Well, this is unexpected. Christopher Eccleston, whose portrayal of the Ninth Doctor helped re-launch Doctor Who back in 2005, has returned to the role in a rather surprising fashion. He has donned the cheeky charisma/surly sarcasm of his Time Lord to send a wedding video to some fans.
Eccleston has spoken repeatedly about the struggles he had with the producers during his own tenure on the show. And he couldn’t be coerced into appearing in Steven Moffat’s 50th-anniversary episode, The Day Of The Doctor, back in 2013. Also, he’s yet to appear in any of the Big Finish audio adventures that so many other Doctor Who alums have taken a shine to.
This separation between Eccleston and Who led us to assume that we’d never see him in the role again. But, for a couple of fans that wanted a special video for their wedding, Eccleston is now pretending to be madman with a box once again.
You can watch the video here…
Eccleston has also started doing conventions recently, having shied away from public gatherings of sci-fi fans for a number of years. This doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s ever going to return to the show or the role in an official capacity, but, nonetheless, it does warm the soul to see Eccleston having a bit of fun and interacting with the fans.
Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall were interviewed in the The Times.
Whittaker describes an optimistic Doctor, full of wonder:
“I think there are moments of anguish, but I feel that the way I enter into the role is with my eyes open and the lights on. You’re five years old and you’re in a dark cave and the light goes on and you see every colour, texture, shape. How exciting that would be! I wanted it to be like a lightbulb going on when the Doctor is regenerated and comes back, blown away by the beauty of everything and seeing it in things where it isn’t always obvious; and knowing when to be scared, but using that fear to push yourself, not restrict yourself.”
Chris Chibnall concurs:
“Each Doctor needs to have their own journey. I think [Peter Capaldi’s] Doctor came into the world asking, ‘Am I a good man?’ and questioning his self-identity. Jodie’s Doctor is definitely more outward-looking.”
Though Jodie Whittaker cried tears of joy after learning she won the role she stated:
“There are no tears from my Doctor, no. That would be a huge statement.”
While Series 11 will have an ebullient Doctor, there are some things it won’t include, according to Chris Chibnall. No Daleks, Cybermen, River Song, Missy, Paternoster Gang and no romance for the Doctor.
The article also give some insight into one of Jodie Whittaker’s self-taped audition scenes written to gauge her ability to deliver “technobabble”. Whittaker constructed her own props, consisting of a box and some wires, to perform a scene where the Doctor is required to diffuse a bomb. This description resembles the Series 11 promotional photo above released by the BBC.
The Times is available at newsstands and online today.
The first episode of Doctor Who Series 11, The Woman Who Fell to Earth will have its worldwide television premiere on October 7th 2018.
Some casting news for the first filming block was discovered by a Twitter user.
@Ruther2 found found a Doctor Who credit on Lisa Stokke’s Spotlight CV which lists her as portraying a character called Trine in an episode directed by Jamie Childs.
Stoke is a talented actress and singer with dual American/Norwegian citizenship.
Earlier this year, @Ruther2 discovered that Jamie Childs directed episodes 1, 7, 9 and 10 of Series 11. This was later confirmed by Doctor Who Magazine and the BBC.
Childs directed episodes 1 and 7 during the first filming block, which took place between the end of October and the middle of December.
Stokke was in Cardiff, where the studio scenes for Doctor Who are filmed on December 6, which would place her in episode 1 or 7.
A PRESS RELEASE FROM BOB BAKER AND PAUL TAMS – SUNDAY 9th SEPTEMBER 2018
We are excited to at last now be able to tell you that there is a major project in the pipeline to bring K9 back as the standalone hero that he deserves to be.
We have entered into a partnership with a major US/UK company and are currently now developing a new multi Million Dollar series/s which will establish the K9 “brand” prior to the release of the feature film.
A K9 film would have been a one off, but with now having a new series to investigate, (which will be set in Space akin to Guardians of The Galaxy etc) we will be establishing our own universe on a much grander scale than we could do before.
OMEGA will still play a part and we haven’t dismissed the ideas of other characters such as The Axons, however we are very keen to establish new adversaries and alien creatures for K9 and his new associates to face.
The project will look to appeal to both new and old audiences and there will be more news in early 2019 so watch out on our social media.
Bob and Paul would like to thank #K9fans for their patience while the original plans developed into this far bigger opportunity. K9 will be back with you soon!
Doctor Who’s Jodie Whittaker breaks the glass ceiling in new trailer
There’s no doubt that Jodie Whittaker’s casting as the first female Doctor in Doctor Who was a groundbreaking move.
And the BBC are very much going for that message in their latest teaser for the new series of the sci-fi show, which shows Whittaker literally breaking the glass ceiling.
“Whoops!” she says as the screen rightly declares “it’s about time”. We very much see what you did there, BBC.
Whittaker recently opened up about taking on the role of the iconic Time Lord, saying she was ready to have some “fun” with her first series of the show.
“Doctor Who wasn’t something that was on TV in my house when I was growing up, so I thought I’d have to cane it before the first audition and watch every single episode,” she told Marie Claire.
“Thankfully, Chris [Chibnall, the producer] said, ‘I don’t want you to. I want you to come in with fresh eyes and bring what you would do in this environment’.”
She added: “I knew that there would be a huge amount of people it would be a shock for. But this job celebrates change more than any other role – you have a physical regeneration, so casting [a woman] supports that story and doesn’t go against the rules of the show in any way.
“I’m playing a Time Lord who’s essentially an alien and inhabits different bodies and this one is female. The best thing for me though is that, for the first time in my life, I am not playing a stereotypical woman because as much as I approach everything as an actor, I am continually labelled by the female version of that character.
“I recently had someone ask me, ‘Are you playing it as a girl or a boy?’ I replied, ‘I’m just playing it.’ This is the most freeing role because there are no rules.”
Doctor Who will move to Sunday nights starting on October 7 on BBC One in the UK, with the series airing on BBC America in the US. Watch the full trailer below:
Additional footage shown with Australian Doctor Who cinema premiere
In addition to the 65-minute episode, the cinemas will show additional footage featuring exclusive interviews with Jodie Whittaker, showrunner Chris Chibnall and first episode director Jamie Childs, who also directed Whittaker’s reveal as the new Doctor last year.
There is no word yet as to whether this additional footage will also be shown in the American screenings of The Woman Who Fell to Earth on October 10 but the one-hour, thirty-minute runtime suggests additional content.
Bradley Walsh reveals why he initially turned down Doctor Who
New Doctor Who companion Bradley Walsh has revealed that he nearly turned down the role – citing uneasiness when new showrunner Chris Chibnall wouldn’t tell him who the Thirteenth Doctor was.
The actor and host of The Chase was offered the role of companion Graham O’Brien personally by Chibnall, although initially didn’t even know what show Chibnall was working on.
“I was with Chris having lunch last year and he said: ‘Brad, I want you to do a job.’” he told The Sun. “I said: ‘Sure, what?’ He said: ‘I can’t tell. It’s very, very secret. But you are the man for the job. It’s in Cardiff and will be a nine-month shoot.’
The pair then met again, with Chibnall offering Walsh a bit more information – although not enough to win him over instantly, with Chibnall withholding the identity of Thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker.
“I had another meeting and he said: ‘It is Doctor Who — not for the Doctor, though. We are going to change it around.’ I said: ‘Who is going to be the Doctor?’ He said: ‘We can’t tell.’ So I said: ‘I can’t accept.’”
This, of course, is understandable – the Doctor is the heart and soul of Doctor Who, and determines what kind of show Walsh would be signing on for. However, Walsh was eventually convinced by Chibnall to take ‘a leap of faith’ on what he promised would be a ‘groundbreaking’ new series.
“He said: ‘But we want you. It will be an unbelievable journey. It will be ground-breaking. We are going to go for it. The BBC have trusted us.’ So I’m in. A leap of faith.”
Whether that leap will end well will be seen on Sunday 7th October, when Walsh’s Graham joins fellow companions Ryan Sinclair (Tosin Cole) and Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill) for the show’s first ever series led by a female Doctor.
Doctor Who series 11 will air on Sunday 7th October on BBC1
TV, cinema options for Australian Doctor Who viewers
Australian viewers have several options for viewing Series 11 of Doctor Who. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the earliest known possible time to view the first episode of the new series is on ABC iview, immediately following the UK broadcast, which will occur sometime in the middle of Monday, October 8 in Australia.
The Herald quoted an an ABC spokeswoman who said:
“The series will also air on Monday evenings on ABC. The move to Monday evenings will not impact our news and current affairs programming.”
On October 8, Australians will also have the option to view The Woman Who Fell to Earth in cinemas via Sharmill Films.
Doctor Who to move from Saturdays to Sundays for new era CONFIRMED!
The last time viewers saw the Doctor, she was falling from her TARDIS so it’s about time for the Doctor to land. This time it’s all change, as Doctor Who is moving to Sunday nights, launching on Sunday 7 October.
Never before in the show’s history has an entire series descended to earth on a Sunday. This year marks a brand new era with a new Showrunner, a new Doctor, new friends and a whole host of new monsters – so it’s only fitting that the new Time Lord will land in a new time zone on BBC One.
Chris Chibnall, Showrunner, says: “New Doctor, new home! Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor is about to burst into Sunday nights – and make the end of the weekend so much more exciting. Get everybody’s homework done, sort out your Monday clothes, then grab some special Sunday night popcorn, and settle down with all of the family for Sunday night adventures across space and time. (Also, move the sofa away from the wall so parents can hide behind it during the scary bits). The Thirteenth Doctor is falling from the sky and it’s going to be a blast.”
Charlotte Moore, Director of BBC Content, says: “With Chris Chibnall at the helm and Jodie Whittaker’s arrival as the new Doctor we are heralding a brand new era for the show and so it feels only right to give it a new home on Sunday nights at the heart of BBC One’s Autumn schedule. ”
Showrunner Chris Chibnall has written the first episode of the brand new series which is titled The Woman Who Fell to Earth. With the Doctor on her way it’s only a matter of time before viewers can enjoy being transported out of this world this autumn.
Massive change has characterised the upcoming series of Doctor Who ever since it was first announced, from its exciting new Doctor (played by Jodie Whittaker as the first female incarnation of the Time Lord) and its diverse cast all the way down to the writers and other behind-the-scenes staff.
However, one more change has now been unveiled which may be the biggest yet – Doctor Who is leaving its traditional Saturday evening slot and moving to Sundays, with the new ten-part series set to kick off on Sunday 7th October.
“New Doctor, new home!” showrunner Chris Chibnall said of the move.
“Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor is about to burst into Sunday nights — and make the end of the weekend so much more exciting. Get everybody’s homework done, sort out your Monday clothes, then grab some special Sunday night popcorn, and settle down with all of the family for Sunday night adventures across space and time. (Also, move the sofa away from the wall so parents can hide behind it during the scary bits).
“The Thirteenth Doctor is falling from the sky and it’s going to be a blast.”
While a time slot change could be seen as a fairly minor alteration it can’t be overstated what a big shift this is for Doctor Who, which has run on Saturdays for more or less every episode (bar specials) since it returned to TV in 2005, making it a stalwart part of BBC1’s Saturday-night schedule for 13 years. As noted by the BBC, “never before in the show’s history has an entire series descended to earth on a Sunday”.
In fact, even during its classic series years (1963-1989) Doctor Who went out on Saturdays for decades, and only later began to move around the schedules (see below).
So why is it changing now? Well, in recent years there have been some clues that Doctor Who has been struggling on Saturday nights, where it was increasingly forced to compete with popular entertainment and reality TV programmes on other channels.
And on Saturday itself, Doctor Who was repeatedly shifted to different time slots, often even within the same series, in an attempt to accommodate other programmes (most prominently Strictly Come Dancing in 2015), sometimes leading to it airing at a much later time than audiences were used to.
“I feel it’s slightly used as a pawn in a Saturday night warfare,” former series star Peter Capaldi commented in 2015. “I feel as if it should go out at 7:30pm or around that time.”
“I see a lot of kids and a lot of families and these families who all love Doctor Who want to sit down and watch it together. I used to do that with my daughter when it came back so it has to be on at a time that’s reasonable for them to do that.”
Former showrunner Steven Moffat also partially blamed the series’ struggling ratings in recent years on such changes.
“I don’t think 8:25pm is brilliant for Doctor Who,” he said in 2015.
“I’m not blasting the BBC or getting cross or anything, but that’s not smart. I don’t think anyone thinks that’s smart. If there’s a slight, and it’s only a slight, drop off, it’s I think, that’s not where Doctor Who’s meant to be.”
So could a new Sunday-night time slot help alleviate these issues? Well, maybe. Sunday evening is certainly a more traditional night for drama with a more captive audience (people go out on Saturdays, but they stay in on Sundays, especially in the autumn/winter), and it would mean Who doesn’t have to contend with the vagaries of Strictly’s scheduling.
In fact, if Doctor Who followed the Strictly results show (which finishes around 8.00pm on Sundays) it might get a good lead-in of viewers from one of the biggest shows on TV. But perhaps more likely, it could run before Countryfile and Strictly at around 5:30pm, returning to its original teatime slot, while also recommitting to its core audience of children, for whom 8:00pm the night before school might be too late.
We understands that the BBC will be revealing the specific time slot closer to broadcast, so we’ll have more of an idea how it’ll fit into the established Sunday-night schedules then.
Of course, given the rise of catch-up and on-demand viewing, it arguably matters less what night of the week Doctor Who airs on, with younger fans having the option of watching the show as and when they please on BBC iPlayer.
And, as noted above, it’s not like the series hasn’t changed the day it airs at any point in its 55-year history. While classic Who did usually air on a Saturday, in the 1980s the adventures of Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor were often shifted to weeknight slots, and the series managed to survive the change at the time.
Having said that, after a while moving to different days the series did end up returning to Saturdays during the time of Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor, and further scheduling changes in the Sylvester McCoy era – which included pitting the Seventh Doctor episodes against popular soap Coronation Street, and burning through stories much more quickly on ever-changing weeknights – are sometimes credited with the series’ decline before it was cancelled in 1989.
Still, however the new time slot affects the ratings one thing’s for sure – this particular piece of time travel is a big new step for the Doctor.
Doctor Who returns to BBC1 on Sunday 7th October
A Doctor Who fan event is coming to The Printworks in Manchester this weekend
The Printworks will be transformed into the Whoniverse this weekend when a Doctor Who fan convention appears at the entertainment complex.
Fans of the science fiction TV show will be able to meet former Doctor Who actors as well as attend live talks with directors, scriptwriters and producers.
Vworp will appear at The Printworks this Sunday, September 9, between 10am and 5pm.
As well as former Time Lords, there will be a host of famous props to see – including Daleks and the TARDIS – that you can take photos with.
This event follows the successful Harry Potter convention DraigCon back in July this year, and a similar Game of Thrones event back in June.
Former Doctors will be in attendance for photo opportunities and meet and greets, including Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Paul McGann.
There will also be dedicated art prints that have been produced especially for the panels.
Fred Booth, centre director of The Printworks, said: “We’re delighted that we get to host this fan convention which celebrates a much-loved British television series, enjoyed by all members of the family.”
Mark Cookson, event organiser of Vworp, added: “The sheer response from the Who fandom for this event has been immense, and just shows the popularity of the show. We’ve got some great guests lined up, with more to be announced, and it’ll be the perfect warm up for the debut of the 13th Doctor in October.”
Vworp takes place on the 9th September from 10am to 5pm.
Tickets cost £22 each, which will get you access to all panels, screening and lectures, plus an event lanyard and programme, a free autograph from your chosen Vworp guest, and a print of the event’s poster art.
