The Doctor is about to undergo some incredible changes in his anniversary year as Big Finish announce Doctor Who Unchecked - a new range of adventures showing the Time Lord in a might-have-been light.

This unique series of self-contained stories will feature six different 1970's actors in the role of the Doctor, each posing the intriguing question "which has-been will they get this month?"

Outlining early casting plans, producer Gary Russell says he plans to attract "a range of performers who were quite big in their day. It'll be nice for them to get a bit of work."

Russell has revealed exclusively to Tachyon TV that the first release will see Patrick Mower (Target) take the controls of the TARDIS.

"Some of these guys probably fancied the part when it was still on TV," Russell explains, "so I suppose it's a bit ironic that they get to do it after all these years. They must have been quite gutted at the time to lose out to the likes of Sylvester McCoy."

Hot on the heels of Cartoon Network's Clone Wars, MTV's Spider-Man, and the AniMatrix, bosses at Children's ITV have announced an animated series based on Nic Roeg's haunting 1973 classic Don't Look Now.

"We wanted to find a source movie that was both well respected in genre circles and would benefit from the advantages of animated production," claims producer Terence Slow. "After looking long and hard at IMDB.com we decided that Don't Look Now was that movie.

"It has everything: drama, pathos, lots of opportunities for chases around Gothic cities like in Gargoyles, interesting characters, dwarfs& who wouldn't want to make a cartoon outta this? Sure, some may say the original film was a bit too 'adult', and of course we'll be toning down the original plot slightly, but Keifer Sutherland has agreed to lend a voiceover, and hey, he's tha man!"

Other cartoon series based on genre sources said to be development include The Wasp Factory (a Hanna Barbera/Ian Banks collaboration), The Exorcist 2: The Heretic: The Animated Series and The Further Adventures of the 12 Monkeys (left).

BBC Worldwide have announced that forthcoming releases of the Doctor's adventures will carry some fascinating extras. Following successful experiments with The Ark in Space and The Dalek Invasion of Earth, technical wizards will again be working on new versions of the special effects.

"The problem is that the effects in some of the stories aren't all that bad - not what a modern audience expects from the programme," explains SFX specialist Mike Tucker. "Therefore, we're going to produce some new retro-style 'dodgy' effects to include as optional extras on the disks."

The Trial of a Time Lord will see a new downgraded version of the opening shot of the TARDIS being drawn towards the space station. "As transmitted it's simply too impressive," says Tucker. "Viewers nowadays won't accept that standard from Dr Who. It's just not how they remember it." Expanding on his plans, Tucker says his team "will probably just film an old model police box spinning against a black sheet with some holes in it - you know the sort of thing."

With Iraq liberated and Saddam Hussein removed from power, Arnold Schwarzenegger lead a daring expedition to screen his latest Terminator epic in the Middle East last month, a move Tachyon has been assured was totally unconnected with his political ambitions.

American ground troops were reportedly quite pleased to take a break from street patrols, friendly fire and unpredictable suicide bomb attacks to watch the film. However, Arnold's enthusiastic cheer of "You guys are the real Terminators!" inadvertently broke the cover of a platoon of new top secret U.S. Military Cyborg prototypes who were running the projector at the time. 39 troops were killed in the resulting chaos.

Mr. Schwarzenegger responded by assuring the survivors that if he is elected President he will personally program all future Cyborgs to only shoot people in the leg.

Unfortunately, the film was not greeted warmly by the people of Iraq when it went on general release either. The fact that the first film to arrive in their country involves a technologically advanced spectre of death from another time and place blowing things up at random seemed to hit a raw nerve. Every time Arnold's T-101 character insisted that he had caused 0.0 Human Casualties only seemed to make things worse.

As a result the opening weekend Box Office took a grand total of $34, three rounds from an AK-47 fired at the teller, and a scribbled death threat against director John Mostow (later attributed to 'friendly criticism' by an American marine disgusted with the changes made to established Terminator continuity).

The second series of the TV version of Dead Ringers will see Jon Culshaw finally throwing off the shackles and revelling in his anorak status. No more flirting around the boundaries with a semi-recognisable Tom Baker - the new episodes will feature Admiral Ackbar, T'alc, the cast of The Tomorrow People, the 'Michael Wisher only' version of Davros and Chocky. Approx 0.009% of the viewers are expected to get the joke (so no change there then).

The so-called Star Wars Kid is now suing for damages. The unlucky kid was made to look like a right idiot in front of millions of Star Wars fans across the globe - and he eventually ended up in therapy when the jeers and constant humiliation got too much for him. "I should have done this ages ago," whined Jake Lloyd at the preliminary court hearing.

Alastair Campbell unveiled the new Labour Party Anthem at Millbank today - an uptempto version of Ava Santani arranged by Jerry Goldsmith with the choral chant rearranged to declare Ave Sir Tony instead. This follows a leaked memo from Campbell to MI5 which urged security forces to display a bit more creativity with their faked suicides, suggesting that they could "ironically theme the deaths for maximum impact". But you didn't hear that from us, OK?