The new Doctor Who Magazine (out 25th August) celebrates the return of Doctor Who to our screens this weekend, with previews of the first four stories in this second half of the series, Let's Kill Hitler, Night Terrors, The Girl Who Waited and The God Complex, plus interviews with Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Alex Kingston, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Tom MacRae and Toby Whithouse.

On the controversial title of the first episode:

Also in this issue:

• Tough Crowd Doctor Who’s showrunner Steven Moffat faces his toughest crowd, in what his wife describes as "the best interview he’s ever given", in Production Notes.
• Herr Today Actor Albert Welling is interrogated by DWM about his role in Doctor Who as the (second) greatest war criminal in history – Adolf Hitler.
• Look, Who's Talking? DWM tries to get a word in edgeways as Matt Smith and the guest star in The God Complex, David Walliams, interview each other!
• Miracle Workers Writer Jane Espenson, Tom Price (Sgt Andy Davidson) and Bill Pullman (convicted killer Oswald Danes) talk exclusively to DWM about their role in the spectacular new spin-off from Doctor Who, Torchwood: Miracle Day.
• Perfect Day The classic 1972 story Day of the Daleks just got better! DWM finds out how a Special Edition of this classic 1972 Third Doctor story was created for its much-anticipated DVD release, and talks to the men responsible: producer Steve Broster, audio expert Mark Ayres and the voice of the Daleks, Nicholas Briggs.
• Monster Invasion DWM takes a nostalgic look back at the 1972 season of Doctor Who – a series that saw the Third Doctor face the Sea Devils, the Ice Warriors and the dreaded Daleks – as our Countdown To 50 continues.
• A New Direction The Doctor is dead, the world is in turmoil and only Donna Noble can save the Earth! The Fact of Fiction looks back to the acclaimed 2008 adventure Turn Left and uncovers the many secrets hidden within the story.
• Tweet, Tweet! Want to know what the Sixth Doctor is doing right now? Or fancy reading what the writers of Doctor Who are thinking about today? Then you need Twitter! DWM proudly presents an invaluable guide to the Doctor Who people you should follow in 2011.
• Kids These Days ... It’s been the subject of much heated debate: have fans today never had it so good? Or were things more fun in the "good old days", before Doctor Who became so easily accessible? Johnny Candon and Toby Hadoke argue the pros and cons of the case in A Battle of Wits!
• Mum's the Word It was Steven Moffat’s first script for Doctor Who, and introduced the character of Captain Jack Harkness. But what will The Time Team make of the 2005 Ninth Doctor and Rose adventure, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances?
• The Impossible Chrononaut The Doctor and Amy pursue the impossible girl, Chiyoko, through time and space – and get a nasty surprise when then catch up with her – in the first part of a brand new comic strip adventure, The Child Of Time, by Jonathan Morris with art by Martin Geraghty.
• Who's Round? The mysterious Watcher discusses the Doctor’s drinking, challenges readers with the Six Faces of Delusion and celebrates another unsung hero from the supporting cast in Wotcha!

PLUS! All the latest official news, TV and merchandise reviews, previews, competitions and a prize-winning crossword.

During the course of this summer, a competition was run by the BBC Learning Department and Doctor Who Confidential to promote creativity in schools by writing a short Doctor Who script featuring the Doctor, a monster and an adversary.

The BBC Press Office have now reported that the winning entry, Death Is The Only Answer, was written by pupils of Oakley Junior School in Basingstoke, and chosen by Doctor Who's head writer Steven Moffat, executive producers Beth Willis and Piers Wenger, and the Controller of BBC Learning, Saul Nassé.


Steven Moffat said:

Saul Nassé said:

The winning script has been made into a "mini-episode" to feature on BBC3 on 1st October, the same day as Doctor Who's series finale, The Wedding of River Song, is scheduled to be broadcast. Doctor Who Confidential followed the whole production process of making the episode from script through to filming, which will form part of this weekend's edition straight after Let's Kill Hitler at 8:00pm over on BBC3.

The Doctor himself, Matt Smith, added when recording the episode:

Kevin Downing, a Year Six teacher at the school, said the pupils involved in the project were over the moon at winning:


Details of the monster/adversary that the Doctor will face in the three minute special are to be revealed on broadcast.

(news Link: BBC News)

The actress Anne Ridler has died.

Anne Ridler played Gemma Corwyn the second-in-command of Space Station W3 in the 1968 Doctor Who story The Wheel in Space. After appearing in five episodes of the story she sacrificed her life to help the Second Doctor defeat the Cybermen.

Anne Ridler had a long and distinguished career first appearing on television in 1955 and going on to work on over 5 movies and 29 TV serials. Her first screen role was on TV with a regular spot alongside Francis Matthews in the Francis Durbridge series My Friend Charles. Her breakthrough came as a regular in Dixon of Dock Green, appearing as WP Sgt. Chris Freeman from 1962 to 1964. She had guest roles in Moonbase 3 in 1973 and The Tomorrow People in 1975 abd in the 1980' s she played voice of Kate Kestrel, Cy-Star and It-Star in Gerry Anderson's puppet-animated Terrahawks series.

She had small roles in the Hammer film Camp on Yangtse Incident (1957), the Michael Anderson-directed Blood Island (1958) and 633 Squadron (1963).

She played Jacqueline Shaffer in the Big Finish story Master.

The actor Noel Collins has died at the age of 74.

Noel Collins appeared in 3 episodes of the 1989 Doctor Who story Battlefield where he played Pat Rowlinson, the landlord of the hotel in which the Seventh Doctor and Ace stayed while investigating an inter-dimensional distress call.

Collins was best known for his role in the long running BBC police series Juliet Bravo, where he played Sergeant George Parrish throughout the six year run of the show. He also appeared in Play for Today, When the Boat Comes in and the comedy series Bread.

Collins retired at the age of 60 after being diagnosed with lung cancer and undergoing an operation which involved removing a lung. In the 1990's he joined 52 other claimants in a £17million lawsuit against cigarette giants Gallaher and Imperial Tobacco arguing that the companies had been negligent in not reducing the tar content in their cigarettes between 1957 and 1971 once it became obvious that smoking caused lung cancer.

Although the case was dropped in March 1999 Collins retained his anti smoking stance until his death. His widow Helen Collins paid tribute to her husband's bravery in the face of his illness. "He was content in his life but also stoic during the bad times. He became very anti-smoking but he lived through his illness as best he could. Even in his last week he was still getting Juliet Bravo fan mail which he found amusing. He loved the theatre and really enjoyed his career, but without being pretentious or boastful."

Noel Collins died on 15 August after losing his long battle with cancer.

The BBC has released a new video in the lead-up to the premiere of Let's Kill Hitler this coming Saturday; here, Arthur Darvill, Karen Gillan, producer Marcus Wilson and director Richard Senior discuss the premise behind the episode:


A number of publicity photos to tie in with the episode have also been released:

Will Brooks, co-author of the forthcoming Memoirs of an Edwardian Adventurer, has informed us that the pre-order date for the book has been pushed forward to 10:00pm this coming Friday, 26th August - this is in order to be able to launch the book as scheduled for 10th October.

Those who pre-order the book will have their names printed inside the book as a special thanks.

With the return of Doctor Who to our screens this coming weekend (27th August), Star Cutouts are celebrating by offering the Doctor and Amy as prizes in our latest competition!

In order to win one of these (cardboard!) figures, simply answer the following question:


The competition closing date is Saturday 3rd September, and is only open to those resident in the UK. To enter, email your answer to this address with the subject line Cardboard Doctor - the two winners chosen will receive the Doctor and Amy figures respectively.



Star Cutouts are Europe's largest dedicated manufacturer of life sized cardboard cut-outs, and the official licensee for full-sized Doctor Who characters. The latest figures in their collection are available from retailers like Forbidden Planet.

Some news on possible future DVD releases emerged at the Fantom Films conventions held over the weekend:

Back in 1964, the story Planet of Giants had originally been filmed as a four-part story, but had the latter two episodes combined into one in order to tighten the plot for a better paced series opener. Though the original recording no longer exists, actress Carole Ann Ford, who played the Doctor's grand-daughter Susan, mentioned at the Dalek Invasion Earth convention that she had recently recorded an audio version of the original script for that fourth episode, The Urge to Live, which she believed is to be for a DVD release of the story.

Further 'lost' material also seems likely to see the light of day. Back in 1979 the final story of Season 17, Shada, had to be abandoned due to BBC strikes with only parts of the studio sessions completed; appearing at the Timelord Tales convention, both Victoria Burgoyne (Clare) and Daniel Hill (Chris) reported that they'd been involved in a new audio recording of the script for the unfilmed material, in which other original cast members participated including Lalla Ward (Romana). They also discussed the missing scenes being recreated in animation, and believed this could form part of a DVD release of the story in the future. (Producer Ian Levine has confirmed that the actors were talking about his production, but that the cast hope for an 'official' release.)

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A recent fire at the Sony warehouse facilities in Enfield led to loss of much of the DVD and CD stock held there, including Doctor Who DVDs due to be distributed by 2|Entertain. However, the company has reported that this will not affect the release of Day of the Daleks, due out on the 12th September (available to pre-order).

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The Restoration Team have recently revived their website that delves into the technical issues involved in restoring the classic Doctor Who stories for DVD release - the site had been in mothballs since The Space Museum/The Chase back in January 2010. The site is in the process of being brought up to date, and new articles have now been added for the first Revisitations boxed set and for Mannequin Mania.

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Further snippets for DVD production have been tweeted by the Restoration Team; this includes an appeal by Chris Chapman for anybody who could provide contact details for Peter Walker (the young boy in The Reign of Terror) - if you can help please let him know.

The new edition of the Radio Times (27th August - 2nd September) celebrates the return of Doctor Who to our screens this coming Saturday, with the Doctor once again gracing the front cover for the season opener, Let's Kill Hitler.


The magazine features an exclusive episode guide by head writer Steven Moffat, which finally reveals the titles for the concluding two episodes of the series, Closing Time and The Wedding of River Song.

There are also interviews with Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Alex Kingston. Here, Matt and Karen talk about the downside of fame:

You can read a sample from the episode guide on the Radio Times website.


The website also offers a review of last week's preview for Let's Kill Hitler, and an interview with Mark Gatiss on the following week's episode, Night Terrors.

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The Radio Times have also made a spoof video tie-in for Let's Kill Hitler, based upon the popular Downfall meme :

Episode Five of Torchwood: Miracle Day, The Categories of Life, had a final official rating of 5.17 million viewers according to figures released by BARB.

The programme was the 19th highest rated on BBC One for the week. While the rating was similar to previous weeks the chart placing was much lower because of the exceptionally high ratings achieved by news programmes during the periods of civil disturbance in several English cities which occurred at the start of the week

The final result includes those who recorded the programme and watched it within 7 days. It does not include those watching on iPlayer.

Episode Six, The Middle Men, had an AI score of 85.