Doctor Who is about to celebrate his 50th anniversary on TV, and BBC America is celebrating that milestone with a new series that features some old enemies, and a new companion who looks like a girl who has died twice last year. Also, attendees of Wondercon in Anaheim will get a sneak peak at the first episode 24 hours before everyone else. More after the jump…
When we last saw our favorite Time Lord, he had defeated some alien snowmen with the help of a young woman named Clara Oswald, who died helping him. Yet she is the spitting image of another young woman named Oswin, a computer hacker who helped the Doctor battle the Daleks… and later discovered she had been turned into one. Not only that, there seems to be another young woman in London living in 2013, who looks just like Clara and Oswin.
That young woman, and the other doppelgangers, is played by Jenna-Louise Coleman. She’s expected to hold her own and make her own impression on the Doctor when they meet (again) in the first story of 2013, “The Bells of St. John”. It involves aliens called “Spoonheads” who are affecting Wi-Fi signals.
According to executive producer Stephen Moffatt, the Doctor and Clara will be all over the universe, whether in the sky or under the ocean. “It’s the 50th year of Doctor Who and look what’s going on!” he says. “We’re up in the sky and under the sea! We’re running round the rings of an alien world and then a haunted house. There’s new Cybermen, new Ice Warriors and a never before attempted journey to the centre of the TARDIS. And in the finale, the Doctor’s greatest secret will at last be revealed! If this wasn’t already our most exciting year it would be anyway!”
This is the new look for the Ice Warriors, who haven’t been seen since “The Monsters of Peladon” in 1974.
Neil Gaiman, who wrote the popular episode “The Doctor’s Wife” last year, will write the Cybermen story, and they will also get a new look.
BBC America will air “The Bells of St. John” on March 30th at 9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific as part of Supernatural Saturdays. It will be paired with a new show called Orphan Black, about a young woman who discovers there are several women who look just like her….because they are all clones. People who will be attending this year’s Wondercon at the Anaheim Convention Center will get to see both shows on the 29th. This was announced in the Toucan Blog.
See more about Doctor Who at http://www.bbcamerica.com/doctor-who. The channel also plans to show old episodes featuring the previous Doctors, starting with Jon Pertwee’s first episode, “Spearhead From Space”, which will be shown March 31st.
