It's all on the New Series page - the unexpected news that Christopher Eccleston has decided to leave the role of The Doctor.

I was saying to a friend earlier that I think I now know how supporters of Liverpool felt when Wayne Rooney left for Manchester United (sorry non-UK people that analogy might not travel!)- however, as I also point out on the New Series page there are a great many positive things happening and I think it's useful to remember these at the moment:

• the series is back and has been met with almost universal acclaim the initial ratings were very high (highs of over 10 million)
• The BBC have commissioned a second series and a Christmas special (when it looks likely Eccleston will regenerate)
• Billie Piper will continue to play companion Rose Tyler
• If David Tennant is, as has been suggested by official sources, likely to be next in the role we are once again looking at having a great acting talent playing The Doctor - he has been excellent in everything we've seen him in including Russell T Davies' brilliant Casanova

Published @ 12:18 PM (UK local time)

I'm writing this on what I feel may be a new dawn for Doctor Who - after more than 15 years of waiting for a new BBC Doctor Who series, that series will materialise on the TV sets of the UK later today. It will doubtless also materialise on the computers of many fans around the globe in a very short space of time after the episode airs but that's another story!

For many of us the wait has been long and frustrating at times, particularly in the years after 1996 and before the announcement of the new series when many of us lost hope of any new series. Now we are about to come out of a very long tunnel and into the blazing light and there may be a lot of new people joining us to bask in that light.

The series we see later today may be very different from the one we saw all those years ago but from what I have seen and have been told in the last few months this series will, at it's heart, truly be Doctor Who. It will carry the essence of what we now call the 'classic' series and will, I hope, bring that essence to a new generation of fans.

Over the coming days and weeks new features and pages will be added to The Cuttings Archive covering the new series, including a guide to the new series that will include related articles and listings as well as photographs from each episode. We will be updating the site with listings and articles on a weekly rolling basis and will keep you informed of developments and stories in the press and media.

The clock is ticking (quite literally on our home page as you may have noticed) and the journey is about to begin - the TARDIS is coming home to BBC ONE on Saturdays.

Stand by for the trip of a lifetime and enjoy the thrills to come.

Published @ 11:35 AM (UK local time)

There we go, the circle is almost complete - today saw a brand new edition of the Radio Times complete with a TARDIS gatefold cover (opens up to reveal Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper in the TARDIS interior) - it's just like old times....

Over the last few days and weeks we've seen, heard and read about Doctor Who just about everywhere. Last night saw the return of the Doctor to Blue Peter with a new season preview, a tradition that goes back to the 1960s - it's just like old times again...

In many ways this moment feels like we're going back to the golden era of the show but there's just so much more information and hype everywhere - that's the modern world and media - it's not quite like old times then!

Saturday sees the broadcast of the first new Doctor Who in almost nine years, and the first BBC produced series in just over 15 years. The fans little secret, our little secret, which is already part way out of the bag given wall to wall trailers on the Beeb, will be well and truly blown and hopefully thousands of school playgrounds the length and breadth of Britain will echo to the sound of kids shouting "EXTERMINATE - EXTERMINATE" (at least after the Dalek episode is shown in a few weeks time).

I look forward to it, I hope you do too!

Published @ 1:40 PM (UK local time)

I was meaning to 'blog' a couple of days ago and do a one week on from the press launch type comment but I was very pleasantly waylaid part way through the week.

What by? I hear you all shout, well perhaps not but I'll tell you anyway. I was waylaid by two to three days of childish excitement and glee after seeing one of the best trailers, if not the best, that it's been my privilege to see. Some of you may be aware of what I'm referring to but to others it may come as a surprise to learn that the trailer in question, all 50 seconds of it, was for the new series of Doctor Who. (There's also a very similar 30 second version but it was the 50 that I saw first.) As you may see from the stills published on our New Series page the visuals were extremely impressive, although any glimpses given of actual scenes were fleeting, but for me the finest aspect of the trailer lay in it's script and most particularly in the words that Christopher Eccleston spoke (I suspect written by Russell T Davies) and in the brilliant way he delivered those lines.

There's a magic about Doctor Who that drew many of us in as kids and has rarely let us go since, or has drawn us back in years later - perhaps as a result of seeing these trailers. It's not easy to define and perhaps much of it rests on nostalgia but even when some eras of the programme haven't lived up to our recollections of the show's past we've always had that past to fall back on. Hence, I suspect, all the arguments over the rights and wrongs of the 80s and whether Pertwee is overrated.

There are times when the show is quite frankly risible and times when it so overflowing with that magic that it could make that inner child weep with joy. Many fans talk about those 'Doctor Who' moments and there are many; Patrick Troughton's "there are some corners of the universe..." in "The Moonbase" and Tom Baker's "Homo Sapiens..." speech in "The Ark in Space" are a couple that come to mind. For me those moments became far and few between later in the classic series' life but I know people who would swear that there were many even then, so the magic is all in the eye of the beholder.

Why hark on about this? Well, in the 50 odd seconds of that trailer I had one big magic moment and it looks as if a lot of other people did too. Just read the words that Eccleston spoke:

"Do you want to come with me?
'Cos if you do - I should warn you
You're going to see all sorts of things
Ghosts from the past
Aliens from the future
The day the Earth dies in a ball of flame.
It won't be quiet, it won't be safe and it won't be calm
But I tell you what it will be-
The Trip Of A Lifetime"

Those words cut right to the heart of Doctor Who and show why it's so different to Star Trek and so many other Sci-Fi series, particularly for children. There's magic at the heart of Who, here's a character who can go anywhere in time and space, see anything, save worlds, destroy worlds - fight for the dispossessed and downtrodden. The Doctor interferes, he has no prime directive, he lives on his wits and intelligence and really does screw up badly sometimes - but he's also funny and strange, he's an alien and perhaps even mildly scary at times.

However what's most pertinent is something that Russell T Davies has mentioned a number of times recently - no child (or adult for that matter) can really really imagine walking out the door and finding themselves in a Star Ship - it's way into the future and the people in those series are trained in a military fashion (and all wear funny uniforms and often speak lots of jargon that's crucial to the 'plot'). With the Doctor it's different, like the wardrobe in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe or the clock and door in Tom's Midnight Garden the TARDIS could be just around the next corner and is a window into another world of adventures and danger, there could be a man with a Mancunian accent waiting inside; and when you meet him he really might say "Do you want to come with me?".

We are now about to embark on that "Trip Of A Lifetime" and I can't think of anyone better to go with than Christopher Eccleston's Doctor. I have a feeling that there may be a lot of children about to embark too and for them it's all new, it's all strange and there are no pre-conceptions - they will watch in wide eyed awe with no adult cynicism to spoil the trip. Rather like I used to do all those years ago - I just hope I can recapture that feeling and if the trailer is anything to go by I think it might just be possible.

Published @ 10:11 PM (UK local time)

I thought I'd write a quick message now that things have cooled down somewhat - I don't know about you but that was what I call a serious blitz of publicity and it 'aint over yet!

Every morning I drive past a billboard poster site and often stop at the traffic lights just below it. If I have time before the lights change I can glance up and see the faces of the Doctor and Rose staring down on me with the legend "DOCTOR WHO SATURDAYS AT 7PM" below (it's the one in the first poster picture on the New Series page). Yes, it really is happening, the series is coming back very, very soon after all the years of waiting.

It's great to see how hard the BBC are working to promote Doctor Who at the moment and is a sign of how much they believe in the show. Let's hope that come the 26th the ratings prove that they were right and our faith in Russell T Davies, Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper and all the rest of the crew is justified. I think it will be for most of us although inevitably there will be some loud fan voices that scream their dislike of the series. However, we're not important believe it or not, it's the reaction of the general audience that counts and that'll be what makes or breaks this production.

As you may have seen on the New Series page there's a lot going on and we're running to keep up with it all - the piles of press cuttings are growing but we will have a cuttings update in the near future.

Don't forget that today is Tuesday and for those of us in the UK that means new listings magazines and this week the Radio Times has yet more series coverage and the promise of a special edition next week. Doctor Who is mentioned on the cover, there's more on page 19, mentions of the Dalek film that's being shown on Saturday, listings for the Doctor Who night on Saturday the 19th, a radio front page and of course radio listings for a number of Who related programmes including the first part of Project Who, Tuesday on BBC Radio 2. There are mentions of the show and listings in other listings magazines too, including Total TV, TV & Satellite Week, TV Quick and TV Times. If you think that's a lot just wait until next week - then we'll have the special Radio Times Issue (with Who cover) and a lot more - phew it's exhausting even thinking about it!

If you can't keep up with it all check out our New Series page for a downloadable plain text calendar of Doctor Who related programmes on radio and television.

Now I must get back to collating articles and getting very excited... it's like being a kid all over again... :-)

Roger

Published @ 2:35 PM (UK local time)

Today has been quite a ride so far for all of us and a rather thrilling one to boot.

Sit back and think about it - the press launch is happening right now, the trailers have started and frankly things are never going to be quite the same again.

We're excited and we hope you are all excited by what is happening - Doctor Who is right back in the public consciousness in the UK and increasingly so. This is probably the first time this has really been the case, at least so positively, since the early 1980s. Tomorrow we expect more press articles on the series and expect this to be the case throughout the lead up to the 26th - by the way it is 7pm on the 26th, that's the air date for "Rose".

The only fly in the ointment has been the leaking of the first episode and we'd like to say here that we feel very sorry that the carefully laid publicity plans of the production team and all those working to bring the series back at the BBC have been spoilt by what has happened. However, we have noted that the reaction of most fans who have seen the episode is on the whole positive and it is still the case that the vast majority of people will sit down on the 26th for their first taste of Doctor Who in many years.

We wish everyone the best of luck and enjoy the ride!

P.S. More cuttings very soon...

Published @ 10:00 PM (UK local time)