media commentators also speculate how well Doctor Who will fare against other festive programmes.

This year, the odds given by online betting company Skybet place Doctor Who as coming in second place at 6/4, with the top spot expected to be Eastenders with its usual 'explosive' Christmas storyline, at 4/6. Third place is given to the other perennial soap Coronation Street, at 12/1.

Most popular programme of the year (so far!) has been the ITV juggernaut The X-Factor, which saw a peak of some 19m+ viewers tune in to the final last weekend. In terms of average ratings for the entire programme, the final Britain's Got Talent, also on ITV1, in May, is currently the top-rated show of 2009.





Tune in for The End of Time part one on Christmas Day, BBC1/HD, 6:00pm!