The BBC has announced that the special episode of Doctor Who that will be broadcast to mark the show’s 50th anniversary this November will be made and broadcast in 3D.

“It’s about time,” head writer Steven Moffat noted. “Technology has finally caught up with Doctor Who and your television is now bigger on the inside. A whole new dimension of adventure for the Doctor to explore.”

Reaction from fans has been less than positive, with many wishing that the money spent on the 3D process would be used to fund more episodes during the anniversary year. No further details have been released regarding the storyline or involvement of past actors.

It has, however, been confirmed to SFX magazine that the Ice Warriors are returning in Mark Gatiss’ script for the new season. Executive producer Caroline Skinner told the magazine, “We wanted to bring them back because they’re wonderful! In the mix of stories that we were planning for this year it felt as if doing something very bold with a monster that hadn’t been seen for a while would be really cool. Mark is an enormous fan of the Ice Warrior stories and came up with the idea. The sense of a monster of that scale and that size trapped in a really small, contained environment such as a submarine was a really brilliant story to be able to tell.”

The Ice Warriors featured in four stories in the classic series, and have made multiple appearances in the spin-off media, most notably in Dan Abnett’s recent novel The Silent Stars Go By. Interestingly, that book is being reprinted next month without the Ice Warriors on the cover.

The Radio Times has reprinted some classic Doctor Who covers as postcards, which are being given away with next week’s edition.