Sci-Fi Storm

It’s official – we will see the Ice Warriors when Doctor Who returns!

It has been rumored for a bit that the Ice Warriors – the green reptilian humanoids from Mars – will return in the second half of Series 7 this Spring, as they are currently the creatures from the classic series with the most appearances that haven’t been shown in the revival. Executive producer Caro Skinner confirmed the appearance, and they will be in an as-yet-untitled Mark Gatiss-penned episode which involves the Doctor being stuck on a submarine with them. It will be interesting to see what kind of modern makeover they will get, as the originals looked like giant-sized action figures.

Speaking of Mark Gatiss, there has been an interesting bit of casting news regarding his docudrama about the making of Doctor Who, An Adventure in Space and Time. William Russell, who played Ian Chesterton and was one of the first companions to the Doctor, appearing in the very first episode, will make a cameo appearance in the docudrama as someone named Harry. Russell himself is being portrayed by Jamie Glover (Waterloo Road). It was Russell as Ian who uttered the now famous words, “A thing that looks like a Police Box, standing in a junkyard, it can move anywhere through time and space?”

Amazon struck a deal with CBS to allow online streaming of the upcoming summer series Under The Dome, from Steven Spielberg and Stephen King, just 4 days after the initial airing on CBS. Amazon Prime members exclusively will be able to stream the show an unlimited number of times.

Why four days? Because currently networks sell commercial slots to advertisers based on the “C3” rating – which counts the number of viewers who watch the commercials played during the broadcast, both live and time-shifted up to three days. After the third day it doesn’t matter much to the network, so this is likely the soonest you’ll see digital distribution done by anyone other than the broadcast network for a show.

If you watched The Walking Dead return from it’s mid-season break, you definitely weren’t alone…12.3 million viewers watched the initial airing, with 7.7 million in the Adults 18-49 group – a record for a basic cable series, and despite the fact that it was up against the Grammy Awards.

Counting the three encores, a total of 16.6 million watched it – and that still doesn’t include DVR viewers over the next several days.

There are 7 more episodes remaining in the third season. The fourth season is expected to begin production in October.