Matt Smith's first full series as The Doctor comes to France 4 next month when the channel begins showing the 31st series of the show, starting with Le Prisonnier Zéro (The Eleventh Hour) on February 12, at 8:35 PM.

Viewers in France got to see the end of the Tenth Doctor last Christmas day when France 4 showed La Prophétie de Noël.

The series will continue with Épisode 2 — La Bête des bas-fonds and Épisode 3 — La Victoire des Daleks.


In addition French-speaking Doctor Who fansite Beans On Toast has revealed that series 4 of Doctor Who will be released on DVD in French.

The news has been confirmed by France Television Distristribution, the DVD editor in charge of the DVD releases of the first three series in France. French-speaking fans have been campaigning for a DVD release of the series with Beans on Toast launching an online petition in August 2010.

Series 1, 2 and 3 are also to be re-released on DVD, and this time, the series 3 boxset will include the original English version with French subtitles. The current DVD edition only offers the French dub.

For discussion on this news see the Beans On Toast Forum.

Figures released by the BBC Press Office show that the Doctor Who Christmas Special: A Christmas Carol, was accessed over 700,000 times on the BBC iPlayer in the week after transmission.

The episode was the 8th most accessed programme in December, dispite only being available for the last week of the month. Overall December was a record month for the iPlayer with 89.7 million requests for TV Programmes.

Jana Bennett, BBC Director of Vision, said
Matt Smith's first full story as The Doctor, The Eleventh Hour, still holds the record for the most accessed programme ever on iPlayer, with 2.24 million requests, way ahead of the second placed Top Gear. Every single episode of Smith's first series was in the top thirty accessed programmes of the year, with Doctor Who taking seven of the top ten places. David Tennant's Swan-song, The End of Time: Part Two came in at number 33, with just over a million requests. A Christmas Carol was the 73rd most requested programme in 2010, but was also available for the first week of 2011.

In terms of overall programme totals, Doctor Who Series Five had 19.5 million requests. The most requested programme was EastEnders, with over 100 million requests, although spread over a much larger number of episodes.

Other series of Doctor Who faired well with repeats of Series 4 being requested over 2 million times. The most requested Doctor Who item on BBC Radio was the Radio Seven transmission of the reading of Doctor Who and The Giant Robot, which was requested over 200,000 times. In total there were over 32 million requests for Doctor Who connected programmes.

Matt Smith's debut as the Eleventh Doctor is the most watched programme on the BBC iPlayer for the year so far according to the BBC.

The BBC iPlayer celebrates its third Birthday this Christmas with over 1.3 billion requests being made throughout 2010. The Eleventh Hour accounted for 2.2 million of these hits with the rest of the series averaging around 1.5 million hits each.

Top Gear was the second most requested programme, with over half a million fewer requests than Doctor Who.

Daniel Danker, General Manager, Programmes and On Demand, said:
As part of the BBC's commitment to increase the reach of BBC iPlayer, the service is now available on around 40 different devices. For those who enjoy watching on-demand from the comfort of the living room, BBC iPlayer can be found on a range of TVs including Samsung, LG, and Sony Bravia, Blu-Ray disc players, Nintendo Wii and PS3 games consoles, and Virgin Media and Freesat set-top boxes. For those on the go, the BBC iPlayer mobile site can be accessed from phones and tablets including Apple iPads, iPhones and selected models of BlackBerry, Android, Nokia, Samsung, HTC and Sony Ericsson phones.

A book reviewing every episode of Series 5 is to be published next week on Monday 6th December.

Doctor Who: The Pandorica Opens - Exploring the Worlds of the Eleventh Doctor has taken Frank Collins's original reviews written on his Cathode Ray Tube blog and has vastly expanded them to provide an in-depth analysis of episodes, characters, themes and ideas, and places Doctor Who within the wider cultural context of contemporary social, political, historical and psychological debates.

An excerpt from an interview with Classic TV Press (PDF):


The book is available for pre-order direct from Classic TV Press at the discounted price of £12.49.

Frank will be signing copies of his book at the following:

The Mill have won the 'Digital Effects' award at this year's Royal Television Society Craft and Design Awards.

The visual effects company were rewarded for their work on The Pandorica Opens.

The the RTS explained:


Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss's Sherlock won three awards; best picture enhancement, best tape and film editing in a drama, and best original title music.

The Mill have also produced visual effects for Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Vincent and the Doctor, written by Richard Curtis has been nominated in the Drama category at this year’s Mind Mental Health Media Awards.

The nominations will be judged by an independent panel of media professionals and mental health service users. The awards, which celebrate the best portrayal of mental distress and reporting of mental health in broadcast media, will be held at the British Film Institute on Monday 22nd November 2010.

See the the full list of nominations here.

As with last year, Doctor Who is nominated for an award from The Writers' Guild of Great Britain. Series five writers included within the nomination for Best Television Drama Series are Steven Moffat, Toby Whithouse, Simon Nye, Mark Gatiss and Chris Chibnall.

Once again, the show is up against last year's winner in this category, Whithouse's successful 'horror' series Being Human; and for this year the other show in the running is another sci-fi/fantasy series, Ashes to Ashes.

The awards ceremony takes place on Sunday 21 November 2010.

The guild is a trade union for professional writers and the awards are deemed to be special because the work of writers is honoured by their peers and colleagues.

Silva Screen have announced the track listing for the forthcoming CD of music from Doctor Who - Series Five.

The two disc set is due for release in the UK on the 8th November.

2|entertain released details of the lenticular artwork that adorns the cover of The Complete Fifth Series DVD Box-set, due for release on both sides of the Atlantic, around 8th November.

The box-set, consisting of 6 discs, will contain all the episodes in Matt Smith's first series as the Doctor. Episodes 1, 3, 4, 6, 9 and 13 will have in-vision commentaries and the set will include deleted scenes, video diaries and versions of Doctor Who Confidential. Exclusively filmed scenes giving an insight to what has happened in the TARDIS between episodes are also included in the set.

To promote the release there will be a chance to meet Matt Smith and Karen Gillan at HMV Oxford Street in London. Taking place on Monday 8th November from 1-3pm, the event will only be open to 300 people. Access will be via wristbands which will be available only from HMV London from 9.00am on Monday 8th November onwards. One wristband per customer maximum, in person only, while stocks last and subject to availability.

Details have been released of the 2010 series boxset which will be released in the UK on 8th November 2010 and in North America on November 9, 2010.

Branded The Complete Fifth Series the boxset is available in DVD and Blu-ray formats. In the UK, as well as the general release, a number of sets will be available in the form of a specially limited edition.

Special features include additional scenes written by Steven Moffat and exclusive to DVD.

• Additional scenes: Meanwhile in the TARDIS, written by Steven Moffat and featuring Matt Smith & Karen Gillan, telling the story of what happens between episodes. Why was Amy floating in Space above Starship UK, and what happened after 'that' kiss between the Doctor and Amy?
• Monster Files - The Monster Files will get under the skin and inside the minds of the latest Doctor's most challenging opponents. With previously unseen footage and exclusive comments from cast and crew, the Monster Files take fans old and new even further behind enemy lines.
• Outtakes
• In-vision commentaries
• Video Diary
• Confidential Cut Downs
• BBC Trails and Promos to New Series 5

See our full Release Schedule