Doctor Who has received a coveted nomination at this year’s honourable Hugo Awards.

Series 8’s critically and fan lauded Listen, written by Steven Moffat and directed by Douglas Mackinnon, is shortlisted in the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category alongside respective episode’s of The Flesh, Game of Thrones, Grimm and Orphan Black.

The winners will be revealed at the annual ceremony on 22nd August 2015 at the Sasquan convention in Washington.

A Hugo Award is a particularly prestigious accolade as it’s voted for by members of the World Science Fiction Convention. Previous wins for Doctor Who include The Waters of Mars, The Pandorica Opens/ The Big Bang and The Doctor’s Wife. Fingers crossed!

The BBC has teamed up with BitTorrent to celebrate 10 years of Doctor Who’s revived series, it has been announced.

To mark a decade since the show’s televisual return, a special ten story boxset has been officially released via the content distribution service as part of a new forward-thinking plan to make the Doctor’s modern adventures more readily available to a larger audience around the globe.

The package also includes exclusive video content with Peter Capaldi, including highlights of last year’s World Tour.

It’s available now to stream/download for $12, and its specially selected highlights include:

- Series 1: Rose
- Series 1: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
- Series 2: The Girl in the Fireplace
- Series 3: Blink
- Series 4 Special: The End of Time (Parts 1 & 2)
- Series 5: The Vampires of Venice
- Series 6: The Doctor’s Wife
- Series 7: The Rings of Akhaten
- 50th Anniversary special: The Day of the Doctor
- Series 8: Listen

WhovianNet.co.uk readers recently voted Series 4 as the greatest NuWho series to date.

Neil Gaiman has confirmed that he won’t be contributing to Series 9 of Doctor Who due to “ridiculous work commitments”.

The writer told Radio Times that, while he can’t fit it into his busy schedule at the moment, he’s still “determined to write for Peter Capaldi “at some point in the future. “As long as Peter is Doctor Who, I will write for him,” he said. “Every time I’m in the UK, I go and see the Doctor Who people. None of us are going to let me go off the boil. But it’s an enormous time commitment. How Steven Mofatt does it and Sherlock, and retains his sanity, I do not know.”

He continued: “I haven’t done an episode set on Earth yet and I also haven’t created a new monster. So there are still boxes left to tick. I don’t think I’ve scared anybody yet either. I’d love to write something that sends adults behind the sofa too and makes them wee a bit…”

Neil’s previous Doctor Who episodes are The Doctor’s Wife and Nightmare in Silver.

When we first meet River Song in The Silence of the Library, she is a clearly established character who will, we find out by the end of the episode, become important to the Doctor, and to the Whoniverse. When we first meet her, she knows herself, who she is and what she and the Doctor are to each other. She knows the Doctor, but he does not know her. It clearly breaks her heart.

But in Lets Kill Hitler, we have the opposite story: The Doctor knows River but she does not know him. On this show about time travel, things often happen out of order, and nothing more then the story of River and the Doctor. It’s a mystery being revealed a little at a time.

Lets Kill Hitler comes just after A Good Man Goes to War in which we discover, shockingly, River’s true identity as Amy and Rory’s daughter, and the future wife of the Doctor. So in Lets Kill Hitler – after getting to know River up to this point, and after knowing who she really is – we finally get to see the beginning of River Song (whereas, when we first meet her in the Silence of the Library, that is the end of her story – gotta love the chronology!).

The River we meet in Lets Kill Hitler is not the River we have come to know and love. This River has just regenerated from Melody Pond (after she has been shot by Hitler) and while she’s still the sassy River she always is, she is finally the woman Melody was trained to be: The Woman Who Kills the Doctor. This is River’s one and only mindset and mission upon regenerating. She doesn’t know who Amy and Rory are, but she knows The Doctor; this is her lifes mission – to end the life of that “warrior”, the Doctor.

The scene immediately after she regenerates is one of the funniest, most well acted, and executed scenes in Doctor Who history (if you ask me). River is a whirlwind tornado spinning through the room, flirting with The Doctor: “Hello Benjamin! Watch out that bow tie!” all the while the Doctor is acting bashful and childlike (something only Matt Smith could accomplish) but shortly after this, we go through the scene again from The Doctors view – and we find that River was more then flirting – she was covertly trying to accomplish her mission. Only we see that the Doctor, of course, was onto her – he always always knows more then he lets on. Matt plays this so well, bouncing between being childlike and being the master of the universe. And Alex Kingston likewise is brilliant, the living embodiment of River Song; sassy and focused.

On the surface, this episode may be about River killing the Doctor, but beneath it all, it’s really about River finding herself and the beginning of her coming into her own. Now that we as the audience have gotten to know River – and her relationship with the Doctor, as well as with Amy and Rory – it’s hard to see her not know herself, or her parents. She only knows the Doctor because she was trained to – there was never a time when River did not know the Doctor. She just simply knew him by degrees – first as a target, then as a good man, then as a love interest.

Each time the Doctor speaks about “River”, she has no idea that he’s talking about her. “River, River, River. More then a friend I think,” she says after the Doctor’s umpteenth River reference. Here, she’s sacarastic about it, like she really doesn’t care. She is completely focused on her mission. But by the end, she is curious. Essentially, she’s curious about herself, and she’s forced into some soul searching, all the while fighting an internal battle to save the Doctor or let him die. She asks Amy to show her who River Song is. When River confesses that the Doctor called her the Child of the TARDIS, Amy has the Teselecta show River her file. A Hologram of herself appears, and she now knows that she is the River the Doctor speaks of so fondly. This is the turning point I believe, in the newly regenerated River that helps her to see that the Doctor maybe isn’t the bad guy she was trained to kill. This must confuse her greatly, because how can she be born of the TARDIS yet trained and raised by the Silence? This revelation would tailspin anyone into questioning their entire life, and everything they’ve ever known. So naturally River begins to think that maybe what she thought was right, isn’t.

The Doctor lies dying on the steps of the ball room, in his top hat and tails, his fancy cane long gone. Amy and Rory stand watching the scene unfold as River makes her decision. Finally realizing who she is, but not really knowing the Doctor as he truly is, she asks Amy if the Doctor is worth it. Of course he is. River, now knowing that Amy and Rory are her parents, takes their opinion to heart. She has put her trust in them. She makes her way over to the Doctor, who is fighting to stay alive. She kneels before him.

“Hello, Sweetie,” she says, for the first time (though not for us). She then uses every last once of regeneration energy she has inside of her to heal the Doctor. She drains herself to save the Doctor. Now, while he is full of life, she is drained of all her own energy. She will live though, thankfully, and our last scene is River becoming an archaeologist in order to find the Doctor. This is the true beginning of the Doctor/River romance as we know it. And we even get a shot of River’s journal all brand new, just waiting for their story to fill it.

Editorial written by Becca Christian

The Doctor’s Wife (series six, episode four) is by far, to date at least, my favourite episode of Doctor Who. I absolutely love it! It’s fun, quirky and full of the usual adventurey stuff we expect from our favourite time travelling alien. In this episode we finally get to meet his one and only lifetime companion and wife, the Tardis. The one thing that has been there for him, and us, since the beginning of time (and Doctor Who) itself. We meet her in a human form after being sucked from the console into the flesh body by House.

When we first meet Idris, she comes across as an insane person, greeting the doctor with “Thief! Thief! You’re my thief!” (Idris, series six, episode four). She goes on to say a lot of things very fast about tenses “Are you going to steal me? No, you have stolen me. You are stealing me. Oh! Tenses are difficult, aren’t they?” This very much reminds me of what the Doctor would say when he goes off on one of his rants. Straight away we see how similar they are without really knowing anything about her. I love the character Idris. The way she is portrayed as such an insane being but with such great power as we see throughout the duration of the episode, as we discover with the Doctor who Idris really is.

Another reason I really love this episode is because it gives Matt Smith the chance to face the Doctors past for the first time. This is the first time in his regeneration, the Time Lord faces his past and what he’s lost. It gives Matt Smith the chance to really show how far the character has come, especially in the more recent years since Christopher Eccleston, in dealing with his background and what happened to the time lords. “”You want to be forgiven.” “Don’t we all?”" (Amy and the Doctor). For this regeneration of the Doctor he is looking for forgiveness, he has dealt with what he had to do to the Time Lords during the last two regenerations and now is seeking forgiveness. You can see how hopeful and emotional he is at the idea of there potentially being more Time Lords out there, and nice ones too. When he opens the cupboard to reveal the collection of Time Lord distress signals, you can see how angry and upset he is. He was so full of hope and excitement at the possibility of “having friends” (The Doctor), just to find messages from the long dead. For an actor, being given the chance to play a wide and extreme range of emotions in the first fifteen minutes of an episode is extraordinary and the way Matt Smith shows the contrasting emotions is just beautiful. He manages to put across all the pain and disappointment with his eyes when he is looking at the distress signal boxes. This is such a beautiful piece of acting that adds to the overall feel of the episode. It shows what a brilliant actor Matt Smith is.

There’s a rather dark moment in this episode when we hear of the true extent of what House actually did to the Time Lords that came to the planet, “It’s been a great arm for me, this. He was a strapping big bloke, wasn’t he, Uncle? I got the arm and then Uncle got the spine and the kidneys.” (Aunty, series six, episode four). When the Doctor is looking at Aunties arm he notices the tattoo of another Time Lord, Corsair. He is the Time Lord that, at the beginning of this episode, the Doctor got the distress signal box from, seeing the tattoo really angers the Doctor because it was Corsairs box that gave him the initial hope. What we can gather from what is said by Aunty in this scene, is that House literally ripped the Time Lords apart. He then created the “patchwork people” out of the parts. It’s almost like House is creating trophies, living breathing trophies out of both Time Lord parts and other parts that fall through the rift. It is a really dark concept when you take the idea apart and think about it.

It has always been accepted that the Doctor stole the Tardis and ran away to see the stars, in this episode we hear it from the other perspective, “”And then you stole me. And I stole you” “I borrowed you.” “Borrowing implies the eventual intention to return the thing that was taken. What makes you think I would ever give you back?” (Idris and the Doctor). Hearing it from the Tardisis point of view is just genius. She chose him. The Tardis chose her Time Lord and went to see the stars. It’s always been said that the Doctor stole the Tardis and ran away to see the stars but from the Tardisis perspective she stole a Time Lord and ran away to see the stars, “I wanted to see the universe, so I stole a Time Lord and I ran away. And you were the only one mad enough” (Idris). Her Doctor. During this scene when the Doctor realises that Idris is the Tardis he is completely overjoyed, his Tardis living, breathing and talking. As soon as he learns that, he trusts her.
After finding out that Idris is the Tardis, the relationship between them grows and blossoms really fast, after all they have been together through all of time and space, “You’re the Doctor. Focus.” (Idris). She knows that she is dying and when the Doctor finds out he gets emotional, naturally. She tells him to not get emotional and focus because it’s the only way he is going to save her, Amy and Rory, who are trapped in the Tardis that is being flown by House. She knows how he ticks and how he works best and that’s when he’s focused. She makes him rant about being “a madman with a box without a box!” (the Doctor) and in turn works out that he can build a new Tardis out of old bits, eventually saving everyone.

When they are together in the Tardis junkyard, it’s the first time they really talk, “”I just want to say, you know, you have never been very reliable. You didn’t always take me where I wanted to go.” “No but I always took you where you needed to go.”" (Th Doctor and Idris). This is a stunning moment between the two of them where we see that she is in total control, she knows exactly what she’s doing and where she needs to go, despite everything and everyone that the Doctor brings back. When the line, “and bring home stays” (Idris) is said during this argument, my first thought is of Rose. I suppose to me he did literally pull Rose off the street, making her a stray. She was looking for an escape from her everyday nine to five life and when a stranger grabbed her hand and said “run” (Christopher Eccleston, series one, episode one, 2005) she did, and never looked back. In my eyes when he brought Rose to the Tardis it was like brining home a stray as Idris says.

During the same scene Idris brings up the fact that the Doctor never reads instructions, “”There’s a sign on my front door. You have been walking past it for 700 years. What does it say? “That’s not instructions!” “There’s an instruction at the bottom. What does it say?” “Pull to open” “Yes. And what do you do?” “I push!” “Every single time. 700 years. Police box doors open out the way.”" (Idris and the Doctor). This is just brilliant! It has always slightly confused me that despite the sign that says “pull to open” the Doctor pushes. For Idris to mention that basically makes the episode for me. That moment is witty, well performed and extremely well written. It’s one of those quirky moments that only ever happen in Doctor Who. I love this because it shows how childish the Doctor is in comparison to the Tardis. She “exists across all space and time” (Idris) and is infinite and completely brilliant. She knows the Doctor like no one else and knows how to make him work best and get the best results, this is really shown in this scene between them. It shows their complex relationship of 700 years of time travel with three simple words “pull to open”.

Neil Gaiman, the writter of this episode, in my opinion is a masterful wordsmith. The script writing for Idris is beautiful and intelligent. It completely portrays how the Tardis would sound if she could talk. Completely insane but a total genius, kind of like the Doctor. When she is in the cage and muttering almost gibberish she says lines that she later says to the Doctors, “like a nine-year-old trying to rebuild a motorbike in his bedroom” (Idris). This is very subtle and clever script writing showing how much the Tardis really does know and plans ahead. Gaiman is one of my favourite writers and this episode contains his flare and passion for creating unique and different worlds that can capture the imagination. Yet also keeping the eccentricity that Doctor Who is known for.

The idea of using a past control room is fantastic, it’s another moment where we see that the Tardis literally knows everything. By archiving the past and future control rooms she always has a record. It is a very amazing moment when Amy touches the controls and the room lights up, it’s a little look back at the past two Doctors control room. This is also the first time we see more of the Tardis than just the main control room, we get to see corridors and the last control room too. It’s nice to see a bit more of the Tardis and have a slightly better idea of how much bigger on the inside she really is. There is literally an entire world in that blue box.

When the four of them are reunited again, the Doctor introduces Amy and Rory to his Tardis, “”She’s a woman and she’s the Tardis.” “Did you wish really hard?” “Shut up! Not like that.” “Hello. I’m…… Sexy”" (The Doctor, Amy and Idris). This is a fabulous moment between the four of them, it basically shows how the women in the Doctors life really do know how he ticks. Despite being so closed about a lot of things, he can be so easy to read and understand too. In this moment you can see that. Amy entirely understands him and what he’s like in the same way Idris does.

Towards the end of the episode when Idris dies, she is sat talking to Rory. We later find out what she was saying, “the only water in the forest is the river” (Rory). We later find out that she is actually referring to the big reveal that Melody Pond is River Song. Even when she was dying she was trying to warn the Doctor of what is about to come and how far he is about to fall.

The final moment between the Doctor and Idris is utterly moving, “”There’s something I didn’t get to say to you.” “Goodbye?” “No, I just wanted to say… hello. Hello, Doctor. It’s to very, very nice to meet you.”" (Idris and the Doctor). The entire conversation they have is so moving, I would quite happily quote it all! We see how much they really do love each other despite never ever speaking before. She is always there for him, she always listens and she’s his home. This final conversation and final goodbye is so fitting and perfect. As she vanishes whispering “I love you” (Idris), you know how special and powerful their bond is. It will never be broken. As Amy says, “It’s always you and her, isn’t it? Long after the rest of us have gone. A boy and his box off to see the universe.” (Amy). Those three simple sentences sum it up for me. Just a mad man with a box.

Well after writing this, I have fallen more in love with this episode, it’s so perfectly Doctor Who. We finally get to hear things from the Tardisis point of view, “this is when we talked” (Idris). We get to see a brilliant story, with genius script writing, and an intimate ending. It’s a story on its own. To date this is my favourite episode. I met Neil Gaiman at a book signing and I thanked him for this episode and he said it was a pleasure writing it. Whenever I watch it, which is a lot, I remember that and you can see it in the script. See the pleasure on screen. This is the time we met the Doctor’s wife, and it’s my favourite adventure. “Being alive right now is all that counts” (The Doctor), so be alive.

Editorial written by Beth Willicome

To build up to the Eleventh Doctor’s regeneration, we asked you to vote for his all time greatest moment.

On Christmas Day we revealed the winner as THIS moment from The Rings of Akhaten so we recently caught up with the man behind it, writer Neil Cross, to find out more about his inspirations behind the now iconic speech.

It’s made a lasting impression on the fans and discover how the scene made it to the screen below!

Big thank you to Neil for his time. Keep up to date with him on his official website, here.

“I have seen things you wouldn’t believe. I have lost things you will never understand. And I know things. Secrets that must never be told, knowledge that must never be spoken, knowledge that will make parasite gods blaze!”
- The Eleventh Doctor in The Rings of Akhaten

The Doctor said it best, as he usually does: “We all change. When you think about it, we’re all different people all through our lives. And that’s okay, that’s good – as long as you keep moving, as long as you remember all the people that you used to be.”

What helps me remember all the people I used to be is Doctor Who. My love for the Doctor allows the child I was and the man I’ve become, and all the people in between – the punks and the goths, the would-be writers, the bridegrooms, the young fathers – to see the universe through the same eyes, to find terror and wonder in equal measure.

I think of watching the Third Doctor on my nan’s black and white TV, curled up on her fake fur coat. I think of stumbling round the ugly concrete local shops in Stockwood, South Bristol, chanting “I AM A DALEK”. I think of lying in the darkness as a teenager, tormented by my own imagination: half-hoping, half-terrified that I’d hear the grinding of the TARDIS as it materialised on the pavement outside. I think of watching with my wife and sons as the Tenth Doctor told us he didn’t want to go… and how we wept, because we didn’t want him to go either.

Really, that’s where the final speech in The Rings of Akhaten comes from. It was my love letter to him, to all those moments.

I’m touched and flattered and really quite unbelievably proud that this speech has been chosen by visitors to WhovianNet as their favourite of the Eleventh Doctor’s tenure. But, proud as I am, it’s not really a compliment to me: it’s a compliment to the Doctor, as incarnated by the astounding Matt Smith.

So thank you, visitors to WhovianNet. And thank you, Doctor.

And thank you, Matt. None of us will forget when the Doctor was you.

Click HERE to review the Eleventh Doctor’s final adventure in our discussion…

Puffin Books has confirmed that their eleventh and final 50th anniversary Doctor Who e-short adventure has been written by Neil Gaiman!

The award-winning writer – who has written for the Eleventh Doctor on screen in The Doctor’s Wife and Nightmare in Silver – has put pen to paper for Matt Smith’s incarnation once again for Nothing O’Clock which features Amy Pond.

It will be available to download from 21st November.

“I set Nothing O’Clock somewhere during the first series of Matt Smith, mostly on Earth, in our time now and in 1984, but also somewhere else, a very, very long time ago,” Neil commented. “I’d never created an original monster for Doctor Who and I really enjoyed getting to create a creepy Doctor Who monster of the kind that we haven’t seen before.”

Thousands of years ago, Time Lords built a Prison for the Kin. They made it utterly impregnable and unreachable. As long as Time Lords existed, the Kin would be trapped forever and the universe would be safe. They had planned for everything… everything, that is, other than the Time War and the fall of Gallifrey. Now the Kin are free again and there’s only one Time Lord left in the universe who can stop them!

Neil added: “I hope the Kin will give people nightmares and that you will be worried if a man wearing a rabbit mask ever comes to your front door and tries to buy your house.”

A paperback anthology compiling all 11 stories will also be published on 21st November.

Share your 50th anniversary hopes and dreams in our dedicated discussion…

With thanks to Puffin Books.

Will the Doctor ever be a woman? How many regenerations does he even have left? For what they’re worth, Neil Gaiman has his own theories…

Reponding to a fan question on his Tumblr the writer of The Doctor’s Wife and Nightmare in Silver shared his input to the ongoing discussions that the Doctor should be female. He suggested the show’s “not quite” ready for such a drastic change. “If I was showrunning it would absolutely be on my list of things to do,” he explained.

He added that, while Peter Capaldi’s “a brilliant actor”, he would’ve “absolutely” loved to have seen a black actor cast as the Twelfth Doctor citing Paterson Joseph as a perfect candidate. “I have no doubt there will be one day,” he elaborated. “I know one black actor who’s already been offered the part of the Doctor, but they turned the role down.”

And with the 12th Doctor on his way it means our hero’s one step closer to his thirteenth incarnation, widely regarded to be his final chance to avoid eventual death. “That was a rule when we had Time Lords running the series,” Neil’s speculated. “My opinion is that the regeneration limit is a lot like the speed limit – you can break it, but things get a lot more dangerous if you do. The Time Lords were the traffic cops. They enforced the limit. With them gone, the Doctor can keep regenerating beyond 13, but with consequences…”

What do you think of Neil’s theories? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Hedgewick’s World of Wonders was once the galaxy’s greatest theme park but it is now the dilapidated home to a shabby showman, a chess-playing dwarf and a dysfunctional army platoon.

Stomp stomp the Cybermen have arrived, and this time they were deadlier than before!

That’s right, tonight marked the return of one of the Doctor’s most infamous enemies as Neil Gaiman stepped back up to the writing duties in order to give the fans a Nightmare in Silver. After the success of his TARDIS debut with The Doctor’s Wife, he could’ve taken a breather with his second attempt at the bat, but instead he was mounded with the big task of restoring the metal monsters to their former glory. So how did he get on?

The story started at Hedgewick’s World of Wonders which once stood tall as the greatest theme park in the galaxy. When the Doctor, Clara, Artie and Angie arrived, they found it now served as the dilapidated home to a shabby showman and an army platoon. And so the scene was set for a classic Cyberman confrontation, as the ultimate upgrade began…

Neil tried to make them “a little creepier”, but did he achieve it? Will the penultimate episode of Series 7 go down in history or should it be deleted? Rate & Discuss it below…

Series 7 reaches its “epic and huge” climax next week in The Name of the Doctor…

This weekend Series 7 will continue with the return of one of the Doctor’s most iconic and persistent foes. It’s those metal monsters we just love to hate, the Cybermen!

And if their comeback wasn’t exciting enough, the episode in question is written by Neil Gaiman whose first contribution to the series was 2011’s acclaimed, and Hugo Award winning no less, The Doctor’s Wife – what’s he got in store for the Cybermen then? Well we’ve been told they’ll be “deadlier” than ever this time round…

“What Neil’s done is write the Doctor in conflict with the Cybermen in a new way,” said exec producer Caro Skinner back in March teasing: “So it’s a huge episode for Matt.” Its next time trail – below – definitely vouches for that! It all kicks off when the Doctor and Co journey to Hedgewick’s World of Wonders. It’s definitely going to be a roller coaster…

Nightmare in Silver airs on Saturday 11th May on BBC One at the later time of 7pm…

Are you looking forward to the Cybermen's return this Saturday?

• YES. This is the one I've been waiting for. Come on, Neil!
• NO. Someone delete the Cybermen please. I want new monsters!

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See the latest Series 7 headlines to discuss all the developments as and when…