With the superb Christmas special having aired in the UK and "Torchwood" wrapping up next week, talk again is turning to "Doctor Who" this week which will air its third season in March in the UK and next Fall in the US.

Having been in production since July, details have only recently begun to emerge on the plans for the thirteen episodes which features the return of David Tennant as The Doctor, along with a new companion in the form of Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones.

Whilst the first episode is being kept pretty quiet it does feature a rhinoceros-like race of Stormtroopers called the Judoon, the second will see The Doctor visiting the time of William Shakespeare and meeting the playwright.

The third will return to New Earth and feature another of the feline race seen in that episode, although this one seems to be a pilot.

The fourth and fifth will be a two-parter dealing with a Dalek invasion of 1930's Manhattan, the sixth a mystery about an elderly scientist who's invented a machine that makes him young again.

Episodes eight and nine are a two-part story set in a boys' school in 1913, the tenth will barely feature the Doctor at all.

One episode in the series will feature some sort of witches, another a vampire race called Plasmavores, and another a creature similar to the walking pig in "Aliens of London".

'Bad Wolf' and 'Torchwood' were the story threads the last two years, this one will revolve around the mysterious 'Mr. Saxon'. John Barrowman will return as Jack Harkness in the last three episodes of the season.

Meanwhile a wild rumour in the British tabloids emerged this week that both Robert Carlyle ("Eragon", "The Full Monty") and David Morrissey ("Basic Instinct 2", "State of Play") were being considered to replace Tennant sometime mid-way through the fourth season of the show, a rumour the BBC has since denied.