The Doctor has been voted the Best Sci-Fi Character of All Time in a survey conducted by the British Film Institute

Thousands voted in the survey, which has been running since August, which saw the timelord top the list, just beating Ellen Ripley from the Alien saga by a mere 110 votes and out raking such icons as Darth Vader, Mr Spock and Fox Mulder.

The most popular companion was Rose Tyler who came in at number 44 on the list, closely followed by Donna Noble at 46 and Amy Pond at 69. Sarah Jane Smith, who had her own spin off series in the form of The Sarah Jane Adventures came in at number 65.

River Song came in at number 73 while the Doctor's nemesis, The Master was number 90.

Captain Jack Harkness was 13th in the list with his Torchwood colleague Ianto Jones making 19 and Gwen Cooper coming in at 87.

Only one Doctor Who Monster made the list, with The Daleks at number 32.

Characters from television rather than cinema were prefered, with characters originating on the small screen taking 61% of the vote. 22% of votes went for characters from the 1980s, 28% from the 1990s and 20% from the 2000s.

60% of votes were for male characters, with 33% for female, non-specific entities chalking up 6% and one character qualifying as both – following Michelle Gomez’ casting as the Master/Missy in this year’s series of Doctor Who.

The full list is on the BFI website.

If you look up into the sky tonight,
You may see a surprising sight.
For Santa has some help this year,
Spreading all that Christmas cheer...

The BBC have released a clip from a forthcoming Royal Institution Christmas Lecture featuring a Robot orchestra performing the Doctor Who theme.

The lecture, entitled A New Revolution is due to be shown on BBC Four next Wednesday at 8pm.

Wednesday January 7, 2015 sees the release of Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor #6 by Robbie Morrison and Daniel Indro. This issue comes with a special cover by artist Tommy Lee Edwards. Comes with three covers to collect including a special cover by artist Tommy Lee Edwards.

Only the bravest would dare to go,
For a kiss under the Missy-toe...

The Doctor Who Guide, part of Doctor Who News, has recently been updated to include details of every Doctor Who episode ever shown.

The guide now contains full cast and crew lists, with each episode checked against transmitted credit lists and official BBC paperwork to include every actor, including extras, known to have appeared in the programme. Details of original transmission times and ratings are available, complete with a list of every known UK repeat of the show.

The guide also includes details of Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures and K-9 as well as a comprehensive guide to the many factual TV and Radio programmes dedicated to Doctor Who.

Over the coming year we hope to expand the guide to include descriptions for each character to have appeared in the series. We welcome submissions of a short biography about each role to the site. Simply pick a character from the main index for which the description in missing, and write a short guide to that character. Data should be verified and the text should be original. A name credit will be given to each submitted entry used on the site. Send submissions to guide@doctorwhonews.net

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A reminder that Doctor Who News and the Doctor Who Guide is available as a iPhone/iPad App.

The free app gives users access to the complete archive of Doctor Who News stories, dating back to 1997, via the search option on the main news page.

The App is available free from the iTunes store.

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An ad-free version of the app is also available for a small charge.

This visit to Santa's Grotto is turning out quite grim,
Have you ever seen a Santa that's ever looked so slim?

We are pleased to announce that Big Finish have provided us with a new prize for our annual Predict The Ratings competition for Last Christmas - the winner, who comes closest to guessing the final consolidated viewing figure for the episode, will now receive a year's free subscription to their main range of Doctor Who audio adventures, which next year chalks up its 200th adventure!

The signed scripts will still feature as an additional prize for the runner up with the next closest guess.

You can find the full competition entry details in this article.

Big Finish main range adventures in 2015

The first three adventures for 2015 see the Doctor return to E-Space, travelling this time with Tegan, Turlough and Nyssa. In January's Mistfall (by Andrew Smith) the quartet end up on Alzarius and face vying factions of another starliner. Then in February's Equilibrium (Matt Fitton) they arrive on the icy world of Isenfel and learn the price of survival. Finally, March's The Entropy Plague (Jonathan Morris) sees a race on to find the exit from E-Space before all power is lost to ever increasing entropy.


Then the second quarter of 2015 sees a special set of adventures to celebrate the regular range reaching number 200; script editor Alan Barnes explains:

In The Defectors (by Nicholas Briggs), the seventh Doctor finds himself alongside his third incarnation's UNIT cohorts Jo Grant Captain Mike Yates. Then, the sixth Doctor explores a strange citidel alongside Jamie and Victoria in Last of the Cybermen (Alan Barnes). And finally, the range reaches its 200th adventure as the fifth Doctor arrives in sixth century Constantinople alongside Steven and Vicki, and discovers why he's being dragged back into the lives of his former incarnations in The Secret History (Eddie Robson).


Heading into the latter half of the year, July sees the seventh Doctor and Mel arriving in the 1980s in We Are The Daleks, and then in August the duo find something disturbing in a deep space packaging facility. The rest of 2015 has yet to be announced.

If you're looking carefully then you just might see,
Something is hiding inside this Christmas tree...