Before Season 6 kicks off around Eastertime, Doctor Who fans in the UK will be getting a bonus on March 18. Organizers have confirmed that there will be a special mini-episode aired during the annual Comic Relief “Red Nose Day” fund-raiser on the BBC (the image above is one of two official screen grabs released this week by Comic Relief; the second one is a bit of a spoiler).

The charity, co-founded in 1985 by “Vincent and the Doctor” scribe Richard Curtis, originally raised money for Ethiopian famine relief, but has since expanded to be a fund-raiser for many charitable causes in the UK, and Red Nose Day in particular has become a highlight of the British TV calendar as many popular actors and TV casts have provided special performances for the event. J.K. Rowling even wrote two spin-off books from her Harry Potter series in support 10 years ago.

While Doctor Who has had a long history with the other big UK charity event, Children in Need, its relationship with Comic Relief has been less frequent. In 1999, Steven Moffat - at Curtis’ invitation - wrote The Curse of Fatal Death, an all-star spoof of the show starring Rowan Atkinson as the Ninth Doctor. It was his first TV work for the franchise. In 2007, before she’d agreed to return as Donna Noble, Catherine Tate recorded a skit in which David Tennant spoofed the Doctor. In 2009, the cast of The Sarah Jane Adventures appeared with UK comic legend Ronnie Corbett in a mini-episode called “From Raxacoricofallapatorius With Love.”

And now, as confirmed by the BBC on Tuesday—and by Doctor Who Magazine in its latest issue coming out in the UK later this week (and in Canada in about a month)—Matt Smith, Arthur Darvill, and Karen Gillan will be appearing in a newly shot mini-episode airing in the UK on March 18.

UPDATE: Steven Moffat tells SFX Magazine that there will in fact be two mini-episodes, running about 4 minutes each, entitled “Space” and “Time”, and that the two will be canonical stories, rather than spoofs or send-ups (in other words, like the previous Children in Need mini stories. (PS. The link reveals a spoiler picture that’s bound to have Karen Gillan fans cheering.)

That’s the good news. The bad news, of course, is that we won’t be seeing this mini-episode on TV in Canada, since Red Nose Day is a strictly UK event. However, BBC Video has been great about releasing past mini-episodes—the Sarah Jane skit was released on the SJA Season 2 DVD as an Easter Egg, and Curse of Fatal Death even got its own North American VHS release (though a DVD release has yet to occur). Odds are the newest skit will find its way onto the Season 6 DVD set. (Update: with Moffat quoted as saying the two skits are “taken seriously as a proper bit of Doctor Who”, future DVD/BD release is probably a given.)

Comic Relief itself is good about posting its skits to YouTube, too, so I imagine we’ll be able to see it (officially and unofficially) pretty soon after broadcast. Here, from the official Red Nose Day YouTube channel, is the complete Curse of Fatal Death starring Rowan Atkinson, Richard E. Grant (several years before Scream of the Shalka), Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Joanna Lumley (I won’t spoil who she plays for those who haven’t seen it yet - and no she doesn’t play the Rani!), and Jonathan Pryce as the Master:

For more information about Comic Relief, and to donate (especially if you’re reading this in the UK), visit its website here.