It’s official. As I mentioned in yesterday’s article “11th Doctor to Be Announced Saturday” the BBC has announced the actor to play the 11th Doctor on Doctor Who, replacing departing Doctor David Tennant.
The new Doctor will be played by Matt Smith (pictured right), who will be the youngest actor to play the part at 26 years old. Before this, the youngest person cast as the Doctor was 5th Doctor Peter Davison, who was 29 when he took on the role.
The BBC has stated that they will be officially announing the name of the actor who has been hired to play the eleventh Doctor.
The new actor was cast last year, and the BBC uncharacteristically was able to keep the lid on the secret through the holidays.
Head of drama at BBC Wales, Piers Wenger said: “We believe the actor is going to bring something very special to the role and will make it absolutely their own. I just can’t wait to tell everyone who it is – it has been a nail-biting Christmas trying to keep this under wraps!”
According to the Royal Shakespeare Company, David Tennant will be undergoing back surgery for a slipped disc.
Tennant has been experiencing back problems for some time, and has recently been unable to perform in the most recent productions of Hamlet, where he has played the title role some 60 times.
Now it seems he will not be returning to the role at all, since he was already scheduled to finish his run in the production on January 10th, and it seems unlikely he would be able to do so so quickly after surgery.
Forty-five years ago today, one day after the assassination of US president John F. Kennedy, viewers in the UK witnessed the beginning of a legend — “An Unearthly Child”, the very first episode of Doctor Who.
It’s hard for a modern viewer to imagine what it was like back in 1963, as the first notes of that haunting, unearthly theme music was first heard.
The episode introduced the mysterious character known only as “the Doctor”, and his ancient, barely-working, but still amazing TARDIS.
The seventh Doctor story Battlefield is set to be released in the UK December 29th. The story is from the final season of the original series, and is the last story to feature the Brigadier (although sharp-eyed viewers could spot the actor, Nicholas Courtney, in a cameo in the previous season’s Silver Nemesis).
This story is one of my favorites from McCoy’s (televised) era, and blends Arthurian legends with science fiction. It was another story to continue the trend that began in season 25 of reintroducing mystery into the Doctor’s character (see Remembrance of the Daleks, which is also written by Ben Aaronovitch, for the first example of this trend).
The rumors we’ve all heard for a while now about David Tennant leaving Doctor Who are true. It’s official: According to the BBC, David Tennant has announced he will no longer be playing the role of the tenth Doctor once filming of the 4 Doctor Who specials in 2009 has been completed.
Tennant said the following during his announcement:
“I’ve had the most brilliant, bewildering and life changing time working on Doctor Who. I have loved every day of it. It would be very easy to cling on to the TARDIS console forever and I fear that if I don’t take a deep breath and make the decision to move on now, then I simply never will. You would be prising the TARDIS key out of my cold dead hand. This show has been so special to me, I don’t want to outstay my welcome.
The 8th Doctor, played by Paul McGann in the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie, will start filming one of the forthcoming feature-length specials set to broadcast next year, according to British newspaper The Sun.
The new series of Doctor Who, which began in 2005, picked up the story of the Doctor an unknown time after the events of the TV Movie, and it was strongly implied that the 9th Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) had just regenerated not long before the events of “Rose”.
According to various UK news ranging from the Telegraph to the Sun, tenth Doctor David Tennant may appear in a Doctor Who movie. Tennant has not yet signed on for series 5 in 2010 and is apparently using a feature film as a bargaining chip — offering to do series five…
But only if he can land the role of the Timelord in theaters.
The rights to make a Doctor Who movie have been held by BBC Worldwide, but plans got put on hold when the TV series returned. But now with the popularity of the show as great as it’s ever been, now might be the right time to make a film.
I’ve been enjoying a show on ABC Family called The Middleman. I forget how I found out about it, since it’s on a channel I’d normally not watch, but I’ve been enjoying it a lot.
It’s very silly, but clever… almost an updated Avengers (definitely making nods to it anyway — the first episode had an extended sequence that was a spoof recreation of the opening theme to the Emma Peel Avengers — a shortened form of this serves as the opening titles for each episode of The Middleman). It’s also *kind* of like Torchwood but less angsty, “dark” and self-consciously “adult” the way Torchwood tends to be (to it’s detriment IMO).
A Doctor Who fan named Alex Day has invented a new genre of music… Time Lord Rock, or “Trock” for short.
It seems Alex tried to get into “Wrock” which apparently is “Wizard Rock” for Harry Potter fans. I’d never heard of it before, but then I’m not really into Harry Potter, so there you are.
Alex tells the story of how he invented a new type of music just for Doctor Who fans in his YouTube video below, as well as demos the first Trock song.
Oh, and apparently his band’s name is Chameleon Circuit, which is a great name.
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