Now that Matt Smith has left (sob) we have Peter Capaldi to look forward to (yay) and the forthcoming Season 8 of new-Who arriving in 2014. So we've rounded up everything we know so far and then put our collective heads together and injected some calculated guesses, along with a fair portion of wild speculation! But that's half the fun of looking forward to Doctor Who isn't it? Anything in time or space could happen.
Filming is expected to begin on January 6th with Steven Moffat remaining as the head honcho. In an interview with Broadcast magazine he confirmed that there will be no split series and we would see "at least" 13 episodes in 2014. It's unclear if that includes the Christmas special but we think it probably does, for reasons we will get to later. Transmission times are unknown right now but an Autumn time slot seems likely, possibly from August Bank Holiday weekend.
You may have heard that a certain Peter Capaldi will be playing the new Doctor? Sorry if that's a spoiler for you!! Apparently he has already picked out his costume and finished his first read through as the Doctor.
As for Peter Capladi's previous appearances in Doctor Who, it will be dealt with. The reason probably won't be set to the music of a Billy Joel song but Steven Moffat did say he spoke with Russell T Davies who had come up with a potential plot just in case he managed to cast Capaldi, and they will be using this. We're intrigued! We like Russell 'Tussell' Davies and wish he'd come back to pen the occasional script.
We always thought the explanation might be something as simple as an the Doctor stating his appearance is never entirely random and always the result of a previous face, or faces, or elements of faces that he's encountered and admired. After all, we've all seen people and wish we'd looked like them, or had their nose, eyes etc. Whereas we'd need rather expensive plastic surgery to change our look so drastically, the Doctor has a little trick called regeneration. You still never know what you're gonna get but maybe an uncontrollable element takes memories the Doctor has subconsciously gathered and produces his new image. After all, in The Day Of The Doctor he did say he "never forgets a face".
Jenna Coleman is definitely sticking around as Clara, and we will see the return of the Paternoster Gang. Steven Moffat has confirmed they will be appearing in the opening episode, which is good as it might be a nice idea for Clara to seek out some familiar faces to help the newly regenerated Doctor. They will also have their own sonic devices to rival the Doctor’s, these have been designed by Blue Peter winners (Absorbaloff anyone?). Surely it won't be long before Steven Moffat creates a spin-off show for Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax?
Rumours have been echoing around the web that a new male companion will join the TARDIS this year. Said rumours claim that it will be one of Clara’s teaching colleagues from Coal Hill School, Tom, played by Tristan Beint.
Alex Kingston teased a possibly return for River Song in a BBC America video, “I look forward to sharing more of [River] with you in the future, but… spoilers!” We're gonna take a guess that we won't see River in series 8, we like her a lot but it would be good to give the character a rest for a year. Or two.
Pre-production work is already underway, as confirmed on Twitter by director Douglas Mackinnon
Start back at Doctor Who on Monday. Can't wait to get started!
— Douglas Mackinnon (@drmuig) December 14, 2013
Further tweets suggested that he will be directing two episodes in the new season. Other directors confirmed so far are Paul Murphy, who will be responsible for episodes three and six, and Ben Wheatley who is directing the opening two episodes. We think this will mean that we will see at least one two-part story at the start of the new season.
Then there's that Peter Jackson rumour. We'll get back to that later.
Who's going to be writing the new series? Well expect 5 or 6 episodes from Steven Moffat himself, we wouldn't bet against those including the opening possible two-parter, the closing possible two-parter and the Christmas episode. Mark Gatiss will be providing a script (or two), that was always a pretty safe assumption anyway. In an interview Neil Cross confirmed he was writing an episode, but we'll get back to that later.
UPDATED 3/1/14 : A fourth writer has been confirmed. Cardiff based student magazine called Quench interviewed Gareth Roberts, who revealed he is busy writing for Peter Capaldi's debut season.
At one time an online CV for Jack Lothian listed him down as writing an episode, it was rumoured he was providing a script for season 7 so this made sense. However Doctor Who has now been removed from the CV, although that could be under the request of the BBC. We think it's unlikely Neil Gaiman will be included this year, in October he said "it may well be that I'm over in series nine, but I promise I haven't gone away." Chris Chibnall is likely to be busy with Broadchurch and the US remake so we doubt he'll be involved for now. We'd like to see Nicholas Briggs write a script, he's contributed many to the Big Finish range and it's about time he had a chance with the 'big boys'.
But what will season 8 be about? Well obviously expect the first episode(s) to deal with the post regenerated Doctor and how he deals with all that malarkey. In an interview with Nerd³ Steven Moffat promises that next season he will "get a bit raw at it and do it in a different direction".
Ooh, ahh, Misses!
As yet we don't know for sure about any returning enemies but it's likely we'll see the Daleks, it is rumoured that they will appear in the first episode. Another rumour is that the Mark Gatiss script will feature The Ice Warriors, and we're also hearing that the Master may show up in the new season too. If that is true then we don't think he will be played by John Simm. Either way we'd really like to see some new or rarely used adversaries this season (Absorbaloff anyone?).
There's little else known apart from Steven Moffat saying that the Doctor's search for the Timelords wouldn't be the main factor of the season, but we'll get to that....right now...
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So here's what we think. After discovering that Gallifrey is out there in another Universe and being presented with the gift of a new regeneration cycle the Doctor is likely to want to find the Timelords and his home planet. We think this may well be hinted at across season 8, a la Bad Wolf, Mr Saxon, etc etc but it won't be an overly heavy story arc like the Amy/River Song one from season 6.
We think we will get 12 episodes (instead of 13) in the Autumn and then episode 13 will be the Christmas special. This then brings us to 2015 and the tenth anniversary of the show's comeback, March 26th to be exact, it's a Thursday!
With the success of The Day Of The Doctor the BBC are likely to want more of the same, we wouldn't be surprised if a special episode, possibly multi-Doctor, is produced for the Spring and maybe broadcast on Saturday March 28th on TV and at the cinema again. Steven Moffat revealed that he had to hold over some budget from season 7 for the 50th anniversary special, so a slightly reduced season 8 may give him the extra money needed for what could be an expensive tenth anniversary show.
We've heard repeated rumours and conjecture that Peter Capaldi will only do one season as the Doctor. We hope that's not true but there really wouldn't be a better time to include a regeneration than in a special episode like this. Maybe the Doctor finds Gallifrey and rescues the Timelords but in doing so it costs him his life?
We really do think the Gallifrey story arc will be completed before Peter Capaldi leaves, one way or another. The reason behind our thinking is that in The Day Of The Doctor "all 13" Doctor's were seen hiding Gallifrey. Why weren't number's 14, 15, 16 etc included? Well in the real world (we occasionally visit there) the obvious answer is they were not cast yet, but their absence could easily be explained in the show. If Capaldi's Doctor finds Gallifrey then any successor would not be involved in hiding the planet would they?
In the same Neil Cross interview we mentioned earlier it confirmed that the Doctor Who production team were keen to film in New Zealand and if so Mr Cross has an idea lined up for it. Peter Jackson has said he'd like to direct an episode and what better time for that to happen. With his commitments to The Hobbit coming to a finish in late 2014 he could fit Doctor Who in then. The timescale works.
Peter Jackson is likely to work for peanuts, he's already said he'd do it for a Dalek! But taking the production to New Zealand would cost money, saving some of the budget from the missing episode of season 8 would definitely help with this.
We don't think for one minute that if Peter Jackson does direct an episode of Doctor Who, Steven Moffat would let anyone else near the script, regardless of hoe great Neil Cross' idea may be. This could be Moffat's swansong. It would be a fitting time to bow out as show runner, over his tenure Doctor Who has grown in popularity around the world more than anyone would've dared to dream 5 years ago. It always had a cult following abroad but that has moved over into the mainstream, the show is safe for many years to come.
Tenth anniversary celebration event or not we doubt there will be another whole season in of new Who in 2015, it may just be that we see the annual Christmas outing or at best a reduced/split season towards the end of the year. With the way the BBC are funding shows nowadays it seems unlikely that will change. Could that mew season or Christmas episode see a new Doctor and a new show runner? And if so who could they be?
Well we're very happy with Peter Capldi right now and it seems wildly inappropriate and just plain wrong to speculate about his successor. We really mean that, we think he's going to be brilliant. But we're briefly gonna speculate anyway! We've always thought Andrew Scott would make an excellent Doctor and we were rooting for him to get the role last Summer. As for show runner, Mark Gatiss would seem a logical choice, but we'd rather see either Toby Whitehouse or Chris Chibnall in the driving seat.
It's more than likely we're completely wrong about all of this, and that's OK because we love surprises. Doctor Who has given us so many of them in 2013, and we hope that is something that continues into series 8 and beyond.
