Bernie Ecclestone, the man behind Formula One motor racing, is set to take Doctor Who up a gear and into a new realm of excitement!

STOP PRESS: Just as we were going to press we discovered that one of our new temps wrote the bloody name down wrong when they took the phonecall. As a result Guy Hayley will be returning to SFX magazine immediately. Apparently the actor is actually some bloke called Christopher Eccleston. Sorry!

It looks like Eccles won't be battling the Daleks anytime soon. Terry Nation's estate have stopped the BBC from featuring the Doctor's arch-enemies because they are worried that the new series will tarnish their carefully protected image.

"The problem is that Mr. Davies is trying to make the Daleks far too scary and malevolent," said a lawyer yesterday. "He wants to portray them as ruthless, cold-blooded killers! How are we supposed to sell chocolate and batteries with a PR image like that! What happened to all those wonderfully ineffectual offers we used to get, like Looney Tunes cartoons, cruet sets and Big Finish audios?"

Gary Russell has finally revealed why it's taken Big Finish more than seven months to crush the souls of those poor bastards who participated in their open submission round last August.

"We had a lot of proposals to work our way through," explained Gary yesterday. "Over 300 from Terrace Dicks alone! Instead of a standard rejection letter we decided to go for a more personalised approach instead."

SFX are set to finance another sequel to Scooby-Doo - so they can continue to print covers of Sarah Michelle Gellar dressed in nothing but lingerie.

The new BBC "sci-fi on a shoestring" series which recently made the horrifying prediction that when the lights go out you won't be able to watch your Babylon 5 DVDs, has been commissioned for a second series. Some of the topics it tackles may be of interest to cult tv fans:

A group of hard core Doctor Who fans have pledged to maintain a campaign of resistance to the forthcoming BBC revival of the programme. The group call themselves 'Continuity Who' and members of the militant sect have vowed to continue producing ropey novels, unlistenable audios and half-arsed attempts at comic books in what has been described as an uncompromising challenge to the new series.

A spokesman for the group, who contacted us over a secure line using a pre-arranged password, declared that there would be no let up in the campaign of mediocrity and that the extremists will continue to view the show's return with nothing less than contempt.

"This is a blatant attempt by the BBC to buy us off, but what they don't understand is that we cannot be bought. No matter how much money they spend on it, no matter how much coverage it gets in the press, or how many so-called BAFTA award winners are working on it, this new series represents an unacceptable infringement of our right to continue producing stuff that no one in their right mind wants to buy."

Tachyon TV can reveal some exclusive details about the new 13-part series of Dr Who after our mole - who shall remain nameless - has leaked some exciting details about the scripts.

Paul, sorry - the mole, told us that Russell The Davies' eight scripts have the following working titles: The Kandyman Cometh, Exodus of the Quarks, The Armageddon Boyo, The Felchspoon of Doom, The Even Happier Patrol, The Pink Death, It's Those Bloody Quarks Again! and I Can't Believe They're Not Daleks.

We can also reveal that Mark Gatiss script is entitled Project: Lazarou while Steve Moffat's epic 2-parter - The One Where The Doctor Accidentally Cops Off Parts 1 & 2 - will see the Doctor proclaim his love for Rose when the TARDIS' telepathic circuits go haywire - with hilarious results!