Brian Minchin has been made executive producer on Doctor Who alongside showrunner and lead writer Steven Moffat with immediate effect, it was announced this afternoon.

He replaces Caroline Skinner, who stepped down last month to join BBC Drama Production in London.

Minchin is an executive producer for BBC Wales's drama department, where he has been working on The Game, a new Cold War spy thriller from Toby Whithouse for BBC One, and Wizards vs Aliens, the Russell T Davies and Phil Ford co-creation for CBBC. He has also worked as BBC executive producer on Dirk Gently - based on the novels by Douglas Adams - and Being Human (another Whithouse creation).

He has been a script editor on Doctor Who and was a producer for spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures as well as the UK sections of Torchwood: Miracle Day, and was assistant producer on Torchwood: Children Of Earth.

Having grown up in Aberystwyth, Minchin joined the BBC Wales drama department in Cardiff in 2005 as a script editor working on the BBC One Wales production Belonging, before moving to network dramas Doctor Who and Torchwood in the same role.

He said: Faith Penhale, the head of drama at BBC Wales, said: And Moffat added:

This weekend's adventure for the Doctor and Clara will be The Crimson Horror, written by Mark Gatiss and directed by Saul Metzstein. The episode will premiere on BBC One in the United Kingdom on Saturday at 6:30pm.


Some minor changes to the schedule this weekend. The National Lottery: Who Dares Wins continues to follow on BBC One, but on ITV, Britain's Got Talent shifts to 7:15pm, no longer overlapping with Doctor Who; it is preceeded by You've Been Framed! Top 100 Weddings. BBC Two presents Dad's Army at 6:30pm followed by World Snooker at 7:00pm, Channel 4 has the news followed by Sarah Beeny's Selling Houses also at 7:00pm, and the Channel 5 movie for this week is Stone Cold.


Internationally, The Crimson Horror will be broadcast in the United States and Canada on BBC America and SPACE respectively at 8:00pm ET the same evening, and then on Sunday it can be watched in Australia via ABC at 7:30pm, Poland via BBC Entertainment at 6:00pm, and South Africa via BBC Entertainment at 7:00pm. Meanwhile, New Zealand viewers will see Hide this Thursday on PRIME at 8:30pm.

See This Week in Doctor Who for more details on scheduling and repeats.

Campaigners are renewing their efforts to save film studios that have close links to Doctor Who.

Bray Studios, near Maidenhead in Berkshire, are probably most famous for the Hammer horror films that were made there, including some starring Peter Cushing, but they have also hosted TV work as well as band rehearsals.

Doctor Who used the facilities for six stories between 1972 and 1979 - namely, Frontier In Space, The Invisible Enemy, Underworld, The Invasion of Time, The Power of Kroll, and City of Death - and the studios were also used by Gerry Anderson for his shows.

The now-dilapidated site, owned by showbusiness agent Neville Hendricks, is set to be turned into seven executive homes but the Save Bray Studios campaign, headed by Robert Simpson, aims to halt the bulldozers in their tracks.

Mr Simpson told Doctor Who News: An online petition has been launched, which can be signed here.

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS had an Appreciation Index, or AI score, of 85.

The Appreciation Index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. The score, out of a hundred, is compiled by a specially selected panel of around 5,000 people who go online and rate and comment on programmes.

Doctor Who scored higher than most of Saturday's output. The highest scoring programmes of the day were Casualty with 87, Dad's Army with 88 and Law and Order with 89.

Signum Books have a limited number of their special vinyl release of John Smith and the Common Men: Sounds from the Inferno available for order from their website.

The record - which featured Three Guitars Mood 2 from An Unearthly Child and music from The War Machines - was released for this year's Record Store Day, and is limited to 1000 copies.

Copies are on a first-come, first-served basis, and Signum Books will ship to the UK, Europe and the United States.

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS achieved an overnight audience of 4.9 million viewers, a share of 26.7% of the total TV audience.

Doctor Who was third for the day, beaten by the usual suspects for the evening. Its final quarter hour overlapped the day's highest-rated show Britain's Got Talent on ITV, which was top for the day with 9.3m (9.8m with +1) watching, capturing a 43.9%(46.4%) share of the audience. The BBC's talent show, The Voice, on later in the evening, was watched by 8.0 million (35.5% share).

Final ratings will be released next week, which normally sees a substantial increase in Doctor Who's audience once those who timeshift the programme are factored in.

BBC Books has released details of the forthcoming adventure Harvest of Time featuring the Third Doctor and the Master as well as UNIT.

Announced in July 2011, it has been written by Alastair Reynolds, who won a British Science Fiction Association award in 2001 for his novel Chasm City.


The 386-page book, which has an RRP of £16.99, will be published on Thursday 6th June and is available to pre-order.

Reynolds gained a PhD in astronomy and worked as an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency before becoming a full-time writer. His book Revelation Space was short-listed for both the Arthur C Clarke and BSFA Awards, while House of Suns was short-listed for the Arthur C Clarke Award.

Sunday 28th April sees the broadcast of two four-part Tom Baker stories, The Robots of Death (1977) and City of Death (1979) on Australian and New Zealand television. The two stories, screened back-to-back, are the 17th and 18th instalments in the 50th Anniversary season of Doctor Who stories on the UKTV channel.

The stories are scheduled in New Zealand at 2:30pm and 4:10pm, and in Australia at 2:30pm and 4:30pm respectively. New Zealand has an additional screening on Monday 29th April at 2:20am and 4:00am.

The Robots of Death was first broadcast in Australia in 1978 and in New Zealand in 1979. Both countries saw City of Death in 1980.


The UKTV billing describes the stories as follows:

The Robots of Death The Fourth Doctor & Leela land in the cargo hopper of a sandminer, whose crew are being murdered one by one. Suspicion falls on the two visitors, but they are freed by Poul.
City of Death The Fourth Doctor & Romana sense that someone is tampering with time. Who is the mysterious Count Scarlioni? & how many copies of the Mona Lisa did da Vinci paint?

UKTV is showing stories throughout the year in the lead-up to the anniversary in November. The Robots of Death and City of Death are the last in a set of six stories featuring Tom Baker's Doctor broadcast during April.

Next month showcases Peter Davison's Doctor, with six of his stories scheduled: Kinda (5 May), Earthshock and Snakedance (12 May), Frontios and Resurrection of the Daleks (19 May), The Caves of Androzani (26 May).

Up-and-coming broadcasts from both 20th and 21st Century series of Doctor Who can be found via UKTV's Doctor Who sections for Australia and New Zealand.

May will see the release by AudioGo of the next encounter for the Doctor in their ongoing 50th Anniversary series Destiny of the Doctor, this month reaching his fifth incarnation. Meanwhile, the latest audio adaption of the Target novelisations takes listeners on a trip to Peladon with the Third Doctor. Plus, readers also enter our competitions to be in with a chance to win copies.



In addition, AudioGo have also released an audio adaptation of the latest adventure for the Eleventh Doctor, Plague of the Cybermen: