The BBC Shop has posted details of two items already confirmed for delivery but updating a little information. They've confirmed Revelation of the Daleks as the July DVD, with a release date of July 11 and a release code of BBCDVD1357, along with a brief blurb: "The Doctor and Peri arrive on Necros to attend the funeral of an old friend of the Doctor who has recently died. However, Tranquil Repose is not all it seems and an attempt is made on the Doctor's life. Soon the Doctor comes face to face with the Great Healer, only to discover it is none other than Davros, the creator of the Daleks, intent on rebuilding the Dalek race decimated by the Movellans. DVD Extras: 5.1 Surround Sound Mix; Audio Commentary featuring Graeme Harper, Eric Saward, Nicola Bryant and Terry Molloy; Isolated Music Score; CGI Effects; Revelation Exhumed Documentary; In Studio Featurette; Deleted Scenes; Continuity; Photo Gallery; Production Notes; Easter Egg."

Also, a new blurb for Gary Russell's novel Spiral Scratch, due out from BBC Books in August 2005, is as follows: "Carsus: the largest repository of knowledge in the universe - in any universe, for there is an infinite number of potential universes - or rather, there should be. So why are there now just 117,863? And why, every so often, does another one just wink out of existence? The Doctor and Mel arrive on Carsus to see the Doctor's old friend Professor Rummas - but he has been murdered. Can they solve the mystery of a contracting multiverse, and expose the murderer? With the ties that bind the Lamprey family to the past, present and future coming unravelled around him, only the Doctor can stop the descent into temporal chaos. But he is lost on Janus 8. And Schyllus. And a twentieth-century Earth where Rome never fell. And..." Note that this is a different blurb altogether from the one we've previously featured from Amazon.

ITV has blinked: "Celebrity Wrestling" is moving away from Saturday nights after being trounced by "Doctor Who" in the ratings. "The show, which saw 12 personalities train and fight each other, was part of ITV's primetime schedule but failed to compete with the relaunched Doctor Who," says BBC News. "The show will go out at 1830 BST this Saturday but it is not known what will happen to the final four episodes. ITV said the show had enjoyed a 'strong start', but ratings fell to 2.6 million viewers on Saturday." BBC News says that ITV will be pinning its hopes on its next big reality TV show, "Celebrity Love Island" which begins on May 16; however, as far as that timeslot, Broadcast Now says that after this weekend, the Saturday night ITV time slot will be filled by repeats of the "Star Wars" movies, "which ITV executives hope can dent Doctor Who's ratings." The story has also been covered today at Ananova, The Sun, Sky News, Brand Republic, Media Guardian, The Scotsman,DeHavilland. Also, yesterday there were a few stories about the ITV show slipping even further in the ratings this past Saturday at Media Guardian,Broadcast Now, Express and Star.

Ratings Updates: The actual overnight ratings for The Long Game on Saturday night were 7,508,730 viewers with a 39.04% share, which is revised slightly higher in share than the original number we posted in Sunday's news update; this according to ViewingFigures. Meanwhile, the ratings for the rest of the weekend's airings are in: the 12:10am Sunday morning repeat of "The Long Game" had 157,900 viewers, and the Sunday evening 7pm repeat had 654,390 viewers. Doctor Who Confidential scored 472,780 viewers in its original Saturday evening transmission, with 97,100 viewers watching the 12:55am Sunday morning repeat, and 327,230 viewers enjoying the Sunday evening 7:45pm repeat. The repeat showings again performed well in the multi-channel ratings; Saturday's "Confidential" was second in its timeslot with a viewing share of 4.1% and was beaten only slightly by SkyOne's "The Simpsons", while the Sunday night repeats of both "The Long Game" and "Confidential" had viewing shares of 4.7% and 2.2% respectively and both featured in the top five of the multi-channel ratings.

After ten weeks of promoting the new series, Radio Times shows no sign of tiring of the show and today's edition has "Doctor Who" as its top pick for Saturday in the week's best television (page 4) for the eighth week running ("Meet the Reapers: monsters who swallow glitches in time. When Rose saves her dad's life back in 1987, they swoop in to wreak havoc in a moving episode."). Dalek is the subject of this week's Letter of the Week (page 9: "... was there a dry eye in the country after this episode?"), and there are two more letters on the series, one complaining that "We don't want to empathise with [Daleks] - we want to hate and fear them as we always have", the other Who-mourously pointing out that the Ninth Doctor is "turning into a real 'Wholigan'." This week's double-spread behind-the-scenes feature (pages 16-17) is dominated by a large photograph of one of the Reapers and includes an interview with Paul Cornell ("Initially I thought of cloaked figures [...] but then went for animals. I was thinking about snatching claws, like those piggy banks where the hand flashes out and grabs the coin - a scary predator-like motion. The Mill have done a fantastic job..."). There's a very brief comment from costume designer Lucinda Wright on dealing with an episode set in the 1980s ("fantastic") and more from Will Cohen, the visual effects supervisor, talking through the several stages of realising this week's aliens on "a horrendously tight schedule": "The model took about two months to make, on and off, and we've had two or three weeks to do 40-odd shots with it." Father's Day is one of Saturday's Choices (page 62) - "a superb performance by Billie Piper [...] a gem of an episode that exercises the emotions as well as the intellect - though it would work equally well if you removed the monsters altogether, cleverly crafted as they are." Finally, Saturday's listings include another picture of the monstrous alien creatures seen in the episode.

Heat magazine gives this coming Saturday's episode, Father's Day, five stars out of five. "An extraordinary story told in ordinary surroundings, this one resembles a sci-fi EastEnders, with a hint of Only Fools and Horses... Brilliantly emotional, Doctor Who has to be the most ingenious primetime drama in years." Reveal Magazine calls it an "unmissable installment" while theStar magazine briefly previews it and gives it four stars out of five.

The BBC official Doctor Who website has once again been updated to match this weekend's forthcoming episode, "Father's Day".

The Daily Express reviews this past weekend's episode, "The Long Game": "Seven weeks in, and Doctor Who is still the best fun on the box. The joy of the series is that it does all the things sci-fi is meant to do - using imagined worlds to look askance at our own, questioning the present by thinking about the future - while also taking the mick out of the genre. ... The Jagrafess itself was behind-the-sofa scary - although small children have been exposed to so much John Prescott lately that they may be beyond fear." The Guardian said that the episode "seemed comforting and reassuring... Anything that satirises the profession of journalism is all right with me, but this did it with style."

Writer Matthew Norman's political column Media Diary in the Independentyesterday discusses the series in a brief mention. "He has taken out the Autons and overseen the suicide of the last Dalek in the cosmos, but one enemy that the Doctor cannot handle is the BBC censor. In fairness, the superlative two-part story about the Slitheen, a family of flatulent intergalactic mercenaries planning to provoke thermonuclear war and sell off the planet as radioactive fuel, was pretty rich in political satire. There was, for example, a wry reference to the Slitheen being able to launch a strike against Earth in 45 seconds. However, a shot of a newspaper headline including the term 'sexing up' was thought too inflammatory during an election campaign, and was duly excised."

The Metro's Green Room on Monday mentioned actress Rachel Weisz("Constantine," "The Mummy") wanting to be in the series: she says she is gutted that she was never asked to become Dr Who's assistant. "I always dreamed I might play the role on stage or radio as I never thought they would bring it back." Also reported on at Contact Music.

Other news today: there's more coverage of Billie Piper taking the role of Vicky Pollard in "Little Britain" in theScotsman, Ananova, Megastar and Yahoo News (and also in many stories in other papers that aren't online); more coverage of Christopher Eccleston at the VE day ceremonies at Contact Music, Evening Standard, Hello Magazine; and the Times featured a preview of "The Long Game" prior to airing.

(Thanks to Steve Tribe, Paul Engelberg, Chuck Foster, Peter Weaver, Paul Hayes, Keith Armstrong, Andy Parish, James Armstrong, Andrew Gallagher, Luke McCullough, John Bowman, Rich Kirkpatrick, Paul Greaves, Cameron Yarde, David Baker)

Overnight ratings are in for The Long Game, the seventh transmitted episode of Doctor Who in the UK. "Doctor Who" averaged 7.51 million viewers throughout the evening with a 38.9% share of the viewing audience. Its ITV competitor, "Celebrity Wrestling," continued its nosedive with only 2.56 million viewers (14.1% share). "Doctor Who" peaked in the last 15 minutes to 8.28 million viewers, and actually had the largest audience share of Saturday night even though more viewers tuned into "Casualty" (8.04 million viewers, but only a 35.8% share of the audience at the time.)

Canada's CBC Television website has posted the first episode of Planet of the Doctor, the six-episode documentary series taking a look at both the new Doctor Who series as well as the history of the classic show. The first episode features interviews with original producer Verity Lambert, actress Elisabeth Sladen, series writer Terrance Dicks, producer Barry Letts, science fiction novelist Robert J. Sawyer, members of the Canadian fan club DWIN and attendees of the Gallifrey 2005 convention in Los Angeles.

BBC1's Points Of View (8th May) made reference to the return of the Daleks with two viewer comments. Dan Kemp said: "I'd been looking forward to the return of the Daleks all series. Was that it?" while Fiona Lorimer's concern was: "If the last Dalek in the universe has exterminated itself, does this mean that the Daleks are never to be seen again?". Host Terry Wogan's advice was to keep watching.

Christopher Eccleston appeared as part of BBC1's "A Party To Remember: Live From Trafalgar Square" (8th May) leading a poetry reading to celebrate the 60th anniversary of VE Day. He was introduced as: "...one of the most respected actors of his generation. The man who has been lighting up our Saturday nights quite literally. Who else, but...Christopher Eccleston?"

Doctor Who Confidential: Cut Down is a limited-time affair. The 15-minute version of the half-hour documentary, which is being aired after the Sunday night repeat of "Doctor Who" on Sundays, has been airing since last week. However, according to the Confidential website, "The Sunday repeat of parts 6-9 will feature new series material only and be edited to fit a fifteen-minute slot. Full-length repeats will return from part 10 onwards."

There have only been a handful of press reviews for The Long Game. One was printed in today's The Sun: "I loved last week's Dr Who with the levitating Dalek, Todd Grimshaw from Corrie and the Doctor's growing lust for his assistant Rose. This is one of the few shows the whole family can watch which doesn't have Heart in the title and a sickly sweet storyline. It is scary, intelligent and funny and has raised the bar for Saturday night TV. It's just a shame the powers that be ignored pleas from sci-fi fans to bring it back for so bloody long."

Simon Pegg and Colin Prockter, who played the Editor and the briefly-seen Head Chef in "The Long Game, " are profiled in this weekend's "The Citizen". "Tv's Doctor Who will come face-to-face with two Gloucestershire actors tonight. Brockworth actor Simon Pegg, who starred and co-wrote the zombie comedy flick Shaun of the Dead, plays an evil villain known as The Editor in the seventh episode of the sci-fi series called The Long Game. You might also recognise Stroud actor Colin Prockter who plays Head Chef in the same episode. ... Simon was reported as saying the other day: 'I think it's going to be spectacular. It's a real honour to be in it. To be a Doctor Who villain was a bit of a dream come true, so I was very happy to do that.' His father, John Beckingham, who lives at Green Way in Brockworth, said his son had always been into science fiction, and had been a huge Star Wars fan. Mr Beckingham said: 'I think he was very pleased to do Doctor Who. He loves science fiction and that sort of thing. It is a well-known, big series and is high profile so it is good for him. I used to watch the original series with Simon. I don't think he ever hid behind the sofa like other kids. He was always into sci-fi, especially zombies. It will be good for him to play a baddie and a change from fighting zombies. I haven't seen the episode yet - just the trailer. We'll definitely be watching it. I am very proud.' Simon has also narrated the series of Doctor Who Confidential which airs on BBC3 after each Saturday night episode. Simon's Doctor Who co-star Colin Prockter, is famous for his roles as stand-in landlord Rodney Bostock of the Rovers Return in Coronation Street and parts in The Whistleblower and Minder. He has done a lot of charity work for The Spring Centre and the Stroud Cats Protection League."

As part of its second week of "Sci-Fi Saturday" the Daily Star (7th May) gave away a free CD which was promoted heavily on the front page of the newspaper as "Doctor Who And Friends". The half-page promotion featured pictures of Chris and Billie and (in small text) informed readers that it was the 'original series tune' on the CD (in fact it was the Mark Ayres arrangement that appeared on the double CD "The Cult Files" in the 1990s). The accompanying TV magazine had "Doctor Who" as its 5-star top pick for the day and made much of the appearance of ex-"Coronation Street" star Bruno Langley.

Yesterday's Guardian discussed ITV's turn to nostalgia "in the face of Dalek threat," noting the disasterous ratings they're suffering. "At a time when ITV is battling falling ratings and increased competition, it is hoping to regain the affection of viewers by broadcasting more than 30 hours of nostalgia-fuelled peak-time programming to celebrate its 50th birthday. The network, which last weekend suffered one of its worst ratings defeats at the hands of the Daleks on BBC1, has unveiled an ambitious programme of on and offscreen events around the anniversary of its first broadcast in September 1955. Classic shows and big names will be wheeled out in an effort to remind viewers of their emotional attachment to the 'people's channel.' ... Last Saturday, fewer than one in five viewers tuned in to ITV's Hell's Kitchen and Celebrity Wrestling, which were up against Doctor Who on BBC1 and Lord of the Rings on Channel 4. As part of the plans, unveiled by ITV's director of programmes, Nigel Pickard, at the Rose d'Or TV festival in Lucerne, viewers will be asked to vote for their favourite ITV shows from a list of 50, with the results forming the basis of a three-hour countdown. The nominations include light entertainment shows from This is Your Life to Opportunity Knocks, comedies such as Spitting Image, much-loved dramas such as Jewel in the Crown, The Sweeney and Cracker, and long-running soaps Coronation Street and Emmerdale."

The Sunday Telegraph has an early review of next Saturday's episode,Father's Day. "'The past in another country', chirps Eccleston's tough-casual Time Lord at the start of tonight's typically terriffic episode. Written by longtime fan Paul Cornell, it's a slicker, snappier, more affecting update of the concept-heavy shenanigans... Piper is perfect, as ever, Eccleston is near his best... and Shaun Dingwall is superb as Rose's n'er-to-do-well dad. Was Doctor Who ever this dependably good before?"

Some recent press appearances for the series: Radio 4's The Now Show (6th May) again featured a number of "Doctor Who" references, including a Dalek standing as part of a local election. The latest edition of Zoo magazine (3-9 May) features an interview with Simon Pegg which promotes his role in "The Long Game" and includes a picture of Pegg as The Editor with the caption "He wasn't sure if the Rutger Hauer look was really working". The magazine also has "Doctor Who" as its Drama TV highlight for Saturday, accompanying it with a picture of a Dalek from last week's episode. On 7th MayITV Teletext had "Doctor Who" as a pick of the day: "It's been an astonishing return to form for everyone's favourite Time Lord, and the press haven't been slow to praise Russell T Davies's Doctor Who. But in this episode the camera is turned on the media - albeit in the year 200,000. Long-time Dr Who fan Simon Pegg, writer and star of Shaun Of The Dead, plays the villainous Editor. Tonight's alien is truly the stuff of nightmares, so it might be best to get the kids behind the sofa straight away". BBC Ceefax also had "Doctor Who" as its TV Choice on 7th May: "It's the first ho-hum episode of the new series, but stick around because next week's one is off the scale: easily the best so far. Tonight Simon Pegg stars as The Editor in a not-even-thinly-veiled mockery of extreme journalism. Unsurprisingly, this is all on Earth again. Or strictly speaking, it's above the planet: this is on a space station in the year 20,000. There's a lot to enjoy but no real meat to the story, not until next time". Channel 4's new Monday night show FAQ U is been trailed as, amongst other things, "...like Doctor Who, but with no-one in it". And Garry Bushell writing for today's The People: "Why don't people being "chased" by Daleks simply run away? You see faster milk floats."

Today's Mail on Sunday notes that Billie Piper will be "brought back down to earth as the nemesis to infamous 'chav' Vicky Pollard in the award-winning BBC comedy series Little Britain. A friend of the actress claims that the show's creators, Matt Lucas and David Walliams, approached Piper because they thought she would be a perfect foil for the foul-mouthed Vicky, whose 'Yeah but, no but' catchphrase, tracksuit and fake gold jewellery epitomise Britain's chav anti-culture. The source says the duo asked Piper out to dinner so they could pitch the idea to her and convince her to be part of their third series. She has also been seen stepping out in London recently with Walliams. 'Vicky Pollard is one of Little Britain's best-loved characters, and David and Matt wanted something new to keep the routine fresh,' Piper's friend told The Mail on Sunday. 'They knew an arch-enemy for Vicky would bring a new dimension to the chav sketches, and they told Billie she would be perfect. Billie loves the idea and knows it would be a super role after Doctor Who. She's now looking at her schedule to make sure she can fit it in.'"

Other items of note: the Mirror and Digital Spy speculate that ITV will drop "Celebrity Wrestling" in the wake of its failure against "Doctor Who"; CBBC News talks about Doctor Who as the top programme and Billie Piper's celebrity; andDigital Spy says that Piper is buying a house near ex-husband Chris Evans.

(Thanks to Paul Engelberg, Steve Tribe, Chuck Foster, Jamie Austin, Keith Armstrong, Peter Weaver, Steve Berry)

Big Finish posted a few updates today on forthcoming audio plays. The cover illustrations for Caroline Symcox's The Council of Nicaea and Joseph Lidster's Terror Firma are both now online; click the thumbnails below for a larger version. Also posted were details on a few other audio plays... December's Other Lives by Gary Hopkins features appearances by actorsRon Moody and "Tomorrow People" star Mike Holloway, while October'sScaredy Cat by Will Shindler features Arthur Bostrom from "Allo, Allo". Finally, Big Finish announced that the fourth UNIT play, The Wasting will see release in June. More details on the Big Finish website.

More information about Doctor Who Through Time, to be published later this year by Continuum Books and first reported by Outpost Gallifrey on 2 May. This will be McCoy-era Script Editor Andrew Cartmel's personal overview of the show, an affectionate account rather than an exhaustive history, looking at all the eras and all the Doctors from a script editor's and writer's point of view. It will be published in hardcover in December with a retail price of ú12.99, ISBN 0826417345. (Thanks to Andrew Cartmel, Steve Tribe)

Sorry about the delay in bringing you this update... it's been a busy week. On to the news:

Note to UK viewers: the broadcast time for May 21's episode, The Empty Child, on its original run on BBC1, has been changed due to that evening's transmission of the Eurovision Song Contest. "The Empty Child" will air at 6:25pm (to 7:10pm) on BBC1.

The BBC Press Office has today posted its programme information for the week 21-27 May. The Features section (note: PDF file) includes a photograph of Christopher Eccleston and Richard Wilson in The Empty Child, captioned "The Doctor and the doctor ... Christopher Eccleston and Richard Wilson, as Dr Constantine, star in Saturday's action-packed Doctor Who, set in wartime London (BBC One)". Saturday's highlights document (also a PDF file) includes a (slightly spoiler-y) preview for The Empty Child, which is to be broadcast at 6.25pm. That spoiler summary is located in the spoiler tag below.

The BBC Press Office has also posted press releases for various items in its Commercial section today, including a press release on the Doctor Who Exhibition in Brighton, plus the new series radio documentary Project Whorelease on CD as well as the release of the classic serial The Crusade on audio.

Canadian ratings this week: "World War Three" had 936,000 viewers tune in for this past Tuesday's broadcast, the second highest number of viewers (behind "Rose") of the new series in that country. It appears to have been fourth in the overall ratings for the evening and second in its time slot.

Transmission of the May 17 broadcast of the series in Canada, for the episode "The Long Game," will be preempted that week in one province, British Columbia, in place of coverage of the BC provincial elections. However, tentative plans have been reported for CBC to rebroadast the series on Sunday evenings in June, so Canadian fans in BC will have to wait until then, if it happens, to see it. Meanwhile, the CBC website has replaced the trailer for the long-delayed documentary "Planet of the Doctor" with excerpts from the first three of an expected six episodes, including "Who is the Doctor?" "Fandemonium," and "The Adventures of Doctor Who." Broadcast is not quite scheduled yet... but at least it's something more than the trailer. No indication as to when the full episodes will be posted.

Issue 131 of SFX is released next week. The issue comes with a free set of nine postcards, five of which feature images from the new series: Chris and Billie, the TARDIS interior, and the gold Dalek. Inside the issue itself is a five-page Doctor Who feature, the bulk of which is made up with SFX's interview with Christopher Eccleston. It was carried out shortly before the announcement was made that he wouldn't be returning for a second series, but it still contains some interesting hints as to what may have informed his decision. He talks quite candidly about how exhausting the job was, for one thing: "If you play the Doctor, the hardest thing is: you can't have a life. You CANNOT have a life. You can't socialise. It's like having a TARDIS in your skull and every time you open your mouth you see a TARDIS. There were days when I got psoriasis, I got eczema. My face blew up in the Dalek episode - I looked literally disfigured with tiredness and my skin." The feature also includes short interviews with Mike Tucker and guest star Simon Pegg. For full details of the issue, check out the SFX website. You can also read SFX's ongoing reviews of each episode here.

Christopher Eccleston is making new waves on the football front: the Doctor Who star has stumped up ú10,000 to help stop Manchester United being sold to American businessman Malcolm Glazer. "Christopher couldn't bear the thought of his beloved team falling into the hands of Glazer so dug deep to put an end to the team being take over," says Sky News. "The United fan's donation may sound like a lot, but it's merely a splash in the water considering the ú100 million that is needed to save the club. ... Eccleston's money went to supporters group Shareholders United, who plan to block Glazer's plans to bid for the club in July." The story has also been reported atBBC News, ESPN,Red Issue, Belfast Telegraph, Tribal Football, The Times, the Daily Mail, Manchester Online, and ContactMusic.

David Tennant will play Brendan Block, a man with disturbing psychotic tendencies, in "Secret Smile," an ITV1 drama adapted from Nicci French's bestselling novel of the same title. ITV executives apparently believe they have pulled off a casting coup in securing Tennant prior to his trip in the TARDIS which starts filming this summer. Secret Smile goes into production next week and will be broadcast on ITV1 in two 90-minute episodes. The story's covered in The Guardianand in print editions of various papers.

A review of the series in the Wessex Scene: "When I tuned in to see the first episode of the new Dr Who I was pleasantly surprised to find that it is really quite good. Writer Russell T Davies, whose most famous creation aside from Doctor Who is Queer as Folk, the controversial Channel 4 series, ensured that the general tone of the show contained drama, character development and good-natured, self-mocking cheesiness in equal measure. Eccleston's impressive CV shows that he's an accomplished actor, and this was certainly apparent in the show. He seemed to give the Doctor charm with depth, and brought out the enigmatic qualities of his character so well that I wanted to tune into the next episode just to find out how much of the character he will reveal next. Piper, though best known as a teenage pop singer and ex-wife of Chris Evans, appears to be a genuinely good actress, as her recent acclaimed performance in The Canterbury Tales would suggest. Judging by the first episode, her character is more of a co-star than a sidekick to the Doctor, and it will be interesting to see how their relationship develops."

The Times Online has reviewed Russell T Davies: Unscripted, the biography of the executive producer of the series."A naughty big, gay cuddly man from Swansea, Davies is a writer and the executive producer of this new Doctor Who series and generally one of televisionÆs greatest assets. Russell T. Davies Unscripted (BBC Two) was a short romp through his career to date, featuring lots of hand-waving and self deprecation from the man himself, as well as insightful asides from various former bosses and that stalwart of the British arts scene, Mark Lawson. ... The programme had clearly been made to coincide with the start of the new Doctor Who series, as much was made of DaviesÆs love of the original Doctor, William Hartnell. Davies remembered watching this at the age of three, in particular the feeling of being scared out of his wits. Overseeing the injection of emotion and self-doubt into a DalekÆs brain before having it blow itself up must, therefore, have been somewhat cathartic for him. It is also, in some ways, a metaphor for his career."

More coverage: Billie Piper's personal life is under scrutiny (again) in theMirror and Megastar; a Derby fan reflects on Doctor Who at Derby County; BBC News reports on the reelection of Vernon Coaker, the Labour candidate told off for using a Dalek in his campaign; FemaleFirst reports on the fluffing of Simon Pegg's lines for this weekend's episode; and Milton Keynes Today reviews this past weekend's Collectormania event.

Finally today, a note of relevance to Doctor Who fans: Tim Collins, Conservative MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, narrowly lost his seat to the Liberal Democrat party. Whatever your stance or party affiliation, you may realize Tim's devotion to the series has kept it in the public eye - most notably when he spearheaded a letter to Michael Grade last year asking for assurances that he would not interfere in the show. So here's a shout out to Tim from Outpost Gallifrey for helping keep the spirit of the show alive.

(Thanks to Paul Engelberg, Steve Tribe, Chuck Foster, Ian Wheeler, Jamie Austin, Dominic May, Jonathan Grills, Ian Berriman, David Farmbrough, Jonathan Massey, Geoff Wessel, Tom Beck, Rod Mammitzsch, Matthew Wilson, Bob Furnell, Benjamin Elliott)

BBC Video/2Entertain has released the cover illustration for the forthcoming second Doctor Who new series DVD set, featuring three episodes: "Aliens of London," "World War Three" and "Dalek". It was expected originally that this disc might have four episodes, but this is the final episode count. Click on the thumbnail at right for a larger version. (Thanks to Louise Gray/2Entertain)

The final UK ratings for World War Three, episode five of the new series, were released today. According to BARB, 7.98 million viewers watched the episode, nearly three-quarters of a million more than the overnights. While in twentieth place for the total chart for the week (comparable to previous installments) it was sixth on the BBC chart and third on the "non-soap" chart, and was beaten for the week by only five other series, "Coronation Street," "EastEnders," "Heartbeat," "Emmerdale" and "Casualty". Doctor Who is expected to outperform the latter for episode six.

The British Board of Film Classification has issued details of 80 minutes and 7 seconds of extra features for the UK DVD release of Revelation of the Daleks that we reported two days ago had finally been confirmed for release by BBC Worldwide. The DVD is classified PG as of 29 April, and is due out in July. The details are as follows:

Posted this afternoon at the BBC Press Office is the sixth 'phase' of the new series press pack, this week concentrating on Episode 7, The Long Game and comprising two parts - an episode synopsis and an interview with Simon Pegg - illustrated with a couple of photographs, one previously unseen. For once, the episode synopsis avoids any major spoilers. The Simon Pegg interview refers to the 'tongue-twisting' line of dialogue mentioned in the latest Radio Times, refers to Pegg's longstanding love of the series and even manages a brief plug for the Big Finish CD Invaders from Mars on which Pegg appeared in 2002. "Actor Simon Pegg isn't likely to ever forget appearing in Doctor Who - and certainly won't fail to recall the tongue twister line he had to deliver in his role as The Editor," says the press pack. "I had to say: 'The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe' which is the name of The Editor's alien boss. I will never forget that - ever - as I had enormous problems saying it. It is absolutely and without question the toughest line I have ever been given to say in anything I have done - it was hilariously arcane and quite purposely so. I could sense everyone's buttocks clenching every time we got to shooting that bit - it was quite distressing! It is a really hard thing to have to say and I kept blowing it. Everyone was being very supportive and I could feel everyone willing me to get it right each take, and in a way that was worse - I wished they had just shouted at me! I got it right in the end and that's the one they will use." Pegg notes that he grew up watching the seies and was keen to be in it. "Doctor Who was a big part of my childhood so it was a great honour to be in it. I'd got into Doctor Who just before Jon Pertwee regenerated into Tom Baker, and as a kid I never remember the special effects being as primitive as they were. It scared the hell out of me but I loved it. I particularly recall monsters like the Sontarans, who had very strange heads; the giant insects in The Ark in Space and in one episode, Julian Glover tearing his face off to become this one-eyed creature." There are some spoilers about the episode and it even notes that he'd been in "Doctor Who" previously, doing "Invaders from Mars" for Big Finish. You can read the full press pack update here.

The Canadian broadcast of World War Three on CBC last night had an unfortunate (and likely accidental) cut... everything prior to the credits, which included the recap of the previous week's episode as well as some other important information. Canadian viewers who missed how last week's cliffhanger was resolved can go to the DWIN website (the Canadian national fan club) where you'll see a brief note recapping what happened.

Books Update: The official Doctor Who website has now reported on the books story we reported a few days ago, but has a notable change: Mike Tucker's "Rain of Terror" is nowhere to be found (perhaps delayed until a subsequent batch?) while the site says that the third book released in September will be The Stealers of Dreams by Steve Lyons ("The Space Age," "The Crooked World").

Regarding Doctor Who Confidential, a clarification: the programme shown this past Sunday, and presumably for future Sundays, was indeed called"Doctor Who Confidential Cut Down". (Not watching the Sunday installment, the editor had no idea!) Readers have let me know that "It was mostly the same material, but re-edited for the cut down version. Even the title was in a different place (i.e. "The Daleks" was written centre-screen on the first show, but placed at the bottom of the screen on the cut-down.) It was not just the classic series material that was cut, lots of stuff about the current series was removed too." Also, "The running time of the Saturday showing was more than 28 minutes. The cutdown version was only 12. Not only was all of the past Doctor content removed but also significant parts of the making of content. The rest of the 15 seconds was taken up by two sets of trailers and 60 Seconds News." Of course, you can always find the full episode on the official Doctor Who website.

In the Times Literary Supplement, there's a review of the series in general by Roz Kaveney: "The first three episodes are at once enjoyable in themselves and a celebration of the show's past -the trip to the far future and the terrifying Victorian ghost story are both plots the show repeated time and again; a repetition known, when viewed favourably, as playing to your strengths rather than a mere obsession. Christopher Eccleston is a hipper, sexier Doctor than we were used to in the past - less a scarily dour grandfather or wonderful mad uncle than a friend's very cool elder brother. But the show's principal strength is Billie Piper as Rose, the new companion. She is clearly a post-Buffy consort, the type who can swing on a rope and knock an animated shop-window mannequin flying. Rose is attractively vulnerable, seeing the wonder of the Earth's end, but also being upset by it, and possessed of common sense that counterpoint's the Doctor's sometimes na?ve idealism. She is also what is commonly known as a 'Mary Sue' - an uninronic reflection of the writers' and fans' desire to get in there and help the Doctor out (while managing to stay pretty). At the same time, she is a modern working-class woman, with an affecting back story - a childhood on a London estate as the only daughter of a needy, single mother."

More "Dalek" reviews. Tuesday's London Evening Standard reviewed the episode, with columnist Victor Lewis-Smith -- "renowned as one of the most caustic reviewers around" according to our correspondent -- enjoying the episode. "By turns dramatic, imaginative, ironic, allegorical - and touching - the storyline never faltered from first to last. ... For once the BBC haven't put a foot wrong, and have even improved on the original. There are clever, funny, and challenging scripts here, fine ensemble acting and direction, Ron Grainer's theme tune and a backlit Billie Piper to get yet another generation of Doctor Who nerds rushing off to find the kleenex." Also, on Monday's "Thought for the Day" on Radio 4, the speaker talked about 'Dalek' and commented that it seems even this evil race has a hope of redemption. Apparently the speaker was reaching for the Kleenex by the end of the episode - clearly a reference to the moving Dalek moments; not the reaction of the 14-year-old boy fans watching Miss Piper.

Says the Independent, "An effort to persuade Britain's spotty ranks of science fiction fans to vote Labour tomorrow has rather gloriously backfired. Vernon Coaker " a Dr Who fan, and Labour candidate for Gedling " has spent recent weeks parading a replica Dalek around his constituency, highlighting Tory plans to 'exterminate public services'. Unfortunately, the Daleks are a registered trademark, owned jointly by the BBC and the estate of their late creator, Terry Nation. Labour HQ has therefore received a stern letter ordering them to withdraw the pepperpot- shaped villain. 'The BBC takes very seriously the unauthorised use of its brands,' explains a spokesman. 'We've written to Labour asking them to stop this, and will take further steps if necessary.' Coaker was unrepentant yesterday. 'It was supposed to be a fun way of getting our message across,' he said."

More coverage of ITV's loss of ratings to the BBC in today's Mirror andIndependent (the latter accidentally noting that "Celebrity Wrestling" only got 800,000 viewers instead of lost that many!); and BBC News discusses a Cyberman helmet up for sale.

(Thanks to Steve Tribe, Paul Engelberg, Paul Hayes, Chuck Foster, David Traynier, Benjamin Elliott, Michael Stead, Faiz Rehman, Nat Titman, Chris Goater, and Simon Lydiard)