Sci-Fi Storm

So, you are asleep when the Doctor bursts in and rambles, but then realizes he’s too early in the timeline, and then says everything is perfectly fine, go back to sleep…could you?
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T-5 days until “Asylum of the Daleks” airs…but you don’t have to wait to get back in the groove with Doctor Who! As planned, the BBC is releasing a 5-part mini web series online starting today to help see what life was like for Amy and Rory while the Doctor isn’t around (and a bit about the Doctor when they aren’t around…) Check out part 1 below, and check each day for another episode!
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Two more classic Doctor Who episodes, bot h featuring Third Doctor Jon Pertwee, will be released on DVD this fall (and now available for pre-order, hint, hint 🙂 ): [sfs=1257]”Ambassadors of Death”[/sfs], recently restored to full color using a color recovery process, will be released on October 9th, and the Special Edition of [sfs=1258]”The Claws of Axos”[/sfs] will be released November 13th.

These join the upcoming September 11th release of [sfs=1239]”Planet of Giants”[/sfs] and the Special Edition release of [sfs=1238]”Vengeance on Varos”[/sfs].

Just as it was looking like the debut of the seventh series of Doctor Who wouldn’t be seen until at least the weekend of September 8th, the BBC has finally confirmed that “Asylum of the Daleks” will debut on Saturday, September 1st on BBC One. And as an added bonus, a series of 5 mini-webisodes will start online on August 27th called “Pond Life”, and as the name implies it will get u caught up with the Ponds since the end of the last series. Look for it on the official site.

Still no word, however, from BBC America as to when it will air. The hope is that they will keep in sync with same-day broadcast, but currently they show a Series 6 marathon followed by the two-hour “The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe” at 8pm ET. No reason that couldn’t change, however… 🙂

UPDATE: BBC America DID confirm a short time ago that they will indeed air it the same day, at 9:00 ET! And SPACE just tweeted the same day and time in Canada…

Torchwood‘s (and Doctor Who‘s) own Captain Jack will be back on TV – in the U.S. no less – as EW Inside TV reports actor John Barrowman has joined the cast of the CW’s Arrow, based on the DC Comics superhero Green Arrow, in a recurring role.

Although the name of the role isn’t mentioned, he is described as a “well-dressed man…as mysterious as he is wealthy…he is an acquaintance of the Queen family and a prominent figure in Starling City.” The Queen family refers to the Green Arrow’s name of Oliver Queen, the former mayor of Star City (which from the text may be renamed Starling City for the series?).

Speculation is that from the description it could be Stanley Dover Sr., a philanthropist but has a very, very dark side…

Neither the BBC or BBC America sites confirm this yet, but apparently at the premiere screening of the first episode, “Asylum of the Daleks”, it was confirmed that the BBC will air the premiere on September 1st, with BBC America “likely” to air it on the same date in the U.S. (and most probably at 9 PM ET), per Hypable.

The first five episode titles, basically making up the first half of Series 7 of Doctor Who, are now known. The first three we knew before:

“Asylum of the Daleks”
“Dinosaurs on a Spaceship”
“A Town called Mercy”
“The Power of Three”
“The Angels take Manhattan”

The last of which is a bit telling on what we’ll see 🙂

There has been a lot of rumors swirling that the expected 50th anniversary super-episode of Doctor Who next year might be Matt Smith’s swan song as the river of the TARDIS…but now the British tabloid The Sun is reporting that Matt Smith has said he’s stay on Doctor Who through 2014, after being convinced by showrunner Steven Moffat having created a “brilliant” series.

Smith said, “It hasn’t been written yet but the idea is as brilliant and as mental as you’d expect from Steven. So there’s a lot to look forward to. When Steven was going to pitch the next season to me not long ago, he said, ‘Are you ready to cry?’”

As for the 50th, he said, ““Steven will do something brilliant. He’ll do something grand or maybe something very simple but he’ll come to it as a fan. He’ll go, ‘What would I want to see?’ ”

Now, I’ll wait for independent confirmation, but it’s a hopeful sign.

Writer-actor Mark Gatiss, who is no stranger to the Doctor Who franchise having penned several episodes and also appeared several times, has been tapped by the BBC to write a drama detailing how Doctor Who originally came to be in 1963 and since, according to the BBC’s official Doctor Who twitter account. The drama will air on BBC TWO next year during a celebration of the show’s 50th anniversary.

Titled An Adventure in Space and Time, Gatiss describes it as, “This is the story of how an unlikely set of brilliant people created a true Television original. And how an actor – William Hartnell – stereotyped in hard-man roles became a hero to millions of children. I’ve wanted to tell this story this for more years than I can remember! To make it happen for Doctor Who‘s 50th birthday is quite simply a dream come true.”

Doctor Who show runner Steven Moffat, who will executive produce the drama, also said, “The story of Doctor Who is the story of television – so it’s fitting in the anniversary year that we make our most important journey back in time to see how the TARDIS was launched.”

The official Twitter of Doctor Who tweeted earlier this evening that British actor Richard E. Grant, perhaps best known in the U.S. as Dr. Jack Seward in 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Bob Cratchit in Patrick Stewart’s A Christmas Carol but is well known in the U.K, will guest star in this year’s Christmas Special of Doctor Who.

Grant is no stranger to the actual role of the Doctor, however…he’s unofficially filled the role twice. He first appeared, albeit briefly in the 1999 Comic Relief special skit, “Doctor Who and the Curse of the Fatal Death”, written by none other than current showrunner Steven Moffat and which starred Rowan Atkinson as the Doctor and Absolutely Fabulous‘s Julia Sawalha as his companion Emma, whom he intends to marry. But after a confrontation with the Daleks and the Master (Jonathan Pryce), he regenerates several times, first into the “handsome” Doctor (Grant), then the “shy” Doctor (Jim Broadbent), then the “smooth” Doctor (Hugh Grant), but in the end regenerates one more time, into a woman (Joanna Lumley).

He then also starred as the Ninth Doctor in the 2003 animated online adventure, “Scream of the Shalka”, before the revival of the series. When the series was to come back, he was reportedly offered the role, and regrets turning it down. It later went to Christopher Eccleston – and thus is appearance as the Ninth Doctor was relegated to unofficial status.