Christopher Eccleston has become the latest Doctor Who star to send best wishes to a sick young fan.

Eccleston recorded a special video message for 14-year-old Daniel, who suffers from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) and Postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS), and is bed-bound.
Beginning the clip in character, Eccleston identifies himself as “number nine” and explains that he has “had word from 12” about Daniel.

Doctor Who’s current lead Peter Capaldi previously visited Daniel in hospital, following a campaign by fan sites Bad Wilf and Geek Syndicate using the hashtag #drwhodaniel.
Frances Barber – the actress who played Madame Kovarian – also paid a visit, while video messages have come in from Who showrunner Steven Moffat, Sylvester McCoy (the seventh Doctor), Noel Clarke (Mickey Smith) and Ingrid Oliver (Osgood).

Eccleston starred as the ninth Doctor in one series of Doctor Who in 2005 and stated in April of this year that he is “always there in spirit”.

There is more than just the annual festive Doctor Who Christmas special this year.  BBC4 is showing some classic fourth Doctor action on the 28th/29th December as the channel broadcasts The Face of Evil!

As Patrick Mulkern observes in the Radio Times:  The Face of Evil seems like a random selection from the archive, but BBC4 wanted a serial that aired in festive days of yore and this four-parter began on New Year’s Day 1977.

Doctor Who: Hell Bent had an official consolidated rating of 6.17 million viewers.

The rating issued by the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board, or BARB, includes all those who watched the programme within one week of transmission. It does not include those watching online via iPlayer.

Doctor Who was the 10th most watched programme on BBC Television, and 4th overall on Saturday, again overtaking Pointless Celebrities.
The episode finished at 29th in the weekly chart.

Strictly Come Dancing topped the ratings for the week with 11.93 million viewers. Once again the top ten was dominated by the latest series of I’m a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here taking seven of the top ten places.

Steven Moffat has teased two new “brilliant, prominent and amazing writers” for Doctor Who Series 10.

Speaking at last night’s screening of the Christmas special, he said [via]: “We’re already moving [on Series 10] – we’ve had meetings today with two writers who’ve never written Doctor Who before.”
He added: “If I told you their names, your brain would explode.”

When exactly Series 10 will commence filming still remains unconfirmed, although production designer Michael Pickwoad last indicated it would be a few months later than the January start of the last two series.

Interview with Peter Capaldi:

I have lots of favourite scenes from the Christmas episode, but I think being met by Matt Lucas on a wonderful wintery Dickensian street with the TARDIS covered in snow was delightful, because it was like a Doctor Who Christmas card.
Peter Capaldi

Date: 10.12.2015 Last updated: 10.12.2015 at 17.03
Category: BBC One; Drama

What can you tell us about the Doctor Who Christmas special this year?
Well the Christmas special is very Christmassy, which I’m sure everyone will be relieved to hear. It finds the Doctor in a Dickensian kind of world, in a Christmas card sort of world which he’s been brought to in order to do a favour for a king. So there’s quite a festive spirit to the episode. But the favour is more complex and isn’t exclusively for the benefit of the king, but more for the benefit of the king’s consort.

What is your favourite scene from this episode?
I have lots of favourite scenes from the Christmas episode, but I think being met by Matt Lucas on a wonderful wintery Dickensian street with the TARDIS covered in snow was delightful, because it was like a Doctor Who Christmas card. Matt is such a fabulously funny person to have around, so I loved that!

Do you like filming Christmas episodes?
Yes I do like them – last year’s was a bit scarier than this one, this is more openly festive. I like the idea of ghost stories at Christmas and frightening things seem to work rather well in the festive environment.

Would you like to see River Song return?
Yes of course, because Alex is fabulous and it’s always lovely to work with her.

Who is Nardole?
The character of Nardole is played by Matt Lucas so you can expect a lot of laughs and pathos. He is, as ever, a hugely loveable personality, a little naïve, a little out of his depth and quite cosmic.

CHRISTMAS CHEER AFTER THE RECENT ‘DARK’ SERIES, SAYS STEVEN MOFFAT

Alex Kingston returns as River Song so she and Peter Capaldi can laugh, joke and flirt their way through the festive special.

Doctor Who boss Steven Moffat has admitted he has written a light Christmas Day episode full of gags – because the recent series of the science fiction show was so “dark”.
The BBC series ended emotionally with the Time Lord’s companion Clara, played by Jenna Coleman, leaving the show .

For the new festive edition, Peter Capaldi is joined at his side by returning character River Song, played by Alex Kingston.
The pair laugh and joke and even flirt with each other in a script unlike recent other Doctor Who episodes.

And Moffat said of the Christmas Day special: “It kind of is different, it has to be Doctor Who.“But particularly after the end of the last series where it got quite dark, we had to go back to the light-hearted action and adventure, with a kick of emotion.”
The episode is called The Husbands of River Song and centres around the year 5343 and a Christmas Day on a faraway planet with a furious robot monster called King Hydroflax, played by Greg Davies.

Once again, the Doctor must come to the rescue, but it is also the first time the Time Lord as Capaldi has meet his wife River.Alex Kingston, 52, loved the chance to play River Song with some fun. She said: “I actually enjoy doing comedy but I don’t get that much opportunity.
To get the chance to do a rollicking, sort of old Hollywood comedy, was fantastic.”
And Capaldi, 57, also enjoyed the change in tone but admitting missing his usual sidekick for the last few years on set.

He said: “I am so used to having Jenna around I sort of don’t really think she has gone. I find it difficult to imagine she is not just going to turn up.
“But my big excitement was to meet Alex. Her performance was wonderful.”

The Husbands Of River Song is on BBC1 Christmas Day at 5.15pm.

Doctor Who: Heaven Sent had an official consolidated rating of 6.19 million viewers.

The rating issued by the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board, or BARB, includes all those who watched the programme within one week of transmission. It does not include those watching online via iPlayer

Doctor Who was the 7th most watched programme on BBC Television, and 4th overall on Saturday, overtaking Pointless Celebrities which was ahead in the overnight reports.

The episode finished at 27th in the chart.

Strictly Come Dancing topped the ratings for the week with 11.55 million viewers. Once again the top ten was dominated by the latest series of I’m a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here taking seven of the top ten places.

…DECIDING WHAT TO WEAR

• Lorraine Heggessey said biggest challenge as BBC One boss was clothing
• She said deciding what to wear to be taken seriously was a real problem
• The 59-year-old was the first woman to run prime time television channel
• Commissioned Strictly Come Dancing, Spooks and re-launched Dr Who.

As one of the most influential women in television, you might have thought her time would be spent solving pressingly important dilemmas.
But Lorraine Heggessey has revealed that her biggest challenge while boss of BBC One was deciding what to wear and still be taken seriously.

The first woman to run the prime time channel, Miss Heggessey, 59, said women find it much harder to settle on a work outfit than men, because ‘the possibilities are endless’.
Giving the Royal Television Society’s Christmas speech on Wednesday, she also lifted the lid on her time working at some of the Corporation’s biggest shows. She claimed one of her editors at Newsnight was ‘a gambler and a heroin addict’ and that Panorama was such a ruthless place to work that it was nicknamed ‘Piranha Tank or Paranoia’.

During her time running BBC One from 2000 until 2005, Miss Heggessey commissioned hits including Strictly Come Dancing, Spooks, Waking the Dead and the re-launched Doctor Who.
But the mother of two said that rather than fretting over how to keep the nation entertained, she was more troubled by questions of what to wear, particularly to the many glitzy events she attended where should we have to be both glamorous and professional.

She said: ‘I’m often asked what was the biggest challenge when I was running BBC One? And actually it was what to wear. It’s a real problem if you’re a woman.
‘I mean if you’re a man and you’re going to a function you wear a dinner suit on a day out you maybe have to decide to wear a red tie or a blue tie but if you’re a woman the possibilities are endless.

Despite her reticence over making a fashion faux pas, she made life hard for herself by accepting every invitation she was offered during her tenure in charge.
She said: ‘As controller at the BBC I got invited to all sorts of events. I decided that I was going to take advantage of this and I was going to say yes to everything and I went to the royal box in Wimbledon to Buckingham Palace to Number 10 to all kinds of different sporting events’.

This took her to some particularly extravagant soirees, including Elton John’s White Tie and Tiara bash, at which she wore a £120,000 headpiece she was lent by Asprey, the exclusive London jewellers.

She admitted that she sometimes used her position to her advantage, once calling in the help of Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine while they were the stars of What Not To Wear on BBC One.

They persuaded her to invest in a dress exclusive designer Elspeth Gibson – which cost ‘a fortune’ – only for it to be ruined when her husband, composer Ron de Jong, spilled wine down it during an dinner event with 007’s Piers Brosnan and Daniel Craig.

However, not everything during her broadcasting career was so glamorous. She started off at Newsnight, which she said was ‘incredibly full of colourful characters’. None more so that a daily editor who was ‘reputed to be a gambler and a heroin addict and had to be paid in cash.’
She later moved to Panorama, where she said ‘most people were too grand to even talk to me for my first six months’. She explained the show was run on an ethos of ruthless competition and said: ‘The programme was known affectionately in Lime Grove as either Piranha Tank or Paranoia. The maxim that most producers went by was ‘it’s not enough to succeed those around you must fail’.