Filling The Doctor Who Void- News Roundup (17th-31st December)

What with the airing of the brilliant Christmas Special The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe (awarded a great 4.5/5 here) on Christmas Day, the world of Doctor Who has been a lot busier as of late. Here's a full guide to the last fortnight of news and reveals...

• AT WORLD'S OPEN- SEGA's massive multiplayer online role-playing games Doctor Who: Worlds In Time has opened its doors for an open beta of fans. I'm part of the beta, so will be giving you my World Exclusive first impressions of the game- which sees you become companions to the Doctor, desperately searching for fragments of time to rebuild shatter timelines- very soon!
• A CONVENTIONAL DEATH?- It's been confirmed that Arthur Darvill, the man who plays Rory Williams in the new series of Who, will be appearing at the show's official convention on the 24th and 25th of March. No doubt Arthur will give us the full lowdown on his character's regular deaths and some teasers as to why Amy and Rory depart the TARDIS (dead or alive) in Series 7...
• ANNIVERSARY ANGST SETTLED- Steven Moffat has quelled fears that we might simply get just one special episode of Doctor Who to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary in November 2013. "Why talk in the singular?" he said, "We've got a load of very big plans- the mere fact that we're talking about this two years before the event should tell you how seriously we're taking it!"
• PORTENTS OF THE FUTURE- Having rewatched Series 6 in its entirety and the excellent Night and The Doctor scenes on the boxset (to be reviewed soon!), I reckon I've spotted a couple of plot threads that could be picked up in this year's run: Why does Amy Pond's life make so little sense, bound by cracks in time and Time Lordy-Flesh babies? What will the Doctor's reaction be to taking River on her final journey before she travels to the Library? And perhaps most importantly, why were the Teselecta investigating the Silence in The Wedding of River Song, to find a way to save the Doctor or perhaps to uncover what their plans are to be set in motion on the Fields of Trenzalore...?
• 3RD PLACE: The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe was incredibly the third most-watched television programme of the whole of the Christmas Day schedule, garnering an average of 8.9 million viewers. Although that figure is down on last year's, so were the figures of both Eastenders and Coronation Street (the day's most-watched shows) and every other programme in the Top 20 for the day, and compared even to the strong ratings of Series 6 it's a huge increase that should be commended. To put this into perspective, The Christmas Invasion had 9.4 million viewers, The Runaway Bride 9.35 million, Voyage of the Damned 12.1, The Next Doctor 11.71, The End of Time Part One 10.0 and A Christmas Carol 10.3, so there's hardly too much difference, and that it beat Downton Abbey is staggering! And don't forget all of those past episodes were final figures, and the 9.1 figure could increase by at least 2 million when the final consolidated figures are in!
• 2011- AVERAGE? I've now got an average score for Doctor Who's 2011 run, comprising from The Impossible Astronaut to The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe: it's a brilliant 88%! The average for the 2010 run (The End of Time Part Two-A Christmas Carol) was 83%, so I'd say we're starting to see dramatic yearly improvements, and it now falls down to 2012's shorter run of seven/eight stories and 2013's bumper special run to keep up the good work...
• A NECESSARY DELAY: Finally, Doctor Who Magazine has confirmed on Twitter that the new series of Who will not begin airing until the Autumn, despite persistent rumours of an Easter Special: "The Doctor will be meeting 'a new friend' during the next series, which starts on BBC One in the Autumn of 2012 ['starts' certainly seems to imply this will be Part 1, with Part 2 in Spring 2013 and Part 3 in Autumn 2013]. Exciting times ahead!" Indeed...

COMING UP FOR WHO IN JANUARY

This mini-feature is going to be placed at the end of the end-of-month Void article, and will basically tell you what we can expect from Doctor Who in the absence of the new series each month...

MONDAY 2ND- A new Eleventh Doctor audiobook called The Art of Death releases today, and is read by its author James Goss.

MONDAY 9TH- 2Entertain bring us a boxset of Third Doctor story Invasion of the Dinosaurs and the Fourth Doctor's The Android Invasion with the release of UNIT Files on DVD.

THURSDAY 12TH- Look out for the new Doctor Who Magazine today, packing casting and plot details on the Autumn run, plus a free download of an exclusive Tom Baker Big Finish story.

MONDAY 16TH- Missed the Christmas Special, and/or want to catch the BBC America Best of Doctor Who specials for the first time? Look out for the DVD and Blu-Ray release of The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe today then!

MONDAY 23RD- The classic First Doctor story The Sensorites hits DVD shelves today.

TUESDAY 31ST- What secrets does the creator of the Daleks still hold after all of his battles with the Doctor? Find out today in the exciting Sixth Doctor drama The Curse of Davros on CD. Plus, travel with the Fourth Doctor to a familiar space station in Destination Nerva, Tom Baker's first Big Finish story, and discover some stories from his era which never made it to screen in The Lost Stories: The Fourth Doctor Collection...