Do we know where they are filming the forest scenes?

The article says it's somewhere in Cardiff, but beyond that who knows?

I wasn't aware of the rumour about Rona Munro returning to write for Doctor Who so when I noticed her trending on Twitter I was worried that it would another case of an update to the In Memoriam thread

Rona's episode is called The Eaters Of Light. Jamie Mathieson's episode is the fifth.

Guest cast for both episodes detailed here ....

http://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/series-...ight-81668.htm

Apparently the christmas special is to be shown in theaters. This would indicate a longer than usual episode.

Ep 5 written by Jamie Mathieson is apparently a scary episode and ep 9 by Rona Munro. Both directed by Charles Palmer who last did Human Nature/Family of Blood.

75-90 minutes would be nice!

A long episode won't necessarily be good for scheduling. Anything over an hour will feel too much like a movie and be too long for a slot around 7pm. Given that the episode also contains a superhero in a stereotypical costume, I wonder if it's going to go out after the Queen's speech at 3pm and hardly get stellar ratings whilst most people are busy focussing on a turkey of their own.

Also, cinema showings may be in highly selective locations like the BFI in London rather than a general release like the 50th anniversary episode. The screening could include the last two episodes from series 9 cropped to widescreen as well as the new Christmas episode.

The episode is 60 minutes. The cinema release will have the episode and a behind the scenes/interview with cast and crew thing.

They did the same thing last year with The Husbands Of River Song.

BIB: They were made in widescreen. 16:9 (approx 1.85:1).

Unless you mean they'd be cropped to, say, 2.39:1 (even-wider-screen ) to make them feel more film-like.

A lot of films are actually shot at 1.85:1 (no doubt with TV showings in mind) and cropped (matted) for cinema showings to 2.39:1, meaning either aspect ratio is valid as they're both what the director/cinematographer intended.

I always want content in its original aspect ratio, but I usually prefer the cinematic aspect ratio when there's a valid choice.

I obviously meant proper widescreen - like the cinema. As happened with the 50th.

FM Marke09 on the UKTV ratings thread has posted that 'digiguide' (no idea) have got *provisional* Christmas day schedules that say for BBC1;

3.10 Frozen
4.40 Christmas GBBO
5.40 Doctor Who
6.40 Strictly Come Dancing
7.55 Call The Midwife

Quiet around these parts, innit. Miss your input, CD93.

That's early, not a great slot... but its happened before so very likely.

Though for anyone concerned about the ratings it might be comforting to see it shepherded between the ratings juggernauts of GBBO and Strictly.

Yes, quite early, but I wonder how many actually watch it 'live'? I mean I try to watch the series as it happens on the usual Saturday slots but I don't think I've ever seen a Christmas ep live, it's always recorded and watched later.

In that case, its time slot will absolutely not be any factor whatsoever in it being the lowest ever rating Christmas special, should that happenstance somehow happen to occur, unexpectedly.

Do you agree with that? It will be nothing to do with the time slot?

Millions see it live.

Ratings will probably be lower than last year. But ratings for almost every show will be lower than last year. This is not necessarily a reflection of the quality of any given show. This is a trend that affects all broadcast tv. Eastenders and Corrie probably won't have such high ratings as last year, neither will Strictly or Call The Midwife.
Actual ratings figures are no longer the best way to measure the success of a programme as all ratings have fallen and continue to do so.
It is more useful to compare the viewing numbers in relation to other shows. If a programme is still in, say, the top 20 most watched that week, then its clearly a success regardless of how many millions have been counted as 'viewers'. With catch up and online watching taking such a large part these days, actual live ratings are becoming less and less important.
However those basic ratings figures will always be used, frequently out of context, by the ignorant press, and by fans who just love to bash their favourite shows, to 'prove' that everything is awful and (insert show here) is obviously in terminal decline!

It was shown at 5.15pm last year (2015) and did just fine. Here are the viewing figures for 2014 (shown at 6.15pm) and 2015 (shown at 5.15pm) respectively:

Christmas Day 2014 (consolidated)
1. Mrs Brown’s Boys - 9.7m
2. Call The Midwife - 9.4m
3. Strictly Come Dancing - 9m
4. Miranda - 8.7m
5. EastEnders - 8.6m
6. Doctor Who - 8.3m
7. Queen’s message - 8.2m
8. Coronation Street - 8m
9. Downton Abbey - 7.7m
10. Emmerdale - 6.7m

Christmas Day 2015 (consolidated)
1. Downton Abbey - 10.9m
2. Mrs Brown’s Boys - 9.49m
3. Call The Midwife - 9.3m
4. Stick Man - 9.27m
5. Strictly Come Dancing - 8.54m
6. The Queen’s message - 7.76m
7. Doctor Who - 7.69m
8. EastEnders - 7.66m
9. Coronation Street - 7.27m
10. Film: Brave - 6.05m

Its worth noting the overnight viewing figures last Christmas (2015) across the board were extremely low. All the shows managed a respectable final figure through catch-up. But millions of viewers just didn't watch TV on Christmas Day last year. There's an interesting article about it here.

So if the trend continues we'll get low overnights across the board again for Christmas Day, and between 2m-4m added to each show's final viewing figures through catch-up viewing - for Christmas Day 2015, Downton Abby's viewing figures rose by about 4m, whilst Doctor Who rose by 2m.

Not bad for today's television, considering we have a lot of Digital TV channels to watch. I wonder what the films on Sky Premiere on Christmas Day will be...

I just want to know what's going to ultimately clash with Doctor Who. I reckon the episode will be on a bit later than 5:40pm though, possibly around 6:00pm.

Well, the provisional ITV schedule from the source I mentioned up thread has Emmerdale from 5.30 to 6.30, followed by Blankety Blanking Blank! But yeah, all this is subject to change, obviously...

I do feel sad that I'm not particularly excited about the Christmas episode. There's been no Doctor Who at all this year. I thought I'd be thinking "Only one month to go". But I'm not

I am lol.

I guess Class has sort of softened the wait, what with the Doctor appearing in episode 1, but yeah, I have missed the show a lot this year.

I am looking forward to the Christmas episode. The triumph of hope over experience.

I did like the clip on CiN, though, which many seemed not to.

me too but yeah cant see me watching the episode live