With the fourth series of “Doctor Who” completiting its run in the United States last Friday, many fans are wondering just what the future will hold for everyone’s favorite Time Lord.  The Doctor’s future holds many question on what is to come with a new producer coming on board for the 2010 season and the continued swirling questions of how long will David Tennant remain in the role.

A recent report had Tennant being offered one and a half million pounds by the BBC to stay with the role for another full season.  Speculation on Tennant’s depature has been rampant in British tabloids almost from the first time he donned the mantle as the Doctor and it continues to be a constant source of speculation.  Tennant will neither confirm nor deny any rumors, though the fact that the BBC is willing to take a year off from making an entire series of new “Who” to allow the actor to star in “Hamlet” with the Royal Shakespeare Company may be a good indication of the actor’s value to the series and the BBC.

Julie Gardner, one of the executive producers of “Doctor Who” said that Tennant has told BBC executives his decision, but so far she “isn’t privy” to the decision. 

In-coming producer Steven Moffatt said, “Don’t waste your time with the question.”

Moffatt did say that the series is an important one for the BBC, becoming a flagship franchise for the network not only in England but also around the world.  (Read more…)

Doctor Who hit American comic-book shelves earlier this year with a five-issue mini-series from IDW.  Critical reviews and sales were enough that IDW has commissioned a new mini-series featuring the Doctor that will begin publication in August, according to Comic Book Resources.

The twist is that this time the series won’t just focus on adventures by the current Doctor, but will offer a window into some “lost” adventures of each incarnation of everyone’s favorite Time Lord. 

Called “Doctor Who: The Forgotten,” the series comes from the creative team of by Tony Lee and Pia Guerra. (Read more…)

Warning: This story contains minor SPOILERS for Doctor Who’s “The Stolen Earth.” 

In the old days, every television shows giving out a number used the standard number starting with “555.”  Over the past several years, phone numbers included in television series have become more and more of an Easter egg for fans, willing to freeze-frame the show and call the number.  In some cases, the number rang through to a producer or cast member’s phone on-set or has connected to a specially created number for the show in question.

So, when UK fans saw a phone number for the Doctor highlighted on-screen as part of last week’s “The Stolen Earth,” they decided to give it a ring… (Read more…)

With “Journey’s End” Russell T. Davies attempts to bring a sense of closure to his tenure as the producer for Doctor Who. 

I’ll give him credit for what he tried to do here, even if I found the episode’s execution a bit lacking. 

It was an episode that was neither as brilliant as it wanted to be or as it horrific as it could have been.  It was definitely a step up from last year’s finale, but it still had a lot of the trademark weaknesses of the Russell T. Davies era.    

So, if you’ve seen the episode or don’t mind SPOILER for the season finale of Doctor Who and series four as a whole, join me behind the jump… (Read more…)

While not the longest Doctor Who episode of the modern era (that honor goes to this year’s Christmas special “Voyage of the Damned”), the fourth series finale of Doctor Who will run close to twice the usual length of a standard episode.  Reports have the final series finale under producer Russell T. Davies watch clocking in at 65 minutes.  

The finale, which will air this Saturday in the UK starting at 6:40, will seek to resolve the huge cliffhanger that left many fans hanging last weekend.  (We won’t say what it is here, but it’s a doozy).

The big question for some American fans is what will happen when the finale airs on SciFi later this month. 

Last year’s series finale ran long, but producer Russell T. Davies admitted in the commentary podcast that he wrote in some extra footage to be easily cut for the American transmission.  No word yet on if or how this year’s finale could be trimmed to fit SciFi’s time slot or if the network will expand the finale’s time slot to allow American fans to see the entire episode.

This week’s episode ended on a cliffhanger and then featured no preview for next week’s installment.  The BBC has released a teaser trailer for next week’s episode that will be behind the jump for those of you who want to be SPOILER free or haven’t seen this week’s episode yet…

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And so, here it is.  The episode whose title was kept under wraps for months because it was considered to be “too SPOILER filled.”  The episode that brought back the Daleks, yet again.  The episode that brought back an old enemy.  The episode that would bring together all of the Doctor’s companions (well, at least those seen since the show reluanched four years ago) for what promised to be an epic, ultimate battle.

It was an episode that I had pinned a lot of hopes on. As the final Russell T. Davies penned season finale, I was hoping that Davies would go for the gusto, throw in everything and the kitchen sink and give us the kind of finale that the series has wanted, demanded and needed since series one.  I was hoping he’d learned from his previous mistakes and would truly give us a classic for the ages.

Instead, we got a re-tread of “Bad Wolf.”

Big time SPOILERS after the jump….

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The BBC has released three previews for this week’s upcoming season finale of Doctor Who “Stolen Earth”

Two trailers and a one-minute preview clip from the story are included behind the jump.

They are heavily SPOILER filled….

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Last week we got the Donna-lite episode of series four, so this week it’s time for the Doctor-lite installment of the season.

While having the Doctor in a reduced role is certainly nothing new if you’ve watched any of the stories from the early days of the show, watching  the new series work with have a reduced appearance by the title character and lead the past three seasons has been interesting.  Each of the three “Doctor-lite” stories have worked around not having David Tennant on-screen for the majority of the episode in interesting ways.   The first year we had the controversial “Love and Monsters” and last year we got the Hugo-nominated “Blink.”

And this year we get a story focusing on Donna and her role in the overall Doctor Who mythology.

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It’s been rumored for months now that an old foe was returning for the series four finale of Doctor Who. The teaser trailer for the second half of series four gave fans a hint of who it could be, but now British tabloid the Sun has confirmed the identity of the character and has exclusive photos.

The identities and photos of the villians will be after the jump to protect those who don’t want the surprise ruined…

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Review by: Michael Hickerson (SoSF assistant editor)

On a recent podcast commentary for “Silence in the Library,” director Eros Lynn asked producer Phil Collinson an interesting question–”What do you see as the difference between the writing style of Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat?” 

If you’ve heard the podcast in question, you know that Collinson is stunned into silence as you can almost hear the gears grinding in his head.  He then goes on to give an answer praising both writers for their own unique strengths and what each one brings to the new series of Doctor Who.

I bring this up because as I watched “Midnight” this week, I was struck by how vastly different each script was, not only in terms of the ideas but also the story telling and execution.  I’ve been critical of Davies writing in the past and I still fimrly believe he’s a man with some great ideas.  The problem is that he tends to focus on getting from one idea to the next at a breakneck clip instead of slowing down and exploring these great ideas and their implications.  He’s all about going for the next big event, the next dramatic moment, the next startling revelation and less about the impact of it on the characters or the implications of what he’s written or developed. 

SPOILERS after the jump…

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After months of secrecy surrounding the title and details for the penultimate episode of Doctor Who’s fourth series, the BBC released the title and information about the story.

The title and the information could be considered SPOILER material, so we’ll put it after the jump…

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The hardest reviews to write are those for something you love. And I will make no bones about it, I loved everything about Stephen Moffatt’s latest instant classic “Silence in the Library.”

If there was one story I was looking forward to this season, it was this one. Moffatt has shown that he has his pulse on what makes a great Doctor Who story from his contributions in each of the first three seasons. He’s done the seemingly impossible with each offering for the new series–he’s topped his previous high every time.

So, I’ll admit that part of me was prepared to possibly be disappointed by Moffatt’s script this year. And given how lackluster I think series four has been, I was prepared to not be as blown away by this story as I was by last year’s “Blink.” (Of course, if you’ll recall, based on the preview and limited information we were given last year, I was prepared to not like “Blink.” Instead it’s a contender for my top ten of all-time great Who stories).

Add in a two-week wait for the story and I was both nervous and excited for this story as I sat down to watch this week.

And within a minute, all of my reservations were gone and I was completely wrapped up in a story that is, by far, the best thing series four has given us all year and is the best hour of Who we’ve had since “Blink.”

The best news is that it’s only the first half of a story. There’s more to come next week and I cannot wait. I am counting down hours until we see what happens next.

SPOILER ALERT — Continue at your own risk!

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When news of the first series of the revived Doctor Who hit the Internet, it seemed that everyone and his uncle and aunt was being approached to write an episode for the new series. The rumors ran rampant from any number of writers for the on-going novel series to best-selling author J.K. Rowling.

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A new trailer for the second half of Doctor Who’s fourth series debuted Saturday night on BBC1.  The trailer features a glimpse of things to come for the second half of the season and definitely contains SPOILERS.  

According to the BBC, Steven Moffat, the scribe responsible of “Blink” and several other excellent “Doctor Who” episodes, will be taking over for Russell T Davies once he steps down at the end of 2009.